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Authoring Life Podcast

Straight Talk: Influence Skills For Collaboration And Commitment With Rick Brandon PhD

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Faulty and toxic communication are some of the biggest reasons for employees to leave a company. Leaders need to straight talk while being respectful. These communication and listening skills will truly help your business in the long run. Learn more about interpersonal communication with Alicia Dunams and her guest Rick Brandon Ph.D. Rick is the founder and President of the internationally respected training firm, Brandon Partners. He is also the author of Straight Talk: Influence Skills for Collaboration and Commitment. Learn more about his book and why communication is the most important thing in business.

Listen to the podcast here


 

Straight Talk: Influence Skills For Collaboration And Commitment With Rick Brandon PhD

I’m very excited to introduce my next guest, Rick Brandon. He’s the Founder and President of the internationally respected training firm Brandon Partners. He has devoted years to designing and delivering leadership and professional development workshops on influence skills, such as EQ, political and organization savvy, high impact presentation skills, self-talk, self-accountability and all the stuff I love to talk about so I’m very excited. Not only has he done this but he’s also done this for scores of the Fortune 500 companies. We are in good hands here. He’s also the author of a Wall Street Journal Bestseller called Survival of the Savvy: High-Integrity Political Tactics for Career and Company Success.

It is great to have you here, Rick.

Thanks so much, Alicia. It is good to be on your show and in your world.

That is what we are going to be talking about, authoring your life. You talk about it in the way that you use your words. Let’s talk about your new book. Please share with us your book Straight Talk: Influence Skills for Collaboration and Commitment, which is out this 2022.

It is coming out May 10th, 2022 but operators are standing on call. You can pre-order at Amazon now but I’m so excited about this book and I love to talk about it.

Straight talk is important because we were talking about the importance of words, giving specific scripts and tactics for people to navigate this very complicated world that we are in. That is why I love your book Straight Talk. The first question is, “Why did you write this book, Straight Talk?

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I have been into this communication thing since before I was born because I’m a twin. At a cellular level and there was something about connection, communication and growing up as a kid. I was in communication. I used to watch a show called The 11th Hour, which was about a psychiatrist. Who does that at age ten? I was into psychology and communication. That is what I did in my schooling, in my undergraduate, Master‘s and PhD but I realized, “I do not want to be a shrink.” I always thought of myself, “I want to work on communication and be what I call a stretch. Stretch people’s communication and their boundaries, potential and skills.”

I started teaching communication skills. This is now a time in my life where I want to codify it. I am taking my workshop and putting it in a book. It is in fact branded as a workshop in a book. That is what I was trying to do so people didn’t have to have their company send them to a program. That is why I wrote the book. It is not that I’m retiring. I like to tell my twin brother, Bob, “I’m on a five-year plan and I will let you know when the five years begin.”

I am in a place where I have been doing it for years and I felt that it is appropriate to put it out there. Finally, I would say, “Why now?” COVID gave me the time to do it but also during COVID with remote work, people feel incredibly disconnected. There is social isolation, loneliness and deep personalization. It was going on a little bit before COVID with remote work migration but now it is rampant. Fifty-three percent of companies are going at least hybrid. I wanted to heal some of the disconnectedness, loneliness and social isolation by upping people’s game when it comes to interpersonal communication. That is why I wrote it.

This is fantastic because I want to delve into interpersonal communication. We are obviously in a time of great strife, identity conflicts and issues of how people can communicate. We live in a world where some people feel that some people are over-sensitive, “I can’t say anything. I’m scared to say things.” There is political and identity strife and all of these different things are happening like a cauldron of chaos. I would love for you to share with us in this age and stage that we are in life, 2022. What are some tips that you have in your book to be able to communicate with people better?

You called it a cauldron. Some people would call it a maelstrom and others would call it a cesspool. That is related to the first tip. It is to not be in denial about the importance of positive communication, particularly interpersonal communication because a lot of people view it as “soft skills,” and they ignore it. What I’m trying to say is there is an interpersonal imperative in companies because of the reasons you said that there is so much stress and tension is imperative that we have a competitive advantage through better communication skills.

Do not be in denial about the importance of positive communication, particularly interpersonal communication.

If there is not good communication, it is faulty. There are costs, wasted time, money, morale or worse, if it is toxic communication then people quit and leave. That is what all the Gallup research says. If the manager doesn’t communicate effectively, it is the number one reason people say for quitting and leaving and I like to say worse, they quit and stay.

They have resigned while still being on the job because they are demotivated, whining about it and it drains their morale, motivation and results while they are playing “ain’t it awful?” at the water cooler. The skills that they want their manager to have and those tips are the ones that we do in this Straight Talk book. What we do is we need to look at are assertive speaking. “Are we being passive in our body language, voice and words? Are we being aggressive?”

People are either samurai supervisors or passive professionals. Straight Talk is direct, honest, open and transparent communication of my feelings, needs and what I need from you while being respectful. It is not okay, “Just saying. Just honest.” Great but if you are just saying or being honest, you’ve alienated that person, you are on their you-know-what list or they resent you, how you ask for them to buy into an agreement you want to make or a commitment that you need from them and delegation if you do it in a way that is not direct while being respectful.

It is a balance of assertive speaking with empathic active listening, which we mentioned before. That is what gets me to get my needs met but also maintain a positive relationship. Aggressive people think talking and getting their needs will do it but then they do not have the relationship. Passive people want to make everything nice but they lose respect. They do not maintain the relationship and they sure as heck do not get their work needs to be met.

The first tip is to realize, “This is bottom-line stuff. It is not touchy, feely, charm school stuff.” Secondly, it is about the mindset to change our attitude about the importance of communication. That is tip number one. I have got a bunch more but let me check in with you and use part of what I teach, which is not a monologue. It is a dialogue. What is your take on the importance of what I have said in terms of having the mental game together and having a mindset that this stuff matters? What are you getting from me?

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Three types of communication styles, passive, assertive and aggressive and you are encouraging your book, Straight Talk, to use assertive languaging and communication to be able to communicate in a way that people hear, you are asking what you need and also you need the empathetic listening as well. It is not demanding. It is requesting so that is very powerful.

I have got to change my mind and my self-talk about communication because a lot of people do say, “This is just a charm school. I got to get the job done.” That is pretty critical.

I was talking to a potential client who wants to write a book and she does work in diversity, equity and inclusion and we were talking about compliance and when someone is mandated, when they must do something, when it is like checking the box and they have to do it, it is transactional. If that is where you come from, it is a mandate. It is not fun. It is not a change of heart. It is going from compliance to compassion. It is a transformation because if you are literally doing something because you have to or check the box, it will come across that way in your communication.

What you are talking about is the difference between compliance, “I’m doing it for this command and control boss because I got to.” Maybe they do not have position power but they bully. Peers or family members can bully us. We do not feel comfortable but we say yes and do not mean it so that is acquiescence or the employee is compliant. You called it compassion. Compliant is not compassion and it is not commitment.

The subtitle of Straight Talk is Influenced Skills for Collaboration and Commitment. That is the other tip, tell him what you need and give the reason or rationale. We teach what is called the GAIN Commitment. Tell them the goals and the results and behavior you want. A is for advantages. What is the advantage? How’s this going to help me help you? Help the team, company and customer.

Compliance isn\’t compassion and it\’s no commitment.

The I stand for impediments. Most managers are peers. They say, “Here is what I want,” and that is it but maybe they’ll give the reason, but then they push for the result, for the buy-in, they end it or they are doing it through an email. What we do is we have a conversation by then asking, “Is there any impediment? What could get in the way of you feeling okay about committing to what I’m asking you to do?”

We summarize what our agreement is and arrange the next steps. One tip that I like to suggest as people are delegating or asking for an agreement with GAIN is that you do not summarize the agreement that we’ve talked about. Let me put it me, I’m asking you. I do not summarize it. I already know what I want from you. I ask you, “Alicia, what is it that we are agreeing that you’ll do from here?”

You summarize the agreement and what the steps are. Now, I can hear if you got it. If you hear your own words committing, you are more likely to buy-in. The key here is to speak, check and paraphrase. Speak a chunk, check the reaction and then paraphrase what their reaction is. You also make it a dialogue by that I of GAIN. Ask what they think. Do not push it down their throat. Now, we’re talking about the mindset. We’re also gotten into a little bit on listening and making clear agreements in an interactive way because my expectation of you is not the same as having an agreement as a two-way commitment.

I love the GAIN model. That is important so people learn through these frameworks. Goals, advantages and the I stand for impediments.

What is the obstacle? What are you uncomfortable with? What questions do you have? What do we need to do to have you feel even more comfortable if you have any concerns at all?

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N stands for Next steps. Having the other person summarize what they are hearing supports them in the co-creation of the agreement. It is not like you are mandating everything. It is a collaborative process.

Sometimes people are uncomfortable with that last thing. It is going to sound like I’m playing teach. “To make sure you were listening. What is it that word?” You got to find your own way and beautiful style of saying that. We have students come up with that. Some people say, “What is your recap?” Other people are self-deprecating like I did. “Sometimes I lose the forest through the trees. What is your takeaway here? Could you summarize our agreement?” How would you ask it?

I ask this and I’m curious what it is but I ask, “What are you hearing me say?” Again, it is the tone. If I’m running a team meeting, it is like, “What are you hearing me say? Are you open to repeating it back?” I like that. That is a pretty strong way to do it but if I say it to my daughter because she hears me say this stuff, she’ll know that it is a little bit templated.

That is something that we need to work with too because I can come off as inauthentic if we are robotic in our language. It seems to work until it doesn’t sometimes. Every new conversation is a new conversation, so we get to be agile and new every time. Even though we have a book of scripts or things that we say, it is not going to be agreeable with every person.

That is interesting the whole bit about the technique-ing that you are talking about and people can recognize it, which relates to one of the common problems with listening. A moment on empathy skills that I like to say that phrase, “Pay attention,” is not an accident because it costs us our time and agenda because we are hearing the others and focusing there and it takes concentration.

Communication is just a skill. Make it your own and use your own beautiful style.

A quick three-way tip, “What is listening?” It is FEE. The F is Focusing skills. I focus my mind. I see a traffic light that goes red for speaking and green for listening so I’m going to focus my mind. I’m going to focus on the environment, get rid of distractions and I’m going to focus my body on listening. Most people know how to focus their eyes and body, lean forward and be silent and nod your head but common sense is not always common practice so that is the F.

The E is to Explore. Ask and explore questions. Tell me more, encouraged, the following, the grunts and groans, “I see. No kidding.” The Empathy skill is what you did with me, paraphrasing the thoughts and feelings of the other person. The problem back to the technique is sometimes, when people do this, all they ever do every time they listen or paraphrase they say, “What I hear you saying.”

That was an excellent lead-in phrase that you use or they say, “Sounds like you are saying,” or, “In other words,” I call these lead-ins helpful to make sure you are not coming from your frame of reference because they all are focused on the person you are listening to. “What I hear you saying,” in other words you think. “Sounds like your saying,” so from your perspective, they are beautiful but they are like bicycle training wheels. They are good to keep you using the skill at first but if you are riding a bike as an adult with training wheels, it is a little bit awkward.

It requires a certain sophistication as you you are using this. It is like you are helping people through your book, Straight Talk, giving them scripts and strategies and this is something they get to wear and try on for themselves and incorporate and integrate into their language and style so they do not sound like they are reading from a book and nervous in the conversation because then that has a whole different read in itself.

They either use the same one over and over. “Sounds like you are saying,” the other person finally said, “What am I saying?” or they use the same listening training wheels, they use the same one or they use a bunch of them. “It sounds like you are saying.” “In other words.” “You feel from your perspective.” “If I’m hearing you right.” No, choose one. The other thing to do is drop it.

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Once you can do the listening, just drop it. Instead of saying, “I hear you saying that you are frustrated,” say, “You are frustrated. She dropped the ball on you and now you are left holding it.” You do not have to use them all the time because if that is all you are doing every time especially the same one and you sound like a psychologist. “What I hear?” In other words, it announces the fact that you’ve read a book on listening or you’ve attended a workshop.

I love how you put it. All of these are skills. Make it your own, use your own beautiful style and find how you do it. It is a workshop in a book. There are a bunch of practices and your readers will download an exercise journal. That is a PDF fillable document so they can type in or if they want to print it, they can write on it. We’ve said another tip. We’ve given a tip about your mindset, GAIN and listening skills to not have it be that it is focusing, exploring and empathizing but we want to do it in a way that is not technique-y so that is what we’ve done so far.

I love all of these tips. First, where can people find the book?

The best way is either Amazon or Barnes and Noble. It is coming out in May 2022 but if you go to Amazon and type in Straight Talk Influence Skills, that’ll get you there especially with my last name, Brandon or the full name is Straight Talk: Influence Skills for Collaboration and Commitment but here is a present I want to give to your readers.

A lot of authors say, “If you buy this book, here is what I’ll give you.” I’m not into book bribery. On my website whether or not they buy the book, they can download several free reinforcement tools and learning tools. For instance, there is a 42-question self-assessment that you can do to learn, how are you doing with your listening, your assertive speaking, advising and guiding, your gaining commitment and assess your ability to confront people when you need to, which is taught in the book. It deals with all the different applications that we haven’t dealt with and they can download assessments.

Dare to be different. The only fish that goes with the current all the time is a dead fish.

What is the website?

It is www.BrandonPartners.com/StraightTalkBook or you can go to BrandonPartners.com and look in the menu bar on the top for books and you’ll see Straight Talk. That is where you’ll be able to learn more about the book and download these free gifts.

