2:28 How both Caroline’s Grandmother and the founding principle of the Norwood school in Maryland had an impact on her young professional life.

3:45 Good handshakes show that you’re not afraid of being seen and heard.

5:08 Caroline recounts how Uncle Platt set the world record for the high jump.

6:02 [On overcoming bulimia and telling the story – “I had to begin unpacking how not just for myself, but for other people.”

7:04 “You have to learn to integrate recovery into a life which is part and parcel of how people connect with other people.”

8:49 “There’s no danger of relapse for me. I’m fully recovered.”

9:33 “When we don’t talk about things that are part of our backstory, we connote shame.”

10:07 “I created habits that pertain to excellence.”

11:24 “The fastest way to change your behavior is to change your environment and the quality of people around you.” 

13:58 How humility plays a role in grit.

16:32 The main components of grit as espoused by Angela Duckworth

17:42 “I don’t think grit is a good quality unless it’s used in the process of pursuing good goals for the right reasons. “

18:45 “There’s a kind of grit that’s really dangerous in the wrong person for the wrong reasons.”

20:05 The story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos as an example of bad grit.

22:03 “Bad grit repels people.”

23:17 “The most meaningful goals are also the hardest goals.

24:39 “We have a generation I feel that was brought up to dumb down standards of excellence.”

25:58 How to hire for grit in companies.

27:06 “It’s really important to ask people not just what they have overcome but who else have they helped to overcome.”

28:16 Lightning Round

2:14 How his grandfather inspired Dave to have a strong work ethic.

3:55 “I came from a family of non-sales people.”

5:26 The importance of putting your own personality into sales.

5:39 How Dave started working with David Sandler.

7:09 Characteristics of entrepreneurs who need outside help

8:04 Why it’s essential for a team of sales people to use the same sales language.

9:54 How to recognize when you have a blind spot and what to do about it.

10:30 “Being an entrepreneur, it’s a lonely business.”

11:10 “People will work harder for themselves than they will for you.”

12:06 “In order to link the corporate goal to the personal goal, you should sit down and have a conversation that would look something like this.”

14:09 “Do you know the top 2 or 3 goals for the people who work for you? If not, you have a blind spot.”

15:21 “If you’re working on the business it’s really tough to work on the business.”

15:45 How having best practices allows your employees to mimic success.

17:06 “If someone’s stepping into that role, i want them to produce at the same level as the person who’s leaving that role.”

17:17 The 6 “P’s” in the excellence process.

18:19 “Where I want to be then affects where the company will be.”

22:12 How to set up your company’s practices so that if the leader or a pivotal employee leaves, the company isn’t paralyzed.

24:31 The Lightning Round

1:49 How Arnoux’s grandfather’s tendency towards helping inspired him as a youth, and his difficult upbringing gave him the life experience he needed to write his new book, The Answer.

3:51 How to test if you’ve rid yourself of negative programming.

5:16 “You don’t have to remember anything that happened to you to use the 7 steps to delete old programs, all you have to do is feel the emotion that you’re dealing with now.”

6:01 “You’re not the old anger, old fear, old sadness, old guilt, old shame.”

7:01 “We have to come from a different position to truly take the power and change our business.”

9:13 “If we could release our anger, we would then see reality as it is.”

9:44 “The seven steps is the basic manual for how to access programs on the computer and delete ones you don’t want.”

9:50 The 7 Steps to Reprogramming Yourself

11:03 Why it’s more difficult to eradicate a negative emotion that’s been around for decades.

11:35 “The human mind is most susceptible to unconscious programming up until ages 8-13.”

12:55 “Conscious beliefs are what you choose to believe, it’s what you choose to think about as reality or about life.”

13:15 [Paraphrasing Dr. Judd] – “It’s not that you have too many thoughts, it’s that you think the same thoughts every day.”

14:32 #upgradeyourpersonalplaylist

16:36 How Arnoux helped unblock a client who just couldn’t finish writing a book.

17:24 “Some of the unconscious programs we remove actually relate to many areas.”

18:39 Why it’s impossible to simply ignore your unconscious thoughts.

19:53 Questions to figure out what’s in your way of being successful.

22:18 3 ways to evaluate what emotions you’re experiencing.

24:05 The importance of quieting the mind.

25:36 Lightning Round

1:52 What David is excited about in his life and business right now.

2:10 “One of the benefits of running a small business is that the practice serves you if you do it right.”

3:28 How having a book in accessible spaces leads to an influx of inquiries.

4:15 What it means to have a learning conversation

5:21 “In order for me to remain a thought leader in consulting I have to talk to people and understand what they’re doing.”

5:58 Why David is interested in how people have failed.

6:51”You have to be willing to admit you don’t know, and you need to have a genuine desire to learn.”

7:44 “The obstacles are all internal.”

8:54 Why if you’re targeting smaller company prospects, you need to make sure they have big issues.

11:14 “The place to start is not by defining your target.”

11:20 “The number one attribute of a right prospect is that you can reach them.”

12:32 Why you need to reach the influencer and the decision maker and make A1 relationships.

13:47 Trade associations and the 5 marketing musts in consulting.

14:40 How David helped a small firm explode their business through trade associations.

16:14 Why trade media is still relevant.

17:18 Ways to measure the success of your outreach.”

18:08 “There’s a difference between goals and behaviors.”

20:10 “Most people absolutely suck at asking for referrals.”

21:53 “People who are interesting are people who are doing things.”

22:53 “Consulting is not about you.”

24:29 How you interact with people everyday, how you respond, affects your business.

25:49 “We are wired to think about ourselves.”

25:59 Lightning Round

1:53 Pete describes the impact business greats Richard Branson and Bill Gates had on his young entrepreneurial mind.

3:55 What Pete’s early retail jobs taught him about running a business.

5:36 “I’m a really big believer in stories.”

7:30 Summary of the relationship of JJ the bike store owner and Charlie the mentor featured in Pete’s book Cadence.

8:43 Why so many business owners deal with the “little feeling of overwhelm.”

9:02 “Most people don’t realize the need for that skill set before it’s too late.”

10:23 “What really drives profit in a business?”

11:15 “You don’t have to double your leads or double your traffic to get a 2x profit. You can [instead] increase 7 areas by 10%”

13:53 The impact of small wins.

14:57 The 7 Levers approach to business growth.

16:30 “All you need to do is increase each of those [levers] by 10%.”

17:49 “There’s only 7 things that grow profit, and only 7 things you have to manage, and measure.”

18:51 Tools you can buy to help manage and measure these levers.

20:14 Why you shouldn’t overcomplicate managing these levers.

20:37 “One of the reasons people think it’s scary is because they don’t want to look at the numbers in two months time and see minimal growth.”

21:31 “Small wins are what you need.” 

25:25 Why you should engage your whole team to work on increasing the levers together.

26:41 Pete’s trusted split testing tools. 

29.51 You shouldn’t change tools that are working just because you’re bored with it.

30:45 The Lightning Round!

2:30 David recounts how his father, who was also a doctor, inspired him to grow up to become a physician.

3:15 “Spine surgery has changed dramatically over the last 30 years.”

4:03 Some of the challenges physicians face when dealing with the stress of the industry.

5:00 “What happens when you suppress stress, your body chemistry is still adverse, and people get sick.”

5:54 How David’s tendency to suppress stress led him from having no anxiety to having severe migraine headaches and panic attacks.

7:09 David recounts the symptoms of stress repression.

8:43 “Thoughts have the same effect on the brain as these physical threats do.”

11:19 How to redirect your inner stressful thoughts to a more positive outlook.

12:55 “There’s a positive link between sustained stress and auto-immune disorders.”

14:00 “Anxiety is the pain. Whether it’s a physical threat or a mental threat, anxiety is the pain.”

16:01 The Ring of Fire metaphor for dealing with stress and anxiety.

16:55 How David learned to enjoy every aspect of his job – “Pain pathways are permanent, but so are play pathways.”

19:15 “The bigger the adversity, the bigger the chance to practice the tools.”

19:47 Why it’s important to see challenges as an opportunity rather than a burden.

20:45 “If you’re not sleeping, this entire project is out the door, nothing works.”

23:03 Why David insists his patients don’t complain about their pain.

25:15 The mirror neuron effect.

26:35 David describes his morning mindfulness routine.

2:18 How Edwards elementary school librarians socialized him into the love of books and the love of reading.

2:53 “I’m really an opinion writer and an interpreter.”

3:28 “Once people understand the historical background they have more confidence in dealing with the present.”

5:09 “You can think of this as a continuous R&D Laboratory.”

5:49 “The point of the book is that too much focus on short term efficiency can make us less efficient in the long run.”

6:20 The art of inspired inefficiency

8:21 “I think too much reliance on Amazon means it’s very easy for someone to get into a groove, to have lots of things recommended that are sort of like what they had before.”

11:07 The importance of having a diversity of skills and mentalities in the workplace. 

11:37 The concept of peripheral vision, and the importance of creating opportunities for resourceful people.

13:13 “Sometimes if you’re focusing too much on the algorithm, you’re overlooking the opportunities for creative change.”

16:23 How to be intentional when using search engines.

17:12 “Find a well established site and form a relationship with it.”

19:19 “When you’re evaluating anything based on metrics, it really pays to see what kinds of compromise might have been taken.”

20:49 “There are a lot of problems in the feedback of medical efficiency.”

23:49 “The most important thing for me in medicine is to be sure that the style of the doctor that you’re working with is a style you are comfortable with.”

2:41 Chris tells about the time when a physics professor took the time to explain a difficult subject to him, and eventually took him under his wing, and the impact that had on his young mind.

3:56 “When you’re doing science, you don’t always have the answer, and sometimes you get an answer that you don’t expect…the world is not a straightforward and linear place.”

4:46 Chris describes his role working for James Street, and using computers to recognize how much things were worth.

6:58 “Once I understood the trading and I understood the infrastructure and the regulatory stuff and the way everything came together, I switched to a role where I was looking at these bigger questions of risk.”

9:00 How reading about aviation infrastructure, or lack thereof, in Asia allowed Chris to see the complexity inherent in the system.

9:24 “Why do some organizations do a great job of making decisions in really complex environments and managing risk and others do not?”

9:58 “Aviation has figured out how to manage some of these risks prospectively.”

11:00 The genesis of starting his own firm.

11:57 Chris recounts his interest in the BP oil spill. “I was really interested in understanding what happened, and as I dug in more and more…I became fascinated with how the accident happened.”

12:37 “The greatest environmentalist in the last 50 years, might’ve been someone at BP who said, ‘No, this isn’t the right way to do this.’”

13:53 The reason to buy down risk. “There are things happening in the world that [people] don’t quite understand that will affect their business.”

15:18 The importance of preparing for the “knock-on” consequences.

15:58 “It’s not about figuring out what hatch to close, it’s about developing a different perspective and saying: ‘Oh, these things might interact in a way that causes a big problem.’”

16:24 “We wear a seatbelt not because we know the exact kind of accident we’re going to get into, we wear a seatbelt because we want to protect ourselves regardless of the accident.”

17:34 On the post-disaster case study. “I think what that training did was give them the confidence they needed so that they were able to, the next time these things came up, not only deal with it in real time but see the precursors.”

19:12 “In this day and age, there is so much more interconnectedness and complexity.”

20:02 How the Meltdown Quiz can you help you think better about your existing systems. “How many things in this project have to go right for this project to succeed?”

22:28 “We need to add structure to our thinking…we do a lot of work with leaders to help them develop a process to add that structure to their thinking.”

23:05 How to avoid falling into the trap of making the situation more complex than it needs to be.”

26:10 What it means to, as Cal Newport named it, “do deep work.”

27:16 How Chris tracks his deep work hours.

27:53 “I realized that my morning routine with my five-year-old son looked a lot like a crisis.”

30:44 Why you should start your meetings a little bit differently.”

33:18 How doctors in Toronto figured out that asking patients a handful of questions could quickly determine whether or not the patient needed an x-ray.

35:00 “An open door policy is not enough.”

37:25 Chris’s three big takeaways.

  3:14 “I knew nothing about the business or the industry, I just jumped in and did it.”

4:03 How Carla’s decision to eliminate her need to constantly save money she freed her self up to have more adventures and new experiences.

6:04 How Carla’s close friend encouraged her to write the book. – “You need to allow people to see that they’re not the only ones who have gone through traumatic circumstances in their life.”

7:20 On Writing the Book – “It was a truly cathartic experience because it allowed me to piece my life together.”

8:45 Why Carla would change nothing about her tumultuous past in light of her brilliant present.

9:40 “When I came back [from my trip] I didn’t want to jump back into the old world of making money just to be making money, I wanted to do something that I was passionate about. And I realized that would be something that would give back to people.”

11:31 How Carla’s traumatic childhood gave her a negative sense about herself that she had to overcome as an adult, especially concerning her relationships.”

