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Welcome to scaling up H2O podcast where we scale up on knowledge. So we don’t scale up our systems. I’m trace Blackmore, host of scaling up H2O. I hope you are having a great week. And I hope you’re thinking about things that you can do to make the week even better. So many of us live by default and we just take what life has in store for us.
Well, folks would just a little bit of planning, but more importantly with making sure that we’re keeping our mind clear with looking out for the right things. We can absolutely make ourselves better during the week. Here’s something that really helped me. I’ve talked about it on the show before, but I haven’t talked about it in a while.
It is the five minute journal. The five minute journal is one of those things that if it takes you five minutes to do, you’re probably doing it wrong, but it is three short questions in the morning that allow me before my feet hit the floor to start thinking about what I need to start thinking about.
To start putting my mind in a frame of reference that all the negative doesn’t bother me as much, because I am programmed to look for the things that I’m telling myself to look for. Then at the very end of the day, before I go to bed, there’s two questions. It asked me and I answer those two questions.
And that ensures that I did those things that I was supposed to do. And I’m thinking along those lines, folks at sounds really simple, but I’m telling you, when you get in the habit of programming your mind to look for things that are going to make you better. All of these things that we hear on the news, all of the things that of course bring us down, they are less in the foreground because our brain is looking for the things that it should be looking for.
Not just what is plain by default. So I urge you, if you don’t have a copy of the five minute journal, We have an affiliate link. Now, what that means is you can go right to Amazon and you can purchase that with, or without our affiliate link. It’s not going to cost you any different, but if you do go through our affiliate link, Amazon pays us a slight commission for sending you there.
Now that affiliate link is scaling up h2o.com forward slash journal. And nation is my hope that I see you on the upcoming June 10th, hang. And if you’re wondering what the hang is, that’s where we all get together on a video conference. We can see each other. I quickly put you into smaller breakout rooms where you get to network with other water treatment professionals.
I hope you join me June 10th, 6:00 PM. Eastern time. You can register by going to scaling up h2o.com forward slash hang. Scale it up nation for those that were with me for episode number one, can you believe that we have made it to episode 200? What a milestone. There are so many podcasts out there. So few make it past the first year.
So few make it to 100, well, folks, we are celebrating four years and the 200th episode, and that could not have happened without you, the scamming up nation. And we want you to tell us about your experience with the show. Go to scaling up h2o.com and let us know by recording your voice exactly what this show has done for you.
Do you have a special story about scaling up H2O? We can’t wait to hear that and we can’t wait to bring you the celebratory 200th episode. Well, Neisha. I mentioned on a show, not too terribly long ago that I get comments from so many people that are not industrial water treaters, because they enjoy the content that we have on this podcast.
And so many people ask me, how do you decide what is appropriate and what doesn’t go on the podcast. And it’s really simple. I’m an industrial water treater. I own an industrial water treatment company. So if there’s any bit of information that has helped me do better as an industrial water treater or as a business owner, while folks that goes on the podcast, because I know if it helped me, it can help you.
And that’s exactly what we are doing on today’s episode. Nation, whether you own your own company or not, you are a leader. Sometimes you’re leading yourself. A lot of times you’re leading other people, everybody out there is a leader. And that is exactly what we’re talking about today.
My lab partner today is Michelle. Rinus a leadership development coach and bad ass leader. How are you Michelle? I’m doing fantastic. How are you doing trace? I’m doing well, but I’m a little concerned. I’ve got a clean lyrics rating. Did I just violate that by telling everybody your title? You know, his bad ass is not a bad word in being a bad ass leader is actually a strength.
Well, I can’t wait to get into this interview to talk about all the things that you’re doing your book, but I would love it. If you would let the scaling up nation know a little bit about yourself. Absolutely. Well to put it simply, I’m a business owner leadership coach, as you mentioned, author and founder of the baddest leader brand, but more importantly, I’m an everyday leader.
I’m sure like many of your scaling up nation listeners before launching my leadership. Company back in 2012, I was in corporate America for over 34 years and endured, of course, as listeners will learn many bumps, bruises, and growing pains. And I transferred that into lessons learned on my quest to ultimately become a bad-ass leader.
Since then I’ve launched two brands. My corporate, I call white collar brand is MDR coaching and consulting. And then more recently I’ve launched the unconventional bad-ass leader brand. And this brand was really created for main street leaders, not wall street, although I’m sure there are many wall street leaders who could certainly benefit from embracing some bad ass leader skills.
Well, I’m curious. Most people, they hear show like this and they think all this sounds great, but I’ve got to own the company to really make a difference in order to lead. I need to own, what do you say to that? Absolutely not matter of fact, leadership is a choice. It’s not a title. And I know plenty of people who have the title of leader, but they are not leaders.