Let’s go to our speed round because you shared why you wrote this book, lots of lessons and frameworks from your book. You can go to Amazon.com to purchase Straight Talk. I want to get in your brain a little bit with this speed round. What is your legacy going to be?

It may have nothing to do with the book. I hope my legacy is, “He knew how to have fun in life and live by his motto,” which is “Dare to be different. The only fish ever going with the current all the time are the dead fish. Take a risk and be different.” I’m the guy that plays the trumpet, happy birthday in the restaurant and embarrassed his people, even strangers but I hope my legacy is, “He had high energy, had fun and made a difference.”

I’m getting that energy from you so your legacy lives on. Your favorite book?

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They are kid’s books. It is The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein and The Velveteen Rabbit. What is real? It is a great lessons but from the professional side, I was moved a lot by Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. We do not have a purpose if we’re not fulfilled by that purpose. We wither up and die. For your readers that do not know him, he was in a concentration camp and the way he survived was to help have purpose and help other people.

The life-changing book for me was Man’s Search for Meaning. Your favorite author?

From a professional standpoint, I love the work of Clark Moustakas. He wrote a lot about Loneliness and Loneliness and Love is another one. There is one called Loneliness and Solitude. He was a great scholar on loneliness. I mentioned Frankl but I also love non-fiction. I do not read a lot of non-fiction since my PhD but I like John Grisham’s books. I need action.

What are you writing next?

Articles and blogs to promote this book but the next book after this one and publishers do not like to sign new proposals for the next book until they see how this one has done. As soon as May 2022 hits and we sell the five million, the next book I’m writing is with my daughter, Carrie. I have a son, 31 and a daughter, almost 29. Carrie is a wonderful musical theater actress and has traveled around the country doing shows, including national tours.

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She does coaching for vocal lessons on the side and some of her students have experienced stage fright for college auditions, etc. It is already outlined in the proposals. It is a matter of getting it either self-published or with a publisher.Iit is called the Stage Fright Rewrite: A Performance Pathway from Fearful to Fearless. It is going to be ten tools for handling stage fright. I’ll do the psychology part of it and she’ll come in with the performers’ and artists’ perspectives. We’re really jazzed about that one.

That is fantastic. Anything you are going to be reading next? What is next on your bookshelf or your side table?

I have several books from friends. One is called Erika Andersen’s Change from the Inside Out. Another one is my friend, Dr. Cindy McGovern. She’s a hoot. I want to recommend that you have her on the show. She wrote a book called Every Job is a Sales Job and then the third one I’ll mention is my friend, Dr. Lynn Schmidt wrote a very important book called Antisexist. It is raising consciousness in women and men about all the forms of sexism through history and no and what to do about it.

Those are all important to books. Please invite and send them an email. I love to have them on my show. Where can people find out more information about you? All your websites and social media.

The biggest one is BrandonPartners.com, that is where they’ll find out about me. My LinkedIn, you can find me, Rick Brandon, that is a way to find out but the website is the best because my bio is there, you learn about the book and the other book, Survival of the Savvy and workshop, which is all about navigating company politics because interpersonal influence is vital but so is political influence. Not government or party politics but in my company, there is politics and power. How do I navigate that? That is what Survival of the Savvy is about.

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You can also learn about that book by going to SurvivalOfTheSavvy.com. That book has a special, dedicated website. If you want to your readers want to ask me a question, they can reach me at Rick@BrandonPartners.com. You might be surprised I’m giving that out but I do and I will answer questions as best I can within 48 hours unless I’m out of the country.

Thank you for all that. I would love for you to share one more piece of a lesson or leadership advice from your book that we can leave the audience with.

We did not even get to handling defensiveness and conflict but I want to talk about supporting people but that compassion word and how do we advise and guide that is chapter six of the book. How do we use our assertive speaking and active listening to advise and guide? When someone comes to us with a problem, with a decision they are wrestling with, I’m not the problem. It is not about me. I’m there to be a sounding board and help them explore and understand the problem and then resolve it.

It might be that I’m giving input, advice and suggestions but the two things I want to suggest when you are listening to someone is to not jump to solutions in our workshops. We talk about this in the book. People are like, “I’m paid to manage. I’m paid to solve problems,” but we do not listen well enough or long enough to even get to the real problem and unpeel the artichoke leaves, I call it, to get to the heart of the problem when we solved the wrong problem by jumping in too soon.

The audacity that this person to live with the problem for 30 days or 30 months or weeks and we come in after 30 seconds. To wait, not react, to first absorb and then summarize what you’ve heard or paraphrasing 5, 6, 7 times before you make input. Before you jumped input, ask them what they have thought of or done so far. Managers come in and they give their input and the person says, “I already tried that it blew up in my face.” This will save you time and face.

Also, word of getting around, “Do not go and see Rick or Alicia to solve problems and explore them if you haven’t tried to solve them yourself first. This is about completed staff work because they are going to say, “He’s going to ask you before he gives you his input. What have you tried or thought of?” Listen longer before you give your input and before you do ask, “What have you tried so far or considered or what could you think of doing now? That also is going to give you a whole bunch of information about employees’ critical thinking skills.

What an awesome way to round off this interview. With those clarifying questions, “What have you thought of or considered in terms of solving that particular problem?” I love that. I wanted to thank you, Rick, for being here and sharing your lessons and tips from your new book, Straight Talk: Influence Skills for Collaboration and Commitment.

Thank you so much. I had a blast. I hope your readers did too. Take care.

You could purchase the book, Straight Talk at Amazon.com. Thank you so much for reading. Be well.

 

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About Rick Brandon PhD

\"ALRick Brandon, PhD is the founder and president of the internationally respected training firm Brandon Partners. He has devoted thirty+ years to designing and delivering leadership and professional development workshops on influence skills (Interpersonal Savvy, Political and Organizational Savvy, High-Impact Presentation Skills, Selling Skills, Self-Talk and Self-Accountability, etc.) Dr. Brandon has taught for scores of Fortune 500 companies and others, helping hundreds of thousands to improve their results and work relationships by increasing the candor, clarity, and impact of their communication. Dr. Brandon co-authored the Wall Street Journal bestseller, Survival of the Savvy: High-Integrity Political Tactics for Career and Company Success (Free Press), which has been called “the pre-eminent book on organizational and political savvy” by Robert Eichinger, creator of Lominger’s FYI: For Your Improvement. The book won awards and global recognition, including Fast Company’s and the Institute for Management Studies’ (IMS) Book of the Month. Brandon serves as distinguished faculty for IMS and has taught graduate and undergraduate courses at colleges and universities. Dr. Brandon earned a PhD in Counseling at the University of Arizona, an MA in School Psychology from St. Lawrence University, and a BA in Psychology from Case Western Reserve.
His new book, Straight Talk: Influence Skills for Collaboration and Commitment is available on May 10, 2022.
Categories
Authoring Life Podcast

Corporate Explorer: How Corporations Beat Startups At The Innovation Game With Andrew Binns

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Innovation is often seen as the realm of startups, and corporate innovation is not something that rolls off the tongue very easily. Andrew Binns knows this shouldn’t necessarily be the case. His book, Corporate Explorer, explains how managers can lead innovation from inside large corporations. Joining Alicia Dunams on the show, he explains how corporations can leverage their key strengths to beat innovative startups at their own game. Key to this is the concept of the “corporate explorer,” which combines the best qualities of the startup entrepreneur and the corporate manager to create a new kind of leader that has the ability to drive change and experimentation in a seemingly monolithic corporate environment. Join in and learn more about this interesting concept that might just redefine corporate leadership as we know it.

Listen to the podcast here


 

Corporate Explorer: How Corporations Beat Startups At The Innovation Game With Andrew Binns

I am very excited to introduce Andy Binns, who is the Cofounder of Change Logic, a Boston-based strategic advisory firm. He works with CEOs, boards and senior teams as they lead significant business change. His goal is to help organizations liberate their potential to excite the world with innovation. Andy has many years of consulting experience as both an external and internal consultant for McKinsey & Company, IBM Corporation and Change Logic. We are bringing Andy here to talk about his book, Corporate Explorer: How Corporations Beat Startups at the Innovation Game.

Andy, I am so excited to have you here. I know you are a co-author of this book. Please share who you co-authored this book with.

I am very pleased to be with you here and with your audience. I am delighted for the opportunity to talk about the book more broadly. I do so many discussions about the book, which are very narrow. I love the invitation that you have made to talk about it. My co-authors are Professor Michael Tushman from the Harvard Business School and Professor Charles O’Reilly from the Stanford Business School.

The fact that I had two senior business school professors marking my work may come up during the discussion of the writing process. It was fun. They are great friends of mine. We have worked together for many years but it was me writing the book and they were inputting. I discovered what academics mean when they say, “You are first author.” What it means is, “You do the work. We will tell you why you need to correct it.”

Thank you for starting off with that because I always ask the question, “Why did you write a book?” I love that you had co-authors because that supports you in the writing process to get that feedback in real-time.

It is quite tough to get feedback as an author in the process. I will answer the question, “Why did we write the book?” We do this consulting and we work for companies wrestling with how they innovate. We can talk more about what that means. I had written a lot of this book a few years ago and we took it to an agent and the agent was like, “Why would you want to publish this? No one wants to read this nonsense.” They were far more polite than that, but I was certainly discouraged and that is all that I heard, so I walked away from it.

I was sitting down with a client in Vienna. It was a fine, elegant place to be doing this. He becomes one of the characters in the book, Krisztian Kurtisz. I was like, \”What he is doing is a great story about his personal journey to do this.\” Enough of the strategy and the theory and the rest of it. From a human standpoint, what he has put out there himself and what he has done is a story worth telling. That reignited my passion for this book because I suddenly felt like I had something important to say in the world of innovation that had not been said.

I have an eclectic background. I was a technical writer at Genentech. I have been in the corporate world, mostly as an entrepreneur. I lived in Silicon Valley in San Francisco. Something that was a mainstay or known is that innovation in the startup world and a corporation is where you maintain the status quo. The same person who starts a startup is not the same person who would maintain a corporation with all the checks and balances. That is something I assumed. The rebels start innovation and the people who are in suits and ties maintain it and make sure things are getting done. That is why I liked the premise of your book because you are challenging that.

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There is nothing wrong with what you are saying. Entrepreneurs are clearly different from corporate managers. There is no question. One of them is exploratory and very interested. A classic entrepreneur often is very interested in the thing that they are doing and the content of it, whether it be a technology or a service. They get very excited about what they are doing. The corporate manager is much more stability-oriented and much more about measurements of things and processes. Another piece of this is the people who are more people-oriented.

If you are more people-oriented, you tend to stay within a group. You want to be a part of a community and you may still be exploratory. Those are the corporate explorers because they want to do something within a community. I have speculated that a follow-on book might be the Social Explorer. To some degree, you find this in the nonprofit sector as well as people who create something around them as a community. They are quite different from people who are still very individualistic creators or entrepreneurs.

You see this different profile of people everywhere. The thing that defines the corporate explorer or their difference from the entrepreneur is their ability to mobilize a group. It is to be a part of something. Usually, they have been with the company for 10 or 20 years. These are not, “Let’s hire an entrepreneur to teach us how to do innovation.” These are people who have been sitting around the company all along and they get ignited by an opportunity or by an idea that they see and want to change in the world. They work within the community that they are a part of to make it happen.

Are you hired into these organizations to ignite that innovation or to support them in harnessing the innovation or show them where there are opportunities?

Most often, our first contact is with the chief executive of the company. Their question to us is, “I know you want to move into this new market. I do not quite know how. I do not have the people to do it. I do not know who is going to do this.” We work with them personally to scope out where they are going to innovate and then find the people because they are there most of the time. They just need freedom, space and opportunity. We talk about it as giving them a license to explore. Once you can do that, you can release that energy in the organization.

Most CEOs want that. It is one of those paradoxes where we think, “It is the CEO. They do not empower us enough. They do not make this happen.” There is this disconnect. Most CEOs I spent my time with want to see these ideas. They want more entrepreneurial people in their organization. They want to give them opportunities to do this. They just have a hard time figuring out how to make it work. That is what we do and some of those stories are in the book. The stories in the book are not just things that we have done. They are the stories we have learned through our work overtime. I do not want to take credit in any way for any of the extraordinary achievements of the people we described in the book.

Are you finding because CEOs are encouraging more entrepreneurial thinking in their organization, there is a lot that comes with it? What we are seeing is more entrepreneurs or people who are creating personal brands outside, like writing books, podcasts, panelists and speaking on things. It could become a little too big sometimes and the CEO is like, “They are going to leave.” I am sure that is something that might come up.

I have met some of those people during the process of having published the book. People who have a corporate career and they do podcasts and so on. That is a great thing. It does reflect an interest in exploring. I would want to take some of those people and figure out what else they can do for sure.

Purpose, ambition and social capital are the three most important qualities of the successful corporate explorer.

I have a lot of people come to me who work in corporate and who are writing books and wanting to create a side business as well. I find that to be an interesting personality. Let’s go back to your book, the Corporate Explorer. I want you to share with our audience some leadership and life lessons that you share in the book that could be applicable to anyone reading this.

The big one is to be driven by purpose. These are not people who look at a spreadsheet and say, “Perhaps there will be a way we could drive additional gross margin if we did things this way.” They see something in the world that inspires or frustrates them. Let me give you a couple of examples, Krisztian Kurtisz, who is the man I mentioned who first got me down this road of thinking about the Corporate Explorer. He was a manager in the Hungarian business of a big European insurance company, UNIQA. He is a responsible manager doing an important job, but he is not the CEO. He is not at the top of the company hierarchy.

