WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.059 Tell me about your vision. My vision is for high 00:00:05.059 --> 00:00:09.679 performance leaders to find a sense of resilience 00:00:09.679 --> 00:00:13.960 in the time of chaos. This is more chaotic. I've 00:00:13.960 --> 00:00:17.219 been working in business my whole adult life. 00:00:17.440 --> 00:00:20.059 This is maybe the most chaotic I've seen it. 00:00:20.160 --> 00:00:23.359 And my vision is for executives, high performing 00:00:23.359 --> 00:00:26.140 executives and entrepreneurs to find resilience 00:00:26.140 --> 00:00:29.539 because. It is on us to help lead the world. 00:00:30.519 --> 00:00:34.640 Tell me more about that. Yeah. So often when 00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:36.780 I'm working, I do a lot of coaching. And when 00:00:36.780 --> 00:00:40.000 I'm working with executives, they have this sense 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:43.539 of the chaos like it's somehow out there. What 00:00:43.539 --> 00:00:45.500 I know from my own experience, what I know from 00:00:45.500 --> 00:00:48.380 the research is that chaos is an inside job. 00:00:48.880 --> 00:00:52.979 I do a lot of work with the work of Viktor Frankl, 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:55.240 who wrote a book called Man's Search for Meaning. 00:00:56.670 --> 00:00:58.750 Probably the most powerful line from that book 00:00:58.750 --> 00:01:01.270 is that the single greatest freedom, the one 00:01:01.270 --> 00:01:03.509 that can never be taken away from us, is the 00:01:03.509 --> 00:01:06.030 freedom to choose our attitude in any given situation. 00:01:06.870 --> 00:01:08.969 And I think for a lot of executives, they think 00:01:08.969 --> 00:01:11.730 of the chaos as somehow out there, like it's 00:01:11.730 --> 00:01:15.790 something else. It's the market. It's the current 00:01:15.790 --> 00:01:18.450 administration. It's whatever they think it might 00:01:18.450 --> 00:01:21.450 be. But in fact, chaos is an inside job. It's 00:01:21.450 --> 00:01:23.909 something that we do. And so my vision is really. 00:01:24.480 --> 00:01:27.319 How do we help high performing executives rewrite 00:01:27.319 --> 00:01:29.980 their internal narrative, come to a place of 00:01:29.980 --> 00:01:32.079 radical self -ownership and then build teams 00:01:32.079 --> 00:01:36.060 that transform the world? Wow, that's awesome. 00:01:36.159 --> 00:01:40.680 Thank you for sharing that. So tell me more, 00:01:40.719 --> 00:01:45.420 how did you get started on this path? So my background 00:01:45.420 --> 00:01:48.959 is in change management. I was an IT person. 00:01:49.120 --> 00:01:51.680 I came up in the world of IT. I was an IT entrepreneur 00:01:51.680 --> 00:01:57.180 for many years. And what I noticed was that we 00:01:57.180 --> 00:01:59.019 were building the greatest systems in the world. 00:01:59.079 --> 00:02:01.519 And it really came down to people and culture, 00:02:01.640 --> 00:02:03.239 like whether they were actually going to accept 00:02:03.239 --> 00:02:07.219 the work that we were doing. And that was my 00:02:07.219 --> 00:02:10.439 transition into organizational development, organizational 00:02:10.439 --> 00:02:14.539 change. And what I realized as I grew that practice 00:02:14.539 --> 00:02:18.360 is that increasingly the limit was not even our 00:02:18.360 --> 00:02:20.969 ability to sort of. communicate the right things, 00:02:21.009 --> 00:02:23.310 get the right training out there and all that. 00:02:23.430 --> 00:02:26.729 It was often executives at the top who had gotten 00:02:26.729 --> 00:02:30.909 there by sort of scrapping and working their 00:02:30.909 --> 00:02:33.710 way up the