13:05 Carla’s tips for overcoming subconscious self-sabotage.

15:10 How Carla was able to help a client see a 20% increase in his business after a 2.5 month coaching investment with her.

17:10 The question business owners should ask – “Is there something from the past stopping me from getting to my next step?”

17:48 How Carla’s experiences in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Eastern Africa reshaped her worldview.

20:56 “It was the internal strength of the people that really resonated with me.”

22:06 “By being able to take yourself out and actually visiting and seeing those places and feeling the energies around there, it really does make a difference.”

23:45 “Most people find passion by being able to help others.”

25:23 “Look for ways you can give back, even to the community you’re in.”

26:13 Carla’s tips for staying on track and productive. – “I decide what my day is going to be like.”

4:20 What it is to have a sabotaging trait, and to find its antidote. –  “It’s there to really help us to get to the next level.”

6:49 The steps which led Dr. Phillip discover the 6 step blueprint.

8:30 “The steps are cyclical, you can start anywhere.”

9:00 Dr. Phillip explains the the six seasons and what each of them mean – Summer, Harvest, Autumn, Winter, Relinquish, and Spring.

11:14 How Dr. Phillip helped a salesman who had a tendency to give too much information away.

14:10 Dr. Phillip recounts the case of a scatterbrained client  – “Once he started going through a system, he became less overwhelmed.”

14:38 [The reason why some people don’t become successful] – “It’s more painful for them to become successful than to stay where they’re at.”

17:17 Dr. Philip describes the process of writing the book, and how the first draft only took two weeks.

18:47 [Case study of a single mom-trepreneur] “What she was doing in her personal life, she should be doing in her business, and what she was doing in her business, she should be doing in her personal life.”

20:18 “You don’t have to wait for the world Autumn to do Autumn things, it’s within yourself that these things are happening.”

21:53 How Dr. Phillip wrote a book in two weeks, and how he implemented his antidote to make it work – “I made sure that I had planned out that this is what I’m going to do per so many hours.”

23:54 “Don’t get upset with yourself, the sabotaging trait is there to help you.”

2:17 The two mantras that Randi’s mom held when Randi was young.

2:44 “What gets positive reinforcement is what you pursue.”

4:30 Randi describes all the early creative jobs she held that fostered her young entrepreneurial spirit.

6:03 “Creativity for business and entrepreneurs is different than art for art’s sake and fine artistry, and it’s very much driven to solve business strategy and problems.”

7:05 “Design, when it’s done well, enhances whatever the content and message needs to be. When design is not done well, it’s decorating.”

8:20 “I’m a mapmaker, I draw pictures.”

10:15 “It’s so hard when you are in your business to look at your business.”

11:07 Why a designer or design team is uniquely positioned to assist a company in solving their content strategy issues.

15:11 Why everyone at Randi’s creative lab wears a coat and goggles.

16:54 Randi’s design team’s first step when working with new clients is determining their underlying set of priorities.

18:40 “A lot of people look for answers. The best way to get to the answers is to have the right questions.”

21:08 Randi explains why each of her company’s “labs” last for two days.

21:40 “People always make a better decision when they’re given viable choices from which to make that decision.”

22:15 “Creativity isn’t something that a lot of people are comfortable with.

23:46 The importance of complete client confidentiality.

25:06 Randi tells about an unconventional creativity lab that led somewhere different than the client was expecting.

27:43 “I’m not coming in as the outside bad cop, I’m coming in with very clear glasses to look at what’s been done, to understand why suddenly no one’s happy.”

29:09 “No one should be reading a powerpoint.”

30:56 “There are lots of ways to be right.”

36:09 “It’s about trusting that you’re hiring people who are there to complement your strengths.”

39:05 “I’m up until 2AM most days making my own luck.”

3:04 Eric discusses what it was like meeting Bob Perkins at YoungLife.

3:19 “Great leaders lead other leaders.”

4:01 “If you want to hire and keep great people then you’re going to have to be prepared to invest in a few and have that team be the core that impacts the many.”

6:08 Why “A Players” can sometimes be difficult.

7:48 “I think there’s a difference between disagreeable [people] and people who are behaving poorly because they’re not getting the attention, and not getting treated the way that they need.”

9:25 Why leaders should always have a Plan B when it comes to dealing with toxic A Players.

12:02 “You’ve got to get your whole team involved in recruiting.”

14:25 What it means to have an A Player scorecard, and what the process means for team buy-in of new recruits.

14:51 How asking questions can create a whole new level of employee engagement.

16:23 “We get better at things that we practice.”

18:03 Tested tips and tricks for putting interviewees at ease before and during an interview.

18:08 “The most important interview question is the follow-up question.”

20:54 “What you’re doing as an interviewer is working to ensure a good mutual fit: good for the company, and good for the person.”

22:45 “There are not that many great leaders out there, so if you invest in your own ability as a leader, if you get better as a leader, then you’ll attract other leaders.”

23:25 “I’m committed to finding and hiring the best people that I can.”

23:57 What inspired Eric to write the book How to Hire A-Players.

26:54 “Over the last 6 months the talent markets have gotten hotter, making it harder to find and hire the best.”

27:35 What Eric does to stay productive and on track. 

1:55 Linda tells about her goats, fig farm, and her business Blue Banana.

3:45 How a gluten intolerance became the impetus for Linda to build her first website, and eventually allowed her to expand her business to help build website traffic for others.

4:03 “People that build websites know that that’s the easy part, getting traffic to it is the hard part.”

6:12 [On Malcolm Gladwell’s search for stories] – “He doesn’t wait for them to happen, he looks for them to happen.”

7:06 “I like to give freely, I like to give my information away. There’s no point in just keeping that to me.”

8:36 Linda discusses the process of writing her first book and getting it published.

9:43 “You don’t have to give all the tools in your toolbox away, but if you can give them some taster of the sort of information [with which] you can help them.”

12:08 “The one thing you need is distribution, because without a distribution channel it’s not going to go anywhere.”

13:18 Why audience size matters to publishers.

15:33 How one of the women Linda follows is optimizing LinkedIn for her business.

16:37 Why you should do audio recordings of your work.

18:22 “As an individual trying to get your name and your brand moving, think about audio.”

19:10 “People listen to the person.”

22:21 How to generate buzz around your podcast.

23:14 “You do have to have some budget in the early days to get something moving.”

24:04 “All companies need to have a [LinkedIn] company page, but growing your company page is hard work.”

26:00 “Have a great image, and steer away from stock images.”

26:54 “Tell the people what the article is about, for sure, but don’t try to be clever, just be clear.”

28:23 “Try and write something that’s evergreen.”

28:59 How Linda helped a client in the healthcare sector improve their business on Social Media. 

32:52 [The importance of conversation on Social Media] – “Don’t forget that [with social media] you’re talking to other humans.”

2:45 Brad discusses his connection to John C. Maxwell.

4:30 How leadership ability was natural to Brad even in his youth.

6:56 [On why leaders can be introverts] – “Just because you’re naturally quiet…doesn’t mean you still can’t lead.”

7:52 Leadership doesn’t mean hogging the spotlight, it means stewardship.

8:26 “If you want to lead, you’re going to have to be responsible for people.”

10:59 The importance of not being a “Darb” leader, and letting the stress of leadership bring out toxic aspects of your personality.

14:43 “Everyone wants to work in an environment where self-awareness is at the forefront of the culture.” 

16:31 “When you’re in charge, no one wants to tell you the truth.”

18:43 “You lead like you were led.”

19:40 “People are looking for a culture that is healthy and customized for them.”

22:39 Why you should invest time in on boarding new team members.

23:27 [How to be proactive during the hiring process] – “The story behind the story matters.”

25:00 “Hire slow, fire fast.”

26:38 [H3 Leadership] – “Be humble, stay hungry, always hustle.”

27:40 – “In writing any book the challenge always comes: ‘How personal are you going to be?’”

29:43 Why it’s so essential to be curious.

30:40 “The best way for you to gain instant credibility is ask a good question.”

35:09 “We bypass ‘why,’ because why is hard.”

38:00 The most surprising thing for Brad about writing the book.

39:37 Brad’s tips for staying on track and productive.

2:32 How Ron went from being a Marine to following his inward journey. “I found I had to let go of all my training to be an all American boy was taking me.”

4:47 Details of Joseph Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey,” on leaving the comfort zone.

5:37 “I realized that comfort zone wasn’t comfortable for me any longer.”

6:08 “The hero’s journey is about taking your life up to the next level.”

6:59 How childhood experience affects the way humans act as adults, especially in regards to their choices and relationships.

7:36 Why people should “quit chasing the symptoms.” Symptoms are indicators of an opportunity to grow.

9:58 How Ron helped a client overcome his communication problems, specifically those surrounding how he communicated anger.

14:35 “Change begins to happen almost immediately.”

17:05 “We are nothing but energy. That’s physics, not metaphysics.”

18:07 Why lobsters, and humans, need to take the time to “shed their shell.”

19:24 Ron describes the Big Mind. – “The quieter my mind got, the more depth I had in my life.”

22:34 How Ron used Big Mind to create a $1M Japanese Garden.

24:01 “Most people think in terms of working harder. I think in terms of accessing different parts of who we are.”

26:30 “Money is not the answer.”

27:19 The source of why people so often sabotage their life, and why when you come up against roadblocks, it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

30:08 Some changes needed aren’t big changes, but small changes, that will make all the difference.

31:11 Ron’s morning routine for staying centered throughout his day.

2:10 How a negative experience working at a steakhouse encouraged Susan to think about making money differently.

3:51 Susan recounts how her mom’s entrepreneurial drive inspired her to become one too.

4:37 “If you have the guts to go out and do it on your own, go out and do it on your own.”

5:15 [On having the courage to leave the corporate world] – “You take the step and say I’m going to give this a try, and if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out.”

5:55 The benefits of knowing your core competencies.

7:15 The steps Susan took to deal with the challenge of an assumed learning disability in middle school.

8:04 “Believe in yourself, know what you can do. No one should label you.”

9:06 How a lack of knowledge about how to run an internet company didn’t stop Susan from buying SBTV.com. The company would become one of the Hot Tech 100 companies of the year.

10:28 “The biggest thing that we did to build the business was getting collaboration.”

11:28 [On Networking] – “It’s not about selling, it’s about building that trust and rapport.”

13:29 Marketing used to be the message going out to consumers, and now it’s a two way street.

15:05 “We have so much access to data.”

16:40 Susan explains the significance of being authentic and connecting with your followers online.

17:22 How collaboration with other websites can bring more traffic to your website.

19:08 [The One Percent Edge] – “It’s about looking at your business on a regular basis…and about continuing to evolve on a regular basis.”

20:30 “You can”t be on the status quo, you’ve got to be on the status grow.”

20:49 The dangers of being married to our business operations.

22:40 “If you’re not willing to open up, I can’t help you.”

24:05 Susan describes the process of writing the book.

25:56 The trend of people wanting to talk about what’s happening, and being more accessible to having new conversations.

2:28 Clay explains why leadership and authority don’t always go hand in hand.

3:32 How an internship at the Georgia State House crafted Clay’s young understanding of leadership and decision making.

4:43 “When you believe that you have to be in charge in order to lead, that even when you are in charge and you try to leverage that authority to try to get people to move, it will work in the short term, but it does not work long term.”

5:09 The essence of leadership is influence. – “[Leadership is the ability to inspire people to move in order to accomplish something that they may not even realize that they want to accomplish.”

5:52 “Because leadership is influence, some people are born with more instinctual traits that give them influence.”

6:30 “What are my behaviors today that are gaining me influence? And what am I doing that’s costing influence?”

8:15 First of the four big behaviors to cultivate more influence.

8:41 “The easiest way to lead yourself is to ask others exactly where you are…You can’t get to where you wanna be unless you know exactly where you are.”

12:21 “There are things about yourself that everyone else knows, and that you probably know, but you have no clue that they are as aware as they actually are.”

14:20 Why influence is a commodity.

15:03 “Solicited feedback is always easier than unsolicited feedback.”

19:02 “What we have to [ask] as leaders, as managers, whether we’re in charge or not…is what is the incentive that’s causing them to work, what is motivating them?”

20:44 How to motivate people who are happy in their current position.

22:52  The big behaviors that cultivate influence.

23:52 “Every one of us has to bring value to what we’re working on.”

24:26 “The most dangerous enemy to not being in charge is passivity.”

26:48 How Clay rewards leadership behavior.

28:15 Why our greatest fear of taking leadership actions is fear of doing it wrong. – “The map will appear when the car is in motion.”

29:32 “A part of our role when we’re not in charge is to manage the anxiety of our boss.”

31:12 “Nothing so conclusively proves your ability to lead others as what you do on a day to day basis to lead yourself.”