He is frustrated because he says, \”Insurance as an industry has forgotten why it exists. It exists for communities to pool risk and to support one another in bad times.\” That is the point. This started in the 17th century in Holland and Britain. Now, these are tower blocks of people administrating policies and trying to catch theft from their customers. The whole premise of the business has changed. They have lost sight of what they are there for. He has this insight and he said, “What if we could use digital tools to reinvent insurance as risk-sharing communities?” He launched this business called CHERRISK.

The CHER refers to cherries. As you engage with CHERRISK, you earn cherries and you can then distribute those cherries in your community as gifts to a youth group or to whatever you decide on a charity. He was trying to reinvent that same thing. It is also on a monthly subscription. It is very flexible and very easy to use and all of these kinds of good things. That passion that he has is strong. The next thing is to have a high scale of ambition. This is one of the things that marks the successful corporate explorer from the unsuccessful.

If you are in a company, the logical thing to do if you have a great idea is to say, “This idea will get us a little bit better and you only have to invest a small amount to help me do it.” You think, “If we could get started, they will see the possibilities of what we could do.” The reverse is the case because you need to have an idea that the consequence is equal to the threat or the opportunity of disruption. It’s like what an entrepreneur does. They do not look at the market and say, “We could do a little bit.” They think, “Amazon was not built to be a bookstore. It was built to be a retail platform from the start.” That scale of ambition is so important.

Krisztian went into his management team and he had this visual image. He said, “Here is your tower block, the UNIQA tower, with thousands of people. Mostly, they just administrate. They do not deal with customers. That is not their work. I am going to deliver this customer value proposition in a totally different way and I only need two people to do it. It can do all the things this business can do.” His CEO said, “This was like a nuclear bomb underneath our industry. If we do not do it and somebody else does, we are going to be in trouble.” That scale of ambition that he brought to it was so important.

The third thing is the social network. How do you get others to make you successful? That requires some humility. That is a little bit different from many entrepreneurs, many of the successful ones that we know of. I do not want to malign people but we know that there are certain more narcissistic tendencies in some entrepreneurs. You do not get that with corporate explorers.

What you get is much more humility and much more willingness to have other people feel that they made them successful. “I need your help,” is one of the things that they say. It’s not, “Let me tell you how I am going to be successful and how I am going to succeed. What a great idea I have got.” It is about, “I need your help to make this happen because there is an opportunity in it.”

That is quite significant. That is one of the reasons why they tend to be with the company for a long time before they do this in a way because they have that set of relationships to use. Purpose, ambition and social capital are the things that are most important that you could take away from this book as leadership lessons.

 

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It’s all of those that you shared, purpose and humility that you are speaking about. When the river rises, all boats rise. It’s coming from that place of community versus lone-wolfdome and doing things on your own. That is important. What are you finding to be some of the momentum from your book in the organizations that you are working with? Are you finding that people are feeling more empowered?

It is a little too early to say for sure. Anybody who has read the book, Corporate Explorer, will know that we talk a lot about the importance of hypothesis and evidence. I can have a hypothesis but I do not have quite enough evidence at this point. This term, corporate explorer, puts a label on something that people were not quite clear about what to call it before. You mentioned the word intrapreneur. I do not understand what that means. Intra means within.

There is an entrepreneur and an intrapreneur. You are in the safety of the corporate sphere.

You do not innovate inside. You innovate with customers. You go outside. It is totally upside down as a term. I do not get it. I do not think it ever caught on with CEOs. There is a language for normalizing it as a role. It has failed. It is a perfectly reasonable term. I do not mean to malign it. This is where I see where CEOs get quite excited by the idea.

People who are in this role get excited by the job because they can start to see, “That is my job. I know there is a core business, but there is also an explore business. I am different from them, but I am just as important that I have a role that needs to be clarified and understood and managed differently.” It is a respectable thing for someone to grow up to do. As a father, you can have your daughter grow up to be a corporate explorer and be proud of them. That is the thing that I see starting to happen and which we want to encourage as much as possible.

You can get Corporate Explorer at Amazon.com and local bookstores, including Barnes & Noble.

There is a website, TheCorporateExplorer.com. The other thing I would encourage people, if they are interested, to look at is The Corporate Explorers’ Club. We have a developing community. You can find it on LinkedIn. If you put in Corporate Explorers’ Club, you’ll find me on LinkedIn. This is trying to pool together those people who have this role or want to have this role or maybe used to have this role and try to create some peer learning and some opportunity for mutual support. That is one of the things that if people are interested, they can look out for.

Andy, I want to jump into the rapid-fire. What is going to be your legacy?

If there\’s something you think needs to be done, don\’t wait to be told. Figure out how to get it done yourself. If you face any obstacles, figure out how to remove them, because that\’s what leadership is really about.

My legacy will be a lot of people who I have worked with will feel more excited about their work and more capable.

What is your favorite book?

Dava Sobel’s Longitude. In the 18th century, the British put out a competition for how you could navigate at sea. You can do latitude, but longitude is difficult. They would do it with a sextant with a position of the sun. At nighttime, it is somewhat inconvenient, or on a cloudy day. They had this competition of who could solve the longitude problem? Dava Sobel tells the story of how this goes about. It is an extraordinary tale because everybody expects it to be an astronomer or a lord but it is not. It is a Yorkshire, which for the British is the Northern part of the country that was more industrial in those days. It is a Northern clockmaker, a craftsman.

He figures out how you can have one watch for where you are like one for London. You can be able to tell from the difference in time wherever you are on the globe. He did not win the prize because the British establishment refused to accept that this could be true and eventually, he died. It is a story of great cut and thrust and skullduggery, but there is a fundamental about innovation and also about the way human groups work.

I used to live in England a bit. I lived in the Droitwich Spa area and worked in Cradley Heath, the Black Country. Who is your favorite author?

It’s Anita Diamant. She is the author of The Red Tent because she is a dear personal friend. I have to be loyal to such. I have read her book and have met the woman a few times. It is an amazing book. She had written many others about the area where I live in Gloucester, Massachusetts. She has written several books about this area.

What are you writing next? What is your next book?

I have not quite decided. I am interested in your view. It could either be the workplace rebel, which is a little related to corporate explorer. One of the things that this has triggered in the reaction to the book is people are like, “I am not building a business but I am rebelling against the standard conformity and the norms of the way things get done. I want to do more of it. How do I do it well?” I am quite interested in that.

 

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We are seeing it happen. It is just the way the world is going and you got to stand out. Those corporate players and corporate explorers perhaps are being corporate rebels as well. I would love for you to share where people can find out more about you, your book and what you have coming up next.

You could look at TheCorporateExplorer.com or ChangeLogic.com or find me on LinkedIn at Andrew Binns or follow me on Twitter at @AJMBinns.

Finally, Andy, I would love for you to share one piece of advice or things that you would want to leave our audience with.

One of the things about these corporate explorers is very rare that somebody gives them the job. They do it themselves. They do not wait to be told. They do not wait to be given the job. If there is something you think needs to be done, do not wait to be told. Figure out how to get it done yourself. Any obstacles you faced, you got to figure out how to remove them because that is what leadership is about. One of those things will be how to get others to act with you. That is what leadership is about.

That’s what leadership is, self-reliance and resilience. Andy, thank you so much for sharing your book, the Corporate Explorer. You can get it on Amazon.com. I appreciate you being here.

Thank you very much for the invitation. I enjoyed it.

Thank you, everyone. You be well.

Thanks for joining us on this episode. Sign up at AliciaDunams.com for valuable tips on life, leadership and business. You can also subscribe to the show on iTunes or via RSS so you will never miss a show. While you are at it, leave a review on iTunes or simply tell a friend. Remember, buy my book, \”I Get To\”: How Using the Right Words Can Radically Transform Your Life, Relationships & Business on Amazon.com. Tune in next time.

 

Important Links

 

About Andrew Binns

\"ALAndrew Binns is a co-founder of Change Logic, a Boston-based strategic advisory firm. He works with CEOs, boards, and senior teams as they lead significant business change. His goal is to help organizations liberate their potential to excite the world with innovation. Andy has 25 years of consulting experience as both an external and internal consultant for McKinsey & Co., the IBM Corporation, and Change Logic.

 

Categories
Authoring Life Podcast

Far Side Of The Moon With Liisa Jorgensen

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The Apollo 8 flight was renown in history as the first human spaceflight to reach the moon. The mission’s success was a great story itself, but behind it is another tale – a compelling love story of the flight’s commander, Frank Borman, and his equally heroic wife, Susan Borman. This real-life drama is captured in the book, Far Side of the Moon. The book’s author, Liisa Jorgensen graces the show with her presence in this episode. Liisa opens our eyes to the big lesson that we can learn from her book – something that is definitely applicable to the human condition and that everybody can learn from. We don’t usually get to hear from authors who write narrative nonfiction, so this is definitely an interesting conversation. Don’t miss it!

Listen to the podcast here


 

Far Side Of The Moon With Liisa Jorgensen

I\’m very excited about this particular episode. I am interviewing Liisa Jorgensen, who has worked as a writer and story editor on a diverse variety of film and television productions for Emmy Award-winning film company Myth Merchant Films. Jorgensen has written Far Side of the Moon, which we will be talking about in this episode with the active support of Frank Borman. She lives in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It\’s great to have you here, Lisa.

Thank you so much for having me. I\’m very excited to be able to chat with you about this.

That\’s why I wanted to get started because usually, I don\’t interview authors who write a narrative of nonfiction, so I\’m very excited to jump in, particularly with your interest in this story. The title of the book is Far Side of the Moon: Apollo 8 Commander Frank Borman and the Woman Who Gave Him Wings. It\’s a love story. I\’m curious why you are intrigued by this story and why you wanted to write about this story. Tell us a little bit about the background of why you wrote this book in particular.

My husband is a filmmaker, and we are always looking for those untold, unbelievable, true stories. That\’s our jam. I watch a lot of stuff about the space program because my husband has always been interested in it. He\’s got every book about it. It\’s something that he has always been into. In watching a lot of these documentaries and even films that were made about it, I noticed that there wasn\’t a lot about the wives and what they and their families went through.

I’ve got this bug in my gut about pursuing that, so I started doing some research. Susan\’s story captivated me the most because I felt in particular that she had been misrepresented anytime that you see her being portrayed. I wanted to tell the real story of her and what that whole period was like through her eyes.

What are some of the ways that she was being misrepresented?

It was an intense time when nobody talked about mental illness. Nobody talked about the ways that anxiety and all of these pressures affect us. She was the one woman who went and sought help for it later on in the book, and because she admitted that she was medicating herself to try to deal with some of these stressful situations, she gets portrayed as that\’s the only thing about her that she was scared, medicating herself, and chain-smoking. That wasn\’t the truth. She was one of the women who said, \”I need some help with this.\” She got it eventually. I found that so brave, and I was offended on her behalf that that was the only thing that anybody ever showed about her because I knew that there was so much more to her.

The context of when this book is set is particular at the time. Let\’s get our readers up to par in terms of the context of this. Tell us a little bit about the Apollo 8 mission, Frank, and his lover, Susan. Give us a context of the story.

There are so many beautiful human parts to Far Side of the Moon. It really is applicable to the human condition. Anybody should be able to read it and get something out of it.

It follows this couple through Frank\’s military career. He joins the Air Force right out of West Point and becomes a test pilot. From being a test pilot at Edwards, he then gets asked to come to NASA. In all the research I did, Apollo 8 was one of the most important missions because it was the first time they’ve got to the moon. Up until that point, they hadn\’t. He was responsible for overseeing the redesign of the capsule that got them there because of the fire that had happened with Apollo 1 that killed his best friend. There were three men in that, and he was determined to make sure that that never happened again.

We have more technology in our phones than what they were working with. It\’s amazing. It\’s a miracle that they’ve got there. Without Frank Borman, there would be no moon landing. There would be no Apollo 11 and Neil Armstrong. Neil Armstrong was his backup on Apollo 8. When Frank got back from that mission, he was asked to be the commander for Apollo 11 but he said no. He said, \”I can\’t put my family through this again.\” He was starting to understand what pressure was happening at home, so he turned it down.

At the beginning of your book, you start with their childhood and then build up to their love story. I would love for you to share some of the lessons learned in your book where a reader can gain some life lessons, so our readers can learn more. You can purchase the book on Amazon.com and your local bookstore.

One of the biggest things that I was inspired by in not just Frank and Susan\’s story but all of the astronaut wives that are still with us that I’ve got to speak to, which was such an honor, is this commitment to the greater good and something bigger than yourself. They very much believed in what their husbands were doing. They were so strong, having to, in essence, be single mothers a lot of the time.

They were moving from place to place but because they believed in that greater good and because of their faith in what their husbands were doing, as a support to their husbands, they were a part of it. I never want them to come off as victims because they don\’t see themselves that way. It\’s one of the most amazing experiences of my life to have been able to talk to these amazing women.

I want to acknowledge you for giving not just a voice but sharing the story of these women that you interviewed for this book project. I want to ask, in particular, who do you feel is a perfect reader for this book?

I have been almost stumbled by this because I’ve got in such great feedback from women, men, and people who were not interested in the space program at all. I\’m the author, but it is for everybody. There are so many beautiful human parts to this book and Frank\’s accountability for how he contributed to Susan\’s suffering. It is applicable to the human condition. Therefore, anybody should be able to read it and get something out of it.

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I would love to know any other lessons that you would like to share as you were researching your book or what you find that people are gaining by reading your book.

I brought up the whole accountability thing but one of the reasons their relationship was so strong and lasted for seven decades is the accountability of owning what you have done to contribute to somebody else\’s pain. I was very moved by how honest and raw Frank was about that when I interviewed him. That was inspiring to me. Owning what you have done to hurt somebody does not make you weak. It makes you and the relationship stronger.