organizational chart, but then they 00:02:33.710 --> 00:02:37.669 were experiencing scarcity and fear and just 00:02:37.669 --> 00:02:42.120 an internal disruption. And so because I was 00:02:42.120 --> 00:02:44.180 increasingly doing more and more coaching, this 00:02:44.180 --> 00:02:46.419 just seemed like a really logical place to move 00:02:46.419 --> 00:02:49.960 into figuring out how do we actually help executives 00:02:49.960 --> 00:02:54.740 find a sense of internal calm so that they can 00:02:54.740 --> 00:02:56.560 lead their teams, they can lead their companies, 00:02:56.759 --> 00:02:59.719 lead the world and create great products and 00:02:59.719 --> 00:03:04.080 bring great things out into the market. Thank 00:03:04.080 --> 00:03:09.199 you for sharing that. What would you say at... 00:03:09.340 --> 00:03:13.379 is your why or what you do uh ask me that again 00:03:13.379 --> 00:03:16.219 what was what's your why or what you do what 00:03:16.219 --> 00:03:20.000 gets you to bed every morning you bet so my personal 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:22.939 story is my why so i'm a person in long -term 00:03:22.939 --> 00:03:27.180 recovery um and like a lot of people who struggled 00:03:27.180 --> 00:03:30.319 with addiction i came to a place where my life 00:03:30.319 --> 00:03:32.819 just crashed around me um and i had to figure 00:03:32.819 --> 00:03:36.240 out how to rebuild my life and what i recognized 00:03:36.240 --> 00:03:38.539 was that there was people who were willing to 00:03:38.539 --> 00:03:40.919 love me and believe in me until I could do that 00:03:40.919 --> 00:03:44.360 for myself. And I talk about this in my TEDx 00:03:44.360 --> 00:03:46.580 talk called The Revolution of Interdependence. 00:03:47.120 --> 00:03:50.439 And so my why is saying, how do we how do we 00:03:50.439 --> 00:03:54.099 bend? human culture toward interdependence? How 00:03:54.099 --> 00:03:56.840 do we realize that as great as we all may be 00:03:56.840 --> 00:03:59.960 individually, we're far greater together? And 00:03:59.960 --> 00:04:02.139 so it comes out of my own experience, but as 00:04:02.139 --> 00:04:04.000 I've been able to bring it to clients, I've also 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:06.500 seen some really exciting outcomes, transformed 00:04:06.500 --> 00:04:10.060 companies, better mergers. I mean, a lot of these 00:04:10.060 --> 00:04:12.860 things that we think of as very technical outcomes 00:04:12.860 --> 00:04:16.800 are often made more successful by internal transformation. 00:04:16.920 --> 00:04:22.470 So my why is my own story. And what is your story? 00:04:22.769 --> 00:04:29.269 Yeah. So I was the director of IT change management 00:04:29.269 --> 00:04:31.329 for one of the largest consulting firms in the 00:04:31.329 --> 00:04:35.790 world, 53 ,000 employees. And yet I was just 00:04:35.790 --> 00:04:39.269 miserable. I was like, this can't be what it's 00:04:39.269 --> 00:04:42.029 all supposed to be about. And so like a lot of 00:04:42.029 --> 00:04:44.029 people with addiction issues and substance abuse 00:04:44.029 --> 00:04:49.009 issues, I continued to... behave in ways that 00:04:49.009 --> 00:04:51.170 were really harming me, harming the people around 00:04:51.170 --> 00:04:54.050 me. And it wasn't until I had this moment of 00:04:54.050 --> 00:04:58.110 crash, this complete breakdown, this bottom line 00:04:58.110 --> 00:05:02.009 moment, this rock bottom moment, that I began 00:05:02.009 --> 00:05:05.389 to say, okay, how can I rebuild? How can I pull 00:05:05.389 --> 00:05:09.259 myself back together? My story is that a lot 00:05:09.259 --> 00:05:11.939 of that happened around the time I was just beginning 00:05:11.939 --> 00:05:14.180 my new business. I was beginning my recovery 00:05:14.180 --> 00:05:18.319 journey right as COVID was breaking out. So not 00:05:18.319 --> 00:05:21.120 only was I sort of finding a new way to be in 00:05:21.120 --> 00:05:24.139 the world, but I was also responding to one of 00:05:24.139 --> 00:05:26.860 the most chaotic events we've had in our world 00:05:26.860 --> 00:05:30.319 over the last hundred years, which was the COVID 00:05:30.319 --> 00:05:35.800 pandemic. Really saying, OK, you know, starting 00:05:35.800 --> 00:05:38.180 with myself, what are the stories I'm telling 00:05:38.180 --> 00:05:40.699 myself that are getting in the way? How can I 00:05:40.699 --> 00:05:43.319 move into a place of radical self -ownership 00:05:43.319 --> 00:05:46.339 and then how can I begin to build? Well, I call 00:05:46.339 --> 00:05:49.680 it a life team, but it's simple. Like the best 00:05:49.680 --> 00:05:51.699 way to think about it is if you walked into the 00:05:51.699 --> 00:05:55.019 headquarters of Apple and Tim Cook was there 00:05:55.019 --> 00:05:57.459 to get your coffee or take your coat, you'd say, 00:05:57.500 --> 00:05:59.160 well, surely, Tim Cook, you've got something 00:05:59.160 --> 00:06:01.860 better to do. And yet when we think of ourselves 00:06:01.860 --> 00:06:04.720 as CEOs of our own lives, we think that we're 00:06:04.720 --> 00:06:07.079 supposed to be able to do everything. The most 00:06:07.079 --> 00:06:09.759 successful among us, including Steve Jobs, figured 00:06:09.759 --> 00:06:12.720 out how to build a life team around them to help 00:06:12.720 --> 00:06:18.480 them succeed. Yeah. So from that to where you 00:06:18.480 --> 00:06:21.019 are today, your journey as a leader, as a speaker, 00:06:21.180 --> 00:06:25.639 as a coach, how did all that come together? From 00:06:25.639 --> 00:06:27.680 COVID, the lessons you learned, and now we're 00:06:27.680 --> 00:06:33.769 here today. So my work early on as I was building 00:06:33.769 --> 00:06:36.269 my business was largely transactional. Okay. 00:06:36.310 --> 00:06:38.250 So you're doing, you know, I did a lot of, I've 00:06:38.250 --> 00:06:41.230 actually done a number of mergers. So typically 00:06:41.230 --> 00:06:44.769 big company X was buying small company Y and 00:06:44.769 --> 00:06:46.829 they would bring in someone like me or me in 00:06:46.829 --> 00:06:49.529 particular to say, okay, how do we create a single, 00:06:49.550 --> 00:06:54.600 how do we merge into a single organization? And 00:06:54.600 --> 00:06:56.899 I was very good at it. You know, transactionally, 00:06:56.899 --> 00:07:00.740 I was I was successful in helping the dealmakers, 00:07:00.920 --> 00:07:04.399 whether it was private equity or internal funding. 00:07:04.680 --> 00:07:07.259 I was I was successful in helping them build 00:07:07.259 --> 00:07:09.959 a single company out of that. But what I noticed 00:07:09.959 --> 00:07:12.379 is that kind of culture always frayed at the 00:07:12.379 --> 00:07:15.220 edges and a lot of leaders got burned out in 00:07:15.220 --> 00:07:18.680 the process and ended up bailing altogether on 00:07:18.680 --> 00:07:21.959 the work. And so, you know, my question was, 00:07:22.079 --> 00:07:24.839 OK. Surely there's got to be a better way to 00:07:24.839 --> 00:07:28.579 lead in the world. And it began really with first 00:07:28.579 --> 00:07:31.259 some simple questions. I started, I was working 00:07:31.259 --> 00:07:33.779 at one point with a private equity firm and I 00:07:33.779 --> 00:07:37.829 started asking them, okay. what would make this 00:07:37.829 --> 00:07:40.850 merger more successful? Because yeah, you're 00:07:40.850 --> 00:07:43.029 achieving your ends, you're achieving your financial 00:07:43.029 --> 00:07:45.949 goals, but clearly you're leaving money on the 00:07:45.949 --> 00:07:48.069 table in part because people feel burned out 00:07:48.069 --> 00:07:50.470 by the work. What would make that more successful? 