32:13 Clay describes the steps he took in order to not only start, but finish the book.

33:11 Clay’s tips and tricks for staying productive and on task.

1:08 Anthony describes one of the ways he and David co-author Eagleman initially connected.

1:41 How Anthony’s parents practice of restricting TV, and introducing construction materials, in the home encouraged his early creativity.

3:13 “From the moment I did something like playing the violin, I also wanted to make the music myself.”

4:15 Why hearing their piece rehearsed is such a joy for composers.

4:45 “David’s an amazing scientist. Not only does he do cutting edge research, but he’s also a best selling novelist.”

5:53 Bill tells off the collaborative efforts between Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison

7:39 Why did Beethoven move to Vienna? – “He needed to be embedded in a culture in order to thrive as an individual creator.”

8:17 “There’s this virtuous loop between social engagement and the actions of our own imagination.”

10:06 Anthony describes the process of writing the book with David Eagleman.

10:38 “The only reason animals have memories is in order to better predict the future.”

11:01 [Exploration vs. Exploitation] – “Every animal. even if their in the most bountiful environment, they’ve got all the food they could ever want, will dedicate a certain amount of their life to exploring new environments.”

11:40 [The roots of creativity] – “Being able to think beyond the present moment and detach from reality and imagine alternative futures, that was where, evolutionarily, the seed of creativity was born.”

13:54 “It’s true that some examples of creativity exist in the wild, but they’re very anecdotal and they’re very limited.”

15:31 “[Creativity] is something that is absolutely normal. It is awe-inspiringly ordinary. “

16:55 Anthony’s steps for people who want to reconnect with their creativity. – “Whatever you can find that you can make yourself, do it yourself.”

18:29 “Creativity is too often presented as being all about novelty…human minds like to have one foot in the familiar and one foot in the unexpected.”

22:44 “One of the most dangerous concepts is that of the finish line.”

24:20 “How do you know when you’ve come up with a great idea?”

26:05 What companies can do to foster creativity in the workplace.

28:10 “There’s no doubt that creativity is risky.”

31:00 The importance of play not just for children, but for adults too.

33:13 Why composers are so deadline driven, and why it’s essential to create “intermediate deadlines” for yourself in the midst of a large project.

35:20 What Anthony uses to stay on track and productive.

37:12 “The smartest and the most successful people are the ones who are generating the most options.” 

1:49 How Ted’s parents passed onto him the ethic of “getting out and doing things.”

2:58 [Paraphrasing the Dalai Lama] – “The purpose of life, I believe, is to find happiness.”

3:28 “When you make the choice to be happy, it’s really powerful.”

4:25 The benefits of smiling more often.

5:30 The “30 second rule” of changing your mindset.

5:49 [The Get To Mantra] – “You say, ‘I get to do this,’ you smile, and then you do what you’re going to do.’”

7:08 The essential difference in mindset between “I have to” and “I get to.”

10:15 Why the kind of happiness Ted refers to isn’t a “Polyanna” kind of happiness.

13:08 How Ted’s experiences traveling through India helped him shape his worldview.

14:59 “When I’m deliberate about saying ‘I get to do this,’ the more in control I am of my life.”

15:49 “We all have our level of frustration and things like that, but we do have the choice.”

17:28 Ted recounts his work with Bon Jovi, and what it was like to get through the trust barrier.

18:49 “We’re born and then we die, and in between we get to do this thing called life.”

20:09 The point of the mindful movement.

21:43 [Ted describes his 3 month executive coaching process.] – “It helps take people from this mundane [mindset] or just going through the motions and brings them up to really experiencing life.”

22:30 Case study of a Florida business man who just wasn’t getting the most out of life.

23:45 [On writing Get To Be Happy] – “I had the best time.”

25:24 “I learned that just being focused and dedicated to something for 30 minutes a day, you can get a lot done.”

28:15 Ted’s daily exercise for staying happy and productive.

1:12 How the 2008 economic crisis was the impetus for Saunders to get his MBA in Marketing, and eventually form his marketing firm Marketing Huddle.

2:00 [On keeping the marketing budget in tough times] – “They would keep that momentum going knowing that their competitors were cutting back and they would gain that market share.”

2:05 “For the last 9 years I’ve focused on helping small business owners, entrepreneurs, consultants with their marketing with some real cutting edge marketing strategy.”

2:30 How Authority Positioning will grant you the distance you need between you and your competitors.

3:19 [On the term Huddle] – “A lot of times in business consulting you’ll see them recommend ‘Do a daily huddle, do a weekly huddle, get your team to come together to talk about what’s working, what’s not.”

5:05 [On Daymond John] – “He wants to see the people who have failed so he can learn from the failures.”

5:13 “Most of the time you hear that phrase, you win or you…and people are like ‘yeah yeah yeah, lose, win or you lose!’ No, you win or your learn.”

5:40 “If it doesn’t turn out the way you want it, take those lessons, move on to the next iteration of that plan and move on to build from that.”

6:40 You have to be wired to be an entrepreneur, otherwise you’ll run for the hills at the first setback.

7:20 “You need to have the strategy before the tactics because if you just start throwing tactics out there without a strategy then you’re really going in multiple directions.”

7:40 Points out the importance of Steven Covey’s phrase, “Begin with the end in mind.”

8:16 [The biggest takeaway] – “Maybe there was a small level of success, well let’s just do it again but do it a tiny bit better, or a little bit longer, or align with the right strategic alliances.”

8:55 “I don’t think anyone starts a business and has this consistent trajectory upward, there’s going to be those ups and downs.”

9:41 “The problem came where I was trying to be too many things to too many types of people, and I was never an expert in one specific thing.”

10:16 [On Writing Authority Selling] – “Everybody’s doing good content on social media, good content on a blog post, but not many people are out there writing a book.”

11:43 How writing his first book on business social media led him to find more opportunities.

11:57 “It was at that point I realized that if I had just given a two minute elevator speech about how people should do social media differently, it would’ve gone in one ear and out the other.”

13:32 [On being an influencer] – “We don’t have superstar celebrity movie star status, but guess what we do have. We have a message and we have some expertise that we are really good at in what we do for our customers and our clients.”

14:05 “A marketing consultant does a lot of things, but an authority positioning coach, now that’s interesting, how can that help me?”

14:30 “We all are selling, but when you can sell from the position of expertise and authority, your ideas will land that much better.”

15:50 “Having a position of authority helps you to sell or promote your business and your ideas from a whole different mindset than your competitors.”

17:21 How a graphic designer used Saunder’s Authority Positioning Model to differentiate himself. “I helped him become an Amazon bestselling author without writing a word.”

18:41 The importance of having long term authority positioning assets.

19:26 “Your prospects are googling your name and your brand, because maybe they were introduced to your name by a friend.”

21:59 “The ‘done for you’ model is so viable because people these days want something done for them, handed to them, and quickly without a lot of hassle.”

23:40 “There’s a disconnect between your head and your hands.”

25:16 [On establishing authority positioning] – “You gotta start small.”

27:00 5 Question Round

30:55 “Building your authority is your number 1 priority.”

1:51 Ajit tells about growing up in a family where all his cousins were either engineers or doctors and how it made him want to do the opposite. “I wanted to not take a safe route.”

2:50 Ajit recounts the four years he spent in India as a youth working in a children’s league, and how a key leader in the league helped develop his organizational skills.

4:08 “It’s ok to fail…and recovering from failure is almost as important as failing.”

5:33 How Ajit became involved with TED and TEDx

7:00 Ajit gives tips on how to put together a TEDx talk.

7:07 “People feel the need to put everything they know into a talk, which is a huge mistake.”

7:31 “What is that one idea worth spreading?”

9:15 [How to resist the urge to condense multiple ideas] – “Write down every idea [you] want to share in a TEDx talk, it doesn’t matter whether it’s one talk or multiple talks. Once [you] write it down on a sheet of paper, I then say, ‘What is the one idea of all those ideas on the sheet of paper you want to share with the world if you never got an opportunity to do a second TEDx talk?’”

10:09 “[TEDx Wilmington] no longer let anyone come without a lot of rehearsal…It’s a very conscious, determined process that we have.”

11:14 [Ajit explains why TEDx talks don’t allow notes] – “A good TEDx talk takes at least 50 hours of rehearsal.”

13:26 Ajit describes the organizational challenges of running TEDx.

15:02 What makes a fascinating TED talk.

17:12 “Often what we try to do is give a global platform to people who have great messages, but who are not getting them across.”

19:05 What it means to be a good life coach.

19:15 “You can only show them how to walk and give them the directions.”

20:33 “It’s much harder to get people to gracefully surrender something that they passionately believe in.” 

21:00 Ajit tells about his upcoming project Second Chances Farm, an organic farm where individuals recently released from prison will have a place to get back on their feet, and the goals he has for its development.

24:43 How Ajit became involved with doing work with Wilmington prisons through the organization Breaking Bread Behind Bars.

25:52 [On hiring individuals recently released from prison] – “There’s a huge shortage of labor force in the United States right now.”

27:50 [The importance of prioritization] – “The key is remembering that there’s no such thing as multi-tasking…so at the end of the day you have to decide if you make a list of 25 things, what’s the one thing that you must do today?”

00:59 Fields discusses his fanatical love of both chocolate and hockey.

1:28 “I happen to love what I do, like many of us who are entrepreneurs. I just thrive on the business.”

2:36 Fields recalls a story from his childhood about a word class mathematician who taught him how to use unit blocks in kindergarten. “This amazing mathematician would ride his bike to teach kids in kindergarten.”

3:00 “I just think that the idea of teaching other people and giving your knowledge, not at your level, but at their level…you meet people where they are and help them.”

3:56 [On his first job(s)] “I’m a numbers person, and I went into marketing research and learned a lot of great skills there.”

4:07 “My first boss once told me, ‘David our job isn’t to say that the glass is half empty or the glass is half full but to say there is 6oz of water in a 12 oz glass.”

4:33 “Life is so much more than numbers, and in fact, numbers aren’t the answer.”

5:13 Fields tells about his time working as an interviewer for a dating service.

6:05 “If you go back 30 years, the idea of meeting someone through a service, there’s a lot of stigma attached.”

6:30 “It wasn’t the matching that got people there, it was the emotional journey.”

7:00 Fields recounts the time leading up to spinning off from his original company to start a new consulting company with his partner Jim.

7:40 [On the fate of the early venture] – “That worked incredibly well for about 4 weeks.”

8:05 “Jim was the business development guy. I was the backroom engine guy. I was coming up with models and smart solutions to client problems.”

8:19 “I was left without a partner, without clients, and without the skill set to develop clients.”

8:37 “My first year running Ascendant was a disaster.”

8:59 “Once you have some success and you’re smart enough to get help, then it gets easier.”

9:25 “Unless you have failed, you can’t show that you have the resilience and the ability to get up.”

9:43 “I wouldn’t go out of my way to try to make mistakes, but if you try to avoid them, that’s where trouble sets in.”

10:25 [On Org Design] – “No design is ever perfect out of the gate.”

10:33 “We’re better off putting it in place, getting it darn close, and then refining it. I don’t worry about the mistakes, I worry about creating high quality.”

11:15 [On thinking right side up] – “Consulting is not about you, it’s about them.”

11:35 [On what his experiences working in a shoe store taught him] – “It doesn’t matter what it looked like to you…it mattered what it felt like to them. It wasn’t about my shoes it was about their feet.”

11:56 “If there’s one thing to take away from our discussion, I would say take that away. It’s not about you, it’s about them.”

12:26 “Most of the time we start something we think about ourselves, and we have to push ourselves to think about our clients.”

12:50 “Take the first line of the e-mail and make it about the client, not about you.”

13:08 “In everything you do: every e-mail you write, every presentation you give, think to yourself, ‘How do I make this about them, not me.”

13:32 “Confidence is extremely important.”

13:59 “One of the ironies is that people look inside for their confidence. They’ve been taught by self-help gurus that there is some inner core and they have to believe in themselves, and I think that’s absolutely nonsense.”

14:16 “Stop looking at yourself. If your prospect or client believes you have value, then you have value.”

14:38 “The lack of self-confidence comes from thinking too much about yourself.”

16:20 [On teaching new consultants why they don’t need certifications] – “If a client came to you with this problem, could you give them a solution that will solve the problem? If the answer is yes, then why do you need a certification?”

17:20 “A lot of consultants want to start with: ‘Here’s what I’m good at. Here’s what I know. Let me try to sell what I know.” 

17:30 It doesn’t matter what you know or what you’re good at, all that matters is what the market wants.

17:38 “Learn something different. Learn what the market wants.”

18:14 “It’s not that we shouldn’t study and learn. We absolutely should, we should go where the market is and pick up skills.”

18:42 [What Field learned from consumer products] – “You need a breakthrough product and you need to be differentiated.”