And so I really want this brand to be, I call it the gateway drug to leadership. You know, I want to invite people who aspire to learn more about. Leadership and management and maybe in the past they’ve tried and that just didn’t resonate with them. You know, I created this brand based on feedback I’ve received as a leadership coach for the past.
Well, since 2012, since launching my own brand and in the classroom, I keep hearing from participants. You know, I know I need to improve my skills, but this just doesn’t really feel like me isn’t this for the owners. And so it was that feedback that really inspired me to share my story, my bumps and bruises, and really create a brand that was fun.
Edgy. You know, leadership has fun when it’s done well, and the people parts of leadership will make us or break us as leader. So I invite everyone to explore leadership and bad ass leader is an exciting way to get that journey started. Well, let’s unpack what you just said and your journey in developing this program, your story as becoming a leader.
Tell us about that. Yeah, absolutely. And I will get into it a little bit more when we talk about the lessons. But in a nutshell, the book is called from bad to badass leader. And it’s really filled with stories of my leadership journey, which is an autobiography of lessons learned that I described throughout the book.
And it starts with lesson one, which was called, don’t be an ass. And it sounds very simple, but the scary thing is, is that there are a lot of leaders out there. I should say managers, not leaders that are in positions in are oblivious to the fact that they are an ass. And I went from essentially being told.
I wasn’t asked as a boss to then focusing on learning how to get people to want to play on my team. And so I invite and encourage this, the scaling up nation listeners to take these lessons and apply them to their own and to their journey. Michelle, what would you say is the difference between a good leader and a bad leader?
Oh, that’s a great question. Well, I view bad leaders or people who are focused on maybe having control or asserting authority, maybe hyper-focused on the numbers and on meeting the needs of their egos, quite frankly. Whereas what I would call versus a good leader, I like to refer to them. As bad-ass leaders are focused on fostering trust, building bad-ass teams, meeting the needs of their people and beating the numbers through people.
So there’s a distinct difference. How does somebody know which one they are? It comes down to leadership is your mirror. So you can tell by the quality of your people, your people are a reflection of your leadership and it translates into everything you do from your results to the level of engagement on your teams, to the right down to your performance, customer experiences, your potential revenue, margin performance, and most importantly, the scalability of your operation.
So let’s say one of those items or multiple of those items you just mentioned are out of whack. What do we do? And, you know, in my case, I was oblivious to the fact that I was not a good leader. And so unfortunately we can as leaders, if we lack self-awareness and we’re not asking for feedback and we’re not paying attention to the people metrics, then they can go on notice and undetected for a long period of time.
So my hope is that we’re going to be able to recognize when we start to have those, what I would call symptoms, then we need to diagnose those symptoms as early as possible. When it comes to the people, parts of leadership, I’ll give you some examples. A symptom of leadership would be if your office has a revolving door on it, it’s probably your mirror.
If your time is being spent on resolving employee conflicts and it’s, you know, it’s okay if it’s occasionally, but if it’s repetitive, it’s probably a leadership issue. If your phone is ringing off the hook and you’re coming in every week, dealing with customer complaints, it’s most likely your mirror. So there are a lot of different symptoms and underlying issues that can alert us as leaders.
If we’re paying attention and not placing blame, but taking responsibility to alert us that there is a leadership problem. And then we find out that there is a leadership problem. Do we now take a 360 assessment with all of our team? How do we evaluate that and how do we start to fix it? Well, once we recognize that there’s an issue less than two is called stop drop, take a selfie.
And so I invite people to start there, right? Invest in yourself. You mentioned a 360. I am a huge fan of the, everything does three 63 in particular because it comes away with some really fantastic action items. And I like the smart comment capabilities within it. That kind of takes out the, the real digs and the things that can happen then.
Turn people off of three sixties, there are a lot of different assessments and tools, but you really have to find out what’s working for you. What’s not working for you this day and age. And with all of the available resources that are out there, there’s absolutely no excuse for failing to develop yourself.
Is it logical to expect our people to come to us and say, you’re not a good leader? You know, it’s hard for employees to do that. And so it’s really the responsibility of the leader to cultivate a trusting and safe environment that you’ve invited that feedback and that they’re not intimidated and threatened by you.
But again, you have to you’re the leader, right? You have the role and responsibility, so you have to pay attention to your results. And if you see that something’s off, then again, you need to self examine and then invite people in to give you feedback. If we have low trust environments and environments, that foster fear, then we’re not going to get the critical feedback that we need.
I need in order to help, not only lead our organizations, but develop our teams and continue to develop ourselves. Of all the things you mentioned that are the indicators that tell us that we are not leading well, is there a scenario where all those things are fine, but it’s because the team is overcompensating for the bad leadership.
I guess to answer that question, I’m reading that as you can have a team who is successful in spite of a leader, but the key here is that they’re only going to be so successful, not as successful if they had great leadership. So unfortunately there are a lot of leaders out there that can, oh, I mean, my story was a perfect example on paper.
