Start With A Win

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Quick Win: There is no Easy Button in Life or Business Jul 29, 2022

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No easy button for business or life, however the EASIER button is to deploy leadership for yourself and for others.

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Quick Win: Leaders Create Other Leaders Jul 01, 2022

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Leaders create other leaders. They lead with presence and with clarity. Leading isn't a title—it's the action that you are taking to lead people and create new leaders!

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How To Win Friends - Part 1 Jun 16, 2021

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In this solocast of Start With A Win, Adam and Producer Mark talk about some of the key insights in Dale Carnegie’s 1936 classic, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Adam calls it one of the best books for showing how we should treat each other. Although the book is nearly a century old, its lessons on understanding the intrinsic desires of human beings resonate even today.

One of the first tips they explore is the idea that “if you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive.” In short: don’t criticize, condemn, or complain. Usually, this is because it’s human nature to react when someone criticizes you. So try to be nice to people, even when it doesn’t necessarily serve you to do so. People don’t want to help you if you’re beating on them. It takes a specific maturity to consider external forces unfolding when a situation doesn’t go the way you want.

Another principle they discuss is that you should show honest and sincere appreciation. Adam shares a story of a time that he and his family were in the drive-thru at a coffee shop. Seeing that the barista had spent a lot of time on what you’d say was a unique face of makeup, Adam’s daughter, Ashley, tells her that she loved her makeup. Her eyes lit up, Adam recalls, and it changed the entire tone of their interaction. It was remarkable how an honest and sincere compliment elevated a routine coffee run into a memory.

The book also suggests that the only way to influence people is to arouse their “want.” As often as he can, Mark sets an example for his children to intentionally say the names of people he interacts with while in stores. He shares a story about how he once left a grocery store with his children, and they asked him how he knew everyone’s names. He took it as an opportunity to teach them about acknowledging people in service positions and how valuable it can be.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, you should seek to elevate others’ interests. Show that you are interested in them rather than in yourself. Think about how you can help others rather than yourself, and see how many people you can make smile.

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What Comedy Teaches Us About Business with Dr. Peter McGraw Apr 14, 2021

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Our guest on this episode of Start With a Win is Dr. Peter McGraw. He is a behavioral economist, professor, author, podcaster, and comedy student. He has recently written a new book entitled Shtick to Business which discusses how humor integrates with business, including the many lessons that leaders can learn from comedians. One of the main aspects of Peter’s research has been the theory of humor. Using an A/B test, he asked participants what they thought of certain things – did they find them funny? Boring? Offensive? Do their feelings towards those things change over time or based on their circumstances?

Ultimately, he concluded that the funny things contain benign violations—or things that are wrong and ok at the same time. For both comedians and business leaders, experimentation is key to determining what benign violations will translate well to an audience. Another aspect of humor that business leaders can utilize in the workplace is thinking in reverse to challenge the status quo. Peter has adapted this idea, developing an alternative form of brainstorming, which he calls “shtick-storming.” The concept focuses on encouraging everyone to come up with the most terrible ideas. This exercise allows leaders to actually take the pressure off of the brainstorming process, creating a freer flow of ideas which might make way for something so crazy that it actually might work.

Peter also encourages leaders to be good listeners and to champion collaboration, which will lead to innovation. Additionally, he says, leaders have to reckon with the fact they can’t make everyone happy and that sometimes they have to choose the problem they want to live with. For more insights that Peter has learned through studying the science of humor and behavioral economics, be sure to check out his book.

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https://petermcgraw.org/

https://twitter.com/PeterMcGraw

https://www.linkedin.com/in/petermcgraw

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Quick Win: Eliminate Drag Dec 18, 2020

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In order to create lift and rise into the air, an airplane has to be aerodynamic, not tethered to the ground, not held back by anything, and not keeping its sights set on the ground. The same is true for you: if you want to create lift and soar to your destination, you have to evaluate what is pulling you down and find a way to eliminate it.

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Quick Wins: Create Raving Fans Feb 14, 2020

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Quick Wins: Remember How They Feel Dec 06, 2019

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Personal Branding 101 May 08, 2019

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On this episode of the Start with a Win podcast, Adam and Mark talk about building your own personal and/or professional brand. Now “branding” has become a buzzword in today’s business world, but most people do not adequately grasp what is means to build a brand, so they aren’t reaping any of the benefits. For the purposes of this episode, we will define your brand as “the thoughts and emotions evoked when people think about you.”

Your brand should encompass your values, persona, passions, and focuses in whatever industry you are serving. This needs to be define-able and easy for people to understand, so sit down and really take the time to think about what you want your brand to include. Consult some of your friends and colleagues, and perhaps even go through a 360-degree evaluation process to see how others perceive you. This will help you determine how to tailor your image or and begin to live out your brand through social media and your other platforms.

Once you have found your brand, reach out to people who can help you with things like a logo, a website, business cards, etc. as you prepare your content. Based on your brand, determine what types of content you should create, how it should be distributed, and what platforms should be used. It is crucial to understand that you cannot post the same video on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn because each of those platforms encourages specific content types and elicits different interactions or engagements from your audience. You also must recognize that “doing Facebook” does not mean scrolling through your news feed and liking one of your clients’ statuses and calling it a day. You would be amazed how easy it is to set up Facebook ads to promote your brand, and the results from just a $5 ad could bring in several new leads with minimal effort on your end.

After this episode, Adam challenges you to build your personal or business brand. Go to a freelancing site and hire someone to help you with the deliverables you aren’t strong in, and just launch into the world as a well-defined value-creator.

Links:

360 rating site: https://www.selfstir.com/

Freelancing: https://www.fiverr.com

Freelancing: https://www.upwork.com/

Brand Viva Media: www.brandvivamedia.com

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