19:05 “Clients aren’t looking for different. Clients aren’t looking for breakthrough. Clients are looking for solved. They’re looking for a solution that’s reliable and credible.”

19:25 “Every single client, every single executive, has had at least one experience, and probably multiple experiences, with having hired a third party and that third party didn’t deliver.”

19:59 [On client trust] – “They want the thing that’s worked 30 times.”

20:03 “Don’t worry about what makes you different, worry about what makes you credible and reliable.”

20:25 How Fields met Keith Ferrazzi

22:00 “If we’re trying to appear reliable and we’re trying to appear credible, the clients need some proof.”

22:21 “There’s social proof like crazy these days.”

22:41 Clients are looking for how you interact with them, and they’re also looking for other kinds of social proof.

23:15 “The advantage of having a marquee client is that you can put them on the marquee and people will say ‘Wow!’”

24:15 “Whether you’re a sole [consultant] or boutique, you’re always trying to balance command.”

24:25 “I would never advise building capacity ahead of demand.”

24:50 Not everyone is cut out to be a rainmaker.

25:53 “Impact is step 2, before you get visibility.”

26:55 “People who are going to take your ideas and not call you, were never going to call you anyway.”

27:26 “What you do is gain the people who were smart enough to realize that there’s one level, which is understanding a concept, there’s another level which is implementing it without making as many mistakes. And then there’s another level, which is implementing it with feedback and coaching and guidance along the way, and that’s going to make the entire process faster.”

29:06 “I think most people know that coaching is a good thing.”

29:25 “You have to make a decision that you’re willing to invest in your business.”

29:45 “Are you willing to learn and change?”

29:55 Good coaches will often make you do something different, something uncomfortable.

30:00 “And if you want to achieve something different, you’re going to have to change something and probably something that feels uncomfortable.”

31:17 [On the early years of Ascendant] – “It never occurred to me to do hourly work, that’s not how I grew up.”

32:25 Fields tips for staying on track and focused.

32:42 “I’m not naturally on track. I’m intellectually spastic.”

32:54 “If something’s not your skill set, you get rid of it and you have somebody whose skill set it is take care of it.”

35:00 “I am here to help consultants succeed.”

36:35 “We can always learn and we can always improve.”

1:25 Yu tells about his early experience starting an Asian Funk Band.

2:08 “Even when met with odds that seem insurmountable, it didn’t stop us, we went out and created an Asian Funk Band.”

2:30 “I leaned on a lot of other folks and some of their skills and some of their ideas were basically how to figure out and make a shared vision work.”

3:25 [On his mother as his role model] – My mom decided to do everything she could to contribute to our ability to move to a new country and to acclimate.”

4:16 Yu tells about his move from Taiwan at 3 years old to Berkley, California.

4:39 [On his ideal client] – “Folks who are very interested in learning and have a high degree of curiosity, who know they have a lot of unique skills, capabilities, and experiences, but also are sort of seeking leveraged guidance.”

5:50 Yu tells about his recent work with a company who had a very interesting product and an even more interesting challenge – “Their key challenge was that they had a very distinctive product proposition, and a wonderful story because the products were all made based on empathy…their challenge was how do they come into a mature market and be the eighth competitor in that market?”

8:09 Yu explains the ins and outs of breaking into a complicated market by not going for the lowest hanging fruit.

8:39 “We help them focus on this idea of instead of going really broad, going really narrow.”

10:06 “Do you know which of your brands or your product franchises are delivering most of your profit? And of those, do you know which of them are truly iconic?”

11:47 “Take your cash cow, milk them, and butter them up.”

12:37 [On his inspiration for writing Iconic Advantage] – “I always veer towards wanting to do new things – new product lines, new initiatives, new technology…but what I learned over those 30 years was that I had a hard time commercializing new ideas.”

13:58 [On the approach that longstanding successful companies have] – “They took a lot of their shiny new ideas and applied it to franchises that had momentum.”

14:46 Yu explains that most companies don’t know what makes them iconic.

15:19 [Why it’s critical to keep people in love with your brand] – “Just like consumers fall in love with people, they also fall in love with brands. And just like people, when you fall in love with somebody, you don’t want to fall out of love with them. And if somebody’s in love with you, you’re not going to do things to hurt that relationship.”

15:35 “It’s critical for those of us who are caretakers of brands to take care of that relationship as a love relationship.”

15:59 Basics of the Iconic Brand Pyramid

17:18 “That’s where it starts off – What do you care about?”

17:39 “You want to be consistent about how you represent your personality.”

19:37 “There’s a lot of ways to find these signature elements, and it’s critical that you find those.”

20:09 Why it’s essential to reinforce and align.

21:16 The story behind Nike Air and their path to distinctive design.

22:28 Why it’s important for companies not to overlook the assets already inside of their organization.

23:50 Why an hour of true productivity each day is a goal worth seeking out.

24:42 “I have a very simple 3-5 year vision of what I want to accomplish.”

22:29 “When you leave the room, what fragrance do you leave the room with? What do people remember you for?”

1:40 Power tells about the early influencers of his life.

2:40 [The Peace Corps] – “All of those life lessons prepared me for entrepreneurship.”

2:55 “Is entrepreneurship learned or is it innate?”

3:32 “Well I think certain people have the characteristics, maybe you’re born with it…but I see both sides now.”

3:52 “I think all types can be good entrepreneurs.”

5:04 “Some people are entrepreneurs and they don’t know it.”

5:27 Power recounts the various odd jobs he did prior to joining the Peace Corps. “It took me a while to find, finally, what I wanted to do.”

6:38 “It was the best move I ever made because I learned those two years about myself and about truly being able to do what I wanted to do, and to take chances.”

6:51 “Nobody’s going to hand you success, no one’s gonna do it for you. If you want something you’ve got to go out and work for it.”

7:39 “The work I did after Peace Corps in the developing countries, in the former Soviet Union, helping them understand what a market economy was, and helping them transition, and be profitable, and learn how to manage a new type of company, is what sort of got me where I got comfortable with the idea of going into business for myself.”

8:15 The genesis of Wild Creations.

8:25 “We both wanted to be in business. We felt like it was our time to do something and create something that was ours.”

9:10 Power describes the early days of Wild Creations, including an interaction with a body removal company.

9:43 [On taking over Wild Creations] – “We saw where the product could go, we saw what we could do with it. We thought that we could do something different with the company.”

10:30 [Wild Creations’ initial product.] – “It had all kinds of problems.”

11:11 How a UPS technology grant allowed Wild Creations to get off the ground.

11:32 “Every single vendor gave us 6 months of credit, or there would have been no way to secure those first orders.”

12:10 “Frankly we were struggling, we were probably about a month from having to close the doors.” 

12:57 “We didn’t have it in toy stores. We had it in little gift and novelty stores.”

13:26 How a connection with the president of the Toy Store Association allowed Wild Creations to get their foot in the door. “Come to New York, come to the Toy Fair.”

14:18 [On the meteoric rise of Wild Creations] – “We walked out of Toy Fair a $9M company.”

15:34 “It was scary, it was really scary.”

15:53 [How honesty and communication allowed them to ship on time.] – “Build a relationship with your suppliers so if you have a problem or you have a growth spurt like that, then they are 100% behind you.”

18:10 Power discuss the process of writing the book. “When we started writing it I don’t think we knew what we wanted to say.”

18:45 “The Entrepreneur’s Book of Actions was easier because I knew what I wanted to say.”

19:25 Power lists the “avatars” he interviewed for his book.

20:01 “I wrote it because I think I know what people go through and I wanted to sort out their issues and help them be more successful.”

21:06 “I wanted to break it down for people what the important parts of the book were.”

21:18 “I do believe that action is really the key to success.”

21:42 Why doing something every day for a whole year brings about change.

21:53 Focus on self-change first, then focus on changing your people.

22:01 “In order for our companies to grow, we have to grow.”

22:39 The questions and issues that entrepreneurs and founders often overlook.

22:58 “Sometimes you find that they’re disciplined in their work but their not disciplined in their personal lives.”

23:49 The importance of managing the minutes.

24:27 “I’ve learned the hard way of having to scale up.”

27:01 What a bad experience with an experienced toy consultant taught Power about coaching.

28:00 “Founders and entrepreneurs, they typically have a vision for how they want to do something.”

28:22 What Power learned from Mark Thompson and Marshall Goldsmith

28:48 “When you run a company the size of our first company, you are the leader and your influence where that company goes.”

29:54 “One of the things that I see is that people feel somewhat embarrassed that they’re seeking advice, that they’re seeking help.”

31:08 Why it’s important to hire a coach that you actually like.

32:12 “First and foremost make a professional mission statement.”

32:56 “Success ultimately boils down to a couple of things. It boils down to your habits, your discipline, and your ability to figure out what’s important.”

00:52 “I was a fitness expert. I had a fitness school in New York City.”

1:05 Prudden describes all the rapid changes that occurred after she sold her business at 40.

1:33 “I couldn’t pay my franchise fees, so I lost the franchise, thank goodness, so I started to work with entrepreneurs.”

1:52 “Working with entrepreneurs is very exciting because entrepreneurs, they have to be self-starters.”

2:21 “The most challenging thing for most entrepreneurs, literally, is picking up the phone.”

3:03 “People don’t like to hear the word no.”

3:55 Why it’s so important to follow up right away.

4:49 Prudden discusses the origins of Itty Bitty Publishing.

5:10 [On writing the first book with her sister] – “We didn’t know what we were doing, we had no idea what we were doing.”

5:25 “We had 2,000 to sell, we have 1,800 left. It just didn’t work.”

5:50 “I asked my sister to change the cover of the Itty Bitty Book, and to cut it, make it shorter.”

6:40 [On the Amazing Itty Bitty Weight Loss Book] – “My ego had a blip…I looked at my sister and said, ‘Are you sure you don’t want my name on the book?’ And then I looked at the book and said, ‘Actually, that’s a million dollar business.”

7:05 “2 weeks later we had our first author, 6 weeks later we had our first published book.”

7:19 “Because of the internet, the publishing industry has totally changed.”

8:00 “The world is being inundated with information.”

8:33 “So when we look at Itty Bitty, we thought: ‘All we want to do is we want information that’s going to make a difference for the reader that they don’t have to weed through.”

8:55 [On sorting through larger books for salient info] –  “Itty Bitty Books are the yellow highlights.”

9:38 [On the type of person who should write a book] – “Any person who has a sort of expertise that they are using in their business.”

10:40 How having a book you’ve written in your area of expertise will increase your credibility and open doors for you.

11:00 Examples of writers who have written for Itty Bitty Books.

11:15 “A lot of our authors sell their books, a lot of our authors give them away, which I don’t like them to do that.”

11:30 “People don’t value what they don’t pay for.”

11:58 [On why she dislikes people handing out books at conferences] – “If I buy the book because I’m interested in reading [it], that’s a whole different thing.”

12:25 “You should not give you book away as a business card, you should sell your book.”

13:18 “If you give your book away as a business card, that book usually ends up in a pile that either ends up in the garbage, which I will not do, or ends up at goodwill.”

13:36 “We have about 130 authors that are ‘in play,’ so to speak.”

14:12 “The moment we came up with the idea we knew we had a million dollar business.”

14:23 “It wasn’t that we started Itty Bitty and it slowly grew and then we knew it was a winner, it was almost as if God had handed us this thing.”

14:52 [On founding on a new business in her seventies] – “It’s like we wanted something that would live beyond us.”

15:18 “Bookstores are a dying breed. I love bookstores, I love going into bookstores. I don’t want my book in a bookstore, because you won’t find it.”

15:39 [Why Prudden hates book signings.] –  “Unless you’re a really famous person, people aren’t really going to show up.”

15:45 “If your book doesn’t sell within two months, the bookstore tears off the front cover, sends it back to the publisher, and the publisher has to refund the money.”

16:35 [On why Prudden prefers stores were Itty Bitty Books can have their own kiosk] – “When I’ve been at places where I have all my books on display, people will go through my rack and by ten books.”

17:01 Prudden tells about meeting the person who helps people get their products into Target.

18:33 [On one of their authors who’s written 4 books with them] – “Using his Itty Bitty Book he’s grown from making $100,000 to making three quarters of a million dollars a year.”

19:23 “He is our golden boy.”

19:35 “I believe a book is a business builder, not a business card.”

20:06 Why if, you have to give away your book, you give it to a decision maker as a program for success, not as a business card.

21:30 [On how long it takes for an Itty Bitty Book to get published] – “That depends on the author. We’ve had people write their book in three days. We’ve also had somebody who will write their book in two years.”

21:41 “When you become an Itty Bitty Author, we send you a ‘How to Write an Itty Bitty Book’ book.”

22:01 “You have to keep it very short. A lot of people overwrite.”