We were breaking records and getting it done, but when it came to the human capital element, It was a very sad and dark story. And I wasn’t one of those abusive leaders from a standpoint, yelling and screaming and being a jerk to my team. But I was overmanaging hovering over them, smothering them, pointing out every little thing that wasn’t right.
Just nitpicking. I wasn’t focusing on coaching and developing and offering feedback. I wasn’t focused on. Learning about my team and exactly what I needed to do for them to help them rise to their potential. Yeah. I’m thinking back. And I can’t remember who said it, but they said the true measure of a leader was that leaders ability to create other leaders.
Yes, I believe it was John Maxwell. And I might be mistaken in that, but I, I love that. That’s that’s what our rule is to do is to develop others and great leaders, focus on people development, and they develop them themselves so that they can have the ability to be an epic coach, which is less than five in the book.
And as epic coaches, now we can really, we have the capacity to develop others. Yeah. We just had a guest on David Snow who was with Disney and he was talking about, we never, ever missed the opportunity to coach somebody when something happens. Now, that being said, there’s a right way and a wrong way to coach somebody.
So what’s the bad-ass way of coaching. I call it platinum style in the book. So you’ve heard of the golden rule, which is, you know, treat others the way you want to be treated. And the reality is is that they’re not, you. And so the platinum rule is really, you know, treat others the way they want to be treated and that I apply to coaching.
So I need to coach you trace very differently than I would coach say, Sarah, your ambitions are different. Your strengths are different, your blind spots are different. And so I need to understand your needs and your communication style. Um, your gaps. Your strengths in order to coach, to you and personalize that coaching.
When I call platinum style in order to really maximize outcomes for your performance and your development differently from Sarah. So in listening to that, I’m thinking there’s somebody who’s been identified that they’re not the best leader out there. And now they’re, they’re making the effort to change and they’re coaching somebody in a way that they’re not familiar because they’ve never received this coaching from this leader.
They’re going to be suspicious. How does that work? Well, that’s why what’s really important. When we get into talking about the 12 leadership lessons, there’s a logical order to how I’ve set up the book. And before you can be capable of coaching someone, they have to trust you. And so lesson three is let’s talk about trust.
Baby. And that’s what we have to do as leaders is we have to lay the foundation of trust with each and every person on our team in order for them to be coachable and to be open to feedback and not be threatened or defensive with feedback. And when people aren’t open and they’re defensive, it’s just evidence and feedback back to the leader, letting them know that there’s an opportunity to build trust.
So I asked you about what if a team is stronger than the leader, what are their specific member on that team? That probably should be the leader, but it’s definitely better than the current leader. Yeah. You know, that happens from time to time, right. And that’s called the Peter principle when somebody gets promoted to their level of incompetence.
And that certainly is what happened to me when I was first promoted. And I discovered from my team’s feedback that I was showing up as an ass, but this is a slippery slope. We have to be careful because sometimes throughout my career, I actually had this belief that I was better than the leader. And I hadn’t been in a leadership position yet, so I really didn’t understand the rules and responsibilities and it didn’t serve me in.
So my invitation for people who might be in that situation, where they actually think that they might be better than the leader, instead of making the mistake in assuming that you’re better, I think it’s important to, you know, manage your ego, make sure that your ego and ambition aren’t harming you and then find a way to partner for success versus company.
Pete or, you know, to have that, you know, maybe go around the leader. I’m not a fan of going up the ladder. I’ve done that in my career and it hasn’t served me. I think it’s important to find out how to partner and figure out how to support because it makes us better. And it’s definitely a leadership strength to do that.
We’re building and expanding our tribe and partnering for performance. And then, you know, organically, your team’s going to do better. The leader’s going to do better. You know, your opportunity for promotion will come along. If you’re actually in a situation, however, where you’re working for call it a bad boss, which I mentioned in the book, you know, you have to make the decision, whether you’re in the right organization at the right time.
And do you want to stay with that organization or is this time for you to think about an exit strategy and maybe it’s wrong organization and wrong leader? So I’m, again, I’m a fan of finding out how to partner for success. Especially, if you don’t understand the roles and responsibilities of that leader ship position and self-develop, or try and partner, when you can.
I love that answer it. It brought me straight to the seven habits of highly effective people were habit. One Dr. Covey talks about, we can either focus on things that concern us or things that we have direct influence over. And everything you said is on that circle of influence. Excellent. Thank you. I appreciate that.
I love Stephen Covey. Uh, that is definitely my favorite book. Uh, I think I was 19 when somebody gave that to me. I had no idea how much of a gift that truly was. Yeah. That book as well as Ken Blanchard’s, one minute manager were the first two leadership books I ever read. And they were right after what I call my bull ride.
