Orchestrating Success

Adam Markel is a transformational teacher who inspires, empowers and guides people to live authentically, purposefully and powerfully from their hearts. He’s trained thousands of people from Singapore, Europe, Canada, Malaysia, Vietnam, Australia and all across the United States. Adam uniquely bridges the worlds of business, psychology and spirituality, to facilitate MASSIVE and LASTING personal and professional transformation.

In this ground-breaking book on personal and professional reinvention, Adam reveals his top strategies and tools to creating a new path towards your ultimate happiness and fulfillment. Adam shares life-changing exercises and declarations, so you can start taking action, release negative patterns and replace them with powerful intentions and rituals that will produce MASSIVE TRANSFORMATION in your life overtime.

This interview is about giving leaders tools for making a successful pivot.

Here’s the transcript:

Hugh Ballou: Greetings, this is Hugh Ballou. My guest on this session is Adam Markel, an amazing guy. I have seen Adam over the years, and we have had some conversations about things. Last time we met, we had some real resonance in transformational leadership and the programs he’s got that are really helpful. I love watching Adam’s keynotes. I love listening to his podcast. So I said, “Adam, why don’t we share some of these things with my audience who are orchestrating success and converting passion to profit?” Adam, welcome to this podcast.

Adam: Hugh, thank you so much for inviting me. I couldn’t think of any place I’d rather be right at this moment.

Hugh: Great. I am in the mountains of southwest Virginia, and you are way down in San Diego, where it’s always disgustingly nice.

Adam: Disgustingly nice is the way I would put it.

Hugh: There are maybe a couple of people in this audience who don’t know Adam Markel. I like to start out by asking people to share a little bit about yourself. What is the background? You have written a book, you do programs, you give keynotes on this thing you are calling pivot, which I think is a profound paradigm. What is your journey here, and what is pivot all about?
Adam: Hugh, thank you for asking me that. First and foremost, what I want people to know about me is I am a daddy. I have four healthy kids, the most incredible beings, and I feel so blessed that we were able to have four kids who are great contributors in the world today. My wife and I got married 28 years ago in two weeks’ time. I feel very blessed to be a daddy and husband for that length of time.

I have also been an entrepreneur since I was 15 years old. I started off selling baseball cards. I was a teacher. Just before the interview, you and I were reminiscing about our teaching careers. I spent two years teaching junior high school English, way back when. I had a short stint in publishing. I was a lifeguard. I learned a lot of great lessons from all those things: teaching, my little bit of space and time in the publishing field, and then being in service as a lifeguard and swimming instructor taught me a lot about life, including some things I have written about in the book I wrote many years later. I spent 18 years as a practicing full-time attorney. I am a recovering lawyer.

Hugh: Oh my.

Adam: I had a lot of hair before I started practicing law. You’re listening to a guy who has no hair. I am totally bald. By choice is what all bald guys say. I lost my hair primarily because I spent so many years doing work that I totally despised. I went into the practice of law because I wanted to provide a better life financially for my family. My wife Randi and I met in college. We got married a couple years later, and we had kids. I realized pretty quickly that kids are expensive. I wanted to provide a good life, have a house. I grew up and didn’t have very much financially. I shared the room a size of a closet with my brother in an apartment.

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Leadership IS Influence
We confuse authority with influence, when in fact, we must influence others to be perceived as a leader.
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
– John Quincy Adams
Envision the Future
Everybody has a dream. Only 3 out of every 100 people will actually do something about that dream by acting on the vision. Unfortunately, 9 out of 10 people attempting to launch a new enterprise, whether a business or a charity, will fail without achieving that dream.

What’s the difference? It’s having a plan and surrounding yourself with a competent team to implement that plan. The first priority, however is equipping yourself for the journey. Develop your skills to lead, implement the plan, and build the right team. And, by the way, equip yourself to build the income that you deserve with this enterprise.

I was glued to the television every night for the Rio 2016 Olympics and was massively impressed with our American athletes! They are highly skilled, masterfully trained, and consequently highly successful. Each successful athlete has a very competent coach.

Take Action
This is the same for professional athletes, actors, musicians, and business professionals. They all have a coach and train for success. We would never consider running a 26.2 mile marathon without training our bodies and minds for the task. Then why do we even consider starting and running a business or charity without having a coach and a content specialist mentor? That’s why over 90% fail…they lack the ability to lead the enterprise, as defined in the D & B research in 1995.

There’s an alternative. I have coaches, therefore I do what I teach.

Leading is influence.

