Vanessa Yudelman, tell me about your vision.
So my vision has always been to lead the leaders and to create leaders who are self-aware,
confident and super strategic.
Tell me more about that.
Well, I've worked with leaders for over 20 years and I have had some great experiences as an
employee with leaders and I've had also really challenging experience with leaders as an employee.
And I have to say my most challenging experience was as an employee where I had a leader who was
super challenging for me. I worked in this organization for five years. This new leader
joined the organization, she was an external hire and was just, you know, Harry, she was someone who
was really very controlling and demanding and rude. And I found it so challenging to work with her.
And although up until that point, I'd been developing leaders for 10 plus years already
in my career, working with a soul sucking leader really helped me solidify my purpose and my vision,
which is to support other leaders. Because to be honest, it was such a challenging experience for
me. And I know the research shows that people leave leaders, not organizations. And I'd never
had that experience before. I always thought that was a statistic. I was like, ah, you know,
I think those people who can't work well with leaders are really just not trying hard enough.
Believe me, I tried everything. I tried to have crucial conversations with her and set goals
together. And this person was my boss. Nothing worked. And so for the first time in my career,
I realized, okay, sometimes it's literally not a good fit. And she was a bit of a bully,
to be honest. And so when I had that soul sucking experience, which I know so many people can relate
to, it really solidified my passion for developing leaders who are self aware and super conscious of
how their behaviors are impacting the people around them. How did you get started into,
like from that point where you decide, hey, this is really not working out, there has to be a better
way until I came the way you are today. How did you get onto that path?
I had worked, my background was in education. I worked with at risk youth. And after getting
a few too many binders thrown at my head, I thought, you know, maybe there's a better way
to teach. And I was able to solidify a job in adult education in a training and consulting firm.
And I worked there for 10 years and I learned everything about consulting and, you know,
different methods of assessing leaders and training and developing and how to make learning stick.
So that was a great training ground for me. And then I moved in house and ran my own teams and
built teams and struggled as a leader and had good experiences and challenging experiences as a leader.
And from that point, I thought, you know, I feel like after working in corporate for 15 years,
I'm really ready to start my own business. And so after having that horrendous leader, I thought,
okay, I'm ready to be my own boss. And so that's when I started my own business.
That's awesome. So that journey, I know like transitioning from an employee to a leader,
employee to an entrepreneur, it's a very, very hard pill to swallow. And it's not as easy as
people think it is. So how was that for you? And how did that turn out?
That's a really good point. I get a lot of calls from people all the time. They say, oh,
you've been running your business since 2011. I'm thinking of starting a business. How do you do it?
And I really reiterate with those individuals that leaders have to, when you run your own business,
entrepreneurs, just like leaders have to wear a lot of hats. And so the first couple of years
of your business, it's figuring out which hats do I need to wear? Which hats do I want to wear?
Which hats do I like to wear? And then which hats do I need to delegate? What am I really good at
in the business? What do I enjoy doing in the business? What am I not good at? And for me,
that was the first two years of the business is figuring that out. Once I figured out what I'm
not good at and what I don't enjoy doing, that's when I started building my team to close some of
those gaps. So for example, when you run your own business, you have to market yourself. You have to
leverage social media. And I don't really want to learn about algorithms for Instagram or LinkedIn.
Honestly, it's not my leverage strength or talent. And so I found an amazing marketing team that
that is their strength. That is their leverage talent. And for example, on Instagram, when I
started working with them, I think three years ago, I had maybe 800 followers, I have over 25,000 now.