And that was when I. Experienced a out from my team. And that was my, what I call my, um, cataclysmic fall from grace. And that was a tremendous wake up call for me. And that’s when I realized I really needed to figure this leadership thing out. If I was going to stay on this path of leading and managing others.
And those were the first two books I picked up and read, and I was really grateful at the time to have those. Now we have an abundance. Now it’s just a matter of deciding the one that’s the right fit for you. But back then, this was in the 1990s. It was like there wasn’t a whole lot out there about, um, learning how to lead and, and those were really great books and fantastic authors and easy to read and understand.
Well, Michelle, I’ve got to back up a little bit. Did I just hear your leadership was so bad that people walked out? Oh, you bet. Yeah, that was my a fall from grace. That’s less than one, which is, don’t be an ass in the book and it’s, I share a story without revealing too much, but I definitely share the story of how I experienced my wake-up call, which was with a team that decided to abandon ship.
And, um, bail out on the manager because I certainly wasn’t a leader. And that was the most difficult piece of humble pie I had ever had to choke down in my life. But the greatest gift I ever received, because getting that type of feedback, there is no denying the fact that I was the problem. So how did that play out?
Michelle? Did people come back after you recognized that you needed to change some things? What happened. Yeah, thanks for asking, but absolutely not. They ran for the Hills. The unfortunate thing is that, as I mentioned earlier, you know, I was oblivious and here, you know, on paper, it looked like we were getting it done and definitely month over month where we’re growing and scaling very quickly.
And so for all intensive purposes, if you’re looking at the scorecard and that’s the only place you look. We were winning, but when it came to team cohesiveness, team engagement, the happiness factor and the healthy, you know, it was a toxic workplace. And I was responsible for all of it. And so they, when they left, they left and didn’t look back.
And then I unfortunately was in a situation where I had several of my employees that were unionized in the downtown Chicago market and which is not a good place to be when you’re going through formal grievances and having to deal with union bosses. And they don’t want to send you any more human capital that you’re going to abuse.
So I had a lot of, as I mentioned in the book bridge, rebuilding. And trust. And I had a lot of fast maturing I needed to go through. And that’s the point in the inspiration behind the book from bad to bad-ass leader is it’s when we get those gifts and those wake up calls, hopefully you don’t have to experience the same level of casualties that I did at my own ignorance and irresponsibility in these lessons can help prevent that and then help put you on a path.
What I call the roadmap to success. Which was, you know, 34 years later when I’m looking back on a successful career and an area that became a strength for me, I mean, leadership is something I am extremely passionate about, and I love building that as teams and became a turnaround specialist where I could go in and go to a struggling team, even on a very, the shortest turnaround I ever did was 45 days where we went from a really challenged team to becoming a very cohesive and passionate.
Musketeer team. And I mean, leaders can make or break organizations and it is a, an honor and a, and a responsibility to learn how to lead something you mentioned was the scorecard. And you, during this experience, you were watching the scorecard. All the metrics looked like they were working fine.
Obviously they weren’t. What are some human metrics that should have been on that scorecard? You know, if they were working right. Um, recruiting new talent is easy. I mean, I call it easy peasy, referrals, people line up at the door, you get emails and messages saying, if you ever have an opening, you know, please contact me.
I’d love to be on your team. Employee turnover is not happening unless somebody is moving out of state. And, you know, it’s just, people are happy. I mean, it’s palpable low drama environments and minimal conflict. If any, between employees and when there is conflict, it’s productive and healthy and contributory, right?
It’s a, it’s a good banter. Um, if you will. Customer referrals are coming in. Um, you’re having repeat customers, positive reviews and compliments, um, on your business. You know, it’s nice to get those phone calls where someone says, Hey, I just really want to tell you how awesome Jose was when he was out today.
Happy employees, healthy workplaces. And some of those metrics include things like lo workman’s comp claims. Wouldn’t we all like that extra mile behavior is, is another big one where people are, um, you know, Putting in that extra effort instead of the clock Watchers, right. They run it like they own it.
They may not have their name on the sign. They may not have the title of a leader and, or own the business, but boy, they sure act like they do. And that’s, you know, that’s things that we should aspire to as business leaders. And then my favorite thing that I think is, is really important is that you have that all for one, one for all mentality.
I called. Musketeer mentality. When I started really focusing on how do I build and cultivate a culture where people, you know, really have each other’s backs and then all of that trickles into margin performance, sales, more conscientiousness around expenses. Um, and then the coolest thing is, you know, I was in a lot of facilities management and they take care of tools and equipment and they follow preventative maintenance protocols.
You know, they cross the T’s and dot the I’s. I mean, there are so many benefits. And an abundance of metrics around great leadership, and we need to pay attention to that. And the opposite is true. You can undo all of that and say, that’s evidence of poor leadership. I mentioned the musketeer mentality, uh, that made me think of, I think it’s a Ronald Reagan quote that there’s no, and I’m going to mess the quote up.