Check out my Unbound Leader program to learn the process for success at http://TheUnboundLeader.com 
I’ve called that program, “Unbound Leader: Unlocking Your Inner Potential for Success.”

It’s time to do something different.

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Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound. – James Allen

Leaders Model What Others Should Do
As a musical conductor, I know that the ensemble is a reflection of the conductor. The better we are in inspiring excellence, the better the performance is! Conductors are skilled at creating excellence. If the musicians respect the conductor, then they play as the conductor intends and not as they direct. Some of our motions might not be exactly what we intend, so the players respond to the intent. This only happens when there’s respect for the conductor (the leader).

In non-musical situations, it’s pretty much the same. Leaders are basically influencers. The Transformational Leader leads by influence and not by power of position. That’s a difficult transformation for many leaders. We have been taught things that don’t work. Mostly we’ve been taught to be the BOSS. This is not good in today’s culture.

Effective leaders create relationship with those whom they lead so that the team members respond to the leader like a highly skilled orchestra musically responds to every nuance of the conductor. The leader must develop the skills to lead. There is no option.
Leaders are Developed

Yes, that’s true. Leadership skill is not something that we are born with. We must develop our skills. We must adapt to the current culture and the current situation. Leading a charity is different than leading an investment business.

There are many styles of leadership that fill the entire spectrum, from autocratic leadership (the BOSS, it’s about me) to servant leadership (about the vision).

I have worked with leaders of all types in a mentor role for over 30 years and have found that leaders have some of the same challenges, no matter what type of organizations they lead. I found lots of helpful stuff, but none of it met my expectations for a fully implementable strategy; therefore, I developed my own programs and systems that totally integrate strategy and implementation. Others provide pieces of the puzzle and I provide the fully integrated system.

I’d love to share this with you if you are interested. Go http://leadingforprofit.com to get my free report and training videos that will impact your success, starting right away. In the series of messages, you will have an opportunity for a 25-minute power session with me that will give you lots of value.

It’s Not Your Team…It’s YOU

If you are…
1. Facing leader burnout…
2. Struggling with an under-performing team…or
3. Not generating the revenue to achieve your mission…
It’s time to change the results.
Let’s chat.

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A Culture is a Reflection of the Leader, Part 2

“Perform every act in life as though it were your last.” – Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 AD

It’s essential for leaders to develop skills and awareness to impact the culture positively.

The leader shapes the culture with their influence and skill good or bad. This included language.

Leaders Get Results with Language – Both Good and Bad

Choosing When to Speak and What to Say

We can say whatever we choose to say…there are consequences to some word choices, however. If you take the quote by Marcus Aurelius one step further, “Speak every word as if it were your last.” Then it highlights the importance of how leaders choose words. There is power in the word chosen. There is also power in delivery since research tells us that 7% of the message is in the word and the rest is in facial expression and delivery. Having said this, the wrong word choices and block or change the intent of the intended communication.

Another favorite quote is from Mark Twain who said, “It’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt.” Being transparent is good. It’s different showing ignorance or insensitivity.

Using Unacceptable Words

When I get frustrated or excited, I might become careless with my word choices and event use some profanity. When leaders show insensitivity by using words that might offend someone else, the impact might be damaging to their reputation, and thus their position of influence. The choice of words and the way those words are delivered can make a huge difference.

Some types of poor choices in words might be the following:

Profanity
Harsh or Critical
Sexist
Racist
Political
Religious Bigotry
The list can go on…and on…and on..
Fundamentally, leaders impact others with actions and words. When combining negative word choices and negative emotions the negative impact is magnified greatly. Many times the damage is permanent and there’s no going back.

Leaders are Encouragers

One good word of affirmation displaces 37 disparaging remarks. The job of the leader is to influence others. That influence can be either positive or negative. Even when there’s a need for correction, discipline, or delivering bad news, there’s a way to choose words that are helpful and constructive rather than critical and destructive.

Having positive impact on those whom we lead is using power of influence in a useful and engaging manner. Transformational Leaders use personal influence rather than power of position to facilitate actions and changes. It is important to realize that there is power of position when communicating with others in the organization. There is what is called a “power differential” when communicating with team members. Leaders who are not aware of that power differential leverage that position of power over others unintentionally. Some are intentional as well. Sending unintentional messages can damage the effectiveness of any leader and potential damage reputation and team morale.

Carefully chosen words engage others in active listening and empower them to strive for results.

Examples of Negative Words of Phrases

Negative words creep into our language mostly by habit. We form bad habits and therefore send negative messages in our communications, both verbal and written, which can cloud the real message. Be aware of negative word choices.

