Monthly Archives: July 2014

Episode 92: Leadership and Trust | Wally Hauck, Author of The Art of Leading and Stop the Leadership Malpractice

Wally Hauck talks with us about leadership and trust.Wally Hauck is the author of two different books on leadership. One of the things Wally talks about extensively in this interview is leadership and trust. Trust between the manager and someone that person is managing. If you are interested in becoming a leader or you think you are in a leadership capacity in some different scenarios one of the things you really need to work on developing is trust. That is what I would like to highlight in this episode today: leadership and trust

Wally Hauck, PhD has a cure for the deadly disease known as the typical performance appraisal. He is also the author of two books, The Art of Leading: Principles for Predictable Performance Improvement and Stop the Leadership Malpractice: How to Replace the Typical Performance Appraisal.

Zeb’s Take – Leadership and Trust

Wally talked a lot about employees and how they engage with the workforce. One of the things in the interview that really struck me is the importance of building trust between managers and employees and the ways to do that. In a leadership position you are constantly making agreements with people and if you take on that leadership role you need to make sure that you are agreeable to those agreements; that you do the things that you say you are going to do. If you don’t it really erodes trust with the people that you are working with and it makes it much more difficult for them to accomplish the things that they want. If you don’t do what you say you are going to do, it makes it easier for them to not do the things they say they will do. Leadership and trust go hand in hand.

If you want your employees ,or the people that are working for you, or the people that you are leading to do something that you ask of them you need to be accountable to them just as much as they need to be accountable to you. I think that’s one of the biggest problems that leaders face is being able to overcome that.

Here’s a personal example. There’s a membership committee through my local chamber of commerce that I’m the head of. I have a plan in my head of these things I want to accomplish with each meeting. I want to send a follow up email after each meeting. I want to send an email before the event to let people know the event is taking place. Honestly, sometimes I forget. I’ll forget to send the email after the meeting or before the meeting or maybe I’m ill prepared when the event comes, maybe I don’t prepare as well as I usually do. I’ve realized that in those situations it erodes some trust. For me, it’s really important to develop procedures and processes so that I don’t forget to do those things, so that I’m someone who does the things they say they are going to do. So they can see my leadership and trust in me. The same thing in the mastermind group I’m in: I really want to come up with a structure for these mastermind sessions. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed or so busy that I forget to put those procedures in place.

Another great idea Wally talked about was developing a checklist. Not just a checklist for your employee or the person you are trying to lead, but for yourself as well. If you are accountable for everything that you are supposed to be accountable for it makes it much more likely that the people you are leading, if they see you are checking off all the things that you are responsible for, it’s much more likely they will be checking off all the things that they are responsible for.

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Now, go out there and find your success!

Find out more about Wally Hauck and his books

Visit WallyHauck.com and download his free research article about the process and the success that one of his clients has received.

Wally Hauck's book Stop Leadership Malpractice Wally Hauck's book The Art of Leading

Quotes

  • “This is how leaders still operate, and it drives me crazy. And I am here on this earth to change it. That’s why I’m passionate about it.”
  • “The leader has a huge impact on the environment which therefore has a big impact on the individual performance. Everything is a system. It’s all interconnected.”
  • “The root belief is people will not work if you don’t watch them and they won’t work if you don’t bribe them or threaten them, because they really don’t want to work — and that’s a bunch of bull.”
  • “Very often what leaders do is they look at the mistakes employees make and they blame the employee, and they’ve got to stop doing that.”
  • “We have an overabundance of bad leadership in the country. I’m sorry, I see it every single day. That’s why I’m passionate about looking for opportunities to stop it.”
  • “Always manage your agreements and help others to manage their agreements.”
  • “Make agreements with people and then keep it. That’s how you build trust. That’s a demonstration of integrity.”
  • “Success is optimization.”
  • “Optimization means you are doing the very best and there’s a balance. There’s a beautiful balance, where everything works beautifully together and you are optimizing the results that you are getting with the resources that are available to you.”
  • “I think I am providing a service with this replacement performance appraisal that could really change the world. I’m pretty excited about it.”

More from the Interview

Wally worked for a large company and after being promoted several times he began to wonder why he was so miserable there. One time he got a call for a large purchase order that he got excited about. He talked with his boss to work out some of the details, things were looking good. That week his company had an event and Wally got an award for his sales performance partially because of that large order, even though he hadn’t closed the deal yet. A few days later when the order was put on hold and didn’t go through he was berated by one of the high ups in his office and received a terrible performance review after that. He says, “ I went from a hero to a bum.”

“This is how leaders still operate, and it drives me crazy. And I am here on this earth to change it. That’s why I’m passionate about it.”

He began to do some research and reading. He read The Turning Point and it talked about systems thinking. It helped him answer why he was so upset. “Most organizations still today evaluate the individuals and they fail to take full account of how the environment impacts the performance and how the leader has a huge impact on the environment which therefore has a big impact on the individual performance. Everything is a system. It’s all interconnected.” He says, “It made so much sense to me.”

He did more reading and more research. Including learning from a couple people who studied from Dr. Deming, who taught about thinking in systems in Japan. Deming says that one of the deadly diseases for organizations is the performance appraisal.