There’s no limit to what somebody can achieve if they’re willing to give away the credit. Is that what that means? Yeah. And I, I would say I love that quote and I would say, you know, leaders should give credit and take responsibility for sure, but musketeer mentality in the sense of what I was focused on, cultivating with the teams that I had, the opportunity to lead was, you know, you don’t come and tattletale on your coworker.
You know, somebody comes into my office and they’re venting about what Joe did or Kathy did. You know, my first question for them is great. How are you going to support them? And how can I support you in having that conversation? You know, I want the team to have each other’s backs, not stab one another in the back.
And I want them to partner for performance and success. I want them to share their successes and their struggles. So we need to create environments as leaders where people will say, here’s, what’s working. Here’s where I’m going. Stock, you know, and, and cultivate that. Cross-pollination, I mean, that’s what empowers a team and that’s what grows the team and enables you to scale your business to the point that you might even say, I’m going to buy another location.
I’m going to buy another business or start another brand because he’s built that bench strength. So now you have capacity to take talent and spread it throughout other, other business investments. And then that creates opportunity for people to move up. So there’s, there’s so much evidence out there for great leadership.
And, and again, I want to emphasize that, you know, leadership is a choice. It’s, it’s not a title and it doesn’t matter whether you’re a technician or, you know, you’re just starting with an organization. The most important thing is to start learning leadership early and really invest in yourself. It’s not hard.
It’s a lot of fun and hopefully this brand will give them a place to call home and something that feels like them. I love that answer, but I can’t help, but think about the most dysfunctional department in any company, which is sales and it’s almost like sales get rewarded when people do poorly and people do better than other people.
So how do you take this mentality and apply it to the sales department? Well, that’s, that’s a great question because most of my career I was in sales, so that’s what I did. And I was managing sales teams, um, uh, very large businesses and assets. And it’s the same mentality. It’s you know, if you’re talking with salespeople, it’s not us versus them.
It’s not a compete. If you’re not competing in playing win, lose, we’re playing. Win-wins. So we did huddles every day and we talk about, you know, what worked yesterday, what didn’t work, what got in the way. And we share successes. We, we rally, we high-five, you know, we celebrate the success of our teammates and that has to be cultivated by the leader.
And a lot of organizations, unfortunately, and I go into more detail in my book about that, um, Pitt players against one another. And that cultivates a very toxic and unhealthy in a lose, lose environment, because if you’re not operating as Musketeers, what happens when that person is on their day off and then people don’t take care of that customer because they’re worried about their own scorecard instead of the scorecard is for the whole team.
When we win, we all win. Great answer. You’ve alluded to these all throughout the show. I’ve got to ask what are the 12 leadership lessons? Excellent. Thank you for asking. I’m excited to share them. They’re fun. And I love the titles and it’s truly again, I want to make sure to share that they’re in, they’re built an order and the lessons stack so less I want is called.
Don’t be an ass, which I mentioned earlier. Lesson two is stop drop, take a selfie. So the idea is now that you know that you’re not an ass hopefully, or if you’ve discovered you are, and then you need to stop drop, take a selfie and figure out what you need to do about that. And then less than three is once you’re working on yourself and maybe you’ve done a 360, maybe you’ve tapped into the MDR coaching side and taken an everything disc management assessment, which is one of my favorites, because it helps to tell you how you’re leading on your one-to-one relationships.
Then it’s time to go. Okay. Now I need to let lay that foundation of trust. So lesson three is let’s talk about trust, baby. And then once you’ve really focused on establishing trust in your team, feel safe in conversations in vulnerability, we’re sharing mistakes, we’re sharing successes. We’re, we’re partnering for performance for behaving like Musketeers.
Then, um, lesson four is put your people first, and this is where the rubber meets the road. As far as managers make the mistakes of prioritizing performance over people. And if you really want to maximize and accelerate outcomes in your business, you have to prioritize people over performance. Because at the end of the day, they’re the ones who are producing the performance.
And if you take care of your people, you’ll maximize and accelerate outcomes for your business performance and your customer experiences. And then some, and then lesson five is be an epic coach. This lesson in particular is one that, you know, I wish I had embraced and understood. I didn’t really understand the magnitude of what it is to be an epic coach until I decided to start my own leadership development company.
And then I went out and started getting certified in my executive coaching, and I became a strategic interventionists through the Tony Robbins organization. And I realized, oh my God, I should have done this. When I first wanted to be a leader, it would have been an absolute game changer for me, if I would have learned how to coach.
And so that one can not be understated. So being at the coach and again, platinum style. And then lesson six is build a bad-ass team. So now you’ve stacked the lessons. You’re at a point to where now, where are you going to pick as far as players for your team, as far as talent selection, how do you onboard that team?