Negative messages might be one of the following:

Blaming tone or words
Communicate a position of doubt that the other person can’t succeed
Only stresses negative results and doesn’t include any possibilities of success
Includes negative words such as, can’t, won’t, unable to…etc.
Examples of negative words and phrases:

You…when identifying a place for improvement or failure is received as blame…blame language
You have to understand…no they don’t have to do anything…power language

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The Leadership Challenge

The #1 complaint I hear from leaders: that they, as leaders, do too much and their teams do too little. Leaders blame others for what they create. There is a reciprocity in over-functioning. The counter-force is under-functioning.

What is over-functioning? It is micromanaging. Over-functioning is doing something for others that they should be doing themselves.

If you want to make an enemy, then do something for them that they should do for themselves.We think we are helping, when, in fact, we are really causing an opposite and emotional reaction.

Be Self-Aware

Look at yourself.Are you doing things that others should  be doing?

What will you start doing today to change your tendency to over-function?

We, as leaders, influence everyone in our presence. The orchestra conductor influences how the instrumentalists play: just playing the notes, or playing with passion. The conductor does not tell the orchestra how to play their instruments or play those instruments for them.

Many leaders struggle with underfunctioning staff, boards, volunteers, etc., and are not aware that they have potentially caused that problem with their overfunctioning presence.

In the recent post, “The Drawbacks Of An Overfunctioning Leader,” Geri Scazzero made these points about how overfunctioning causes problems:

1. Overfunctioning Disguises Itself As Caring

2. Overfunctioning Perpetuates Immaturity

3. Overfunctioning Prevents Me From Focusing On My Own Life Direction

4. Overfunctioning Erodes My Spiritual Life

5. Overfunctioning Destroys Community

Read the post HERE.

The unintentional role that leaders play in problems is elusive.

Here are ways that the Transformational Leader creates balance and prevents overfunctioning:

Define what to delegate: Trying to do it all is the first trap for leaders. We know how it’s supposed to work, therefore, we attempt to model by doing it rather that teaching others how to do whatever “it” is. Define your major skills and your gaps and find the most competent person to fill the gap. Define the end result clearly and then create a process to coach that person into higher functioning.

Learn to delegate: It’s easy to say, “delegate more,” however, learning how delegation works is a challenge for many leaders. Define the end result, allow the other person to define the steps with your approval, and create touch points on a regular basis to make corrections and to mentor – this is not micromanaging!

Do not micromanage: Micromanagement is a form of overfunctioning. Don’t do it.
Work on self: Learn to manage anxiety and learn to listen, observe, and ask good questions. Leaders who don’t know how to manage self fall into the habit of overfunctioning by over talking, over managing, and exerting too much pressure where it’s not warranted.
Autocratic leadership is a form of overfunctioning. Please give me your comments at http://hughballoupodcast.com

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I once saw a reporter stop a man on the street and ask him what he thought about apathy and indifference. He responded with, “I don’t know and I don’t care!”

A friend once told me, humorously, that I should be sincere whether or not I meant it. Funny, but not funny. I know people who might have this as an internal script. They tell me one thing and proceed to do another one. It’s almost like they give me an answer to “please” me and do what they were planning to do before.

In my list of Transformational Leadership traits, the transformational leader:

Clearly Articulates Vision And Goals
Defines Things Others Can Do
Builds Leaders Within Teams
Effectively Delegates
Encourages Boldness
Gives Information And Support
Affirms And Celebrates Competence
Respects The Individual
Avoids Micromanaging
Models What They Preach
Attribute #10, even though last, is crucial. The leader is primarily the influencer. It’s critical that the leader model behaviors and functions that will influence others in the system. Leadership is a system and the leader sets the standard.

Not only is it critical the the leader model integrity and ethics, it’s critical to be authentic. All too often, leaders behave in ways not consistent with their inner values and not in line with their personality. Authenticity inspires authenticity.

When planning to go public with Dollar General, Cal Turner, Jr., went to his leadership team and asked them to step in in areas that were not in his skill set. He claimed the vision and asked the team to provide the skills needed to achieve that vision. He was authentic in sharing that he had inherited his job as President and Board Chairman, and didn’t get it because of a unique skill set. His transparency allowed others to fill in the gaps and work together in achieving the vision that Cal had articulated.

After sharing that story with me, Cal told me that he viewed leadership as defining personal gaps and allowing others to fill those gaps. His authentic approach to leadership opened up opportunities for others to engage.