I can see that as you share your book, Far Side of the Moon, and the process of researching and interviewing Frank and the other players in the book, you were moved by this. I\’m curious. Is this going to be turned into a movie or a TV series?

The book was important because I needed to know that I’ve got it right and that it truly reflected what these people went through. It was important to write the book first. The script is in development, so that\’s exciting.

I can see it as a TV series, so that\’s fantastic. I want to jump into our speed round. I will ask you a few questions, and you will answer what\’s the first thing that comes to your mind. Number one, what is your legacy going to be?

I hope it is stories that inspire and challenge people and help them become better human beings. I know that\’s what books have done for me. If this book and anything I write in the future does that for someone, that would be what I would hope and want my legacy to be.

What is your favorite book?

My favorite book is Anam Cara by John O\’Donohue. I read that when I was young. There\’s something about the way he writes that\’s like music. By the beautiful way he puts things, I have never read anything like that before.

Owning what you\’ve done to hurt somebody does not make you weak. It makes you strong and it makes your relationship stronger.

Who is your favorite author?

It would have to be him but I enjoy fiction for how it can take you out of your head and get you lost in a world. My favorite fictional author is Lisa Kleypas. I would love to do a series on some of her books because her characters are engaging.

I\’m curious. What are you reading next?

I always have a bunch of books around. By my bed is a John O\’Donohue book that is one of my favorites. It\’s called Beauty: The Invisible Embrace: Rediscovering the True Sources of Compassion, Serenity, and Hope. It\’s one of those hopeful books to read, especially if you are going through anything difficult. That\’s my go-to book. I\’ve got other things that I\’m constantly reading everything and anything.

The last question is, what are you writing next?

I\’m in the research process of another unbelievable true story. I\’m drawn to strong female characters that maybe haven\’t been represented the way I feel they should be. I\’m not able to get into the details of it but I\’m excited about it. It\’s going to be a fun book to research and write about these people.

That\’s fantastic. Congratulations on that next venture. Did you write the screenplay for Far Side of the Moon?

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My husband did.

It\’s a team effort.

He is an amazing writer too, so it was great. I had an editor for everything I wrote. He was very helpful in the whole process.

That leads me to the question because I know it requires two different skillsets to write a nonfiction book versus a screenplay script. Are you stronger at book writing, and your husband is stronger at screenplay scriptwriting?

Absolutely. He has written quite a few scripts. The format of it, the way it all lays out, the things you have to write about, the descriptions of background, and even music is his forte. The story and book format is mine.

I want to acknowledge you for writing this book and share one final thought that you may have on the topic of your book or the protagonist Susan and her husband, Frank, and what you discovered while you were writing this book.

I was so honored to be allowed into their lives to get all of the deep, dark secrets that no one else had been told about. I also read all of the letters they had saved between themselves. It was an amazing experience to be given that kind of access to not just people\’s joys but their pain as well. I learned a lot about how to do that in a healthy way and in a way that brings you closer together as a couple. It was very moving.

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Everyone at home can purchase Far Side of the Moon: Apollo 8 Commander Frank Borman and the Woman Who Gave Him Wings. You can buy that at Amazon.com and your local bookstore. I want to thank you, Liisa Jorgensen, for being here and for sharing your light and this beautiful love story that you had the opportunity to document.

It was wonderful. Thank you so much for having me, Alicia.

Before you go, can you share how people can find out more about you?

Everything is on the website, FarSideOfTheMoon.com. All of the links to my Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are there. There are a lot of personal photos and videos of Frank and Susan. The website is giving you a bit of a window into their life, the time period, and the awesome clothes. It\’s a great way to see them and to know them. The website is perfect.

Go to FarSideOfTheMoon.com to find out more about the book and purchase and find out more about Liisa. Thank you so much, Liisa. You take care. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for reading another episode of the show.

 

Important Links

 

About Liisa Jorgensen

\"ALLIISA JORGENSEN has worked as a writer and story editor on a diverse variety of film and television productions for Myth Merchant Films for over 20 years. She believes in the power of story and its ability to help audiences transform and become better humans. She is especially interested in ending the stigmas associated with mental illness and disorders, as well as highlighting those who serve a greater good and live for something other than themselves. She lives in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Liisa is the author of the new book, Far Side of the Moon: Apollo 8 Commander Frank Borman and the Woman Who Gave Him Wings.

Categories
Podcast

What\’s Your Brand Story With Kelly Keenan

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Are you clear on what your brand story is? Listen to this episode as Kelly Keenan shares how you could change your business perspective and scale your business up. Kelly is a leading brand strategist, agency owner, highly sought-after speaker, and leadership consultant. He is the founder and President of Brand Story Experts and, for over the past two decades, has helped hundreds of brands clarify their story to ignite their culture and sales. In this episode, he discusses how you could claim your power and connect with your people. So, what is your starting point? That’s a key concept you have to know. So, stay tuned!

Listen to the podcast here


What\’s Your Brand Story With Kelly Keenan

Kelly Keenan is a leading brand strategist, agency owner and highly sought-after speaker and leadership consultant. He is the Founder and President of Brand Story Experts, and for over the past couple of decades, has helped hundreds of brands clarify their story to ignite their culture and sales. In his new release, Everyone Is An “Influencer”: Building A Brand By Engaging The People Who Matter Most, Keenan unlocks the code to recognize and utilize true influencers to soar their organization to new heights. Kelly, it’s great to have you here.

It’s great to be here. You sounded so good.

We\’re getting started here and I am excited to learn about your book and who you are. Specifically, I like to start with the following question. Why did you write a book, Kelly?

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I started in marketing several years ago. I always felt that there was something about pulling the best out of brands and allowing them to be something that they weren\’t necessarily connecting to. That\’s where I had success. Over the years, I formalized it in a way where I understood it but I wasn\’t able to put my finger on how to do that.

I built a process and had a lot of success with it. What I noticed is I was having not just the relationships that were good business relationships but the relationships that made work not seem like work. When I got into the culture development side of it, when I extended beyond marketing into the teams, I wanted to find a way for more companies to do this work.

I can only work with so many companies. It\’s a game-changing perspective and a way of doing business where you celebrate your story and who you are and your company and your culture. It\’s a different way of marketing for sure but when you use that as the foundation, it changes everything. I wanted to formalize that, which I did and then share it. The book took me twelve years to write, so it\’s not something that I did and said, “Let me pump it out there without doing it.”

I\’ve been using this process exclusively for and that entire twelve years. I trademarked the process in 2009 and have been added at Brand Story Experts with the team here. I\’m excited about sharing it. Hopefully, it\’s going to bring some happiness to a lot of people and a lot of success. That\’s the goal of why I wrote the book.

It sounds like you created a framework for brands to be able to share their story with the world. It\’s a different way of marketing. It\’s a type of marketing that we\’ve been seeing over the last decade or so, where people are more sharing themselves, the brand story, how they got started, who they are, versus what they do and how much it costs. I would love to hear from you, what are some of the principles in your framework in terms of being a brand? Whether you are a business brand, maybe perhaps you\’re a personal brand. What are some of the principles in your book, in your framework, that you can share with our audience at home?

Nurture good business relationships that make work not seem like work.

The biggest thing that we do is, and the starting point is you have to go from the reputation that you\’ve earned. If you\’re a business that is doing good business and you\’ve got people out there that appreciate what you do, you\’ve got employees that are working for you, they are inspiring aspects of what you do and understanding that is the starting point.

We begin with impression analysis because it gauges how people view you. Impression analysis, if you\’ve ever done one, it starts out by giving 120 attributes, 150 attributes. Whatever number you get to and say, “Choose 20 that best represent the brand,” and narrow it to 10. You do a forced ranking on that 10 and drag them and drop them in order of dominance, 1 being the most dominant impression.

If you could have a group of people taking this with different perspectives, what you start to see is where they recognize the value in the brand, where they connect. You can stack these attributes. If there are trust attributes or if there are negative attributes that stack in a portion of your business. You can have an awareness of where you might be failing at to a degree but the story that you\’re looking for is, where do we deliver? What things do we do best? We\’ve called that the most inspiring aspects of the brand.

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That\’s the starting point. You want to own those things because those are the strengths that people connect with and bond with already. They recognize them in your brand. It\’s a cheat code for connection for content. You don\’t need to wonder whether or not you\’re going to connect because when you\’ve distilled it down to saying, “This is how people see me. This is the reputation I\’ve earned.” I know if I can shine a light on these inspiring aspects, not only will people be able to recognize them but we\’ll be able to multiply those things because people will come and expect those things and we can deliver upon those promises.

The biggest principle is be who you are, understand who you are and embrace that. That\’s what we say, “Celebrate that story.” Celebrate the story you\’ve earned because there are two things that will happen. One, people will connect better. The second thing is your team members know that it\’s real. Nobody wants bullshit. For you to say, “We\’re this or we\’re that,” because another company is saying that and being successful with it. When you are who you say you are, your people can take pride in that. They can recognize their role in that and everything gets better.

Your social media content is celebrating who you really are. You\’re not trying to prompt people. You\’re not giving them a mission statement or a vision memory.

Your social media content is celebrating who you are. You\’re not trying to be, “Take a picture and say this, or do this.” You’re not trying to prompt people. You\’re not giving them a mission statement or a vision statement to memorize. This is who you are and it\’s a continuous celebration. That\’s the number one principle that I would say start there. The second part, which is the main principle, when you come and summarize who you are.

That’s a starting point to have that awareness of those impressions but the next phase is how do I summarize this into something that is a story that people will bond with and relate to? Many people talk about, “This is our past story. This is who our founders were. This is what we do.” What they don\’t realize is the framework is you have to build trust in a way that people will bond with. That\’s what they\’re looking for in a story.

Can we see this in action? Can you perhaps share a case study or one of your clients where they are utilizing your principles or your framework to share their brand story?

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I have a story in my book about Halo Water. They’re a great client of mine. I used Halo Water. My wife had psoriasis. She used the product that was recommended and it was magnificent. The water filtration looked fantastic outside of the home but when I went to their website, it was underwhelming. Their owner wasn\’t visible at all, the story of the company. It was only about the product. They were like every other water filtration company. What happened was when we went in, I talked to them. It took about a couple of years because sometimes, when people get stuck with their marketing, obviously, you\’re trying to help them and you\’re recognized saying, “There\’s an opportunity here,” but in their mind, you\’re a salesperson.

It took two years for him to come around. We went through the process. He changed his company. He began to tell us his story and celebrate who he was. Not only was he able to see tremendous results with consumers but his partners and the people who he dealt with and the distributors. All those people began to respect his business at a whole different level.

They began to seek out new relationships and people were welcoming those relationships. What ended up happening is he doubled his business and his sales. His business became a lot more fun for his team members. People took a lot more pride in it. I know this because I speak to the team. One of the benefits about doing business the way we do is we become a part of that team and that\’s the benefit.

You want people to stick around, be loyal to the company and you have to allow them to be a part of something.

You can\’t be part of a brand story celebration, whether you\’re an employee or management or a partner and not be involved in a personal way. I\’ve seen that. What resonated with me whenever we interviewed him, as he said his slogan for his brand is, “Change your water, change your life.” That\’s what came out of the brand story summary. He said, “This whole process has changed my life because it\’s improved every relationship that I have.”

That\’s the difference because you\’re telling a complete story. What I was talking about in the principle that we have is building trust on every level. Not just on what you do or the outcome but also the way you do it in the mechanics. That\’s the drive. Also, the attitude of the brand has to be a part of it and the personality and detailing that.

It\’s good for people to say, “Our personality is not important.” It\’s important. The product’s what\’s important. In some brands, that\’s true. You have a corporatized attitude but that\’s still an attitude that you need to recognize. Having an understanding of the attitude, the habit systems and processes and the outcomes associated with the brand. Those are the three areas of a story that we tell.

We call that the Three P Principle because you define it and your attitude becomes Positive. You define your drive, it becomes Powerful. You define the direction that you go and you become Purposeful. There\’s a whole section in the book about how those areas by themselves to find are meaningful but when you define them together, you build trust on all levels.

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The Three P Principle process, again is?

It’s the principle behind the process of culture development marketing, which is what we do. Positive, Powerful, Purposeful.

I\’m curious. What\’s your brand story? How do you get people to trust you?

I\’ve been working in this business for a lot of years and it\’s always been the same with me. That\’s the thing. If you go out there and your work and you\’re consistent or are real about what you\’re doing, your reputation builds. That\’s what\’s happened to us. We don\’t do a lot of marketing. I don\’t go out and look for a ton of clients. We haven\’t done that because what\’s happened is basically we do a great job, then we get people to talk about it. We have long relationships. That\’s another thing too.

I had a marketing agency. I started one when I was 24, went for 12, 13 years before I went in the Brand Story Experts. When you specialize in this and helping people uncover that story and celebrate their story, as I said, you develop these relationships. Our tenure with these clients, we have people that have been with us from the beginning. The Pittsburgh Pirates, we\’ve worked with them for several years.

We\’re working with Cool Today, one of the largest HPAC plumbing and heating and air companies in the country, working for them for several years. These companies stay with us because we become a part of it. That\’s the bond that you get with your team members whenever you do the same thing. You want people to stick around, be loyal to the company. You got to allow them to be a part of something. That\’s a side benefit too.

It’s the way that it works with human resources, recruiting, retention. When you talk about culture development marketing, it brings it all together and that\’s a beautiful thing. At least I don\’t know how much you\’ve seen of divided cultures and companies that have sales departments and marketing departments and people in programming. It\’s like everybody\’s got a different mindset and mentality.