Performance reviews can cause a lot of damage in areas that are needed for performance. It doesn’t accomplish what it is supposed to accomplish. Part of the reason that it doesn’t is because managers are not skilled at having open and honest conversations. But the main reason is that the employee gets a grade. When you get a grade in an organization that has dysfunctional departments that can impact your performance it just makes everyone hate the whole process.

“The root belief is people will not work if you don’t watch them and they won’t work if you don’t bribe them or threaten them, because they really don’t want to work — and that’s a bunch of bull.”

“The whole thing is based on flawed assumption and we’ve got to do away with it if we are really going to survive in the global economy now.”

Frederick Taylor designed the system that is commonly used today, scientific management. It worked great in the 1800s, but that’s 140 years ago. 140 years ago factory work was menial tasks. Frederick Taylor was going to go into a factory and teach the best way to do these simple tasks and if they don’t do it right they aren’t going to get paid, or get a bonus, and if they keep doing it they’ll get fired. The work was simple easy repeatable tasks for uneducated employees. That is rarely the case today.

Some unintended consequences of performance reviews are that they damage trust and engagement in the workplace. People start to hide things, they don’t tell the truth, or they hold information back.

He says, performance reviews are a tool used by 80-90% of organizations today and it closes down open and honest communication. I think that’s an outrage.

He designed a replacement for the typical performance review that he calls the complete performance improvement process, or CPIP. You have a meeting with an employee, but there is no grade, instead you create a partnership with the manager and the employee to improve the interpersonal communication between the two of them and others and the system interactions within the department and between the departments.

The manager is the judge and the employee is the judged, in the typical appraisal.

In the typical performance appraisal the manager is looking at the employee and saying here’s what you’re doing right and here’s what you’re doing wrong. And they are doing it with incomplete information and they are doing it with a bias, so it never comes out right. Instead, what if the two of you came together looked at the quality of the interactions between you and said, how can we make our interactions better? How can we make our communication better? How can we make our system better? How can we improve our processes between the two of us? So you are partnering to work on the interactions not trying to fix the people.

Wally Hauck on the performance appraisal“The first things leaders need to do is to realize that they impact the environment or the context in which people work. Very often what leaders do is they look at the mistakes employees make and they blame the employee, and they’ve got to stop doing that.”

Leaders should ask three questions:
1. What process is not working?
2. What is the first 15% of that process?
3. How can you improve the first 15% of the process?

By asking those three questions you change the process and the performance gets better.

“Leaders are doing stupid things, causing the bad behavior, and then blaming the employee for it.”

“We have an overabundance of bad leadership in the country. I’m sorry, I see it every single day. That’s why I’m passionate about looking for opportunities to stop it.”

What makes a great leader is a few things. One is, understand that they create an environment of performance or dysfunction, and if there is dysfunction it is probably something in the environment. Number two, they have to know how to build trust. Three, you have shared objectives. Four, you are confident in what needs to be done.

“What I want leaders to do is I want them to manage trust in every interaction they do with their staff, their employees, the people they want to lead. This is something everyone can do.”

There are values issues and systems issues. Values issues are behaviors, such as behaving with integrity and treating people with respect, that’s the foundation of performance. They must always look at themselves and ask, am I keeping my word with my employees and am I making agreements and keeping them; am I setting the right role model for the behavior that I’m looking for from employees?

“Always manage your agreements and help others to manage their agreements.”

“Make agreements with people and then keep it. That’s how you build trust. That’s a demonstration of integrity.”

An agreement is specific, it has 4 elements: it’s specific, it’s measurable, it’s time sensitive and there’s a predictable process.

Wally Hauck on the performance appraisal“Success is optimization.”

“Being fully engaged. You want profitability, you want passion, you want engagement, but it’s optimization — is really what success for me is about. it can’t just be one area that defines success.”

“Optimization means you are doing the very best and there’s a balance. There’s a beautiful balance, where everything works beautifully together and you are optimizing the results that you are getting with the resources that are available to you.”

“I think I am providing a service with this replacement performance appraisal that could really change the world. I’m pretty excited about it.”

 

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Episode 91: Unplug to Overcome Technology Obsession | Travis Cody, Author of Cure Overwhelm Now

Travis Cody Author of Overwhelm Cure - Overcome Technology ObsessionTravis Cody is the author of the book Cure Overwhelm Now where he talks about his experience with technology obsession and removing himself from all technological devices for 30 days. He talks about all the different ways that we are being overwhelmed. These technological devices are taking up and absorbing too much of our energy, time, and they are causing us a lot of stress.

Travis Cody’s greatest joy in life is showing stressed out, overwhelmed people how to find the time to actually live their lives and pursue their dreams. He is the creator of The Overwhelm Cure. After surviving his 30 Day experiment without modern technological devices, he now shows others how to live a life they love.

Zeb’s Take – Overcome Technology Obsession

I had a great time talking to Travis today. Travis is very excitable. I really liked all the stuff he was saying and how he was able to break his technology obsession and take himself away from all those technological devices for 30 days. I know there’s no way currently that I could make that happen although it does sound pretty appealing. To be able to break away, especially in this fast paced world that we live in. When I’m doing internet marketing, I’m managing it for a variety of different businesses so I’m always posting and responding to Facebook posts and Twitter posts. I have to be pretty active and present there, it does become very overwhelming. I can definitely see the value in wanting to break away from that for a while.