23:02 [On Amazon and all the digitals] – “Nook, Kindle, Smashwords, Kobo, D2D, iTunes, Barnes and Noble – anything you can put on your computer, your phone….”

23:40 Prudden describes the ins and outs of Itty Bitty Publishing including author splits and digital vs. print versions and pricing.

24:00 “Everyone asks me, ‘How quickly will I make my money back by selling books.’ And I tell them, ‘You won’t. You’ll make your money back by using your book as a business builder.”

25:05 Prudden tells about how Itty Bitty Book’s Marijuana book: 15 Ways to Use Cannabis for Healing, came to be, including its upcoming sequel. – “And then I said, ‘Then you’re going to write the book 15 Ways to Talk to Your Kids about Cannabis and then you’re going to write the book 15 Ways to Use Edibles Correctly.

27:36 How Itty Bitty’s “15 Experts” Books are compiled

28:00 Five Question Round

29:48 “You are the power in your life.”

30:22 “You have to work at it. You have to take action.”

30:52 “I’ve been making up companies for 50 years. You get an idea, and you just do it.”

1:39 Scott talks about an early role model – her grandmother – the first to start the Tuxedo rental business.

2:07 [On starting Fierce] – “I had been running groups of CEO’s here in Seattle…and I would meet with each of them once a month for about 2 hours.”

2:45 [Inspired by Hemingway] “I had an epiphany that our companies and our careers and our relationships and our lives can succeed or fail, gradually hen suddenly, one conversation at a time.” 

3:08 “What gets talked about within a company, how it gets talked about, and who is invited to the conversation, determines what’s going to happen.”

4:22 [Paraphrasing Annie Dillard] – “How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.”

4:29 “Most leaders are spending their days in meeting after meeting after meeting, conversation after conversation after conversation.”

5:23 The importance of straight talk and straight listening.

5:38 “People are understandably frightened to disclose what they’re really thinking and feeling, and they don’t necessarily want to go for the biggest and baddest and toughest and most complicated issues.”

5:59 “People end up waterskiing through their conversations rather than putting on a scuba tank and going deeper.”

7:14 “Fierce Leadership is the book that if somebody’s going to read one book, they should read that one.”

7:57 [On making the conversation real] – “You have to decide whether or not you really care about the issues on the table. If you don’t care, then you’re not necessarily going to come out from behind yourself and be real.”

8:22 “I would hope that you are in a culture where candid candor is valued.”

8:31 “No plan will survive its collision with reality.”

9:31 “The person who’s holding the meeting fills that form before everyone comes together for the meeting.”

10:21 “A leader’s job is not to be right, a leader’s job is to get it right for the company.”

10:38 “If I’m the leader, I want to start by changing the way I’m holding my meetings.”

11:31 “There’s an easy and graceful way to put your perspective on the table even if it contradicts the leaders of the organization.”

12:14 “Most people aren’t even aware that they’re shutting people down.”

13:05 “In our training nobody does any role play, nobody pretends to be someone other than who they are.”

14:29 How practice can make you a better communicator.

14:51 “We teach people what accountability really is and how to raise the bar on accountability.”

16:05 How a meeting facilitator can help keep a meeting from derailing.

16:31 “We want the client to have gotten tremendous benefit from the training and actually make progress on an issue that is of great importance to them.”

17:12 People always amaze me at how brave, courageous, and skillful they can be very quickly, given the right tools and understanding of what’s at stake.”

17:59 “What is your role as a manager? It is not to have all of the answers, it is not to create the plan all by yourself.”

18:42 “If I as a manager am always just dictating to them what they should do, and sharing the brilliance of my own thinking with them, there’s not much room for them to shine. Plus, I am not always going to get it right.”

20:13 [On Managers changing mindset] – “Why would I want to go back to that lonely role of coming up with all of these ideas myself, when I’ve got some amazing people who came up with ideas is a short amount of time?”

22:05 “When everybody knows, and you tell them at the beginning ‘Before we conclude I’m going to ask every one of you to give me your best advice,’ when you do that, no one is going to be checking out.”

23:08 “If you haven’t heard from somebody in the meeting you call on them.”

23:38 “You teach people how to behave in these meetings and no one gets to hide out and shrink their subatomic particles and vanish off the radar screen. They’re invited to the meeting because their perspective is important.”

25:24 [Paraphrasing Will Rogers] – “Politicians are good at saying absolutely nothing and saying it all the time. Nobody’s listening and then everybody disagrees,”

26:43 Ask more questions, respond with fewer ‘Yes, but’s,” especially in regards to political discussions.

29:44 “Labelling people or groups of people is so counterproductive.”

30:30 “People are tired of having these 360 anonymous inputs…people want to have conversations.”

30:53 “Companies are shifting their performance management to be this ongoing conversation.”

31:00 The two major updates to Fierce Conversations

33:04 [On feedback] – “The time has come, we all know that we need it.”

33:36 “Let’s get away from the practice of holding people accountable and holding people able and modeling accountability.”

34:09 “Be very clear with people on what are their deliverables.”

34:44 “There’s no way I can hold you to a standard that is higher than the one I’m exhibiting myself.”

34:54 “Accountability is an attitude.”

35:03 “You have to create an environment in which people choose accountability.”

36:08 Feedback Scott has received from readers.

37:23 “You wasn’t people to come up with their own insights.”

38:59 [On fierce conversations] – “It’s one where we lean in, we really listen to one another, we totally disclose what we’re thinking, we share the goal of getting it right.

39:17 Five questions with Susan Scott

1:02 Lynch tells about how her experiences with the United States Marine Corps shaped her abilities as a leader.

2:48 “I’m not someone who would’ve been able to afford going to graduated school, but thanks to my military service – the GI Bill is a fantastic vehicle – and so I went to law school after my time in uniform, and through the opportunity was able to enter the profession as a full-fledged attorney.”

3:26 Lynch describes how working in the law firm wasn’t the kind of work that she found fulfilling.

4:05 [On creating the startup with Angie Morgan] – “Our firm’s 14 years old, but I still remember the startup days like they were yesterday…there’s a lot of vision, a lot of ambition and that phase of a business. You’re motivated to work hard, and you know you want to add value and you want to have a positive impact.”

4:35 [On having Walmart as a first customer] – “When you’re a tiny little startup and Fortune1 becomes your first customer, you learn a lot quickly.”

5:02 “We didn’t have a strong platform to stand on, but we were incredibly passionate about what we had to offer.”

5:54 [On getting Walmart as a client] – “Walmart was a cold call, but it was an informed cold call.”

6:21 “I realized that the problems Walmart had, the challenges Walmart had…when you’re such a big organization, you’re a cross section of society, just like the Marine Corps…so my thinking was, if they had leadership development experiences, especially for their female employees, problems could be caught at the store level.”

7:06 “We just happened to connect with someone inside their diversity department whose father had served in the Marine Corps and really understood the practical value of leadership development for making any work force better.”

7:54 “I say it’s kudos to Walmart rather than kudos to us for investing in a small, women-owned business.”

8:16 [On why clients contact them] – “It’s people right? Anytime there’s 2, 3, of or more people working together, there’s bound to be friction.”

8:28 “We hear consistent challenges. How do we adopt a better strategy? How do we empower employees? How do we work in a virtual environment? How do we hold people accountable?”

8:41 “The joy of our work is that we get to work across all industries, all verticles, because people are people everywhere they go.”

8:50 [On why organizations contact them] – “Organizations are typically having a pain point, and people not working together as efficiently or as effectively as they could, is what seems to be at the root of it, or, the opposite side is the client or companies experiencing a tremendous amount of success, and they’re having to scale very quickly.”

9:18 “We usually come in when things are going really tough, or when things are just going gangbusters.”

9:47 “Training and development is necessary and definitely a part of what we do, yet our clients bring us in and we integrate very deeply into their business. So everything that we do is about helping the client achieve their business goals.”

10:40 [On working with Facebook as things were moving quickly] – “It was the true pleasure of my career to see that company grow up on the inside and work with their most amazing talented professionals.”

11:30 “We work a lot in the energy industry, with a lot of engineers. “I sent the e-mail I asked for it to be done!” But really it’s about human connection.

11:47 “There’s lots of different ways to connect, and we like to help our clients see the practical ways even in a virtual environment, a fast-paced environment, or an environment of mathematicians, computer scientists, and engineers, greater human connection can happen.”

12:10 Lynch discusses the importance of maintaining spontaneous contact and agenda-less conversation.

12:34 “What can happen when we’re in a virtual world is we can get very task focused.”

13:19 Lynch describes her son’s “the practice after the practice,” noting how connection and bonding occurs in between the places where work and tasks are accomplished.

13:46 [On the inspiration for writing Spark] – “Spark is like our greatest hits album because it was really hard fought in the trenches…[Angie, Sean, and I spent thousands of hours inside the company, and it was such an exciting opportunity to be a student of the best leaders in the world.”

14:24 “Spark was written over a 5-6 year period, even though actually sitting down and writing the book only took about a year, it was those 5-6 years of learning and taking notes and working with so many different talented leaders that really led to “Hey, we learned a lot, and we want to share this so that everyone has an opportunity, everyone who picks up the book, to be a better leader.”

14:59 “Better leaders really do equal a better world, and that’s leaders at all levels.”

15:05 “Anyone has the potential to lead, and if we all just spent a little time practicing it, great things happen within our communities, and our greater world.”

15:50 “I think that our world is becoming more flat. Organizations are starting to trim the hierarchy, people have matrix relationships. So I would encourage someone who’s focused on what they don’t have, when it comes to authority or title, to shift their focus to what they do have.

16:15 Lynch explains how the best leaders guide while the worst leaders mandate and control.

16:51 Leadership is to influence and inspire other people.

17:00 “Some of the most front-line roles that we have in organizations: a front-line sales representative, a receptionist, a new account manager, a front-line invoice processor – these are the people that are making the company run, and if they demonstrate leadership behaviors, they’ll be able to influence their teams and the greater organization.”

17:55 “[Feedback] has to be delivered in a way that doesn’t disrupt ego and stability. There’s ways to give feedback well. I think that all feedback that is delivered effectively begins with a lot of accountability.

18:19 “Feedback isn’t well-received if someone is placing blame while they’re giving it.”

19:00 “There’s a fine line between feedback and complaining.”

19:24 Lynch illustrates the creative leadership model for feedback: giving feedback from a situation, behavior, and impact perspective.

21:17 “A lot of time feedback gets into a really tough place because it becomes accusatory or unduly emotional, and we need to talk about behaviors that people can change, and we need to do it in a way that sets the stage for grace and dignity.”

22:21 “I think that’s the mark of a high performing team: when you can talk about accountability.”

23:00 The four keys to being credible.

23:53 “Self-awareness is the accelerant to our leadership development. If we can anticipate our blind spots and work to take action, that’s growth and that’s where growth happens.”

24:55 The Say/Do Gap concept.

25:05 Lynch explains why leadership doesn’t only happen in the heroic moments.

25:38 “If you’ve made a commitment, are you doing everything it takes to meet those standards that you’ve set?”

26:52 Why you shouldn’t “hide the ball.”

27:23 How people who have been athletes or in athletics often make excellent leaders.

28:05 “When anyone enrolls in any professional development or any academic experience they’re saying, ‘Hey, I want to learn. I want to grow.’ And that growth mindset is highly relevant to us as professionals.”

29:07 Lynch describes a major bump in the road LeadStart faced, and the path they took to overcoming it as a team.

29:55 “Stress has a way of bringing up a lot of unproductive emotions.”

30:28 “People want to buy consulting services from the consultants, they don’t necessarily want to buy that from a third party sales professional.”

32:09 “In those earlier years we really had to ask for those referrals to get them.”

32:27 “Hope is not a strategy. We really needed to be explicit with our clients about what we needed.”

34:24 Lynch describes the differences between the company 14 years ago and the company today.

34:57 “I’m a multi-dimensional thinker. I think broadly, I like to think from a lot of different vantage points. Yet, when it comes to doing, I’m very linear.”

35:29 [On tools and tips for productivity.] – “I jot down the things I must do the next time I’m at work.”

1:10 Raymond recounts his first real experience in entrepreneurship, telling about the “driveway car wash’ he owned with his friends.

1:33 [On lessons learned from this early venture] – “One of the lessons was the operating costs are always higher than you think they are.”

1:50 “Any industry worth being in is crowded.”

2:15 How law school taught Raymond to show up in the world in a professional way.

2:53 “My education in law school really helped me write with some structure, rather than just stream of consciousness, but to actually put one idea after the next in a way where something builds.”

3:05 “A lawyer is able to string a series of good ideas together and build an argument, right? Which is what a good book or a good blog post is: it’s a good argument for advocating a a piece of change.”

3:45 Raymond describes what it was like working 3 jobs out of law school, and still barely being able to cover rent. 