It\’s true that people have different duties but there are core consistencies and companies that you can take pride in and that you can celebrate. Everybody should be able to join in and add that inclusive environment. When you make that clear, then other people outside the brand want to be a part of that. Apple, Starbucks, they all do that, phenomenal.

A lot of companies don\’t think about it. They don\’t want to do it or they say they want to do it but don\’t know how to do it. I believe it\’s as simple as recognizing who you are and your most inspiring aspects, how you show up, what you do best and celebrating those things as the main starting point. That\’s not saying you can’t grow and do more but you got to be honest, authentic and celebrate those strengths.

That\’s very powerful. I\’m sure that you\’re teaching your clients or your prospects the value in building a brand story and that it\’s long-lasting versus, I always call it, relational versus transactional. When you\’re gaining trust, sharing there for the long haul, sharing your own personal story and being authentic, some of the keywords that you\’ve been sharing. It\’s building a relationship versus it being a transactional one-off, which is we get to have more of that in this world and in business. Thank you for that.

I want to jump into the speed round. This is where I ask you a question and the first thing that comes to mind, you share. This is all around books and authoring since you\’ve authored your book, Everyone Is An “Influencer”: Building A Brand By Engaging The People Who Matter Most. You can buy it on Amazon. First question for you is, what is your legacy going to be?

I want my legacy to be personally trying to bring out the best in others and try to be honest and authentic. I love what I do because whenever you work with people to help them with that, it opens doors for them. It opens doors to the teams that they work for. It improves the experience for everyone. I want to be a person that was focused on helping people bring out the best and be a part of something bigger.

Kelly, what is your favorite book?

I\’m a big Pam Slim fan. I like the Escape from Cubicle Nation. She put out a new Widest Net. I hired her as a coach at one point because I liked the energy of entrepreneurship and how she teaches you how to be more as well. There\’s a synergy between the message that I have and her work. Any of her books, you can\’t miss.

I know Pam Slim but I have not read any of her books, so I\’ll have to put that on the bookshelf. Next question, who\’s your favorite author?

I would say she\’s probably my favorite author as well.

We got a Pam Slim fan in the house. I love that. What are you reading next, Kelly? What\’s on your books stand?

I bought Beyond Diversity with Rohit Bhargava. I\’m excited about reading that. There’s a lot of great information in the book from what I\’ve read initially. I’m not all the way through. I\’m probably a quarter of the way through and I\’m excited about that book.

Final question, what are you writing next?

I\’ve been doing a lot of writing around the content and the book, trying to help people connect with the message. It\’s one thing to have a book that tells a message in totality but it\’s another thing to break apart messages and help people through different blogs, writing assignments, magazines, anything that we can get out there to get the word out.

I\’m probably writing two hours a day now on things of that nature and having a good time doing it because it\’s neat. Whenever you have something that\’s finite but nothing\’s done, it\’s always growing. To go back in, it\’s rewarding to take different angles and expand upon smaller points or even related to different issues and things going on now. That\’s pretty much what I\’ve been writing.

I would love for you to share another tip as we get wrapped up here. Another tip you can leave our audience with from your book, Everyone is an Influencer. What\’s your last piece of advice you want to leave?

The biggest thing that can change your perspective is looking at the way people look at stories. People look at a story and they embrace the idea to tell the story. You hear that, “Tell the story.” I say in the book, “Tell to sell.” The idea is to get a conversion to get people to purchase something, so they have to say this to make them do that. There\’s so much psychology that goes in about what you tell people to sell that it\’s a whole science.

What I encourage people to do is understand your real story. Instead of telling to sell, celebrate that story to educate people. You want them to know who you are. You want them to understand who you are, your personality because you want the right people to connect with them. Those are the people that matter most.

When you can celebrate yourself authentically and other people are also celebrating that story, you educate people in a way where you\’re going to build the best relationships with customers and employees that come to work there because you\’re telling them, “This is what the experience is all about. This is what we are. This is who we are. This is how we do business.”

In that, with social media, you will find ways to educate people one close to the time, one video at a time, one blog at a time. In that, there\’s so much joy in celebrating your story and educating people that way because of getting those real relationships inside and outside, everything gets better. The experience gets better for everyone.

Resist the opportunity to tell your story. It\’s so easy to tell people when you get a quick conversion but don\’t do that. Celebrate your story, your real story, in a way. Invite other people to be a part of it, be inclusive. The payoff is going to be fantastic because what you\’re going to do is you\’ll enrich your company and your culture, and you\’ll help a lot of people in the process.

Kelly, how can people find out more about you?

My company is Brand Story Experts, BrandStoryExperts.com. You can go to EveryoneIsAnInfluencer.com to learn about my book. On Twitter @KellyKeenanSr or Instagram, Facebook, everything. LinkedIn, the same thing. You can contact me anywhere.

I want to thank you, Kelly, for sharing your book, for writing your book, for sharing your book and for giving us tips on how we can build our own brand story. It was wonderful to have you as a guest.

Thank you so much. I appreciate the time.

I\’ll see you next time for the next episode.

Important Links:

About Kelly Keenan

\"\"

Kelly is a leader in Brand Story development who formalized and trademarked a story development process for defining a brand’s story in 2009. He is a speaker,coach and leadership consultant who has helped hundreds of brands clarify their story over the past two decades.

 

Categories
Podcast

What\’s Your Brand Story With Kelly Keenan

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Are you clear on what your brand story is? Listen to this episode as Kelly Keenan shares how you could change your business perspective and scale your business up. Kelly is a leading brand strategist, agency owner, highly sought-after speaker, and leadership consultant. He is the founder and President of Brand Story Experts and, for over the past two decades, has helped hundreds of brands clarify their story to ignite their culture and sales. In this episode, he discusses how you could claim your power and connect with your people. So, what is your starting point? That’s a key concept you have to know. So, stay tuned!

Listen to the podcast here


What\’s Your Brand Story With Kelly Keenan

Kelly Keenan is a leading brand strategist, agency owner and highly sought-after speaker and leadership consultant. He is the Founder and President of Brand Story Experts, and for over the past couple of decades, has helped hundreds of brands clarify their story to ignite their culture and sales. In his new release, Everyone Is An “Influencer”: Building A Brand By Engaging The People Who Matter Most, Keenan unlocks the code to recognize and utilize true influencers to soar their organization to new heights. Kelly, it’s great to have you here.

It’s great to be here. You sounded so good.

We\’re getting started here and I am excited to learn about your book and who you are. Specifically, I like to start with the following question. Why did you write a book, Kelly?

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I started in marketing several years ago. I always felt that there was something about pulling the best out of brands and allowing them to be something that they weren\’t necessarily connecting to. That\’s where I had success. Over the years, I formalized it in a way where I understood it but I wasn\’t able to put my finger on how to do that.

I built a process and had a lot of success with it. What I noticed is I was having not just the relationships that were good business relationships but the relationships that made work not seem like work. When I got into the culture development side of it, when I extended beyond marketing into the teams, I wanted to find a way for more companies to do this work.

I can only work with so many companies. It\’s a game-changing perspective and a way of doing business where you celebrate your story and who you are and your company and your culture. It\’s a different way of marketing for sure but when you use that as the foundation, it changes everything. I wanted to formalize that, which I did and then share it. The book took me twelve years to write, so it\’s not something that I did and said, “Let me pump it out there without doing it.”

I\’ve been using this process exclusively for and that entire twelve years. I trademarked the process in 2009 and have been added at Brand Story Experts with the team here. I\’m excited about sharing it. Hopefully, it\’s going to bring some happiness to a lot of people and a lot of success. That\’s the goal of why I wrote the book.

It sounds like you created a framework for brands to be able to share their story with the world. It\’s a different way of marketing. It\’s a type of marketing that we\’ve been seeing over the last decade or so, where people are more sharing themselves, the brand story, how they got started, who they are, versus what they do and how much it costs. I would love to hear from you, what are some of the principles in your framework in terms of being a brand? Whether you are a business brand, maybe perhaps you\’re a personal brand. What are some of the principles in your book, in your framework, that you can share with our audience at home?

Nurture good business relationships that make work not seem like work.

The biggest thing that we do is, and the starting point is you have to go from the reputation that you\’ve earned. If you\’re a business that is doing good business and you\’ve got people out there that appreciate what you do, you\’ve got employees that are working for you, they are inspiring aspects of what you do and understanding that is the starting point.

We begin with impression analysis because it gauges how people view you. Impression analysis, if you\’ve ever done one, it starts out by giving 120 attributes, 150 attributes. Whatever number you get to and say, “Choose 20 that best represent the brand,” and narrow it to 10. You do a forced ranking on that 10 and drag them and drop them in order of dominance, 1 being the most dominant impression.

If you could have a group of people taking this with different perspectives, what you start to see is where they recognize the value in the brand, where they connect. You can stack these attributes. If there are trust attributes or if there are negative attributes that stack in a portion of your business. You can have an awareness of where you might be failing at to a degree but the story that you\’re looking for is, where do we deliver? What things do we do best? We\’ve called that the most inspiring aspects of the brand.

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That\’s the starting point. You want to own those things because those are the strengths that people connect with and bond with already. They recognize them in your brand. It\’s a cheat code for connection for content. You don\’t need to wonder whether or not you\’re going to connect because when you\’ve distilled it down to saying, “This is how people see me. This is the reputation I\’ve earned.” I know if I can shine a light on these inspiring aspects, not only will people be able to recognize them but we\’ll be able to multiply those things because people will come and expect those things and we can deliver upon those promises.

The biggest principle is be who you are, understand who you are and embrace that. That\’s what we say, “Celebrate that story.” Celebrate the story you\’ve earned because there are two things that will happen. One, people will connect better. The second thing is your team members know that it\’s real. Nobody wants bullshit. For you to say, “We\’re this or we\’re that,” because another company is saying that and being successful with it. When you are who you say you are, your people can take pride in that. They can recognize their role in that and everything gets better.

Your social media content is celebrating who you really are. You\’re not trying to prompt people. You\’re not giving them a mission statement or a vision memory.

Your social media content is celebrating who you are. You\’re not trying to be, “Take a picture and say this, or do this.” You’re not trying to prompt people. You\’re not giving them a mission statement or a vision statement to memorize. This is who you are and it\’s a continuous celebration. That\’s the number one principle that I would say start there. The second part, which is the main principle, when you come and summarize who you are.

That’s a starting point to have that awareness of those impressions but the next phase is how do I summarize this into something that is a story that people will bond with and relate to? Many people talk about, “This is our past story. This is who our founders were. This is what we do.” What they don\’t realize is the framework is you have to build trust in a way that people will bond with. That\’s what they\’re looking for in a story.

Can we see this in action? Can you perhaps share a case study or one of your clients where they are utilizing your principles or your framework to share their brand story?

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I have a story in my book about Halo Water. They’re a great client of mine. I used Halo Water. My wife had psoriasis. She used the product that was recommended and it was magnificent. The water filtration looked fantastic outside of the home but when I went to their website, it was underwhelming. Their owner wasn\’t visible at all, the story of the company. It was only about the product. They were like every other water filtration company. What happened was when we went in, I talked to them. It took about a couple of years because sometimes, when people get stuck with their marketing, obviously, you\’re trying to help them and you\’re recognized saying, “There\’s an opportunity here,” but in their mind, you\’re a salesperson.

It took two years for him to come around. We went through the process. He changed his company. He began to tell us his story and celebrate who he was. Not only was he able to see tremendous results with consumers but his partners and the people who he dealt with and the distributors. All those people began to respect his business at a whole different level.

They began to seek out new relationships and people were welcoming those relationships. What ended up happening is he doubled his business and his sales. His business became a lot more fun for his team members. People took a lot more pride in it. I know this because I speak to the team. One of the benefits about doing business the way we do is we become a part of that team and that\’s the benefit.

You want people to stick around, be loyal to the company and you have to allow them to be a part of something.

You can\’t be part of a brand story celebration, whether you\’re an employee or management or a partner and not be involved in a personal way. I\’ve seen that. What resonated with me whenever we interviewed him, as he said his slogan for his brand is, “Change your water, change your life.” That\’s what came out of the brand story summary. He said, “This whole process has changed my life because it\’s improved every relationship that I have.”

That\’s the difference because you\’re telling a complete story. What I was talking about in the principle that we have is building trust on every level. Not just on what you do or the outcome but also the way you do it in the mechanics. That\’s the drive. Also, the attitude of the brand has to be a part of it and the personality and detailing that.

It\’s good for people to say, “Our personality is not important.” It\’s important. The product’s what\’s important. In some brands, that\’s true. You have a corporatized attitude but that\’s still an attitude that you need to recognize. Having an understanding of the attitude, the habit systems and processes and the outcomes associated with the brand. Those are the three areas of a story that we tell.

We call that the Three P Principle because you define it and your attitude becomes Positive. You define your drive, it becomes Powerful. You define the direction that you go and you become Purposeful. There\’s a whole section in the book about how those areas by themselves to find are meaningful but when you define them together, you build trust on all levels.

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The Three P Principle process, again is?

It’s the principle behind the process of culture development marketing, which is what we do. Positive, Powerful, Purposeful.

I\’m curious. What\’s your brand story? How do you get people to trust you?

I\’ve been working in this business for a lot of years and it\’s always been the same with me. That\’s the thing. If you go out there and your work and you\’re consistent or are real about what you\’re doing, your reputation builds. That\’s what\’s happened to us. We don\’t do a lot of marketing. I don\’t go out and look for a ton of clients. We haven\’t done that because what\’s happened is basically we do a great job, then we get people to talk about it. We have long relationships. That\’s another thing too.