Travis brought up the point that we need to set time aside to unplug from our mobile devices and just take a step away. Do things we would normally do without being attached to our smart phones. He brought up the point that, talking with teenagers, if you take away a phone or other device from a teenage they go berserk because nowadays people are just attached to these devices. When I was younger, I’m 33 years old now, you didn’t have a cell phone, you didn’t have this technology that you carried around with you. Now it is completely different.

I think that technology is going to be more and more incorporated in our lives. I think technology is great. I’m a big advocate of technology, especially in cases where we are using it in social interactions and creating new connections. Technology obsession, dependency is one thing and using it to have an impact, make a Cure Overwhelm Now Book by Travis Codydifference is another. I think sometimes people fall into the dependency state of having these mobile devices and not so much using them to impact the world to make the world a better place. As a society we need to realize our technology obsession, come together and educate others on the difference between using these devices in an appropriate way and in an inappropriate way. I’m just as guilty of this as much as anyone else. If you go out to a restaurant you see half the people there on their mobile phone not talking with other people, not engaging with their surroundings. That’s one of the downsides of this technology and it’s something we need to be conscious of.

It is also important to step away because it does help clear your mind. When you have all these things bombarding you: messages, beeping, phone calls, and all that stuff, it is important to step away. De-stress, clear your mind so that when you do go back to work you are more focused, more determined and you will have a larger chance at success, a larger chance to do something worthwhile.

It was a blast talking with Travis today.

For our listeners, we are creating a Facebook Course. We are going to walk people through Facebook, beginning to end, how I do it for businesses. If you are interested in finding out more about this course contact me, since you are a listener I want to do something special for you, so send me an email and let me know you are interested and I put together a deal for you. Zeb@WelbornMedia.com

Find out more about Travis cody and his book Cure Overwhelm Now

Visit CureOverwhelmNow.com and find his book at bookstores.

QuotesTechnology Obsession

  • “If there is ever something where you are engaged in it and you just sort of lose all sense of time and things are just going, that’s the flow. When something happens to interrupt that, […] you lose that flow state and getting back to that point is really difficult.”
  • “80% of your stress is completely fictional. You are not as stressed out as you think you are.”
  • “Most people could get rid of most of their stress if they would just learn how to manage their technology, particularly their cell phones, Facebook, and email.”
  • “People have this really weird belief that they have to answer the email. That they have to, they can’t ignore the email, even if it’s just for a couple hours.”
  • “I don’t know when it happened, but in the last 4 or 5 years there’s been this strange shift where the idea of having boundaries has completely evaporated.”
  • “People really kind of feel like, if I text you, you owe me a response immediately. In some weird way it’s like, this ownership– I’m owning your time right now. Same with email: if you don’t email me back within an hour that means you hate me. It’s ridiculous, but that is what I am finding with a lot of people.”
  • “There is so much power and potential to [technology], but we just don’t know what to do with it. We are completely wasting it. In some ways we are just collision coursing our own lives through the amount of wasted time we are having.”
  • “Live life on your own terms instead of being run from pillar to post by everyone else.”
  • “We need a bit of creativity in order to fix the problems we’re creating for ourselves and, at the same time, we are creating a generation of people that don’t know how to even daydream. It has scary implications for the future.”

More from the Interview

After college Travis Cody moved to LA and did some work in the film industry. Worked at Universal Studios before doing development work and writing for producer Jonathan Crane. He did that for about 10 years. Then his first book came out and he had a little success there. That’s when he branched out and started doing independent production and writing on his own. He has a couple best-selling books and is currently working on a documentary.

The first book was Celebrity Rules(!), it was a humor book making fun of celebrity culture.

Cure Overwhelm Now, the jump from Celebrity Rules to Cure Overwhelm Now… how do you make that…

The idea for Cure Overwhelm Now came from an experiment he did on himself. When he was still working with Jonathan Crane he was maxed out capacity wise. It didn’t matter how much time he put in in the office or at home, in fact, it seemed like the harder he worked the further behind he got. He was at a seminar, the speaker started talking about this concept of pattern interrupt. Which is when you are in one of those moments, the flow state. If there is ever something where you are engaged in it and you just sort of lose all sense of time and things are just going, that’s the flow. When something happens to interrupt that, you lose that flow state and getting back to that point is really difficult.

That whole concept of the interruption causing him to be less productive. He started to monitor himself. He started to make a mark every time he reached for his cell phone. After a couple hours he was surprised with how many marks he made. What he realized was that it wasn’t that he was stressed and didn’t have enough time, it was that he was allowing these cool gadgets take over. He turned off the ringer on his phone and his productivity went way up.

Then he thought, “what if I just turn everything off.”

At that time he had a project fall through and was going to have some downtime for about 5 weeks. He decided to do it. He turned off his cell phone, computer, internet, TV, radio and Xbox. He wanted to find out if someone could function in today’s society, especially in a place like Los Angeles, with nothing other that a landline.

It ended up being a hugely transformative month for him. He did a lot of research on technology obsession and addiction and about the neuroscience of what our interaction with Google and our cell phone is doing physically in the way that we process our information. Six months later he ran into a publisher who had heard about the experience and offered Travis a book deal. That’s how the book came about.