00:07:50.689 --> 00:07:54.069 And out of that came what has become this process 00:07:54.069 --> 00:07:57.069 I call the resilience stack. I'm a former software 00:07:57.069 --> 00:07:59.149 developer, so I think in terms of stacks and 00:07:59.149 --> 00:08:01.389 developing ideas in terms of stacks, just like 00:08:01.389 --> 00:08:04.220 software. And what came out of that was this 00:08:04.220 --> 00:08:06.420 idea of the Resilience Act that said, OK, how 00:08:06.420 --> 00:08:11.300 can we really work with leaders so that internal 00:08:11.300 --> 00:08:14.079 transformation becomes the way that they lead 00:08:14.079 --> 00:08:17.500 in the world, not leading from a place of authority 00:08:17.500 --> 00:08:19.519 or leading because they have the right position 00:08:19.519 --> 00:08:22.540 on the organizational chart, but leading because 00:08:22.540 --> 00:08:25.019 they have done the hard work of internal transformation. 00:08:26.060 --> 00:08:29.199 And just over time, I've I've been blessed to 00:08:29.199 --> 00:08:31.720 do more and more of that kind of work. I still 00:08:31.720 --> 00:08:34.700 do some very traditional organizational change 00:08:34.700 --> 00:08:37.679 work and mergers and all that. But over time, 00:08:37.779 --> 00:08:39.840 I've gotten I've been blessed to do more and 00:08:39.840 --> 00:08:42.179 more of that work with executives and increasingly 00:08:42.179 --> 00:08:45.480 now with entrepreneurs, because I think entrepreneurship 00:08:45.480 --> 00:08:47.480 is the great hope for the future. Like when I 00:08:47.480 --> 00:08:50.220 look at the chaos that's happening, not just 00:08:50.220 --> 00:08:53.230 in America, but in the world generally. to me 00:08:53.230 --> 00:08:55.830 entrepreneurs are the hope of the future entrepreneurs 00:08:55.830 --> 00:08:58.470 are someone who who look at a problem and say 00:08:58.470 --> 00:09:01.429 surely there's a better way to do that um and 00:09:01.429 --> 00:09:03.990 so um increasingly i'm also working with a lot 00:09:03.990 --> 00:09:06.370 more entrepreneurs and helping them think about 00:09:06.370 --> 00:09:08.690 like what kinds of products and services will 00:09:08.690 --> 00:09:11.549 make we'll leave a better world behind for sure 00:09:11.549 --> 00:09:14.590 and i think it's it's needed it's it's needed 00:09:14.590 --> 00:09:16.750 to a great extent i don't know what stat i was 00:09:16.750 --> 00:09:20.190 reading but very recently there's a stat i was 00:09:20.190 --> 00:09:24.029 looking at where the entrepreneurship, the amount 00:09:24.029 --> 00:09:27.269 of revenue that small businesses were producing 00:09:27.269 --> 00:09:29.889 and how many small businesses were there and 00:09:29.889 --> 00:09:32.610 how many people were employed. I think most people 00:09:32.610 --> 00:09:35.730 were employed by, I think, 80 % of them were 00:09:35.730 --> 00:09:39.250 through small businesses in the last decade. 00:09:39.370 --> 00:09:43.610 And I think the stats today is, I think, 40 % 00:09:43.610 --> 00:09:48.559 to 60%. So which has strategically changed. where 00:09:48.559 --> 00:09:52.320 now the big organizations are employing people 00:09:52.320 --> 00:09:55.279 instead of small business owners. There's a lot 00:09:55.279 --> 00:09:57.600 of change coming. There's a lot of change coming 00:09:57.600 --> 00:10:00.039 through that. And you were talking about Steve 00:10:00.039 --> 00:10:06.080 Jobs. In the book, I think this is, I mean, we're 00:10:06.080 --> 00:10:07.460 getting into a nitty gritty of stuff, I think. 