How do you support them? How do you integrate them into the musketeer mentality? Um, you know, how do they treat one another? Um, what, what does that team look like and how are you going to focus on that? And then once you’ve established that bad-ass team and you’re doing all the other lessons, one through six, then it’s time to create the struggle.
And that’s less than seven and create the struggle is, you know, now we need to stretch them like Gumby, right. And stretch them into their potential. You know, make the, the impossible possible for them. And I love that saying, and then lesson eight is, suck it up buttercup because the sock is going to happen.
It’s not a matter of if it’s just a matter of when and in what it is. And so as leaders, we really need to know how to navigate ourselves teams and organizations and one another through the suck. Because, I mean, look what we’re going through right now. And so these skill sets are critically important.
And then lesson nine is, um, whatever you do, don’t be a kiss ass. And that, you know, it goes back to the question that you asked earlier, where what if we have a leader that is really struggling and maybe there’s someone on the team that actually could be a better leader. That kiss ass mentality is, is going to keep that leader stuck or a peer stuck.
So it’s really important. It’s, there’s a skillset and knowing how to give effective feedback. And so really being able to give what I call sugar-free feedback. And again, we’ve laid that foundation of trust. We’ve cultivated a musketeer mentality. We’ve built that bad-ass team. And so don’t be a kiss ass.
Figure out how to give feedback that people need, because if they don’t know what’s not working, then you can’t expect anybody to improve self included. And then less than 10 is be a groupie. You know, I don’t want you to be a kiss ass, but I do want you to be a groupie, but I want you to be a groupie for your team.
And, you know, and make sure that you’re praising progress and that you are paying attention to the things that are working and not doing what I was doing as a leader, which is, you know, looking for needles in haystacks and finding fault constantly and hovering over them like a drone. And that is very toxic.
And then less than 11 is expand your tribe. And this was something that was way too little too late. You know, we are always better together, you know, peers or partners, they’re not competitors. And so I should have expanded my tribe a heck of a lot sooner than I did. And then lesson 12 is love somebody like you.
And that is, you know, we can’t be the best leader if we’re not taking care of ourselves and, um, taking care of our families. And making sure that we are, you know, having fun and enjoying the journey and there you have it all 12 lessons. Those are great. And a mouthful too. I just can’t help, but think people are frantically writing notes.
Okay. What did she say after eight? So I’m assuming that, that this is what’s in your book, you bet. Yeah. All the details and it’s, and the thing about the book that I was, you know, I’m, I’m an operator, right? That’s, that’s what I do. I just happen to be an operator who decided to write a book. And so when I wrote this book, I thought about, you know, How would I, how do I like to learn and what would I enjoy reading?
And a lot of books I’ve come across, especially business books. I, I found myself really struggling to get through or boring or just, you know, I feel like feeling like it’s a half to read instead of a wanna read. And so I really focused on how can I share these lessons in a way that’s fun, entertaining.
We have illustrations there’s, you know, humor. The lessons are easy to consume and easy to remember because they’re done through story and they’re packed with treasure hunts so that they can do self examinations and kind of look at how my story compares to theirs and take notes, um, throughout. And one of the coolest things that I would love to take credit for, but I can’t is that my readers.
Notified me that they’re doing book clubs. So they have bad ass leader, book clubs that they’re doing, where they’re doing a 12 week program and with their teams. And they’re going through one lesson a week and then they’re huddling and they’re sharing their treasure hunts. And the, some of the feedback I’ve received as the teams are really bonding.
So they’re becoming more Musketeers. Some of them have sent photographs where they have themed them. Because the book has themes and there were 173 illustrations in the book. So it’s very playful and fun, but it is very serious about leadership. And so there are a lot of different ways that you know, that we can help people learn how to lead.
And I’m really hoping that people will have fun and embrace this brand and get passionate about becoming a bad ass leader. Is your book for the leader specifically, or should the entire team read your book? Anyone who is intrigued or interested in learning leadership skills? So from someone who is say a technician on a team that said, you know, I really just want to understand, you know, leadership it’s, it’s designed for anyone, frontline leaders, everyday leaders, as I said, it’s a, it’s a book about main street leadership and yes.
Um, C-suite leaders and entrepreneurs and owners can absolutely benefit because it will help them guide their teams through becoming Musketeers. And I’ll kind of all speaking the same language, if you will. So it’s for everyone. And, um, that’s been the feedback. I originally wrote it thinking it was just going to be for leaders.
And, but what I’m finding is the feedback from the listeners and the readers have been, oh no, we’re getting these books for our teams. And then we’re hosting book clubs, and we’re talking through this. And so we’re developing the up and coming leadership generation. And we’re also sharing our vulnerabilities, which telling your stories about, you know, either when you worked for an ass or maybe you were one.
And, you know, and when leaders show that vulnerability, that supports lesson three, which is we’re building trust, we’re, we’re being vulnerable with one another. We’re humanizing leadership and connecting as a team. Michelle. I know you’ve put together something special just for the scaling up nation. Do you mind telling them what that is?