The book is a day-by-day diary so you can see what is going through his head in the moment. Then there is the looking back on it with what he knows now and how does that reflect on the experience he had. Then there is a lot of research in there to validate the points that he’s making.

“80% of your stress is completely fictional. You are not as stressed out as you think you are.”
Most people could get rid of most of their stress if they would just learn how to manage their technology, particularly their cell phones, Facebook, and email.

“People have this really weird belief that they have to answer the email. That they have to, they can’t ignore the email, even if it’s just for a couple hours. That idea is so foreign to them. Same with text messaging.”

“There’s been this sort of weird unwritten rule that if I don’t respond to a text message immediately then it means something.”

“I don’t know when it happened, but in the last 4 or 5 years there’s been this strange shift where the idea of having boundaries has completely evaporated.”

He shares, going back to my Celebrity Rules book, there’s this weird thing about if you are a celebrity we feel like we own you. Now with cell phones people really kind of feel like, if I text you, you owe me a response immediately. In some weird way it’s like, this ownership– I’m owning your time right now. Same with email: if you don’t email me back within an hour that means you hate me. It’s ridiculous, but that is what I am finding with a lot of people.

When I unplugged everything the most difficult thing to get out of was having the cell phone. The first few days of getting in my car and driving around I felt so awkward and weird because I just didn’t have a phone on me.

One of the experiences Travis remembers is dinner with his friends. They would get together every Monday. Their first dinner after Travis cut off his technology his friends said they noticed that his energy had changed, they said that he was just so zenned out. It shocked Travis, it had only been three days, the only thing he changed was taking away the technology and everyone noticed a difference in him.

He says, I saw more of the city of Los Angeles in 30 days than I had in the entire 15 years I’ve lived here. I ended up being more social. I actually made more new friends in 30 days than I had the previous 4 years.

“The amount of time that I had was astounding to me.”

He bumped into a neighbor, found out they were an opera singer, got invited to a performance. He met a few of her friends and expanded his social circle with 6 new people.

He stumbled upon a Japanese garden and found a crazy weird motorcycle event going on people were doing tricks in the parking lot.

He says, the first day he plugged back in was miserable. He checked his email, his shoulders hurt, he had a headache, he was really grouchy and impatient, he forgot to eat. He realized that the majority of his emails were completely pointless. “Within a week I was right back to where I was before.”

After some time he came up with a system in his own personal life so that it wasn’t completely overwhelming. That’s what led to the principles in his book.

“There is so much power and potential to [technology], but we just don’t know what to do with it. We are completely wasting it. In some ways we are just collision coursing our own lives through the amount of wasted time we are having.”

logoTo overcome technology obsession:

Don’t sleep with your cell phone next to your bed. Leave it in another room or across the room. Don’t check your email/facebook/texts first thing in the morning. Travis encourages you not to check your phone or email until you get to the office if you can. Or wait two hours after you wake up. Set up a specific time to check email one or two hours a day. Those two things will minimize the amount of stress you are feeling in life. You will be more productive, you will have more free time.

“Live life on your own terms instead of being run from pillar to post by everyone else.”

The first thing someone with a technology obsession should do is move your phone across the room when you are asleep. Then progress from there to where you are not checking anything the first few hours of the day and the last hour before you go to bed.

One of the more advanced techniques that Travis sometimes recommends is a Technology fast. Where you choose, even if it’s just for a few hours, to turn everything completely off.

“There is something to be said for allowing your brain time to process the events of the week.”

When he asked a professor what the biggest difference in his students was over the last 15 years the professor said that his students didn’t know how to daydream. The are constantly distracted by technology. To solve problems you need to show some creativity and we are creating a generation of people who don’t know how to daydream. He says, it has scary implications for the future.

For me success is having a life where I am able to do the things that I love and enjoy to do when I want to do them without the pressures of worrying about where is the money coming from or is there someone I have to answer to.

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To The Listeners of The Defining Success Podcast

listenThank you for listening to the Defining Success Podcast. Today I want to interview you! That’s right you, the listener of the Defining Success Podcast.

This week on The Defining Success Podcast Facebook page I’m going to ask all of you, the listeners, questions that I often ask guests on the show. Take advantage of it this week! It would mean a lot to me. I think it would mean a lot to others, you’d be helping people and exposing them to your thoughts on success, passion, commitment and taking action.

Go to our Facebook page and join in!

More from this Episode of the Defining Success Podcast

When I started this podcast over a year ago I had no idea what to expect. I just sort of jumped right in. One of the questions I wanted to ask people was to define success; ask what does success mean. The very first person I interviewed, although it’s not the first episode (I think it’s episode 7), was Vic Braden. I actually didn’t even know I was going to be doing a podcast. I interviewed him. I recorded it with my cell phone, so if you’ve heard that episode of the Defining Success Podcast it’s pretty poor sound quality. I wasn’t trying to be conversational at all. I was planning on writing it up for a blog, but he told some pretty remarkable stories.

