So, Here's My Story... - TopPodcast.com

Latest Episodes:

Ep79: Embarrassment Dec 11, 2018

Show notes

It can be hard to ask for help, especially when the stakes are high or when you are supposed to be the leader. Almost as hard as asking for help in finding the small lump in a polyurethane testicle.

Why is that important for business?

Asking for help can be really hard - admitting that you don’t know something, especially if you want to be considered an expert, is a vulnerable thing. The higher the stakes get, the bigger it feels to admit you don’t know and the stronger the impulse to keep hobbling along as if you do. When your ego is involved – when you start reading your own press releases – it can be harder to admit you don’t know something that feels basic.

There are many different sizes and shapes of baggage can cause people to choose pride over the truth of not knowing. Whatever the particular baggage, it can be a deterrent to good leadership. Becoming comfortable with “I don’t know” is a much-overlooked leadership skill. As important as it is to be skilled and informed, it is dangerous if it feels like leadership equals always knowing.

Beyond the leadership level of a company, it is an even better sign if everyone who doesn’t have their name on the door feels free to ask for help. Establishing that culture is the job of the leader.

What story do you want to tell?

So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours!

Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup

OR...

Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com

Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast

Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery.

Want to support us?

Love this podcast?

Please tell your friends, post about us, or take moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Ep78: Fault Dec 04, 2018

Show notes

We often don’t see the way we are influencing and affecting those around us. We don’t make the link from our behavior to what we see pervade our company culture. And then – like so many of our episodes - a trip to the bathroom changes everything.

Why is that important for business?

Often, we experience an effect in the world, and then rationalize that thing without taking the time to notice if we have a hand in causing it. The truth is, everything you do is modeling things for people in your organization. You teach what you tolerate. And you teach what you model, even when you don’t know you are modeling it.

However, we are often unaware of the things that we are inadvertently modeling. This is the Dunning-Kruger effect and it keeps us blind to our blind spots. It can make us unaware of the impact we have on those around us, which is why it is important to ask: when I see a behavior that I don’t like in others, where does it exist in me? Where am I nurturing or tolerating this behavior and teaching others to replicate what I would rather avoid?

If you want people to exhibit leadership skills, you must create a culture of leadership where everyone has the mindset of considering their impact, and where everyone – like our favorite squeegee kid – is going into every corner.

People notice your behaviors and habits. Everything you do is a constant traffic signal for what’s okay, and what’s acceptable. They will pick up the culture from you. You may have a very good reason for your behaviors, but it still sends a signal that that behavior is okay. As a leader, you are always on stage.

What story do you want to tell?

So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours!

Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup

OR...

Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com

Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast

Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery.

Want to support us?

Love this podcast?

Please tell your friends, post about us, or take moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Ep77: When Time Does Not Equal Money Nov 27, 2018

Show notes

Time is a valuable commodity, and we hope all of our listeners properly value their time.

We also know that our time does not inherently have the same value to others, including our clients. And that’s why we ask the important question: does time really equal money?

Why is that important for business?

Just because you invest a precious asset - your time – into work for someone doesn’t necessarily mean they will equate it to value. The idea that time equals dollars is very misleading. For instance, if they were charging by time, iPads would cost $10k. Instead, they have to price according to the value to the buyer. Because of this, you have to make sure that when discussing value, that you have determined and discussed your expectations well in advance.

The question of value is especially confronting when you talk about raising your prices. If someone that has never worked with you balks at a price, you can dismiss that as them not understanding your value. But it can be hard to not attribute it to your value when an existing client – familiar with the work you do - hesitates or gasps in response to a price raise.

Dollars really are an arbitrary assignment – they don’t have their own meaning. Acknowledging that the important thing isn’t who is right about value, but as early as possible agreeing what something is worth, is the key to these discussions and agreements.

What story do you want to tell?

So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours!

Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup

OR...

Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com

Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast

Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery.

Want to support us?

Love this podcast?