Oh, absolutely. We have created a bad-ass leader gift page and I invite all listeners to come to because there’s some goodies on there. We have fun screensavers, which have been really popular where you can choose the lesson you want to focus on and then download it to your mobile or your computer desktop.
There’s a list of some of my favorite sayings. Favorite books? Um, definitely a link. If you’re interested in getting the book and I’ve had, uh, here’s my take on the book. We have an audio book, we have it on Kindle and we also have a paperback and I really liked the paperback because then you can write in the book because it’s a workbook.
So it’s not just a book that you read. It’s also a book that you work through. And if you have it on Kindle, then you have to get a notepad and pen. And so it’s kind of fun to be able to, to write in the book and then, um, say that information. So there’s a gift page called bad-ass leader.com forward slash scaling up.
Cool. Awesome. And I’ll make sure to have that on the show notes page as well. I have to ask, did you read the audible version? I, um, it was funny because I not only, um, did the audible version, I looked at the Kindle, but I completely read the book, uh, from front of tobacco. As soon as I got my copy, I was like, I have to read it.
I mean, I wrote it, but I really wanted to experience it. From the standpoint of someone who would buy the book and read it. And then I listened to the audible because I, you know, of course on my own worst critic and I really wanted to see, you know, how does it sound and would I enjoy reading it? And I could definitely tell.
And I, and the feedback I’ve received from listeners, I have a lot of fun with it, and I really did enjoy. Doing the recording. I’d never recorded an audio book before and I wanted to do it myself. I thought it would be weird to have someone record an autobiography about me. It’s like needs to be my voice, my story, my quirkiness.
I love it. When authors read their own book, I always find that they add little tidbits that aren’t in the actual book that maybe they left out their editor told them to do so, or for whatever reason. So I’m really excited to listen to you. Oh, well, thank you. I appreciate that. It was a ton of fun and I had a really great recording studio I worked with in LA.
So it was a kick. And I look forward to, you know, one of my aspirations is to write the bad-ass leader guide for executives and do a summary, a book summary. And so that’s on my docket, hopefully for the, by 20, 22, if not before. Awesome. Well, I’ve got some lightning round questions for you if you are ready.
Oh yes, absolutely. Always ready. All right. So you’ve got some super powers now and you can go back in time and you can talk to your former self as your first day as a leader. What advice would you give yourself? Oh, that’s a great question. You know, I would say develop yourself as a leader of people.
Mastering the people parts makes everything easier, not only from a profitability standpoint, but it’s a hell of a lot more fun. What are the last few books that you’ve read? Well, I mentioned it earlier. I actually read my own on paperback and audio and, uh, but one that I’m going through with Sam consuming it because it’s kind of like a, it’s a very interesting read tools of Titans by Tim Ferris.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with that book. I am a friend of mine gave me that, and that is an outstanding book. Isn’t it interesting. And there’s something for everyone in there and you can, you know, can certainly appreciate his brilliance and the way he thinks he kind of put, dumps everything into this encyclopedia.
And then you can just look up topics or people and it’s, it’s, it’s a fun read. It’s a fantastic read. But it’s not one where you’re going to open it and read from page one all the way through. So that one was a lot of fun. And then I am definitely addicted to mystery thrillers, and I take them on my walk with me on audio.
So I enjoy that. And I’ve had too many to mention, but as far as business books goes, I really enjoy emotional intelligence. 2.0. And that is very well-written. It’s a short read and I’m very passionate. Yeah. About emotional intelligence. And matter of fact, these 12 leadership lessons are going to develop emotional intelligence for leaders.
If there was a leader out there, that’s thinking of developing a leadership library. What books must they have in that? Definitely emotional intelligence. 2.0, and then anything written by pat Lencioni. I love pat and I enjoy his style of writing. It’s easy to consume. It’s fun. It’s pretty straightforward.
It’s very straightforward. I won’t say pretty straightforward and. And I think it’s immediately applicable. I think that’s what the tricky part can be for a lot of people they’ll read a book and then go, how do, how can I translate this into something that’s executable for my team and my business. And I, I definitely have had feedback that my book is executable.
Um, and I find that many of pats are one in particular I’m very passionate about is the five dysfunctions of a team. So that would be, you know, a must have. I’m a big fan of pat as well. And I never got into the fable format that he wrote in. I just, I just want the facts, tell me what I need to do. But when I brought that to my leadership team, they all got into the story and they learned because there was a business fable.
So I totally turned around how I felt about his writing. Yes, I am very passionate about matter of fact, my book is a book of stories. It’s not. Um, methodology, it’s not, uh, principles. Um, you know, I tried to make sure that it was not snoring boring, that it was fun. It hopefully makes people laugh and it makes it memorable because, you know, at the end of the day, when people can connect to something emotionally, it makes it stickier, you know?