I had a marketing agency. I started one when I was 24, went for 12, 13 years before I went in the Brand Story Experts. When you specialize in this and helping people uncover that story and celebrate their story, as I said, you develop these relationships. Our tenure with these clients, we have people that have been with us from the beginning. The Pittsburgh Pirates, we\’ve worked with them for several years.

We\’re working with Cool Today, one of the largest HPAC plumbing and heating and air companies in the country, working for them for several years. These companies stay with us because we become a part of it. That\’s the bond that you get with your team members whenever you do the same thing. You want people to stick around, be loyal to the company. You got to allow them to be a part of something. That\’s a side benefit too.

It’s the way that it works with human resources, recruiting, retention. When you talk about culture development marketing, it brings it all together and that\’s a beautiful thing. At least I don\’t know how much you\’ve seen of divided cultures and companies that have sales departments and marketing departments and people in programming. It\’s like everybody\’s got a different mindset and mentality.

It\’s true that people have different duties but there are core consistencies and companies that you can take pride in and that you can celebrate. Everybody should be able to join in and add that inclusive environment. When you make that clear, then other people outside the brand want to be a part of that. Apple, Starbucks, they all do that, phenomenal.

A lot of companies don\’t think about it. They don\’t want to do it or they say they want to do it but don\’t know how to do it. I believe it\’s as simple as recognizing who you are and your most inspiring aspects, how you show up, what you do best and celebrating those things as the main starting point. That\’s not saying you can’t grow and do more but you got to be honest, authentic and celebrate those strengths.

That\’s very powerful. I\’m sure that you\’re teaching your clients or your prospects the value in building a brand story and that it\’s long-lasting versus, I always call it, relational versus transactional. When you\’re gaining trust, sharing there for the long haul, sharing your own personal story and being authentic, some of the keywords that you\’ve been sharing. It\’s building a relationship versus it being a transactional one-off, which is we get to have more of that in this world and in business. Thank you for that.

I want to jump into the speed round. This is where I ask you a question and the first thing that comes to mind, you share. This is all around books and authoring since you\’ve authored your book, Everyone Is An “Influencer”: Building A Brand By Engaging The People Who Matter Most. You can buy it on Amazon. First question for you is, what is your legacy going to be?

I want my legacy to be personally trying to bring out the best in others and try to be honest and authentic. I love what I do because whenever you work with people to help them with that, it opens doors for them. It opens doors to the teams that they work for. It improves the experience for everyone. I want to be a person that was focused on helping people bring out the best and be a part of something bigger.

Kelly, what is your favorite book?

I\’m a big Pam Slim fan. I like the Escape from Cubicle Nation. She put out a new Widest Net. I hired her as a coach at one point because I liked the energy of entrepreneurship and how she teaches you how to be more as well. There\’s a synergy between the message that I have and her work. Any of her books, you can\’t miss.

I know Pam Slim but I have not read any of her books, so I\’ll have to put that on the bookshelf. Next question, who\’s your favorite author?

I would say she\’s probably my favorite author as well.

We got a Pam Slim fan in the house. I love that. What are you reading next, Kelly? What\’s on your books stand?

I bought Beyond Diversity with Rohit Bhargava. I\’m excited about reading that. There’s a lot of great information in the book from what I\’ve read initially. I’m not all the way through. I\’m probably a quarter of the way through and I\’m excited about that book.

Final question, what are you writing next?

I\’ve been doing a lot of writing around the content and the book, trying to help people connect with the message. It\’s one thing to have a book that tells a message in totality but it\’s another thing to break apart messages and help people through different blogs, writing assignments, magazines, anything that we can get out there to get the word out.

I\’m probably writing two hours a day now on things of that nature and having a good time doing it because it\’s neat. Whenever you have something that\’s finite but nothing\’s done, it\’s always growing. To go back in, it\’s rewarding to take different angles and expand upon smaller points or even related to different issues and things going on now. That\’s pretty much what I\’ve been writing.

I would love for you to share another tip as we get wrapped up here. Another tip you can leave our audience with from your book, Everyone is an Influencer. What\’s your last piece of advice you want to leave?

The biggest thing that can change your perspective is looking at the way people look at stories. People look at a story and they embrace the idea to tell the story. You hear that, “Tell the story.” I say in the book, “Tell to sell.” The idea is to get a conversion to get people to purchase something, so they have to say this to make them do that. There\’s so much psychology that goes in about what you tell people to sell that it\’s a whole science.

What I encourage people to do is understand your real story. Instead of telling to sell, celebrate that story to educate people. You want them to know who you are. You want them to understand who you are, your personality because you want the right people to connect with them. Those are the people that matter most.

When you can celebrate yourself authentically and other people are also celebrating that story, you educate people in a way where you\’re going to build the best relationships with customers and employees that come to work there because you\’re telling them, “This is what the experience is all about. This is what we are. This is who we are. This is how we do business.”

In that, with social media, you will find ways to educate people one close to the time, one video at a time, one blog at a time. In that, there\’s so much joy in celebrating your story and educating people that way because of getting those real relationships inside and outside, everything gets better. The experience gets better for everyone.

Resist the opportunity to tell your story. It\’s so easy to tell people when you get a quick conversion but don\’t do that. Celebrate your story, your real story, in a way. Invite other people to be a part of it, be inclusive. The payoff is going to be fantastic because what you\’re going to do is you\’ll enrich your company and your culture, and you\’ll help a lot of people in the process.

Kelly, how can people find out more about you?

My company is Brand Story Experts, BrandStoryExperts.com. You can go to EveryoneIsAnInfluencer.com to learn about my book. On Twitter @KellyKeenanSr or Instagram, Facebook, everything. LinkedIn, the same thing. You can contact me anywhere.

I want to thank you, Kelly, for sharing your book, for writing your book, for sharing your book and for giving us tips on how we can build our own brand story. It was wonderful to have you as a guest.

Thank you so much. I appreciate the time.

I\’ll see you next time for the next episode.

Important Links:

About Kelly Keenan

\"\"

Kelly is a leader in Brand Story development who formalized and trademarked a story development process for defining a brand’s story in 2009. He is a speaker,coach and leadership consultant who has helped hundreds of brands clarify their story over the past two decades.

 

Categories
Authoring Life Podcast

Don\’t F*** This Up With Fred Stuvek Jr.

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Now that you’ve entered the world of adulthood, it is time to start writing your own story and create the life that you want for yourself. There is one problem, though. No thanks to the global pandemic, there is very little room for error in your search for career alignment and fulfillment in an economy that is still trying to find its footing. Consultant, speaker and author, Fred Stuvek Jr. talks about this challenge in his new book, Don’t F*** This Up, which he introduces in this interview with Alicia Dunams. Sparing no detail, he talks about the things he talked in his book that are of interest to anyone out there who is coming out into the world of adulthood and employment or anyone who just had a new lease in life to start anew. Everything will work out sooner than you think, but until then, you can’t f*** this up. Listen to this episode and learn what you have to work on to do that.

Listen to the podcast here


Don\’t F*** This Up With Fred Stuvek Jr.

How to Create The Life You Want 

In this episode, we\’re going to be talking to Fred Stuvek, who wrote the book, Don’t F*** This Up!: How To Get What You Want In Life.

Welcome, Fred. How are you? 
I’m fine, Alicia.  
I\’m excited to have you here on the show. We talk about writing your own story, and we are writing our own story each day at a time hereWhy did you write the book, Don\’t F*** This Up!? 
I\’ve always spent a lot of time giving advice to people, particularly young people. It got to the point where people would say, “Where did you get that from? Did you write a book? I gave a talk to Marine Corps unit a while back. When I was done, several came up and said, “Where can I buy your book? I\’ve been urged by several people to write one. After I sold my business, I had the opportunity, it was on my bucket list. I always say, “I want to do this. I\’m going to do it, but I want you to write something that was a bit different and something that was going to help people give them guidance, direction, a sense of purpose so they can understand where they need to go and do it in the right way. 
You talked a little bit about the Marine Corps. Let\’s back up a bit and give the audience some context on who you are and what you\’ve been doing in your life and how you have the experience, the tips and the foresight to write a book? 
I was born in Morgantown, West VirginiaI grew up in Southwestern, Pennsylvania. We had four seasons there: football, basketball, track and baseball. I participated in all four seasons. I have a very big sports background. I decided to go to the Naval Academy. had a lot of offers for football and my parents wanted me to go elsewhere, but I decided to go to the Naval Academy much to their consternation. I played football there. I lead there as quarterback for three years. After that, I had the privilege of serving my country and I transitioned into the civilian world where I\’ve had a host of positions, both domestically and internationally. I was involved in an IPO. I\’ve started my own company up and sold it. Now, I wrote this book and I’m talking to you. 

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You have a whole bunch of experience. That\’s the giveback, especially when people get in their particular age and stage of their life is, I have all this experience, I\’ve done all these things. How can I give back? How can I pay it forward? Indeed, you\’re doing that with Don’t F*** This Up!: How To Get What You Want In Life. How are people effing things up? Are you seeing any patterns? 
Not with everybody, but if it\’s with any person, it\’s going to have a big impact on their life. One of the things in the book that is very important to my first chapter is belief. You have to believe in what you\’re doing and you have to be a good fit for it because otherwise, you have a mismatch. Let\’s say that you\’re doing something for the money, it\’s in sales and you\’re an introvert. You may do okay for a while but eventually, that mismatch is going to come back and haunt you later. That fit is very important too in that belief because there are going to be times in your life where you are challenged. 
I always say that the biggest issue or challenge in life is adversity. When you find something that you believe in and it\’s a good fit for you, that staunch belief will help you weather those storms, which will come and they all do. It\’s taken care of the lows and not get too excited during the highs. Many people do something for the wrong reasons. They do it because, “I want to get good money. My parents told me this. It\’s a fantastic job and it\’s cool.” Oftentimes, when I\’ve talked to a young person, I said, “Why do you want to do that? They go, “What do you mean?” I said, “Do you believe in it?” They said, “I think it’s okay.” My takeaway here is to find something that you believe in that\’s a good fit and get good at it. If you do that and persevere, your chances of doing well are much better than the other way around. 
Finding something you believe in and getting good at it. That\’s one of your tips. I know that your book specifically is for graduates and people who have a new lease on life or starting something new. In this particular reality that we\’re all in, in terms of COVID-19, I know a lot of people feel like the rug has been pulled up under their feet. There are people losing lives, obviously losing family members, losing jobs, financial adversity. What do you do when things look like they\’ve gone totally downhill? 
It\’s a matter of perspective. Don\’t hold a pity party for yourself. You think, “The world has created this series of events. It\’s raining down on us. We\’re in trouble.” Look at the class of 1916. What did they have coming? World War I, the Spanish flu, then the Great Depression, followed by World War II. If you look at that in terms of where we are and what has happened in the past, we were not in bad shape. This is something we\’re going to get through. It\’s a test. There\’s going to be a new norm at the end of it. Time and science will take care of it. 
The first thing is to take a deep breath, maintain a sense of perspective, be willing to suck it up and understand that, “It\’s not going to be easy, but I\’ll get through this.” You have to be realistic as well. For example, if you\’re looking for a job, it\’s going to take a little longer. The last thing is don\’t give up, persevere. What did Winston Churchill say? Never, ever, never give up. That\’s the type of mindset that you have to have. If you want something and you believe in it and you go for it, it will eventually happen. If you think about the people you know and somebody who wanted to do something, how many of those people that wanted itpushed for it and worked hard for it got what they wanted? Just about everybody. 
The ones that said, “This is not fair. You’ve got to get rid of the word, fair. Life isn\’t fair and you have to stop saying, “It\’s going to be all right. As a parent, you tell your child, It\’s going to be all right.” It is and it isn’t. It’s going to be all right if you work hard and do the right things and associate with good people. If you don\’t make good decisions and have good habits, it\’s not going to be all right. You can\’t go on lose control and expect the world to take care of you. 
[bctt tweet=\”You have to believe in what you\’re doing and be a good fit for it. Otherwise, that mismatch will come back and haunt you later. \” via=\”no\”]
What I\’m hearing you say is definitely go over the victim mindset and getting in a place where you create. Instead of being a victim of your circumstances, what does it look like to create your circumstances? I love that you give the historical context because we\’re in our reality and thinking about ourselves. It\’s important to have historical context that our parents and our ancestors had so much more things stacked up against them. Life is getting easier. Is gratitude something you talk about? 
People don\’t know how much you care until they see how much you care. The opportunity to express gratitude and to say, “Thank you,” can go a long way. sign of character is if you treat the janitor just like you treat the CEO or the president. I remember one time, I was in Istanbul with my son and there was a boy pulling a cart up, he had fruit and all these things on. He\’s going up the hill. It broke, all the fruit went down the hill, he got all upset. I went over and I spent about probably half an hour picking the fruit up, helping him get the cart up and people were looking at me clucking and shaking their head. That\’s not the right type of attitude. I think you need to help people because sometimes that could be you, your daughter, your son, your friend. Idoesn\’t cost you anything to say thank you. People like to be shown appreciation. We need to do more of that versus what\’s going on now. 
What are some of the other tips in terms of Don\’t F*** This Up!What\’s paramount? 
When I talked about fit, I think there are two issues there. Number one is alignment. You have to look at, “Iterms of the skillset for this job, for this vocation, for this sport, how do I fit in? How do my skillset and personality align with this? What are the gaps?” You have to fill in the gaps and you do that by 1 of 2 ways. You either number one, train for it and get better or number two, you develop coping strategies. If it doesn\’t match up good, then you should try something else. For example, if you want to be a professional golfer and you can\’t drive good, you can\’t putt good and you get nervous and can\’t get over that. You can still do it, but make it a hobby and do it on weekends. Don\’t try to make a living doing it. 
I see that idea of fit is important and alignment. You gave the golfing example. When you\’re not aligned with a profession or with a new circumstance or a new relationship, how can you tell that there isn\’t a fit or an alignment? 
The first thing is on Monday morning, you wake up and you go, Oh my goodnessI have to go to work. On Friday afternoonyou say, “Thank goodness, it\’s the end of the week or it’s Friday. If you dread going to work and you\’re happy leaving it, that\’s a good sign. That\’s more than a clue. That means that there\’s something that\’s off and you need to take care of that. How much of your time you spend at work? Maybe, a third of your life is at work. If you\’re miserable at work, then that affects your balance. That is going to spill over into other parts of your life. The last thing that you want that to do is to spill over in other parts of your life and affect other people because that has nothing to do with them if that\’s about you. Don\’t take it out on them. 
In that particular situation, if you\’re dreading to go to work on Monday morning and if you\’re completely thrilled that the week is over, what would you suggest for that person to do? 