4:04 [Paraphrasing Andy Warhol] – “You know you’re on track in your life when you’re using the best and the worst of what’s happened to you over the course of your journey.”

4:26 “If I want to have an impact in the world, I’m going to have to take some steps, and there’s going to be some painful moments along the way.”

4:52 [On Raymond’s Clients at Refound] – “I think the biggest problem we help people with, I would say, is overwhelm and ambiguity.”

4:55 “In most modern organizations, there’s a lot of thought being put into ‘How do we create a people first culture? How do we engage with employees? How do we create the conditions where people feel like they’re coming to work not just to create profit for owners and shareholders, but a sense of personal meaning.”

5:27 “What we’ve been able to do is offer a real tactical approach for how to do, in particular, feedback and accountability in an organization that really grounds the way people operate on a day to day basis.”

5:53 “Where organizations go sideways, and where things start to degrade, is in the actual conversations between managers and employees, between managers and one another, and, very importantly, between managers and senior executives.”

7:39 [Case Study Software Company in south bay, CA] – “There was this big aha moment, which is fairly common, where all of the managers in the organization [realized] how they were sort of playing a level down or two levels down from their title.”

8:26 “It’s incremental. Nothing changes overnight. Nothing worth doing changes overnight.”

9:09 “And that’s really the best part of this work for me. I get to see people take these tools and apply them in ways that I never would’ve thought, and have conversations that are meaningful to them.”

9:44 [On Raymond’s inspiration for writing the book] – “I bumped up against my own capacity as a leader, and I realized that I didn’t know what I was doing.”

10:23 How Raymond’s experience with cold, unfeeling training programs led him to create a work that was truly human.

10:26 “It’s not about being authentic, because “being authentic,” well, what does that mean? But, you know, how do you show up in a way that’s both professional and personal, that’s warm and kind and compassionate, but that also drives results?”

11:15  The type of feedback that makes people uncomfortable, and the scourge of the “Millennials boogeyman.”

11:57 [On the reluctance to new processes and change] – “People have been burned before.”

12:31 “This points to the tragedy of what’s happening right now in otherwise really interesting space in time, is that we’re radically over investing in technology to solve this problem, and radically underinvesting in training.”

12:59 [The mistake organizations make again and again] – “Buying tools and technology to solve human problems.”

13:39 Why managers are so hesitant to give feedback.

14:24 “To be able to embrace a communications methodology that says, ‘Actually, you know what, uncertainty is your best friend.’”

14:40 “If your feedback provides a solution, it’s not feedback, it’s micromanagement.”

15:12 “When we get a solution, when we get a ‘Here’s what you should do next,’ it’s quite disempowering.”

16:15 Raymond reveals some tips for managers.

16:25 “There are very few things we can do that will give us more value than not going into feedback situations cold.”

17:26 [On Accountability] – “We have to reframe what we think of when we say accountability. We can use the word, but if we don’t understand the meaning behind the word, we’re on the wrong track.”

18:07 “Accountability, all it means is responsibility for one’s actions.”

18:35 Why accountability without consequences is ineffective.

19:14 “Accountability is a gift.”

19:50 Raymond shares the layers of developing accountability in an organization.

20:25 [The key to accountability] – “The key is communication where people say, ‘You know what? I’m holding myself accountable for this, and you, Sir or Ms. Manager, I want your help.”

21:13 “We’re not very mindful as a species, we tend to be kind of reactive.”

21:35 How to “name what we feel” when giving constructive feedback.

21:58 “We can’t change behavior if we don’t know what the behavior is.”

22:33 “People will surprise you.”

22:47 “Oftentimes that’s what we need, we need boundaries. We need structure for what does excellent work look like.”

23:25 “If you get to do whatever you want, whenever you want with no consequences and no structure, you’re not really helping your teammates, you’re not really helping the organization in any directed, vision oriented way.”

23:44 “A good sales conversation has structure, it has flow – you have pieces that you want to cover; but it also has substance – it’s how you show up, and how you relate, and how you listen.”

24:49 How structure, communication, and substance go hand in hand.

25:37 “What unifies the organizations that are doing this well is participation from executives in a very specific way.”

26:10 [On the importance of recognizing where we are.] – “We’re very good at making big pronouncements of how it’s going to be in the future.”

27:14 “You actually have a lot more latitude, a lot more leeway with the people in your organization than you think.”

27:25 “You don’t have to fix the organization this afternoon. You just have to own that there are problems.”

27:49 “The frustration comes from when management and leadership tries to whitewash [problems].”

28:26 “I think it’s interesting that organizations have found themselves in this position of having to apologize for holding people accountable for being jerks.”

29:49 The problem with taking half measures.

31:12 “Don’t boast about what you’re going to do, let actions speak for themselves.”

32:05 What Raymond reads to stay on top of current trends.

33:02 The tools Raymond uses to stay productive.

1:35 Barta discusses how his Mother was an early inspiration for his young life.

1:40 “She had one principle, and that is, ‘You can always advance.’ Whenever I had a new idea, her best advice was, ‘Go try it.’”

2:00 How growing up in Germany and driving ambulances for civil service prepared Barta for his career.

2:36 [On speaking to people in the fields of marketing and customer relations] – “The main challenge – everybody who does marketing and everybody who worries about customers is facing – is how do be relevant, how do get things done, how to really help customers.”

3:12 “I believe everybody who works with customers or for customers deserves a stronger voice in their organization.”

3:39 “Over 50% of C-suite executives, just surveyed by The Economist, just said they do not believe that marketing drives revenue, which is a problem, because, as a marketer, if you’re not revenue, you may end up being cost.”

4:16 “It’s super important that every marketer who listens asks themselves, “Am I cost or revenue?”

4:49 The story of the CMO and his problems with agenda and budget, and what Barta’s team did to help him overcome these roadblocks.

5:48 [On the importance of removing buzzwords from marketing speech] – “We really stopped the buzzword: “Bingo!”

6:32 “When he started to use the language of the rest of the c-suite…he changed so much [about] what the discussion was.”

6:53 “We need to get marketers into the flow, because that’s where the customer always belongs.”

7:20 Barta describes his inspiration for developing a course and writing his book while working at McKinsey, and how he ultimately decided to do it on his own.

7:34 “What you do when you want to do something at McKinsey like this, you’ve gotta get your act together and find the best practices, tools, research, and what have you.”

8:23 “My reason for writing this book was really that there wasn’t one, plus, I felt probably it was a good way to get the word out.”

8:44 How long the writing, editing, publishing, and promotion process for the book was, and why feedback from industry leaders made it worth the wait.

9:22 Barta describes the 3 surprises he uncovered while distilling down acquired data into 12 central ideas.

9:21 “The first surprise was that doing marketing is very different from leading marketing, and in fact, you can be a very good technical marketer – you can be very good at branding, segmentation, and what have you – but have absolutely no impact in the market.”

9:45 “What found is that the skill of marketing inside a company, of leading marketing, are very different from the skills of branding, segmentation, pricing, and all the things you would technically do in marketing. It’s a whole new set of skills.”

10:25 “So few marketers are actually equipped with the skills to lead.”

11:15 [On the biggest myth held by senior managers] – “It’s the company’s fault.”

11:18 “A lot of marketers will tell you that they would be so much more successful if they only were working in another company, if they only had another boss, if they only had another industry.”

11:55 “About 55% of the success is driven by the leadership skills of the marketers. Another 15% by the skills.”

12:51 Barta lists two pieces of advice to offer marketers listening to the program.

13:10 “Make sure the issues you’re tackling as a marketer are big.”

13:45 [The Value Creation Zone] “Where company goals and company needs and customer needs are overlapping.”

14:52 “Tip #2 – Make sure you are in the revenue camp.”

15:18 “Get in the revenue camp, figure out how much your work is worth, do it together with finance if you need to.”

16:10 “What’s the opposite of a delighted customer?”

16:15 “In marketing, even if we have the greatest idea about customer service, there will always be a lot of people that we need to convince, and have play and play, so we can actually make great customer service happen.”

16:40 “As marketers, we are in the business of change.”

17:12 “As leaders, we are dealers in hope.

17:28 How the Marketing director of Ford used company pride to launch a brilliant marketing campaign.

17:53 [How to market effectively] – “When you think about your work, think about the story you can tell that will give people hope.” 

17:59 What it means to “walk the halls” in marketing.

18:30 “You have to go out and talk to people [about] where you want to see change, sharing your ideas. It also means shutting up and listening, and not making decisions straightaway.”

19:25 Why it’s important for people to be involved, even if they don’t agree.

19:35 “As a marketer we have to go out, we have to walk the halls.”

20:10 “If you talk to very successful senior marketers, in fact, very successful leaders, you’re typically touched by their passion, their conviction, their strong beliefs in what they’re doing.”

21:41 What “fire in the eyes” looks like, and how to test for it.

22:48 Some of Barta’s tips and tricks for staying productive.

1:09 [On Presser’s early life experiences“My earliest questions didn’t have answers, I had to spend a lot of time seeking them out myself.”

2:00 “Everything is about people interacting with other people. And why is it sometimes that you have this amazing feeling that you’re yourself but you’re like the best you that you ever are when you’re doing it with these people?”

3:00 Teaming up with Dr. Jack Gerber.

4:15 [On being a female entrepreneur during the women’s movement] “We were on a mission to change the world.”

5:15 [On the power of teams] – “Everyone else did all those other things that I didn’t do very well. I was great at coming up with ideas, but you have to have people who will lead the execution, or who make sure the details get followed up on, or the person who handles the emergency as it happens.”

5:53 “It was so gratifying, not just because it was my mission in life, but that I also could do it with people who felt that the way in which they were contributing to this thing that was bigger than any of us, that that was meaningful to them, and that’s a very contagious feeling. That feeling that what you’re doing is meaningful and important.”

7:36 “Teaming is a science. Great teamwork, that great team chemistry that we want, there’s an operating system for it.”

7:55 [On incorporating the formula for teaming] – “Whether you’re a startup or a huge multinational, it doesn’t matter, we all start new things at different times.”

8:20 [One of the most important question to ask about people] – “How do they really make meaningful contributions to something bigger than themselves?

9:18 Two more important points to think about when evaluating the people on your team and their level of contribution.

10:17 “It’s not that people are good or bad or indifferent, it’s that everyone has an optimal place that they’re going to make a better contribution from the standpoint of the team, but also do it in a way that’s fun for them.”

10:50 Presser uses herself as an example to describe teaming characteristics.

14:34 “If you want to understand anything about someone, all of the ways that existed prior to tenability are some variation of directly, or indirectly, asking someone what they’re like.”

15:26 “It’s not good for business to not have their needs met, and it’s not great for people to be in a job that isn’t going to be satisfying to them in at least some way, and to have that feeling of at least doing something productive.”

16:43 The characteristics which don’t factor into Teamability.

17:18 “If you ask someone how good they are at something, very often you’ll get something completely incorrect, because people do not know what they do not know.”

18:01 [On objective evaluation] – “The fact is, evaluating yourself you use yourself as the reference point.”

19:57 [On hiring for skill based work] – “Think about what’s important, what is truly important, in this job. If it’s something like lifting boxes, then ask someone to lift the weight of a typical package, or the heaviest package, that has to go on. That’s a pretty good test. But if the test is: Will they smile at the person they’re delivering it to? Do they have to deal with any regulators on the road? Ask yourself, ‘To be successful at this job, how does this person need to interact with other people?’”

21:46 How teaming characteristics affect personal interactions.

21:52 “Rethinking what we expect of people in terms of personal interactions or longer term relationship is really key, because, you know, why do people leave jobs? Because they don’t like the boss or the people they’re working with. Most people don’t leave because, well, they don’t like the actual task that they do.”

22:33 How Presser’s clients use her expertise on Teamability.

24:54 The 4 components used for the Teamability Playbook.

25:30 [Basis 1 – Well fit] – “Give people actual work, tasks, day to day things to do that align with the way in which they contribute. They will be happier and so will you.”

25:46 [Basis 2 – Team Fit] – “Make sure every person on the team is meeting on of those key needs that that team has.”

26:34 [Basis 3 – Team Chemistry] – “If we try to do everything we don’t succeed very well and we feel like we’re being stretched in too many directions. When we find our role partner…then one person starts, and the other person finishes.”

27:55 [Basis 4 – Role Respect] – “Role is the way you make that contribution, and role respect is the way that a manager can manage, communicate, respect, appreciate any other person on the team in a way that aligns with the way in which they make their contributions.”

31:00 How to appreciate the people on your team in the role that they play.

33:41 “If you want to have better teaming, make it real, make it visible. Acknowledge people for the parts in which they contribute. And, by the way, if you start to do this at work, you will start to do this in your personal life.”