And that’s, that’s the idea behind, um, storytelling who plays Michelle when they make a movie about your life. Oh, gosh, that’s a really tough one. It would have to be a Tom girl for sure, because I’m a Tom girl and someone who’s sugar-free. So I would say maybe when I was younger, a demon, a Demi Moore, or maybe a Sandra Bullock, because I, um, I really love to laugh and the silliness of her personality, um, is great and she can be self-deprecating, which is, you know, one of the things that, um, that I’ve learned to get out of my own way and, um, and have fun with.
So, yeah. Probably one of those two, I’m sure they’re both waiting on the script, right? I would hope so. My last question is you now can talk with anybody throughout history, who would it be with and why? Oh, that’s a tough one because, you know, I I’d love to give the, what I would say that the predictable or politically correct answer, which would be, think of something really amazing someone really amazing historically, but there were truth be told for me, it would be my mom, you know, she passed away way too young.
Um, she was 49. I was 27 at the time. And, and what I’ve learned and one of the. Beauties of getting older is really understanding how important relationships are, and there’s nothing more important than time with those you love. Well, Michelle, thank you so much for spending time with us today and letting the scaling up nation know at least 12 things that we can do so we can become bad ass leaders.
Fantastic. Thanks so much trace for having me. It’s been fun sharing.
I hope I didn’t say goodbye to my clean lyrics rating by saying Michelle’s title bad ass leader, but she definitely is. She really brings a lot of fun into improving leaders and she really made me think so. My ask for all of you is what is one takeaway that you can do today on what you just listened to?
I promise if you start looking at what you can do better on each and every bit of information that you devour, it is going to pay dividends. And you becoming more successful and people noticing you that you are a person that stands out and the sad truth is you really don’t have to do that much more than what you are doing to stand out because most people won’t do that 1% more.
Couple of weeks ago, I was talking with Danny Bauer on episode one 94, and he mentioned the book atomic habits in that book. The author talks about that. If you just simply get 1% better each and every day over a year’s time, that’s 37% folks. That is huge. And that’s not a lot of effort. We went on to talk about the book would have, I just find fascinating that if a plane takes off in Los Angeles and it says destination is New York, if it is 1% off its heading, it would land in Washington, DC.
That is just amazing to me. So just think about what are you going to do with today’s show what’s the handle you’re going to take from it and what are you going to do with it? To help us with this concept. Once again is James MacDonald.
Hello, scaling up nation. The next James has challenged us with growth and industrial water treatment. Professional drop by drop. Is
research chlorine dioxide. We use many different bias sites in industrial water treatment to control unwanted microbiological activity. Each has their fit, their benefits and their challenges. Take this week to focus on chlorine dioxide. How does ammonia impacted differently than perhaps hypochlorous acid?
Is it stored and containers or made on site? How do you test for it? Be sure to share your experience on LinkedIn by tagging it with hashtag JC 21 and hashtag scaling up H2O. This is James MacDonald. Now look forward to seeing what you share.
Thanks James. And remember to hashtag what you are doing to social media, because I love seeing those. You can actually find some of the things that I’ve been doing in there. So go looking for that folks. I hope to see you next week on the hang again, scaling up h2o.com forward slash hang. Folks. I hope that you learn something new this week.
I hope you choose to do something with that. And I definitely hope that you tune in next week to a brand new episode of scaling up.
Scaling up nation. If you have a relationship with another person, there is no doubt about it. You have had a miscommunication. Life is full of miscommunications, but I think the key to life and those relationships is what do we do when we realize is we have miscommunicated. I asked my friend and mastermind member, Tom Hardy.
What his experience has been with some of the tools that we’ve learned in the rising tide mastermind around communication. Here’s what he said. Interestingly it’s at times it’s validated my thoughts and processes when I’ve had a complex with coworkers or other people that I deal with on a regular basis.
And on the other end of that, at times, it’s, it’s made me realize maybe I was not thinking straight to giving me a different perspective. From the other side’s point of view, having running complex issues. Tom, thanks for sharing that. Nation again, communication is hard and most of us do more speaking than we do listening.
That means we are not answering the right problem and no wonder people get frustrated. Well, I can’t guarantee that if you join the rising tide mastermind, that that will never happen again. But I can tell you that we teach each other certain tools to make you set up for success. When it comes to communicating with another individual.
When was the last time you said something, it was mistaken and you went a hundred, how you both got to that location? Well, we’ll help you dissect that conversation within the mastermind group. And hopefully give you some tools. So if you had a similar conversation, you would be able to do that better, not just for yourself, but with the person on the other side of that communication.
If that sounds like something you need help with. And boy, it’s definitely something I need help with. Go to scaling up h2o.com forward slash mastermind to find out more about the rising tide mastermind and of this group is right for you.