Please tell your friends, post about us, or take moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Ep76: Being Sold Nov 20, 2018

Show notes

You can learn important business lessons from just about any source, including a squeegee kid with a surprisingly nuanced sales approach.

Why is that important for business?

The biggest challenges you will encounter when doing sales – and if you are in business, make no mistake: you are doing sales – are the silent objections of your potential clients. Often, while being sold to, we are busy stacking up a list of reasons to say no. Good sales is about making it easy to say yes.

What, by trying harder, makes sales barriers go up; and what, by trying harder, makes sales barriers go down?

First, the young business ingenue made you root for him, but he also made it feel like he was rooting for his potential customer. He looked at the world through his customer’s eyes and figured out what mattered to that person. He essentially asked, “if I can give you more of what you want, is it worth it to you?” His approach wasn’t adversarial at all – it was customer-focused.

And even though this particular instance was not one in which “I’ll think about it” was an option, there was enough pressure to make the “yes” simple. Although pressure can definitely cause your barriers to come up, there is a service to the kind of pressure that makes something a definitive choice. “I’ll think about it” is a burden for busy people. Helping people to make a decision simple is a gift.

Authenticity is also critical to a positive sales experience. Sales is often a long-term commitment – people who don’t buy from you can help you understand what approach would work in the future, as long as the request is made in a genuine, un-pushy way. You can’t lie your way into truly good selling. And the work, like this squeegee kid’s, should live up to the promise.

What story do you want to tell?

So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours!

Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup

OR...

Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com

Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast

Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery.

Want to support us?

Love this podcast?

Please tell your friends, post about us, or take moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Ep75: Hijacked Meetings Nov 13, 2018

Show notes

Audience Q&As can quickly devolve. Someone wants to share a story instead of a question; someone else wants to demonstrate their own expertise and “teach from the seats”. No one seems to know how to ask a succinct and relevant question and you can feel the frustration from the group. As the leader – whether it be in front of a large audience or just at your staff meetings – you must consider the impact of these contributions on the room, and your goals.

This episode is about being clear on your objective and helping everyone make the best contributions possible. It’s also a little bit about Jodi’s terrible poker face.

Why is that important for business?

There are people who are always going to answer, regardless of the question, with the answer they want to give. It can feel like they are not taking responsibility for the care and feeding of the group, nor considering the impact to the group.

As the leader, it is important to frame the rules of contribution before asking people for their contributions. For example, instructing them that the first sentence should end in a question mark. Give the Processors in the group time to think about what they want to say, and how to frame it within the guidelines you have given them. Set the expectations early.

However, it is also important to recognize that there are things that can get stuck in people’s craw, things they need to be acknowledged before they can move on. You don’t have to let this get you off track, but you do have to deal with the pothole in the parking lot, or it will keep coming up all day long.

Leadership is key here, and will affect the happiness of your team, and retention. You need to be clear on your top priority in the moment. Is it to keep train on the track, or is it to surface new thoughts and ideas? Are you trying to assuage concerns or present information? Each priority needs a different style of leadership. And you need to periodically asses if your leadership is angling you towards the outcome you want.

What story do you want to tell?

So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours!

Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup

OR...

Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com

Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast

Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery.

Want to support us?

Love this podcast?

Please tell your friends, post about us, or take moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Ep74: Confidence - An Origin Story Nov 06, 2018

Show notes

Have you ever been in a conversation with someone who ignores the substance of the conversation, and instead present themselves as an authority based on their experience or resume, instead of their response to the issue? This is exactly the kind of incident that instigates todays story/rant, and leads to a discussion about authenticity, confidence, and credibility.

Why is that important for business?

This kind of appeal to authority can sometimes be mistaken for confidence, but it comes across as having its roots in insecurity instead. When someone is truly confident, they let the substance of their input speak for them. You can do something for 30 years and still not do it well, so experience isn’t a replacement for a cogent argument.

Relaying your resume is an attempt to build credibility, but it often backfires. Genuine, authentic presence can do more for your credibility than a listing of your experience.