34:13 How growing up in your family structure creates the foundation for your views of teaming.

34:48 “If you want to leave a legacy, leave a legacy of great teaming.”

35:00 “When you make the workplace a better place to work, you make the world a better place to live.”

37:32 “If you are wanting a successful company, or division, or team, or anything, if it’s successful you are very likely doing something right, wouldn’t you like to know what it is so you don’t have to go through the aggravation of ‘Why did this work so perfectly last time and now it doesn’t?’”

39:56 “When you think of any sport team, you tend to think of the players that are on the field, but for every player on the field, how many people are there supporting them?”

1:38 Campbell’s journey from corporate attorney to business decision-maker and consultant to founder of Small Business Trends.

4:07 [On curating content in the web’s earlier days] – “We would follow our website statistics and see which articles were most popular. We would see which articles were getting linked to by others, just which ones were getting the attention, and from there we were able to do more of the things that were really popular.”

5:08 [On reacting to customer feedback] – “Like any magazine we get communications from readers and we act on that.”

5:47 The different types of content, personalities, and media Campbell hosts on her podcast.

6:37 “We like an eclectic mix of good information whether it’s on technology, or human resources, management, marketing, whatever it is, as long as it’s of interest to small businesses.”

7:08 “People are interested in actionable kinds of advice rather than long essays that may be real thought pieces, I mean there’s a place for those, but we need to have a steady diet of good actionable tips.”

7:52 “A lot of our advice applies whether you are a sole proprietor, or if you have a staff of 5,10, 50 people working in the business. We just react to ‘What do people say is the most important to them?’”

8:22 How tracking private email shares can indicate the success of published content.

9:25 [On SBT’s most popular content] “Our perennial favorites are the startup failure statistics, they get quoted a lot…People are just trying to make sure that they don’t become a statistic.”

10:10 [On SBT’s popular 1 page marketing plan] “People are looking for something that doesn’t overwhelm them, and when you think about your typical small business owner – well think about yourself, I think about myself – I have so many things coming at me in a day’s time I don’t have big blocks of time to sit down and write a lengthy marketing plan.”

11:15 “We want help. We look for aids and assistance. But it’s gotta be stuff that we can deal with quickly, because we don’t have a lot of time.”

12:25 [On the inspiration for Visual Marketing] “We’re very busy, our brains our fried from all of the other things we have to worry about and get done in a day. Even if we have some outside marketing help, we’re rolling up our sleeves and helping our outside marketing agency or consultant. And we have to think up new ideas and that’s very tough.”

12:50 Campbell’s technique for quick idea formulation.

13:20 [What the book is about] “It’s 99 examples that you can use of low-cost creative marketing to pull ideas and hopefully trigger some ideas of something you can apply in your own business.”

13:55 “With the explosion of blogs today, so many small business, and in particular those that sell B2B to other small business, have started their own blogs. And while getting information and advice was useful, one thing that so many of them were looking for is a way to also get visibility for their own blog, for their own thoughts, and to be able to share with the world what they are doing.”

14:24 “One of the very powerful things that we learned was that we could become more popular if we helped our readers become better known.”

15:01 “While we want to give you information and resources as a reader, we know that it’s also key for you as a small business owner – perhaps you’re a consultant, account, or some sort of professional, head of your own marketing agency – you need to establish your own thought leadership, and to be able to get out there and let the world know what you’re doing.”

16:00 The story of BIzSugar.com and what it does for small business owners.

17:57 [On BizSugar’s content] – “We keep the site very focused on small business, we don’t allow anything off topic in there. If you are really into sports or entertainment, there are plenty of sites for that. BizSugar is not one of them. And it’s because we keep it so focused that it’s a useful resource.”

19:35 “We’re open and we relish serving even the smallest of small business, or even if you think your business is a mundane kind of business, there’s probably a place for it to be mentioned in some way. We always look for the unique, what’s special about a business. I think every business has something special – I don’t care how small, where you’re located, there’s something special in your business, and if we can spot that, we love to talk about it.”

20:45 On how Small Business Trends is able to track changes and trends in the market, especially with emerging technology. 

1:15: [On the mentorship of Tom Schumacher] – “[Schumacher] inspired me to be a problem-solver and a speaker, and he showed great faith in my abilities and always pushed me to be my own person.”

1:59: “I’ve never really been an employee. I’m what I call a serial entrepreneur.”

2:20: [On what it means to be your own person] – “Not being easily influenced by either peer pressure, social pressure, or any other types of pressure that may exist either in the workplace or in society.”

2:44: The 3 primary aspects of any business.

3.27: [On finding and keeping clients] – “I’ve started with a handful of people that I’ve come in contact with, and they saw what I was doing, they saw my work ethic and my reputation, and some of them gave me a chance. That’s really all it took, was getting my foot in the door.”

4:07 [Characteristics of an ideal client] – “I think one of the primary characteristics, more than anything, is openness. What I mean by openness is openness to change.”

4:36 [On client transparency] – “I’ve gone into situations where I talked to some of the key managers, and although they recognize they have a problem, they don’t recognize that they need to change. And they’re not willing to look in the mirror.”

6:30 [On asking the difficult questions] – “I may attend a meeting, and I may interrupt the meeting and say something to the leader, or maybe even the CEO or exec, and challenge them in front of the team. Saying ‘hey, why are you asking that question?’ or ‘hey, it may be a good idea for you to listen to some of the other input.’ Or perhaps, ‘We haven’t heard from Jim, let’s hear what Jim thinks.”

7:14 “I really challenge people to get outside of their own heads, to push them to think and behave differently.”

7:54 [On building trust with clients] – “Before I begin any of the real work, I will spend a lot of one on one time with the decision maker. I will get to know them as people. I will ask them a lot of questions. I will get them to what I call the comfort point. And also, I will ask their permission. I will let them know that I will ask hard questions, and get their permission to do so.”

8:55 Rogers’ Inspiration for writing Decide to Profit: The 9 Steps in a Better Bottom Line

10:40 The nine steps in a better bottom line.

12:00 [On the importance of understanding the goal] –  “A lot of people get mired in the day to day tasks and activities. And they kind of grind through their day. They have a tendency not to stay focused on the bigger picture.”

12:30 [The fundamental driving force behind the company] – “My whole purpose in writing both the book, and identifying the goal – as one of the steps, is to keep people focused on the bigger picture. And in any company, and any organization…the fundamental driving force behind the company is making money. So there’s an overarching financial goal.”

12:55 “And my idea was, have everybody within the organization tie every decision that they are making to the larger goals of the organization. Number 1 has to always be: making money.”

13:30 [On the importance of quality] – “The quality of your product, that also has to be a goal. You can’t make money and sacrifice quality, because that’s not sustainable.”

13:40 [Deciding the profit] – “Every organization can have 1, 2, or 3 goals that they are primarily focused on. And if you make sure that everyone knows what those goals are, and tie their day to day decisions to them, that’s how you can decide the profit.”

14:04 The importance of keeping day to day decision in line with organizational goals

15:10 The Lego study

16:09 [Sacred cows] – “In some of the companies that I’ve worked with, I see them hold on to business decisions, or I see them hold on to product. I even see them hold on to no-productive people. And all of this is counterintuitive, and it’s not in alignment with the overall goals of the organization.”

16:32 [On unified goals] – “[The lego study] shows how one single unified goal enabled a company to completely turn around.”

17:31 [On teams holding themselves accountable] –  “Have you ever been in a meeting where there’s a lot of discussion and a lot of ideas, and everyone leaves the meeting and 90% of the ideas and discussion has been forgotten? That’s what I experience in a lot of the companies I work with. There’s a lot of ideas, a lot of good discussion, a lot of innovative discussion, yet nobody ever captured the discussion, nobody ever circled back – there was no feedback loop, and there was no accountability.”

18:23 [On accountability] – “What makes people accountable can be something as simple as an action list. And I don’t mean minutes, I don’t mean a detailed list of who said what verbatim. I mean, a ‘we talked about this, we decided to do this, this person owns it, and this is when they’re going to get it done.’”

19:45 [On employee contribution] – “In the book I have a tool for employees to do a very straightforward return on investment analysis. One of the disconnects that I was increasingly becoming aware of is that managers would often miss ideas because they couldn’t see how that idea would benefit the organization.”

20:16  [On helping employees choose ideas that are tied to financial goals] “The benefit of the 9th step is that it provides employees a tool and a methodology to demonstrate both quantitatively and qualitatively how to give an investment to the organization and show how their idea will either improve the financial goals or other goals.”

21:38 The importance of checklists and forms for employees.

23:00 [On brainstorming] – “The people that make the decisions tend to shoot down the ideas of those that don’t make the decisions. Allowing people to free think, allowing for ideas to be equally valuable no matter who they’re coming from, is very, very important. All of the rules that I put down for brainstorming are a result of all of those rules being broken during brainstorming meeting I’ve been to.”

24:21 Rogers describes the timeline and process of writing Decide to Profit: 9 Steps to a Better Bottom Line

25:03 “The book isn’t written for specialists. The book is not meant to be a dissertation on continuous improvement or operational streamlining or productivity. It’s meant to be a comprehensive overview of all of it, and it’s meant to be understandable, and it’s meant to be utilized by both managers and employees.”

26:06 Discoveries Rogers made during the writing process.

26:50 [On staying humble] – “I found that I fall prey to a lot of the same things that executives fall prey to, which is, believing my own press, believing my ideas are the best, believing that only my opinions count. I’ve found that really listening to the people around me makes a big difference.”

27:00 Rogers discusses some of the milestones in her career, and the significant clients she’s worked with

28:42 The two primary factors of inefficiency, and the importance of time management.

30:12 Roger’s preferred tools for productivity during travel.

1:03 Calloway recounts his childhood experience with entrepreneurship despite growing up in a small town with a father who was not, by any means, an entrepreneur.

1:53 “From an early age I was into selling stuff. I mowed a million yards, I raked a trillion yards. I think part of that came from my dad…if there was something special that I wanted, he would say ‘That’s great, how much money do you have saved up?’”

3:00 How Calloway transitioned from an interest in politics to a career in business.

3:49 [Recalling a stint in a real estate agency] – “The way I got paid was based on how much all the agents made, it was based on all the revenue generated in the firm, and that’s where I got big by the bug of ‘What can I come up with or what can I pass along in terms of ideas that will help other people be more successful?’ Because the more successful they were, it had an absolute direct impact on my own income.”

5:00 “I just am really good at paying attention. And that was my technique and my method, and I do it to this day, my job is to study the marketplace, and to look for individuals and organizations, businesses large and small, across the board, every kind of industry, and profession, and business you can imagine, and what I look for is quite simply this: who are the ones who are the market leaders who are successful and able to sustain that success?”

5:55 “What is it that top performers do that any of us could do if we just chose to?”

6:18 “It’s not easy to succeed in business, but it’s not a mystery. I don’t believe there are any secrets to success. I think the ideas that work are right out there in the open for all of us. So it’s a matter of getting intentional about using those ideas and doing the hard work necessary to execute on those ideas.”

7:58 Calloway describes why it’s important for people in this industry to stay relevant.

8:17 “I have to stay relevant, which means I’ve got to stay current on what is working in the marketplace.”

8:31 [On being hirable as a speaker] – “I work really hard at having a deep understanding of who is in my audience.”

9:04 The significance of tying what you’re speaking about to the audience you’re addressing, regardless of whether or not you’re an industry expert.

9:26 “You can have what you think is the greatest idea in the world, and be very passionate about it, but if other people don’t want it, if they don’t see the need for it, then you’ve got a hobby, you don’t have a business.”

11:00 Calloway asks the question: What’s the competitive advantage of being easy to do business with?

13:05 [On how to address people in an industry you’re not an expert in] – “What I can do is help make the link between ‘Here’s the principle, here’s the illustration of it, and here’s quite clearly what it has to do with you and your business.’”

14:20 “I perceive myself as being more of a facilitator than a speechmaker, because…I want to facilitate their thinking in a way that’s useful when they go back to work.”

14:50 [On what small businesses all say] – “How do I get customers, keep customers, and attract more customers?”

15:25 “It’s not what you say about yourself that matters one way or another, it’s what other people are saying about you, it’s what your customers are saying.”

16:08 [On using the internet and social media to you’re advantage] – “My biggest energy isn’t about what I post on social media, it’s about being intentional about creating a customer experience that is so compelling that my customers are saying things that drive new business to me.”

16:35 [On the worth of positive word of mouth] – “The biggest force in being magnetic is passed through word of mouth.”

17:25 The story of Western Water Works California and what they’ve done to become a market leader.

19:58 “The single greatest competitive advantage out there is satisfied customers.”

21:30 [On not apologizing to customers] “A lot of businesses [who] find themselves apologizing frequently to customers – well, hello, that’s a clue that you need to back up and solve whatever’s causing you to have to apologize.”