He led an amazing life. He was a tennis coach, world-famous. One of the first people to travel to China after China opened their doors to the western world. He says, ping pong led the way to China and then it was Vic Braden. I wanted to see what he defined as success. Someone that I found to be so successful, you know, what did he think success was. That is why I started the Defining Success Podcast. That is why I ask the last question and always make it the same. Define Success, what is success for you?

Now that I’ve been able to interview so many different people. I feel so blessed and grateful for the fact that, through this process, I’ve been able to meet so many amazing people that I would have never encountered otherwise. I also wanted to make sure it was valuable for the people out there listening. People like you!

Defining Success Podcast with Zeb Welborn

In today’s episode I really want to address you and address what it is you would like to get out of the Defining Success Podcast. I think success is defined by people. People that make decisions and take action. I really want to highlight those people, and I want to highlight people in completely different fields. That was the original intention. I could get people that have careers, jobs that they love. Like my dad, he was a journalist for the Orange County Register (He recently retired.) He absolutely loved what he did as a reporter and going to work everyday. He loved talking to people. He just found the career that he loved and knew that he was meant to be in. He did an excellent job as a reporter. I admire him greatly for that.

Then there are other people that I’ve met. Business owners that are going out there and making their own business happen. They’re doing some really amazing remarkable things. By showing business owners, people in careers that they love, by showing this wide array of people– I think there is something there that everyone can latch on to. Each of these individual stories could probably connect with someone out there listening and maybe influence them in a way that is promoting them, making them feel better about themselves, that is making them want to take action on the things being said in these interviews.

When I first started listening to podcasts it kind of felt like my head was exploding… I just had all these different ideas running through my head. I was getting so excited and amped up about the possibilities. From that point, taking action to do things was so much easier. Just because I was so excited about these new ideas and opportunities that I could experiment with and that I could try.

The people that I’m interviewing, I’m trying to bring them in. So they can share their wisdom on things that get them excited and pumped up because that is something that would connect with any one listening to this podcast. Trying to find those tidbits, those little nuggets of information, that make your head explode with all these different ideas. I want to make sure that we’re achieving the mission and the purpose of this podcast.

If you are listening to this podcast today, I want you to pretend that I’m interviewing you. I want you to reach out to me on our Facebook page. The Defining Success Podcast on Facebook. If you’ve been listening regularly, you know that I try to keep the interview light-hearted with a conversational tone. I ask questions in each episode of The Defining Success Podcast. Often the questions are fairly similar, and there are recurring questions that come up in many interviews.

I’d like to give each of you an opportunity to define your success. This week I’m going to post questions that I would normally ask guest on the show, but this time I’m going to be asking you. I’d like for you to go to our Facebook page and answer those questions so that we can generate a discussion about what success means, how we define it, how do we get it, and also to learn a little bit more about you and what you do.

I want the people that listen to this podcast — I want them to be able to connect with each other and share their thoughts.

Here are some of the questions that we might be asking:

What was your life like before you started on the current career path that you’re in?
Get a little background information. Tell us about yourself and what you were doing before you started your current career.

What is one of the biggest mistakes you’ve made and what did you learn from it?
This question gives a great opportunity for you to share a mistake you’ve made, something you’ve learned, and provide value for other people that are checking out that post on the Facebook page.

What is the biggest success you’ve had?
Maybe something that you’ve done that you’d like to share.

What are some personal examples or stories of something that occurred in your business that altered the shape or path of your business?

There are many other questions.

Obviously the last question is to define success. What makes someone successful? Do you consider yourself to be successful.

This week: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday Friday. I’m going to be posting those questions as if I’m interviewing you for the Defining Success Podcast. Then everyone who is listening, let’s share our thoughts and ideas on what it is that defines our success and we can get a chance to get to know each other. It’s a really great opportunity.

Take advantage of it this week. It would mean a lot to me. I think it would mean a lot to helping other people, exposing other people to your thoughts on success, passion, commitment and taking action.

Click here Defining Success Podcast on Facebook

Thanks for listening! Now go out there and find your success.

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Episode 90: Adversaries into Allies | Bob Burg, Best-Selling Author & Convention Speaker

Author of Adversaries into AlliesBob Burg is my very first repeat guest on the Defining Success Podcast. The first time he was on we talked about his book, the Go Giver (Episode 22). That was over a year ago and he’s back today to talk to us about his new book, Adversaries into Allies: Win People Over Without Manipulation or Coercion. Bob is an expert at influencing people so that it’s a win-win situation for everyone.

Bob Burg is a sought after speaker at corporate conventions and for entrepreneurial events. He has addressed audiences ranging in size from 50 to 16,000 – sharing the platform with notables including today’s top thought leaders, broadcast personalities, Olympic athletes and political leaders including a former U.S. President.

Zeb’s Take – Addressing Your Adversaries

It was a real pleasure talking with Bob again. In his new book, Adversaries into Allies, that is something that really hits home with me. There’s a lot of people that you come into contact with, someone does have decision making power in your life. Having the ability to turn those adversaries into allies is a very important skill to have. And, it is something that can be acquired.