So that's really, I think one of the keys is to get super focused on what your role is in the
business and what you are paid to do. And I always say that to my corporate clients too, as a leader,
get really clear on what you're paid to do. Because whether you're an entrepreneur, whether
you're a corporate leader, you will always have multiple priorities. But if you really understand
what you're paid to do and what your strengths are, it allows you to get really clear and focused on
your priorities. And it allows you then to delegate the rest. What you just mentioned there, Vanessa,
a lot of people have not realized that in the entrepreneurial journey. I don't know if you read
the book E-Myth or not. But the core behind that book, and there is a very staggering
statistics in that. Michael Gerber, the author, states that 96% of businesses in the United States
are failing within the first 10 years. Right? And then out of the ones that are failing, the 4%
they're surviving, how many of them are actually thriving and how many that you're surviving. So
that's a very sad number to see. And the faster an entrepreneur realizes that they're not meant to
wear all hats. They're meant to delegate things. They're meant to give it to other people.
I think that's the core behind building a team. I think you've figured out, at least I'm assuming
part of it, where like, hey, I figured this out and I can delegate this to other people, hire the
right people. I need to. Most people don't even know how to hire people. Most people don't have
an idea what to look for when they're looking for people to work for them. They have no idea.
And I'm glad someone has that I can have that conversation with. So thank you for sharing that.
Yeah. And most people also don't know how to delegate. That's one of the things when I train,
when I run training programs with leaders or do executive coaching, even executives,
I often work with executives and I say, let's talk about what you need to delegate and teach them
how to do a delegation strategy. When you do a delegation strategy, for example, you have to
think about what do I need to delegate? Who do I need to delegate to? How do I need to delegate to
them? Right. So that's the reason many leaders don't or executives or entrepreneurs don't delegate
is they don't know how they just assume if I give something to somebody that's delegation.
No. Have you clarified your expectations with them? Are they new to the task? If they're new
to the task, like for example, a client of mine gave a presentation to somebody and said, I need
you to complete this presentation for the client and then give it to me a week later. Well, this
individual sent their leader the presentation. It was terrible. And I said, well, it's not their
fault. You just gave it to them and said, do it. And they've never done it before. You didn't spend
the time with them to sit down and say, here's how we do it and provide them with a sample that they
could leverage. So leaders need to learn and executives and entrepreneurs need to learn how
to delegate properly, too. Yeah, I think that's a very, very, very undervalued skill in the market.
I struggle with that as well. Delegating things the right way. I bet there's a lot of strategies
that you employ to help leaders get that right and then get those things done right. And I think
most of it also comes with clarity, right? If a leader has clarity, like, hey, this is my path
of delegating every time, but then they have their expectations and that path gives the employee
clear path. Hey, I need to do this. So yeah, that's awesome. I'm so glad. Yeah. The other
tip I can give you is also that I give leaders all the time is break down the task because
sometimes they want to delegate all or nothing. And my feedback is always, it doesn't have to be
an all or nothing mindset. Break down the task, right? And delegate the first part and then
delegate the second part and then delegate the third part. As I always say to leaders,
think about this. Think about that task that you need to get off your plate. Do you want to be
doing it a year from now? Yes or no. And they always say, no, I need to get that off my plate.
So I'll say, okay, well then have a 12 month strategy to get it off your plate, right? Month
one, do this part of it. And once to do this part of it and month three. So, you know, you have to
think about delegations strategically too. Wow. Thank you for sharing that with us, Vanessa.
I think there's going to be more tips that I'll be talking to you about in a,
under the segment, but for this segment, what defines a great leader to you?
Vanessa. So I have a, after working with leaders for over 20 years, I have a
model that I use, which I call the three pillars of leadership success. Leaders have to know
themselves, manage their team and lead their business. So the first pillar of being a great
leader is have self-awareness. Again, understand your strengths, understand your weaknesses,
understand your gaps that need to be filled by your team. So that's the first pillar. The second
pillar is manage your team. That's part of your job. You have to know how to coach people, give
feedback. You have to know how to create a high performing team. And then lead your business is
all about change management and executing strategically and, and that piece around
prioritization and delegation. So leadership is really, really complex. And there's a lot of
aspects to leadership. And that's why I break it down into those three pillars of leadership success.
Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned into Vision Pros Live. I'm looking
forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This is going to get
more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite people to
participate in the show and thank you for giving us your time and attention. Have an
excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.