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One of two things, you have to look at either a career change or maybe some type of arrangement on where you can fulfill a job enrichment. Maybe you like the profession and the industry, but you don\’t like what you\’re doing. Some people see it as a sign of weakness, but I see it as a sign of strength and courage. There\’s nothing wrong with asking someone for help. Go to your manager or your boss and say, “I don\’t particularly like this. I\’d like to do this. I\’d like to do that, be proactive. If it\’s a career change, then it depends on what\’s going on in your life. Do you have a family? Do you have children? Are there others who depend on you? That is a consideration because you have to keep that income stream intactYou can do it 1 of 2 ways. You can do this gradually or suddenly. Gradually is if you have responsibilities and you have other people that are depending on you. Then you come up with a plan and you take it a little bit at a time, but you have to get started. You can say later, “I\’m going to do that tomorrow or next week. That\’s called procrastination. As we all know, sometimes later becomes never. You have to take that first step. 
I know you cover discipline a lot in your book and that is something that I get to consistently work on. Have you heard her ever heard of StrengthsFinder or CliftonStrengthsIt\’s a 34element assessment and discipline is almost close to 34 for me. I saw my top five, which are superb. I’m like, “What are my bottom four?” Discipline being one of it. What are your thoughts on helping people create more discipline? 
They said discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment. You\’re not always motivated, so you have to be disciplined. For example, I work out every day. There are some days when I don\’t even feel like going. Those are the days that you need to go. You need to push yourself. In terms of how you develop discipline, I have a section in my book about how to develop discipline. The first thing that you have to do is you have to have goals because if you don\’t have goals, you don\’t know where you\’re going. Those goals give you a sense of direction like a GPS. 
Once you have your goals, then you have to come up with a process and a plan with objectives and timelines to get to them. You have to track that and you have to routinely assess it and adjust as needed. You have to develop good habits and make good decisions. All of that fits together. If you don\’t have a goal, if you don\’t have a process, if you don\’t have good habits and you\’re not willing to be flexible and you get discouraged easy, you\’re probably not going to be very disciplined, but you can be disciplined. Discipline is a skill that you can learn like anything else. 
It is indeed a skill. I definitely have goals and I achieve my goals. One of my top strengths is an activator. I like things happening very quickly. If it\’s a quick way to get there, I\’m good at delegating too. I delegate discipline. 
Thomas Jefferson saidThe only way to make a man or a person trustworthy is to trust them.” You have to be comfortable with letting go and you have to delegate. If you\’re in a leadership or management position, you have to know how to delegate and who to delegate to and how much overwatch you need and how much you don\’t because everybody idifferent. What motivates Alicia may be a deterrent or a demotivator to someone else. It\’s like with management or leadershipThere\’s no one size fits all. You have to adjust to the circumstances and the individual. 
What are some other tips in the book that you can share with our audience on how to not F this up? 
[bctt tweet=\”Don\’t wait until tomorrow to do the things you need to start doing now. \” via=\”no\”]
I talked about perseverance. I would say associate with good people. When I say good people, it doesn\’t have to be likeminded people, but it has to be people who are talking about goalsdreams and support you. One of the pitfalls that people get into is they associate with a likeminded group of people. They\’re in their little clique, they\’re texting each other when they\’re only 10 feet away, and they have their own little circle going and that\’s fine. As soon as they start to get outside, that may be going to night school or trying to do something, it interrupts a social schedule and becomes a problem. 
If you\’d have people like that, you don\’t have a circle, you have a cage. You have to get someone that supports you and can help lift you up not drag you down. It\’s also good to associate with different people and other people who may be have a contrarian opinion because once you get out in the workforce, that\’s one of the problems. Theshock the law as young people. They\’ve been in high school, they\’ve been in college, they\’re in their group. All of a sudden, they\’re thrown out to the real world, into the corporate world or wherever, and someone disagrees with them or doesn\’t like what they\’re doing. They have a real problem with that because they haven\’t been criticized much. They\’ve never had someone take issue with anything they did. They have problems with that. 
You have to be able to accept criticism because the only way you can get good is to get that feedback. I rememberone time I was in high school and it was week before a big game, I couldn\’t do anything. The coach is yelling at me, “You\’re not picking up the secondary quick enough. Your foot work is bad. Finally on Thursday, day before the game, I went up to the coach. I said, “Dad, what is wrong? He looked at me and said, “Son, don\’t worry when I yell at you, worry when I stop.” It\’s how you do. It has to be in the right way. It has to be done in a constructive way and it has to be done with the right tone of voice too, with the right type of person because you cannot criticize five people all the same way because everybody\’s different. Alicia, you look like you have pretty thick skin. They could say, “Alicia, this isn\’t working, you’ve got to do better.” You’re going to go, “That\’s fine. If this was maybe Anne, who\’s not that way, she might get upset. You have to treat everybody differently, but you have to be able to not only give the criticism but to take the criticism in the right way at the right time. 
Feedback is love. A part of life and growth, as you mentioned, is being able to receive feedback. If you\’re the giver of feedback, it\’s the tone. How do you phrase it? When you’re receiving it, let it sit with you, What is this person saying?” Everything in life is feedback. If someone is giving you feedback, this is an opportunity for you to grow. That\’s something important to look at. What else can you share with our audience? What are some of your favorite tips? 

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Another one would be if there\’s something that you want to do and it\’s something that’s on your bucket list, then go ahead and do it. Don\’t wait until tomorrow because sometimes you tend to put those things off. If there\’s something that you think that you need to do, start now because what does it say, “Today is tomorrow you worried about yesterday? I mentioned in the book one time, the issue of having an MBA came upI didn\’t think I needed an MBA, but I was in a meeting and somebody said, Stuvek, you have an MBA, don\’t you? That upset me. I left the meeting, I drove to school and I said, I\’m going to night school for an MBA. They said, “You have to take the GMAT. I said“Never mind, but I\’m starting tomorrow night.” You just show up and started taking the courses. Eventually, they let me in. It took me two years, but later I was glad I did it because when there was a position that came up, one of the requirements is an MBA. I\’ve always wondered, “What would\’ve happened if that box hadn’t been checked?” Don\’t put something off, get it done now, you\’ll be glad you did. Even if it takes a while, take one small step at a time. After a while, that all adds up like compound interest. The next thing you know, your bank\’s full. 
When you have the inspired thought, get into action because the time is going to be spent anyways, you might as well be doing it improving yourself and developing yourself. 
That\’s where the discipline comes in. You have to be disciplined and sometimes you have to do what you don\’t like or don\’t want to do. It\’s not always happy and joy. Sometimes it\’s tough and you’ve got to go through that, but sometimes it\’s not always the end result either. It\’s the journey and the process that makes you stronger and gets you there. You have to enjoy the journey as well. 
Tell us where we can find out more about you and your book? 
I have a website, it\’s FredStuvek.comI have my two books on there. I have blogs, articles, interviews, and podcastsIf you have any questions and you want to contact me, I\’m a keystroke away. 
Thank you, Fred. I appreciate you. 
Thank you, Alicia. 

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About Fred Stuvek Jr.

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Fred Stuvek Jr. has achieved extraordinary success in diverse realms. Born in West Virginia and raised in Pennsylvania, he has been inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame for achievements in football, basketball, baseball, and track. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy, after lettering three years as quarterback for the Midshipmen.

After service as a Naval Officer, he transitioned to the business world where he has held senior leadership positions in private and public companies, both domestically and internationally. Key successes include an international medical imaging start-up that led to a successful IPO, and forming a private medical services company, which he subsequently sold. From the playing field, to the war room, to the board room his leadership and accomplishments have given him a distinct perspective and a results-oriented mindset.

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Don\’t F*** This Up With Fred Stuvek Jr.

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Now that you’ve entered the world of adulthood, it is time to start writing your own story and create the life that you want for yourself. There is one problem, though. No thanks to the global pandemic, there is very little room for error in your search for career alignment and fulfillment in an economy that is still trying to find its footing. Consultant, speaker and author, Fred Stuvek Jr. talks about this challenge in his new book, Don’t F*** This Up, which he introduces in this interview with Alicia Dunams. Sparing no detail, he talks about the things he talked in his book that are of interest to anyone out there who is coming out into the world of adulthood and employment or anyone who just had a new lease in life to start anew. Everything will work out sooner than you think, but until then, you can’t f*** this up. Listen to this episode and learn what you have to work on to do that.

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Don\’t F*** This Up With Fred Stuvek Jr.

How to Create The Life You Want 

In this episode, we\’re going to be talking to Fred Stuvek, who wrote the book, Don’t F*** This Up!: How To Get What You Want In Life.

Welcome, Fred. How are you? 
I’m fine, Alicia.  
I\’m excited to have you here on the show. We talk about writing your own story, and we are writing our own story each day at a time hereWhy did you write the book, Don\’t F*** This Up!? 
I\’ve always spent a lot of time giving advice to people, particularly young people. It got to the point where people would say, “Where did you get that from? Did you write a book? I gave a talk to Marine Corps unit a while back. When I was done, several came up and said, “Where can I buy your book? I\’ve been urged by several people to write one. After I sold my business, I had the opportunity, it was on my bucket list. I always say, “I want to do this. I\’m going to do it, but I want you to write something that was a bit different and something that was going to help people give them guidance, direction, a sense of purpose so they can understand where they need to go and do it in the right way. 
You talked a little bit about the Marine Corps. Let\’s back up a bit and give the audience some context on who you are and what you\’ve been doing in your life and how you have the experience, the tips and the foresight to write a book? 
I was born in Morgantown, West VirginiaI grew up in Southwestern, Pennsylvania. We had four seasons there: football, basketball, track and baseball. I participated in all four seasons. I have a very big sports background. I decided to go to the Naval Academy. had a lot of offers for football and my parents wanted me to go elsewhere, but I decided to go to the Naval Academy much to their consternation. I played football there. I lead there as quarterback for three years. After that, I had the privilege of serving my country and I transitioned into the civilian world where I\’ve had a host of positions, both domestically and internationally. I was involved in an IPO. I\’ve started my own company up and sold it. Now, I wrote this book and I’m talking to you. 