I didn’t realize this, jumping into business, I hadn’t encountered many true adversaries in the teaching profession. But I did encounter the situation when I went into the business world. I can think of two distinct examples:

One was a manager at a golf course where I was working. When he came in, it was very clear that he was not interested in social media and how social media worked, when I was working for him. Immediately, I saw him as an adversary and I didn’t make any outreach or any effort to try to turn him into an ally. I basically just avoided the situation and that was to my detriment. I learned a very valuable lesson from that: you need to be proactive in turning people who do have that influence and power or who are involved in your life in some way and try to change and correct that to make things better.

80 Bug, she is the one who wrote the theme song for The Defining Success Podcast. When we met, it started as a situation where I could have seen her as an adversary. But, I didn’t. It was because of that situation with that general manager that I decided to act in a different way. She is one of my biggest supporters now, and I’m one of her biggest supporters too. I think she is a phenomenal person who does really great things. That is one thing I think a lot of people need to look at.

Nobody out there is intentionally trying to be harmful to other people. It’s usually the perception that people have of how people are interacting with each other that drives them to think that other people are thinking negatively or poorly of them. That’s just something that I think is a powerful idea that Bob has written his book about. It’s an idea that I’m excited I got to share about with all you listeners here on The Defining Success Podcast. Thanks for listening!

Now go out there and find your success!

Find out more about Bob Burg and his book, Adversaries into Allies

Visit Burg.com! You can download Chapter 1 of several of his books for free on the site to see if you like them.

Bob Burg's book Adversaries into Allies

Quotes

  • “Unless you can influence others; move people to the appropriate and desired action, obtaining really really huge success is difficult.”
  • “I believe that combining benevolent intent as well as a learned skill set you can really find yourself constantly, consistently and even predictably obtaining both personal and business satisfaction while adding exceptional value to everyone whose lives you touch.”
  • “This is what I call that ultimate influence. The ability to get the results you want from others while helping people feel genuinely good about themselves, about the situation and about you.”
  • “We need to be able to work with these people in a way that is able to move them from an adversarial situation to one where we’re both working together towards a common goal.”
  • “When you take an adversary and turn them into an ally they often become your most loyal allies.”
  • “Assuming someone is going to be helpful doesn’t change them, it changes you, and that’s what changes them.”
  • “It’s only when you are in control of yourself and your emotions that you are even in a position to be able to take a potentially negative situation or person and turn it into a win for all involved.”
  • “The ego can be very harmful when it controls us. When we’re in control of our ego we can use it and steer it, utilize it to accomplish great things.”
  • “If you set the frame you can do more to evolve the situation into a positive win-win situation. It’s up to you to set the positive frame.”

More from the Interview

Bob has his new book, Adversaries into Allies, out and that’s what he’s spent most of his time on since our last interview with him. He says, “Nothing changes with me. It only gets more so.”

This book is one that Bob has really wanted to write for a long time. He says, it’s a message that he wanted to share in a more formal way than he has in the past. At this point most people realize that you can have all the positive success traits. However, unless you can influence others; move people to the appropriate and desired action, obtaining really really huge success is difficult.

Bob believes that combining benevolent intent as well as a learned skill set you can really find yourself constantly obtaining both personal and business satisfaction while adding exceptional value to everyone whose life you touch. He calls that ultimate influence. The ability to get the results you want from others while helping people feel genuinely good about themselves, about the situation and about you. It’s about mastering people skills. How often do we see someone who has a lot of those traits we mentioned and they just seem to be passed over, by that person who just seems to have that knack with others. They are likable, attract people to their ideas, and seem to be able to elicit buy-in and agreement from people.

He says, we do have to understand that there are people who stand in the way of our personal and business satisfaction, but we need to be able to work with these people in a way that is able to move them from an adversarial situation to one where we’re both working together towards a common goal.

It’s being able to take that situation and working it in such a way that both parties feel great about each other, great about themselves, and the situation works itself out so that both people win.

“When you take an adversary and turn them into an ally they often become your most loyal allies.”

It can be long term. It can be short term. There’s a time I was in a parking lot, I wasn’t paying much attention, as I pulled into a parking space I nearly clipped a guy getting out of his car. He reacted with a nasty look, if looks could kill. Rather than let my ego fall into that and allow myself to buy into his frame I smiled and waved through the windshield and mouthed the word sorry. Immediately the guy dropped the look and said, No problem.

When you don’t buy into that frame but instead you decide to reset that frame it really can be such a simple matter. It doesn’t mean that’s going to happen everytime, but it happens most of the time.

Assuming someone is going to be helpful doesn’t change them, it changes you, and that’s what changes them. When you assume they are going to be the way you want them to be you have gratitude for that and they are tapping into the energy of your gratitude and they feel good about you and because of that they take on that very quality.