Sometimes, confidence is simply a matter of acting as if – it is starting at the end, figuring out how you want to present yourself to the world, and then justifying that with action. If you want to be a hat person, start wearing hats; if you want to be a writer, then write. Confidence only comes through action.

When someone starts talking about their experience instead of the issue in front of them, that means they are coming at this from an “I” agenda. The only way to get a win is to come at it from a “We” agenda. And it is easier to arrive at a “We” agenda with authenticity, the Litmus test for which is the act of pulling from the moment, the present conversation, instead of a potentially irrelevant resume.

What story do you want to tell?

So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours!

Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup

OR...

Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com

Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast

Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery.

Want to support us?

Love this podcast?

Please tell your friends, post about us, or take moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Ep73: I Would Have Hired You But Oct 30, 2018

Show notes

How hard are you making people work to hire you?

Sometimes in business, people make it hard to give them money. Like you are drowning, and they need you to fill out twelve forms in triplicate to order your life preserver.

In this episode, we talk about the importance of small victories, triage, and making it easy for clients to hire you.

Why is that important for business?

When someone is ready to hire you, it is important to find the points of disengagement – the part of the process of on-boarding or hiring you where they become frustrated or overwhelmed – and find a way to give them a small victory. This isn’t about solving the whole problem, but about making it easier to get started. If you need a lot of information to best help a client, can you determine the key things you need to get started, and begin there? This is about facilitating the “yes” process.

The confused mind says no. If you can determine the place (in any of your processes, but especially the hiring process) where a client is most likely to be stymied or stalled by confusion, you have an opportunity to make it not only easier for them to say yes to you, but for you to give them a sense of relief.

Even if someone says yes, their mind is still in “gosh, I hope I don’t regret this” mode. If early on you can create a small win, you can earn more than just their business, but also alleviate the concern that they might regret this. It is confirmation for the client that this was not a bad idea.

This isn’t about trying to fix everything right off, but about giving them a small taste of your value. Making all of their pain go away in the moment is not only bad for sales, but a disservice to them. Solving what is currently hurting them the most isn’t necessarily solving their problem. You just have to show you can take some sense of pain away and give them a sense of relief.

You have to keep earning the yes going forward. But you don’t get the opportunity to keep their yes if you don’t get their yes in the first place.

Like in curling, you run ahead of the stone to sweep the path, so the stone can go where you both need it to go.

What story do you want to tell?

So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours!

Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup

OR...

Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com

Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast

Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery.

Want to support us?

Love this podcast?

Please tell your friends, post about us, or take moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Ep72: Deeper Connections - LIVE FROM NYC Oct 23, 2018

Show notes

In this episode, we are podcasting live from the National Association of Broadcasters Show New York and talking about fist-bump people, Jewish high holidays, and genuine human connection.

Why is that important for business?

Some people – even clients! - deplete your energy and those relationships may need a second look. It is rare to regret not taking a client, but you will most likely experience the feeling of regretting taking on a client. This is why it is important to surround yourself with what Eliot calls “fist-bump people” – those people that you get excited and inspired by.

There is also importance to periodically throwing out the agenda. There’s an unspoken rule that everything in business must have distinct purpose or must have an exacting line to an outcome. But so much of what is needed for business happens in the whitespace between. As Eliot’s friend says about the Jewish high holidays: “God is in the hallways”.

We have to make time for connections, and for these hallways, or we will burn out. These spaces, where our brain relaxes into alpha wave state, is where you get ideas and insights. You need times when your business brain is not being directly stimulated; sharpening the axe has extraordinary value.

A great time to throw out the agenda is when making genuine connections. These connections that we make – in the white spaces or the hallways – are important for more than just building our network. Genuine conversations with employees, for instance, will yield better results than structured performance reviews – when we feel threatened, we can’t have nuanced discussions.