00:10:07.559 --> 00:10:10.240 But Philippe mentioned in the book the way Steve 00:10:10.240 --> 00:10:14.039 Jobs went about recruiting people. He would go 00:10:14.039 --> 00:10:18.110 and find A players. And he will relentlessly 00:10:18.110 --> 00:10:21.450 pursue those A players, right? To the point where 00:10:21.450 --> 00:10:24.169 they're like, this guy wants this more than I 00:10:24.169 --> 00:10:27.610 do. So he will join him. And then once he gets 00:10:27.610 --> 00:10:31.169 enough of those A players in the team, those 00:10:31.169 --> 00:10:33.230 A players only just want to work with A players. 00:10:33.289 --> 00:10:35.710 So those A players that you have created, go 00:10:35.710 --> 00:10:37.629 find other A players to work with because they 00:10:37.629 --> 00:10:41.529 hate working with B, C, and D players. They're 00:10:41.529 --> 00:10:44.360 not even in the calculations. That's how he created 00:10:44.360 --> 00:10:49.399 that recruitment cycle of things where it's exponential 00:10:49.399 --> 00:10:53.620 growth when he gets those kind of leaders together 00:10:53.620 --> 00:10:56.440 in a place where you know you can do it, but 00:10:56.440 --> 00:10:58.519 I know he can't. So I recruit that person to 00:10:58.519 --> 00:11:01.259 do it for me. So that's amazing. Absolutely. 00:11:01.279 --> 00:11:03.980 And one of the things Steve got very good at, 00:11:04.019 --> 00:11:06.039 he wasn't good at this early in his career, but 00:11:06.039 --> 00:11:08.159 particularly in the late 90s, one of the things 00:11:08.159 --> 00:11:11.000 Steve really became exceptional at was not just 00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:13.320 recruiting A players, but recruiting A players 00:11:13.320 --> 00:11:18.480 who made up for his own weaknesses. And so one 00:11:18.480 --> 00:11:20.820 of the reasons why Tim Cook was so exceptional 00:11:20.820 --> 00:11:23.759 was because Tim Cook had this operational capacity. 00:11:24.399 --> 00:11:28.100 Steve was a genius. but had a difficult time 00:11:28.100 --> 00:11:31.299 shipping product. Tim Cook helped solve that 00:11:31.299 --> 00:11:35.580 problem. Johnny Ive. had this best balance between 00:11:35.580 --> 00:11:39.519 design and production. And so he could take Steve's 00:11:39.519 --> 00:11:41.940 wild ideas and turn them into beautiful products 00:11:41.940 --> 00:11:43.899 that could actually get produced and actually 00:11:43.899 --> 00:11:47.139 shipped. And so that to me, that's a classic 00:11:47.139 --> 00:11:50.320 example of what I mean by a life team or by interdependence 00:11:50.320 --> 00:11:52.899 is when we are not just surrounding ourselves 00:11:52.899 --> 00:11:54.799 with A players, but we're surrounding ourselves 00:11:54.799 --> 00:11:58.779 with A players who help us be exceptional in 00:11:58.779 --> 00:12:02.519 the world. They fill in the spaces that we don't 00:12:02.519 --> 00:12:05.129 create. Thank you for being here today. I'm really 00:12:05.129 --> 00:12:07.110 happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. 00:12:07.309 --> 00:12:09.710 I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions 00:12:09.710 --> 00:12:12.330 as these episodes continue to move forward. This 00:12:12.330 --> 00:12:14.250 is going to get more and more fun. We'll have 00:12:14.250 --> 00:12:16.070 more and more engagement as well. We'll invite 00:12:16.070 --> 00:12:18.470 people to participate in the show. And thank 00:12:18.470 --> 00:12:20.429 you for giving us your time and attention. Have 00:12:20.429 --> 00:12:23.090 an excellent time building out your vision and 00:12:23.090 --> 00:12:24.190 becoming a vision pro yourself.