5 Key Principles of Ultimate Influence

  1. Control your own emotions
    It’s only when you are in control of yourself and your emotions that you are even in a position to be able to take a potentially negative situation or person and turn it into a win for all involved. We like to think we are logical and to an extent we are. We make major decisions based on emotion and then we back those decisions up with logic.
  2. Understand the clash of belief systems
    A belief is a subjective truth. It’s a truth as we understand it to be. As human beings we all see the world through our own filter. It’s a combination of every experience we’ve ever had. It’s not conscious. We don’t necessarily need to understand their belief system, but simply be aware of it. Understand that there is a clash, that both of you are most likely coming at this from an entirely different world view.
  3. Acknowledge their ego
    Realize that if this other person is saying or doing something that is not constructive, but is counter productive or hurtful, even to their own good, there’s a good chance their ego has taken over. The ego can be very harmful when it controls us. When we’re in control of our ego we can use it and steer it, utilize it to accomplish great things. We need to know that this person that may be controlled by their ego, know that we’re dealing with something that’s not based on logic, but is ego driven.
  4. Set the proper frame
    A frame is simply the foundation from which everything else evolves. In any potentially negative situation, a frame will be set. The only question is, who is going to set that frame? If you allow them to set the frame, it’s just luck. If you set the frame you can do more to evolve the situation into a positive win-win situation. It’s up to you to set the positive frame.
  5. Communicate with tact and empathy
    Communicating with tact and empathy brings it all home. It’s so important. My dad has always defined tact as the language of strength. People make mistakes, we need to be able to teach. We need to do it in a way where people aren’t sensitive to it and resistant to us but they are open to us. This only happens through tact. Empathy is a way of being able speaking with tact. Do your best to put yourself in this person’s shoes and say, how is this person going to feel if I speak to them like this.

These principles work together naturally.

The book explains about each of these principles in Chapter 1. Then the rest of the book is just scenarios where people can see themselves in situations (past, current or future) and then they have the words, phrasing, and correct attitude to handle them properly. Sometimes they really are adversaries, other times it’s just situational.

Bob picks his parents as the most successful people he knows. They have a successful marriage, a family that adores them, and they are very happy and content with their lives.

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Episode 89: Use a Media Kit to Stand Out | Farnoosh Brock, President of Prolific Living

Farnoosh Brock used a media kit to stand out.Farnoosh Brock is the author of several books. She has two put out by a traditional publisher. They are The Healthy Juicer’s Bible and The Healthy Smoothie Bible. Today she is going to talk to us about a variety of different topics, mostly about getting a book published, how that whole process works and her tips and ideas on how to market books including using a media kit.

Farnoosh spends her time writing and running the Prolific Living blog, as well as Prolific Juicing, Fast Track Promotion for career warriors and Smart Exit Blueprint for entrepreneur-wanna-be spirits. She writes books, talks about empowering your life with your own choices and re-inventing yourself with positivity, enthusiasm and the right guidance.

Zeb’s Take – Create and Use a Media Kit to Stand Out

I had a really good time today talking with Farnoosh. You can really that she’s an enthusiastic person, excited about life, and really knows the direction and purpose, where she wants to take it. She seems very happy to me as well. That’s what I want for all the listeners. I want you all to be happy and excited about the work you’re doing just like I do, just like like Farnoosh does.

One of the things that Farnoosh brought up that I want to focus on is the media kit that she talked about. She created a media kit for her book and sending them out. The reason why I want to talk about it is because, you can apply the concept of a media kit, you don’t have to just do it for books, you can literally do a media kit for anything.

Farnoosh, she reached out to me, she had talked to Jared Easley who does the Starve the Doubts podcast, he introduced her to me. She sent me, basically like a media kit email sharing here’s who I am, here’s what I’m about, Jared says you’d be a great person to talk to and a great show to be on. It really introduced her and myself and it made me feel comfortable with her, especially with the introduction through Jared, to have her on the podcast.

Creating those media kits really helps to open the door to new opportunities. Instead of sending out an email that seems like a mass email or an impersonal email, by sending out a digital media kit you can really start to introduce yourself to different people or different influencers that you want to try to get a hold of.

One of my friends wanted to become a landscape architect. Apparently, typically, to do that you sign on with a firm that does landscape architecture. At the time he graduated college with a degree and could not find a job. I understand that there aren’t really jobs out there, but you need to be proactive about it. My suggestion to him was to create some sort of media kit about himself that would demonstrate his expertise. For him I was thinking more of a physical copy, maybe not so much a digital one. I’m not sure how landscape architecture works, but I’m sure they do some designs and do work projects, maybe he could do a work project and show them a design of his own and hand that off to them. Instead of giving a resume show the actual work that you are willing to do. That’s a form of a media kit that can really open up doors. You can do it for your career. If you are looking for potential clients, you can use a kit to reach out and introduce yourself to businesses as well. There’s just so many different functions and uses that you can use a media kit for that I don’t think a lot of people think of.

One of the books I read was by John Jantsch, The Referral Engine. In the book he says there’s a lot of really cool things you could do to make yourself stand out in front of people. One of the things he did was send a rubik’s cube to a bunch of place with a little note attached to it explaining who he was and his business and there was a reason why he used a rubik’s cube, I don’t remember the example, but it was a very inexpensive way, it was something memorable, that people can look at and say oh yeah I remember that guy he sent me the rubik’s cube. It worked out really well for him and his business. There’s so many other opportunities like that out there if you think about that. I think Farnoosh did a great job with her media kit and sending them out so I wanted to share that with you today.

Thanks for listening. Check us out on Facebook, say hi. I love talking with our listeners, it makes me happy.

Now go out there and find your success!

Find out more about Farnoosh Brock and the Prolific Living Blog

Visit ProlificLiving.com. It connects to all her blogs, see her about page, and there she has a free confidence building course that you can download. Visit Fast Track Promotion. Find Farnoosh on social media usually with ‘Prolific Living’

She encourages you all to connect with her. Let her know that you found her through Zeb at The Defining Success Podcast.