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You have a whole bunch of experience. That\’s the giveback, especially when people get in their particular age and stage of their life is, I have all this experience, I\’ve done all these things. How can I give back? How can I pay it forward? Indeed, you\’re doing that with Don’t F*** This Up!: How To Get What You Want In Life. How are people effing things up? Are you seeing any patterns? 
Not with everybody, but if it\’s with any person, it\’s going to have a big impact on their life. One of the things in the book that is very important to my first chapter is belief. You have to believe in what you\’re doing and you have to be a good fit for it because otherwise, you have a mismatch. Let\’s say that you\’re doing something for the money, it\’s in sales and you\’re an introvert. You may do okay for a while but eventually, that mismatch is going to come back and haunt you later. That fit is very important too in that belief because there are going to be times in your life where you are challenged. 
I always say that the biggest issue or challenge in life is adversity. When you find something that you believe in and it\’s a good fit for you, that staunch belief will help you weather those storms, which will come and they all do. It\’s taken care of the lows and not get too excited during the highs. Many people do something for the wrong reasons. They do it because, “I want to get good money. My parents told me this. It\’s a fantastic job and it\’s cool.” Oftentimes, when I\’ve talked to a young person, I said, “Why do you want to do that? They go, “What do you mean?” I said, “Do you believe in it?” They said, “I think it’s okay.” My takeaway here is to find something that you believe in that\’s a good fit and get good at it. If you do that and persevere, your chances of doing well are much better than the other way around. 
Finding something you believe in and getting good at it. That\’s one of your tips. I know that your book specifically is for graduates and people who have a new lease on life or starting something new. In this particular reality that we\’re all in, in terms of COVID-19, I know a lot of people feel like the rug has been pulled up under their feet. There are people losing lives, obviously losing family members, losing jobs, financial adversity. What do you do when things look like they\’ve gone totally downhill? 
It\’s a matter of perspective. Don\’t hold a pity party for yourself. You think, “The world has created this series of events. It\’s raining down on us. We\’re in trouble.” Look at the class of 1916. What did they have coming? World War I, the Spanish flu, then the Great Depression, followed by World War II. If you look at that in terms of where we are and what has happened in the past, we were not in bad shape. This is something we\’re going to get through. It\’s a test. There\’s going to be a new norm at the end of it. Time and science will take care of it. 
The first thing is to take a deep breath, maintain a sense of perspective, be willing to suck it up and understand that, “It\’s not going to be easy, but I\’ll get through this.” You have to be realistic as well. For example, if you\’re looking for a job, it\’s going to take a little longer. The last thing is don\’t give up, persevere. What did Winston Churchill say? Never, ever, never give up. That\’s the type of mindset that you have to have. If you want something and you believe in it and you go for it, it will eventually happen. If you think about the people you know and somebody who wanted to do something, how many of those people that wanted itpushed for it and worked hard for it got what they wanted? Just about everybody. 
The ones that said, “This is not fair. You’ve got to get rid of the word, fair. Life isn\’t fair and you have to stop saying, “It\’s going to be all right. As a parent, you tell your child, It\’s going to be all right.” It is and it isn’t. It’s going to be all right if you work hard and do the right things and associate with good people. If you don\’t make good decisions and have good habits, it\’s not going to be all right. You can\’t go on lose control and expect the world to take care of you. 
[bctt tweet=\”You have to believe in what you\’re doing and be a good fit for it. Otherwise, that mismatch will come back and haunt you later. \” via=\”no\”]
What I\’m hearing you say is definitely go over the victim mindset and getting in a place where you create. Instead of being a victim of your circumstances, what does it look like to create your circumstances? I love that you give the historical context because we\’re in our reality and thinking about ourselves. It\’s important to have historical context that our parents and our ancestors had so much more things stacked up against them. Life is getting easier. Is gratitude something you talk about? 
People don\’t know how much you care until they see how much you care. The opportunity to express gratitude and to say, “Thank you,” can go a long way. sign of character is if you treat the janitor just like you treat the CEO or the president. I remember one time, I was in Istanbul with my son and there was a boy pulling a cart up, he had fruit and all these things on. He\’s going up the hill. It broke, all the fruit went down the hill, he got all upset. I went over and I spent about probably half an hour picking the fruit up, helping him get the cart up and people were looking at me clucking and shaking their head. That\’s not the right type of attitude. I think you need to help people because sometimes that could be you, your daughter, your son, your friend. Idoesn\’t cost you anything to say thank you. People like to be shown appreciation. We need to do more of that versus what\’s going on now. 
What are some of the other tips in terms of Don\’t F*** This Up!What\’s paramount? 
When I talked about fit, I think there are two issues there. Number one is alignment. You have to look at, “Iterms of the skillset for this job, for this vocation, for this sport, how do I fit in? How do my skillset and personality align with this? What are the gaps?” You have to fill in the gaps and you do that by 1 of 2 ways. You either number one, train for it and get better or number two, you develop coping strategies. If it doesn\’t match up good, then you should try something else. For example, if you want to be a professional golfer and you can\’t drive good, you can\’t putt good and you get nervous and can\’t get over that. You can still do it, but make it a hobby and do it on weekends. Don\’t try to make a living doing it. 
I see that idea of fit is important and alignment. You gave the golfing example. When you\’re not aligned with a profession or with a new circumstance or a new relationship, how can you tell that there isn\’t a fit or an alignment? 
The first thing is on Monday morning, you wake up and you go, Oh my goodnessI have to go to work. On Friday afternoonyou say, “Thank goodness, it\’s the end of the week or it’s Friday. If you dread going to work and you\’re happy leaving it, that\’s a good sign. That\’s more than a clue. That means that there\’s something that\’s off and you need to take care of that. How much of your time you spend at work? Maybe, a third of your life is at work. If you\’re miserable at work, then that affects your balance. That is going to spill over into other parts of your life. The last thing that you want that to do is to spill over in other parts of your life and affect other people because that has nothing to do with them if that\’s about you. Don\’t take it out on them. 
In that particular situation, if you\’re dreading to go to work on Monday morning and if you\’re completely thrilled that the week is over, what would you suggest for that person to do? 

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One of two things, you have to look at either a career change or maybe some type of arrangement on where you can fulfill a job enrichment. Maybe you like the profession and the industry, but you don\’t like what you\’re doing. Some people see it as a sign of weakness, but I see it as a sign of strength and courage. There\’s nothing wrong with asking someone for help. Go to your manager or your boss and say, “I don\’t particularly like this. I\’d like to do this. I\’d like to do that, be proactive. If it\’s a career change, then it depends on what\’s going on in your life. Do you have a family? Do you have children? Are there others who depend on you? That is a consideration because you have to keep that income stream intactYou can do it 1 of 2 ways. You can do this gradually or suddenly. Gradually is if you have responsibilities and you have other people that are depending on you. Then you come up with a plan and you take it a little bit at a time, but you have to get started. You can say later, “I\’m going to do that tomorrow or next week. That\’s called procrastination. As we all know, sometimes later becomes never. You have to take that first step. 
I know you cover discipline a lot in your book and that is something that I get to consistently work on. Have you heard her ever heard of StrengthsFinder or CliftonStrengthsIt\’s a 34element assessment and discipline is almost close to 34 for me. I saw my top five, which are superb. I’m like, “What are my bottom four?” Discipline being one of it. What are your thoughts on helping people create more discipline? 
They said discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment. You\’re not always motivated, so you have to be disciplined. For example, I work out every day. There are some days when I don\’t even feel like going. Those are the days that you need to go. You need to push yourself. In terms of how you develop discipline, I have a section in my book about how to develop discipline. The first thing that you have to do is you have to have goals because if you don\’t have goals, you don\’t know where you\’re going. Those goals give you a sense of direction like a GPS. 
Once you have your goals, then you have to come up with a process and a plan with objectives and timelines to get to them. You have to track that and you have to routinely assess it and adjust as needed. You have to develop good habits and make good decisions. All of that fits together. If you don\’t have a goal, if you don\’t have a process, if you don\’t have good habits and you\’re not willing to be flexible and you get discouraged easy, you\’re probably not going to be very disciplined, but you can be disciplined. Discipline is a skill that you can learn like anything else. 
It is indeed a skill. I definitely have goals and I achieve my goals. One of my top strengths is an activator. I like things happening very quickly. If it\’s a quick way to get there, I\’m good at delegating too. I delegate discipline. 
Thomas Jefferson saidThe only way to make a man or a person trustworthy is to trust them.” You have to be comfortable with letting go and you have to delegate. If you\’re in a leadership or management position, you have to know how to delegate and who to delegate to and how much overwatch you need and how much you don\’t because everybody idifferent. What motivates Alicia may be a deterrent or a demotivator to someone else. It\’s like with management or leadershipThere\’s no one size fits all. You have to adjust to the circumstances and the individual. 
What are some other tips in the book that you can share with our audience on how to not F this up? 
[bctt tweet=\”Don\’t wait until tomorrow to do the things you need to start doing now. \” via=\”no\”]
I talked about perseverance. I would say associate with good people. When I say good people, it doesn\’t have to be likeminded people, but it has to be people who are talking about goalsdreams and support you. One of the pitfalls that people get into is they associate with a likeminded group of people. They\’re in their little clique, they\’re texting each other when they\’re only 10 feet away, and they have their own little circle going and that\’s fine. As soon as they start to get outside, that may be going to night school or trying to do something, it interrupts a social schedule and becomes a problem. 
If you\’d have people like that, you don\’t have a circle, you have a cage. You have to get someone that supports you and can help lift you up not drag you down. It\’s also good to associate with different people and other people who may be have a contrarian opinion because once you get out in the workforce, that\’s one of the problems. Theshock the law as young people. They\’ve been in high school, they\’ve been in college, they\’re in their group. All of a sudden, they\’re thrown out to the real world, into the corporate world or wherever, and someone disagrees with them or doesn\’t like what they\’re doing. They have a real problem with that because they haven\’t been criticized much. They\’ve never had someone take issue with anything they did. They have problems with that. 
You have to be able to accept criticism because the only way you can get good is to get that feedback. I rememberone time I was in high school and it was week before a big game, I couldn\’t do anything. The coach is yelling at me, “You\’re not picking up the secondary quick enough. Your foot work is bad. Finally on Thursday, day before the game, I went up to the coach. I said, “Dad, what is wrong? He looked at me and said, “Son, don\’t worry when I yell at you, worry when I stop.” It\’s how you do. It has to be in the right way. It has to be done in a constructive way and it has to be done with the right tone of voice too, with the right type of person because you cannot criticize five people all the same way because everybody\’s different. Alicia, you look like you have pretty thick skin. They could say, “Alicia, this isn\’t working, you’ve got to do better.” You’re going to go, “That\’s fine. If this was maybe Anne, who\’s not that way, she might get upset. You have to treat everybody differently, but you have to be able to not only give the criticism but to take the criticism in the right way at the right time. 
Feedback is love. A part of life and growth, as you mentioned, is being able to receive feedback. If you\’re the giver of feedback, it\’s the tone. How do you phrase it? When you’re receiving it, let it sit with you, What is this person saying?” Everything in life is feedback. If someone is giving you feedback, this is an opportunity for you to grow. That\’s something important to look at. What else can you share with our audience? What are some of your favorite tips? 

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Another one would be if there\’s something that you want to do and it\’s something that’s on your bucket list, then go ahead and do it. Don\’t wait until tomorrow because sometimes you tend to put those things off. If there\’s something that you think that you need to do, start now because what does it say, “Today is tomorrow you worried about yesterday? I mentioned in the book one time, the issue of having an MBA came upI didn\’t think I needed an MBA, but I was in a meeting and somebody said, Stuvek, you have an MBA, don\’t you? That upset me. I left the meeting, I drove to school and I said, I\’m going to night school for an MBA. They said, “You have to take the GMAT. I said“Never mind, but I\’m starting tomorrow night.” You just show up and started taking the courses. Eventually, they let me in. It took me two years, but later I was glad I did it because when there was a position that came up, one of the requirements is an MBA. I\’ve always wondered, “What would\’ve happened if that box hadn’t been checked?” Don\’t put something off, get it done now, you\’ll be glad you did. Even if it takes a while, take one small step at a time. After a while, that all adds up like compound interest. The next thing you know, your bank\’s full. 
When you have the inspired thought, get into action because the time is going to be spent anyways, you might as well be doing it improving yourself and developing yourself. 
That\’s where the discipline comes in. You have to be disciplined and sometimes you have to do what you don\’t like or don\’t want to do. It\’s not always happy and joy. Sometimes it\’s tough and you’ve got to go through that, but sometimes it\’s not always the end result either. It\’s the journey and the process that makes you stronger and gets you there. You have to enjoy the journey as well. 
Tell us where we can find out more about you and your book? 
I have a website, it\’s FredStuvek.comI have my two books on there. I have blogs, articles, interviews, and podcastsIf you have any questions and you want to contact me, I\’m a keystroke away. 
Thank you, Fred. I appreciate you. 
Thank you, Alicia. 

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About Fred Stuvek Jr.

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Fred Stuvek Jr. has achieved extraordinary success in diverse realms. Born in West Virginia and raised in Pennsylvania, he has been inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame for achievements in football, basketball, baseball, and track. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy, after lettering three years as quarterback for the Midshipmen.

After service as a Naval Officer, he transitioned to the business world where he has held senior leadership positions in private and public companies, both domestically and internationally. Key successes include an international medical imaging start-up that led to a successful IPO, and forming a private medical services company, which he subsequently sold. From the playing field, to the war room, to the board room his leadership and accomplishments have given him a distinct perspective and a results-oriented mindset.

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Podcast Guest on Today\’s Leading Women

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I was personally invited by Marie Grace Berg, host of the top business podcast for women, Today\’s Leading Women, to be her podcast guest. Here are the highlights of the interview:

Biggest Challenges:

  • Being a single mom and starting a business during a recession.
  • Getting clients who are willing to pay you for what you\’re offering when you\’re just starting out.

Top 3 Business Advice/Tips:

  1. Play as big as you possibly can.
  2. Delegate tasks that you don\’t like doing.
  3. Have systems in place to streamline your business.

Listen to the full podcast interview here.

Categories
Blog General Business Guest Blog Podcast

Podcast Guest on Today\’s Leading Women

\"women-class-N-6-copy\"

I was personally invited by Marie Grace Berg, host of the top business podcast for women, Today\’s Leading Women, to be her podcast guest. Here are the highlights of the interview:

Biggest Challenges:

  • Being a single mom and starting a business during a recession.
  • Getting clients who are willing to pay you for what you\’re offering when you\’re just starting out.

Top 3 Business Advice/Tips:

  1. Play as big as you possibly can.
  2. Delegate tasks that you don\’t like doing.
  3. Have systems in place to streamline your business.

Listen to the full podcast interview here.

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Bestselling Author Alicia Dunams \”ALL IN: Elevating Your Leadership Game\” Podcast Series Makes iTunes New and Noteworthy

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Alicia Dunams, bestselling author and founder of Bestseller in a Weekend,her new podcast series ALL IN: Elevating Your Leadership Game  made it to the New and Noteworthy chart on iTunes. This distinction means that her podcasts have been highly downloaded and reviewed by iTunes listeners, and is a mark of quality.

 

ALL IN: Elevating You Leadership Game features interviews with leaders in business and global affairs to discuss what it takes to elevate your leadership game in today\’s modern world. The weekly podcast features a different thought leader offering a fun and informative glimpse into the business world.

 

Recent guests have included:
Alicia Dunams motivates thousands of entrepreneurs around the world to play big to produce the business results and life they want. She’s coached hundreds of entrepreneurs worldwide to write, publish and market their book during her acclaimed live Bestseller in a Weekend program, toted “Best Online Program Ever” by event participants. With her online course 60 Days to 6-Figures, Alicia guides her clients through the strategies of launching and managing a profitable online business that makes money ‘while you sleep.’ To learn more please visit wordpress-399429-2150085.cloudwaysapps.com