21:50 How a humble response to an honest mistake – but a big one since he sent 600 of the wrong title books sent to the meeting planner – kept chaos at bay and even made the situation better than expected.

23:14 “The point though is this, you don’t argue with a customer, you make it right, and you make it right so overwhelmingly that they say, ‘Ok, you just knocked my socks off. I’m going to talk about this.’

25:28 A nod to Warren Buffett and a discussion of the importance of using “no” to narrow your focus.

26:30 “Over the years, little by little, I’ve learned that it makes me a lot of money over the long haul to stick with what I do best and let other people do what they do best.”

27:45 How having a low tolerance level for jerks can be an effective filter in creating new business.

28:35 “I think it serves people really well to say ‘No’ more often, because it actually creates opportunity for the right things.”

29:20 Why you should say no to or walk away from those clients whose philosophy is in conflict with your philosophy.

31:15 [On saying no to clients who will be a drain on your energy] “Even though it’s money, it’s not good money.
32:35 The story of the Saint Paul Saints and how the owner’s dedication to hiring great people and getting out of their way makes the organization successful.

34:48 [The Saint Paul Saints method] – “If you hire the right people, you can totally turn them loose as long as they understand the direction that the business is going, you’ll be successful.

35:07 [The Saint Paul Saints method cont.] – “Fun is good.”

36:51 Pig-asso the baseball delivering pig.

37:10 “If people like doing business with you, that is a competitive advantage.”

37:55 How Old Dominion Trade Line simplifies their company language to encourage personal responsibility and ensure employees’ high performance.

40:00 [Paraphrasing Steve Jobs] – “If you can make things simple, you can move mountains.”

41:27 [On how expanding focus can lead to losing magnetic mojo] – “One trap that’s easy to fall into is to say ‘We could also do this, and we could also do that, and we can also this service, and we could also offer those products.’ Which might be the right thing to do, but we often stretch ourselves way beyond where we should be in terms of trying to do too many things.”

42:16 “For every ten ideas I have, for nine of them the market says ‘No, I don’t think so.’”

43:19 “You have to change to stay relevant. You have to improve, you have to innovate. But you’ve always got to create value in the eyes of the customers, otherwise it won’t work.”

43:45 [On reevaluating inventory] “We all need to periodically sit down with ourselves or with our teams and ask ‘Where are we spending way too much energy?”

46:02 Calloway’s daily rituals for productivity and success.

47:28 “You have to work at constantly being sure that you, and everyone else, are focused on what is most important.”

1:15 How Jill moved from disliking the idea of sales to embracing it the business she wanted to start.

2:27 “I became the designated person in our group to learn how to sell, so we could launch our business.”

3:01 “I think I maintain my focus on sales, and teach people to maintain their focus on sales, because if they don’t do it they won’t be able to do what they really love to do.”

3:34 “Unless you dedicate a portion of your life to actually going after the business, you’ll be financially on edge at all times.”

4:12 “I see so many people living with this old perception of sales, they think it’s about pitching and it’s about going forward and touting their stuff, and they’ve invested no time to learn what it actually means to be successful in sales.”

4:57 “The best sellers of ideas are the people who actually look and learn to study what it takes to make things happen in this arena.”

5:13 “The biggest barrier I’m seeing right now is inability to set up meetings with decision-makers. Over the last 5-7 years we’ve seen a number of technologies emerge that totally protect decision-makers from ever having to talk to a human being.”

6:35 “The reality is if you want to get more customers, if you want to set up more meetings with potential buyers than you literally have to study what it takes and figure out what business issues that you solve for your clients, the business ramifications, and the impact of what you do on your key business drivers.”

7:37 The organizations Konrath works for and how she helps them set up meetings with decision makers.

9:01 “It really does help people because they really do get discouraged. They think well I just don’t have the right genes for this or clearly they’re not interested because they’re not getting back [to] me.”

10:24 “Until you learn to study what it takes to be successful, you’ll continue to get some of those same results.”

10:40 Konrath describes her inspiration for writing the book.

12:38 “I figured that there’s gotta be a way to work with these people to help them achieve their objectives, because that’s really what sales is all about, to help them achieve their business objectives, and at the same time keep the sale moving forward so I can reach my objectives.”

13:44 Konrath describes the elements that make up SNAP.

14:00 “Crazy busy people are evaluating on 4 criteria. The S is simplicity, the N is the invaluableness of your work, the A is the alignment with their business objectives, and the P is priorities.”

14:21 [On the rating scale for simplicity] – “Either you are simple or you are complex. You’re writing an e-mail that gets to the point, or you’re writing a rambling one that goes on and on forever and bores them to death.”

15:46 “The first thing I always say to people is you need to focus on prevention so you don’t get yourself into that hole.”

16:11 Things you can do as a sales person do be aligned with potential clients.

17:27 “There’s a fundamental shift that it’s all about them and you have to remind them of the business value of what you’re doing at all times and align it with key priorities that are important to them.”

18:40 “If they’re not talking about changing, and there’s no money in the budget, then the entire focus has to be on the business issues that the client is facing that are addressable by your products or services and how you can help them meet the objectives they’ve set out for themselves this year.”

19:43 “Researching potential clients ahead of time is a sales imperative.”

20:08 On the importance of assuming certain things when addressing decision makers.

23:43 “In most cases you’re not going to get the sale in one call, in many cases it may take 6-10 calls over the course of several months to win the business. And we really need to be aware that it’s a process. We need to move people to the logical next step of the process.”

25:30 Konrath describes how your website can make an essential first impression with new clients.

26:45 “From a productivity standpoint it’s really hard to constantly be trying to sell. You need to have your website as the attraction center and it needs to get people to be able to sign up for certain things.”

27:55 “You really need to be focusing on what are people doing that are good at this, and how can I continue to get better to demonstrate my company’s expertise all the time.”

1:47 How Andersen’s work with Tim Galway in the 80s started her on her chosen career path.

2:10 “I really loved the whole focus on how organizations learn and don’t and how individuals learn and don’t.”

3:08 “I began Proteus in 1990 and it was really, from the beginning, the focus was helping our clients, both organizations and individuals clarify and work towards their hope for a future.”

4:35 [On her second book, Being Strategic] – “There really isn’t even a common definition about what it means to be strategic.”

4:50 [Definition of being strategic] – “Consistently making those core directional choices that will best move you towards your hope for a future. And that implies knowing what that hope for a future is.”

5:14 “If you don’t know where you’re trying to go, either individually or organizationally, and have some pretty clear stakes in the ground about what success will look like, and you don’t know where you’re starting from, you don’t have an accurate sense of your beginning point, then how can you make those core directional choices?”

6:13 “You need to know where you’re starting from, you need to know where you’re gonna get to, you need to be able to make those core statements of intention, which is what strategy is, and then consistency is filling them in with tactics.”

6:46 [Ideal Clients] – “Ideal clientness, in our mind, really has to do with openness. If someone is really open to new ways of operating, new ways of thinking about their situation, new skills, new techniques, new models…if someone is open, it makes it a 150M times easier to work with them.”

7:10 “Our ideal client is curious, honestly.”

8:07 “Even though our mission is very clear in helping people move toward their hope for a future, we have three practice areas where we work to do that.”

8:37 [On strengthening leaders] – “Even if you’re clear about your hope for a future, if you don’t have good, authentic leaders who can help you move in that direction, it’s probably not going to happen.”

9:10 What it means to have be at an inflection point.

10:04 “A lot of what I personally do is in that vision and strategy area.”

10:32 The story of how Andersen helped a media company be more mindful about their upcoming future.

12:09 “Quite often, in my experience, strategic planning is not satisfying. It is too abstract, too theoretical – people don’t often leave with a map, they leave with this huge binder that doesn’t really direct their actions.”

13:32 [On helping people open up to change] – “If it seems like there’s going to be a high degree of skepticism, we make sure to talk to people beforehand and explain the process to them, and, in some cases, show them.”

14:45 [On the benefits of making it fun] – “I’ve always felt as though when people feel powerful and engaged and ‘this is my thing,’ then they can learn. Learning doesn’t happen unless people feel like their having a good time.”

15:59 “The learning arises from inside the learner, and should be drawn out.”

17:06 “People are more interested in doing vision and strategy work than they were 3 or 4 years ago.”

17:27 “Senior executives are more cognizant of the fact that what helped them get through, and is still helping them get through, tough times is having great people who are really skilled, and smart, and productive, and committed to the enterprise.”

18:55 “My belief is that we are wired as human beings to look for certain characteristics in leaders.”

20:11 “I think whatever the circumstance, whatever the culture, people continue to look for these certain elements in people that they will allow to lead them.”

20:57 The six characteristics and skill sets of effective leaders.

23:07 [Definition of politics] – “The web and influence of power through which you need to navigate to reach your goals.”

23:24 [Politics in the workplace] – “To figure out in the organization who are your allies, who are your adversaries, and who are your fence sitters.”

25:05 The path that Proteus has taken to be successful and some important milestones along the way.

25:40 “It really shifts things when you have a book published. When it does well and it gets reviewed well and it gets published by a major publisher that really shifts the landscape and people really see you differently.”

26:50 [On tenability within Proteus] – “What an important thing it is for you to choose well and make certain that you’re well suited to your business partner.”

27:50 “We are really rigorous about practice what we preach.”

29:36 [The story of Mahatma Gandhi and the boy who ate too much sugar] – “It’s not ok to tell other people to do the things that you yourself are not doing.”

1:04 How Ginsberg’s fascination with approachability led him to conduct some ultimately successful experiments in college.

1:55 [Ideas vs. Execution] – “You don’t need an idea, you need an I did.”

2:54 “It is a mindset, execution, it’s sort of a way of life, and there are key distractions and things people need to get rid of. And it’s not about productivity, it’s not about ‘getting things done,’ it’s about creating a filter for your life.”

3:21 “It’s about being willing to delete the people, being willing to delete the processes, and deleting the irrelevant stuff that’s just killing you.”

4:27 [On ready, aim, fire] – “A) you’re never ready, B) aiming is overrated, and C) fire burns people.”

4:37 “Try, Listen, Leverage.”

4:45 [On Try, Listen, Leverage] – “You just try stuff, you just jump, you take the risk whether it’s a blog post or a new product or an idea or you wanna create a group on Facebook. Just try it. You listen, you see what happens, and then you leverage it. If it works, then great! If not, you move on.”

5:25 “You gotta fail yourself to success.”

5:40 “I’m actually not afraid of failing. I fail all the time. I love failing. I feel like failing is the best way to learn. I think it’s more fun. I think it makes a better story.”

5:59 “Can you imagine anything more terrifying than getting exactly what you want?”

6:40 [Paraphrasing Estée Lauder] – “Men buy brands, but women join them.”

6:48 “We should invite people to join our brand, not ask them to buy it, because it’s a totally different mindset, not to mention heartset.”

7:12 [On branding his company] – “What I wanted to do was create a piece of art that makes the mission more than a statement. It’s not just some sense that people memorize or something people stick on the wall.”

7:50 [On brand tagging] – “I don’t think people should wear a name tag everyday. I think they should find something that takes their identity and shares it.”

8:40 “My job is to come in as both a writer and translator to interview the key people and hang out for a couple hours and find out: who are these people, what’s important to them, why are they. What’s the why behind what they do?”

9:25 “Never fall in love with your own inventory.”

9:48 “Every brand tag has an intentional typo. It’s put in there as a reminder to be human, to be imperfect, and that’s a good way to get conversations started too.”

10:50 The importance of injecting life into your company mission with the use of a brand tag.

13:20 “Execution and commitment are part of my constitution. It’s not just what I do, that’s who I am.”

13:53 [On creating motivation for yourself] – “I don’t have deadlines, I have smell dates.”

15:15 Ginsberg’s experience giving a speech to a Rotary club, and how an audience member’s encouragement made him think.

15:45 “When you have a topic like approachability or you address an issue like execution, you frame it in a way where you can meet people where they are, and you can let them put themselves into your equation.”

16:40 “You open yourself to a lot of new markets, and a lot of it has to do with your willingness to just stick it out there and to be open and to be welcoming when people add different angles to your theme.”

17:34 “The first word after no is next.”

18:00 “I don’t work with people I don’t like, and I don’t have clients that annoy me to no end.”

18:18 “Part of execution is knowing when to say no. I’d rather be known for things I don’t do.”

19:02 “I think the secret is coming to this realization that saying ‘No’ to the good you make room to say ‘Yes’ to the best.”

19:38 “You gotta know where you suck.”

19:45 “I’m not much of a team player, I work really well alone. It’s my style, it’s my personality type. I love people, I crave human interaction and I have to have it every day. But when it comes to my work, I have to do it alone.”

21:39 Ginsberg’s daily routines for success and productivity.