In business or in life, you can’t ever go wrong by leaning towards being genuine and human. Real connection is trying to understand someone, versus trying to navigate a conversation. What obscures connection is canned conversations; what forges connections is a story.

What story do you want to tell?

So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours!

Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup

OR...

Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com

Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast

Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery.

Want to support us?

Love this podcast?

Please tell your friends, post about us, or take moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Ep71: Quitting Oct 16, 2018

Show notes

When her son wants to quit something, Jodi and her husband must decide if they want to encourage him to stick with his commitments or applaud him for knowing what he wants. And this common parenting dilemma brings us to some important decisions you will need to make in business, too.

Why is that important for business?

There are so many opportunities in business to make similar decisions. But commitment might not always be the skill to flex - quitting can be just as important as commitment, even though it isn’t a skill that we often celebrate.

The question becomes: how do you discern when the most important thing is following through, and when quitting is the right way to go?

Some points to consider might be whether the commitment involves other people relying on you, the duration of the commitment, and what you are trying to accomplish with the commitment.

It is also important to consider your core values, or the core values of the organization, both in the initial decision, and in re-evaluating a commitment. Is it in alignment with what you care about most? If the mistake was saying yes in the first place, then if you continue to be involved, it can be a large energy drain and an opportunity for resentments. Ask yourself, “what interest is this serving?”

It is also important to be aware of when you are making fear or lack-based justifications for the commitment. Fear-based decisions are generally bad decisions waiting to happen, and if you recognize that you made one after the fact, quitting might deserve a second look.

What matters now? What is the point right now? What are we reinforcing right now? Consider that if you don’t quit whatever it is, you have to spend finite resources keeping it alive. Is it that important to you?

The decision itself may not even matter, but the why might. And so too might the unappreciated art and substance of quitting.

What story do you want to tell?

So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours!

Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup

OR...

Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com

Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast

Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery.

Want to support us?

Love this podcast?

Please tell your friends, post about us, or take moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!

Ep70: Komen Oct 09, 2018

Show notes

Eliot recently spent 3 days walking 60 miles for the Susan G. Komen foundation, and as usual, came home with a bunch of ideas for what your business can learn from the experience. In this episode, we’ll talk about company culture, and what you can learn by staring at people’s backs for 60 miles.

Why is that important for business?

There are many important lessons to be learned from an organization like the Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Chief among them is how to create a culture that engages people, regardless of their “learning style”. Wherever you looked, you were inside the “pink bubble” and you couldn’t avoid their mission, their impact, and why people cared so deeply about the cause. Even if your mission isn’t to cure cancer, you can still learn these lessons by helping to tie people to your mission.

A big part of making that happen is by weaving new people – whether they be staff or clients – into the fabric of your business’ culture. You do this by encouraging:

A sense of belonging. This can be as simple as making sure that new people have someone to eat with.
Some sort of status recognition and some layer of healthy competition. This needs to call to a higher level of performance in the areas you want to reinforce.
Connection – This can include a connection to the story or mission, and a connection to the people and why they are at your business, and why they care.

If an organization struggles to weave people into their bubble, it may be because they don’t have a very well-defined “thing” to get behind or rally around. In terms of culture, the 5 most powerful words are “that’s not who we are”. Part of culture is being okay that dogs will hear your particular whistle and cats won’t.

The most important thing is having evangelists in your crowd - frontline people who don’t have management titles - to be enthusiastic about the cultural characteristics that you most want to highlight. You have to find a way to nurture, encourage, and reward that kind of evangelizing.

Lastly, making people feel like they are an integral part of what you are building is key. This is the “Ikea Effect” where people place higher value on what you have a role in building. This is when labour leads to love. Finding ways for your people to grapple with the problems that you want your organization to solve is a really beautiful way to engage them.

Resources Mentioned

The Ikea Effect: When Labour Leads to Love. https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/11-091.pdf

What story do you want to tell?

So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours!

Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup

OR...

Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com

Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast

Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery.

Want to support us?

Love this podcast?

Please tell your friends, post about us, or take moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!