Prolific Living

Quotes

  • “The more I went deeper into my corporate career, and I was making more money, I had more flexibility, more perks… the more unhappy I became. I was forced to start looking outside.”
  • “I started blogging. It started out as a hobby. The more I did it the more I feel in love with writing, with social media, with doing something on my own, with the creativity process […] It was like a magnet Zeb, it kept pulling me.”
  • “It’s been a really wonderful but hard journey.”
  • “I am willing to bet that some of the best decisions you have ever made weren’t logical analytical numbers-driven decisions. Your heart came into play and told you, ‘you are doing this!’”
  • “It didn’t matter how much money I was making. I had to know this unknown or else regret it.”
  • “If you have something to say. If you want to write a book. Start writing today. You have so many options now. It’s so wonderful, we live in this age, so many options to get it out there.”
  • “You don’t know what obstacles will come your way. Life has a unique story for all of us. Not all of it is fair or just, but a successful person will turn those circumstances around.”
  • “I was finally gutsy enough to go past my fears and really take a risk and do something that I wanted to do for a long time. I feel that it has made all the difference in my life.”

farnoosh       farnoosh2

More from the Interview

Farnoosh used to be in engineering. She did a lot of highly technical, highly stressful work. She worked for a start-up then a big fortune 100 technology company, she was doing technical support for huge companies fixing their broken networks. She then moved on to technical writing, project management, process improvement, sales operations, executive communications. She got a lot of wonderful experience working in many different areas in a corporate job.

Today she does something entirely different.

“It wasn’t gradual or over-night. It was a sort of hunger that was growing, or an itch that I just couldn’t scratch.” I had great experience. I worked with great people. There were things in the corporate world that I wasn’t crazy about, but I didn’t understand myself and my own strengths and, more than anything, the possibilities for a career for someone like me, so that I could better fulfill that hunger or scratch that itch. The more I went deeper into my corporate career, and I was making more money, I had more flexibility, more perks… the more unhappy I became. So, I was forced to start looking outside.”

“I started blogging. It started out as a hobby. The more I did it the more I feel in love with writing, with social media, with doing something on my own, with the creativity process […] It was like a magnet Zeb, it kept pulling me in this direction.”

She attended a conference, Blog World. She met amazing people who were doing meaningful work with their lives. She felt inspired. Meanwhile at her job, she was being asked to do a project that she had a moral conflict with. Those two forces made Farnoosh reconsider her path, really look at the future, really think about what she was doing, really take some action. Within 6 months she resigned and started her own company.

“It’s been a really wonderful but hard journey.”

“I am willing to bet that, some of the best decisions you have ever made weren’t logical analytical numbers-driven decisions. Your heart came into play and told you, ‘you are doing this!’”

She’s hired her husband and they have a profitable business. They figured it out.

“It didn’t matter how much money I was making. I had to know this unknown or else regret it later in life.”

Farnoosh Brock's Books, The Healthy Juicer’s Bible and The Healthy Smoothie BibleThe Healthy Juicer’s Bible, Farnoosh’s first traditionally published book, came about because of her self-published book on The Comprehensive Green Juicing Guide. It’s about taking people step-by-step through why and how they can do their own juicing, and several recipes. It was a quick process from putting the content together to being put on shelves. It did well.

Most aspiring authors expect the publisher to do all the publication, marketing, work and they just do the writing. Farnoosh saw her relationship with the publisher as more of a partnership. She collaborated with them and they worked heavily to market the book. The repeated the process for her second book, The Healthy Smoothie Bible.

Her advice: “If you have something to say. If you want to write a book. Start writing today. You have so many options now. It’s so wonderful, we live in this age, so many options to get it out there.”

Build a media kit. It makes it easy for your reviewers to give shout outs for your book. In Farnoosh’s media kit she included phrases and text they could share on Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, as well as email templates that they can send to their lists, and pictures that they use where ever they like.

Pick some early reviewers. Farnoosh tapped into her network and found some new people that would be interested in the book. They got a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review, a shout-out to their audience, or maybe even just for them to get use out of it to start a relationship.

A media kit shows you as a professional author who has a good sense of your book and how to communicate your book. It shares a description of the book. The launch date. Include blurbs and email templates, really encourage people to share about the book.

Tools that Farnoosh uses includes Google Docs (you can share a document and set it so that to just view, they can still copy and paste text from it without changing it), Click to Tweet (a website that creates a unique link, people don’t even have to copy and paste), pictures (people love to share pictures) for the viewers to easily share. She even created a book trailer, a video about the book people could share. A media kit is a collection of all of this plus contact information.

“I can get up, come to work, and feel good about the work I am doing, feel like I am making a tangible difference. I am helping someone. I know what I’m doing.”

“You don’t know what obstacles will come your way. Life has a unique story for all of us. Not all of it is fair or just. But a successful person will turn those circumstances around.”

“Using your innate confidence and abilities to make changes and actually using those tools that you have to guide the direction of your life and your career”

“I was finally gutsy enough to go past my fears and really take a risk and do something that I wanted to do for a long time. I feel that it has made all the difference in my life.”

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