Some leaders would rather pretend that they knew all the answers and could dictate all the actions when, in fact, they don’t and can’t. The response might prove to the leader that he or she is wrong. This is not only a waste of time, it’s damaging to the relationships within the team.

Here’s my short list defining authenticity in leaders. Authentic leaders:

Focus on the Vision and Not on Themselves – Allowing the team to focus on outcomes and not on pleasing the leader builds team synergy and collaboration.
Share Honestly – Telling the truth and telling the truth always, no matter how bad, builds trust. Leadership is founded in relationship.
Communicate – Sharing the vision and specific objectives in writing and checking for understanding creates two-way dialogue. The culture of high performance creates an organizational chart that consists of overlapping circles and not lines with hierarchy.
Value People – Considering the individual means knowing them and understanding how they think, and knowing their passions for the common work. Treating people as expendable does not build trust. Leading with trust and care for the individual trumps leading by fear any day and most especially in the long-term.
Get Out of the Way – Authenticity is delegating and getting out of the way. This is way different from assigning tasks and forgetting about the tasks until the due date. Delegation is not managed by micromanaging. Delegation is working out the action items collaboratively and then mentoring the person and the process, building relationship and trust.
The authentic leader is the respected leader.

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The Art of Significance with Dan Clark
Hugh Ballou: It’s Hugh Ballou. Welcome to this special edition of the Orchestrating Success podcast. My guest today is my dear friend, Dan Clark, who is a very impactful speaker. He is a primary person of influ…

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Interview Transcription
Hugh Ballou: Greetings, it’s Hugh Ballou. My guest today is a long-time friend and colleague, Linda Ruhland. Linda has a lot of superpowers. She’s got some unique gifts. Not alone from those gifts is her wonderful, pleasing personality and her wisdom for things that aren’t common in life. I have enjoyed working with Linda over the years and have enjoyed her insights into things that challenge other leaders. Linda, welcome to the podcast today.

Linda Ruhland: Thank you, Hugh. I am very honored to be here. It is a privilege to be among the people you have interviewed because I have been following your podcast for a while. There are some pretty impressive folks who have shared this stage.
My company, Spirit of Success, is something you are familiar with. We have worked together for a long time now.
Hugh: Yeah, yeah. I prefer not to do these dry introductions for people, so I’m going to let you go ahead with that track. Tell us about Spirit of Success, and tell us about Linda Ruhland and how you’ve developed this skill and got you to where you are now.
Linda: Okay. Spirit of Success was an inspiration a few years ago. Basically, we’re coming out of a tough economy back in 2010, and that continued. We slowly came out of what people are often now lovingly referring to as the new norm. From that, I wanted to see what could happen to really jumpstart us in terms of business and inspiration and, with all the change we have going on in society and in the workplace, what doesn’t change. From my point of view, the idea was that the spiritual drive, the commitment that we have, the energy we have within us, is the one unchanging factor. That is where the name came from.
Since that period of time, I and a group of colleagues, friends, and associates have put together ideas on a website or two, one of them being spiritofbusinesssuccess.com, where we discuss success stories, and solve or at least share ideas on solving problems of common issues with regards to business and workplace issues that advance business, based on where we go with those in the shoe tips.
Hugh: You have a new book out. I know something about this book.
Linda: You are in it.
Hugh: Yeah, I’m in it. What prompted you to want to put a book out? There are lots of books out. What’s the specific niche? What’s the title of the book? What’s it all about?
Linda: The title of the book is Amazing Workplace. And the workplace of course with business is where everything comes from. It’s where success is really evolving from. It’s no big secret. If you look at some of the Gallup findings, 70% of people are disengaged at work. You couple that with the fact that 51% of the people who are at work are looking for other jobs and contrast that with the fact that we are in a declining job market and new business start-ups are declining. We have horses going in the wrong direction.
Hugh: Wow. That’s not one problem; that’s a series of problems. Let me recap that. The Gallup poll, and they have been doing it for years,

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Words, words, words. Our society is full of words: on billboards, on television screens, in newspapers and books…. With so many words around us, we quickly say: “Well, they’re just words.” Thus, words have lost much of their power. * – Henri Nouwen

Transformational leaders choose words carefully.
In a column that I wrote to choral conductors about words, “5 Dumb Things Directors Say to Their Choirs,” I pointed out the some of the customary things directors say to choirs are not only unnecessary, but those words might be damaging.
Here’s a summary of that article and my suggested change in language to make a difference:

* “Circle the Note” – Usually when a choir misses a note or nuance in the music. Well, there’s already stress about missing that note or cue, so why add more by telling singers to make a mark in the music with no meaning. Remedy: if they are singing too loud, or missed in interval, or too high, etc. make a mark that informs them about what to do.
* “Watch the Director!” – This is really dumb! They already know to watch the director, so give them a reason to watch. Remedy: record yourself and watch the video to see if you want to look at yourself. Remember that nonverbal communications can be stronger that words alone.
* “Speak the Text” -Â This can be difficult when speaking text is different that singing vowels separated by consonants. We ask people to internalize bad habits, and then criticize them for doing what we asked them to do. Remedy: Create a process of awareness for getting a desired result that doesn’t create a bad habit.
* “You are Singing Too Loud” – How loud is it and how much too load is it? There’s no point of reference. Remedy: Try saying you are singing one dynamic level too loud, take it down a notch. We need to give the facts and then the desired action to fix it.
* “Why Did You Sing the Wrong Note?” – This is toxic! People are not intending to sing the wrong note and using the word “you” sets up a defensive response. Remedy: Point out the error and give specific corrective actions. Stick to the facts and don’t defame or criticize. Err on the side of giving grace in that there was no malice of intent.

Words build up…
Words tear down…
Carefully-chosen words facilitate effective communication. Although communication is fundamentally based on relationship and is not really about talking, words are important. Choosing words is a primary leadership skill.
The right words cut through the noise of the busy world of media, networking events, sermons, and children.
Poorly-chosen and badly-placed words can produce the opposite of the intended result.
Critical, thoughtless words can destroy or damage relationships.
Too many words negate any message and close communications with the receiver (not called a listener because the person has tuned out the noise).
Words without action expose a fake. Words without follow-through expose a lack of integrity.
One negative expletive displaces over 37 affirmations.
Carefully- and thoughtfully-chosen words build effective relationships and fortify healthy teams.
A leader’s words can:

* Show caring
* Provide affirmation and support

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Tom Poland is a Marketing Mentor who started his first business at age 24 and has gone on to start and sell four others, taking two of them international. In that time he’s managed teams of over 100 people and annual revenue of more than 20 million.
These days Tom’s thing is “Leadsology: The Science of Being in Demand” which is a blended learning program that gives professional advisors a model for generating a flow of high-quality, inbound, new client enquiries into their businesses almost every week of the year.
Over 2000 business owners across 193 different industries and 4 continents have been through his programs and many have gone on to add millions to their earnings and their testimonials are available on his website.
Tom’s work has been published in 27 countries and he’s also shared international speaking platforms with the likes of Michael Gerber of E-Myth fame, Richard Koch from the 80-20 Principle, Brian Tracy and many others.
Find Tom at http://www.leadsology.guru (http://www.leadsology.guru)
 
Here’s the transcript from the interview
Hugh Ballou: Greetings, welcome back to Orchestrating Success: Converting Your Passion to Profit. Today, this session, we are going to focus on your message. How do you really let people know what your superpower is? I am recording this in the evening in Virginia, and my guest for the interview is drinking his morning coffee in Australia. Tom Poland, welcome to the podcast.
Tom Poland: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, depending on where the heck everyone is. It’s morning here tomorrow.
Hugh: It’s always interesting making appointments with people. I’ll call you at 2:00. Okay, what time zone?
Tom: Which 2:00?
Hugh: In your case, it’s Thursday here, but it’s Friday where you are.
Tom: Correct, yeah. Coming up on 20 past 8 in the morning.
Hugh: It’s 6:18 pm here in Virginia. Tom, you and I connected somewhere. You graciously invited me to this small group encounter that we had a week ago, a video session where you taught us some things about marketing. You taught us about our message. You taught us about quite a few things. I took a whole bunch of notes, and then you gave us one of your books. Tell us who you are, what is your superpower, and how did you develop this? How did you get where you are today?
Tom: Great questions. Tom Poland. I call myself the chief leadsologist at Leadsology. Presently, I live near the beach in Castaways Beach in a place called the Sunshine Coast in a place called Queensland, Australia. It’s about nineteen hours’ drive north of Sydney. A pretty long way up the coast. Australia is like the US. It’s quite a big country. The difference is 80% of it is desert here.
Back to what I am doing. My superpower is lead generation. I work with people who are marketing the invisible, people who have an idea, a service. Most of what we’re going to talk about will apply to people who have physical products as well, whether you are making sandals or you are a New Yorker acquisition consultant. The principles are the same. How you apply them is a little different depending on whether you have something that’s invisible or something that’s physical. The magic is around setting up four separate lead generation systems.

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