Confessions of an Executive Coach with Dan Foxx

01/28/21 • 53 min

Dan Foxx is an executive coach, keynote speaker, author, and the founder and owner of Unlock Your Leadership. He has coached over 5000 top executives from America's finest companies; from high techs in the Silicon Valley to promising startups. His most recent book, Confessions from the Heart of an Executive Coach, is a collection of Dan’s observations and stories based on notable experiences throughout his career. He joins Marcel Schwantes to share insights he has gleaned from his 23 years of executive coaching.Marcel asks Dan why he wrote the book. “Most people are striving to matter, be accepted [and] get respect,” Dan begins. “They want to be successful in their heart, and what holds them back is fear.” His aim is to help leaders understand the psychology behind leveraging outcomes, and how they can use that psychology to their benefit. [6:35]Shifting your perspective about failure is key to achieving true success, as it is a necessary tool for learning how to improve. Most people look at failure in a negative light because it affects their self-esteem. However, Dan has observed that every success story has had its share of setbacks. “Failure is the foundation for success,” Marcel sums up. [12:13]Dan shares that his entire approach to business changed after meeting someone he looked up to, who gave him valuable advice: that all his clients had one common need, and that need is love. He incorporated more compassion and kindness in his interactions with his clients, and his business began gaining traction as a result. “[Everyone] is craving to matter to someone, to be able to be vulnerable... and not have to put up a facade,” he says. [15:55] Marcel has observed that openness and vulnerability transfers to clients when coaches are willing to first take the risk. In these trusting environments, more impactful work is done and issues are tackled at the roots. [23:41]Dan shares practical ways in which members of an organization can show love to one another. These include small but meaningful acts of appreciation, like personally greeting each other and expressing gratitude for each person’s unique contributions to the organization. [25:12]“Almost everyone is suffering from past emotional wounds that they keep buried because they don’t know how to reconcile themselves to it and heal,” Dan claims. “It creates a hole in their heart that is supposed to be filled by human connection, relationships, and a sense of being valued and appreciated. So when they are given that, they want more.” [30:02]A leader loves by first acknowledging that a position of leadership is not a position of privilege, but a responsibility of service. The higher up you are in the chain of command, the more people you are in service of. [35:28]Fear is what usually drives our lives. Dan comments that the more we focus on our fears, the larger they become. In order to overcome our fears, we must shift our focus to love, which pushes fear to the corner where it doesn’t dominate our attitudes and decision-making. [42:12]ResourcesDan Foxx on LinkedIn UnlockYourLeadership.comConfessions from the Heart of an Executive Coach: True Stories Behind Closed Doors: Why Some CEOs Win Big, While Others Crash and Burn

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The Ministry of Common Sense with Martin Lindstrom

Martin Lindstrom is the founder and owner of Lindstrom Company, for which he is a Branding Expert and Consultant. He was named as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People by Time Magazine, and was chosen, by Thinkers50, to be among the world’s Top 50 Business Thinkers for three consecutive years. He is a best-selling author and columnist, earning features as a collaborating writer in various publications like Fast Company and Forbes, to name a few. His most recent book, The Ministry of Common Sense: How to Eliminate Bureaucratic Red Tape, Bad Excuses, and Corporate Bullshit, is a humorous yet practical guide to eradicating the excessively complicated administrative procedures present in every organization. He joins Marcel Schwantes to discuss the erasure of common sense in the workplace, and what needs to be done to bring it back.Through his work, Martin has discovered that there is a direct correlation between common sense and empathy. “Empathy is the ability to put yourself in another person’s shoes... common sense is... seeing the world from another person’s point of view, [because] it’s a common area.” He explains why common sense seems to be lacking in many organizations. [4:38]“Technology is increasingly removing the empathy from our world,” Martin claims. Communication through technology limits the scope of information that is being conveyed, as only 10% of communication is verbal. Communicating via technology doesn’t allow you to pick up on all the social cues that are present. This is one reason why employees are becoming less able to empathize with one another, Martin points out. [11:08]Marcel asks Martin how corporate politics destroy common sense. “Politics is all about getting things through a system with only you as the person interested in the outcome, and then you get people to buy into it... If the company is not aligned with where it wants to go, or if [all the different departments] start to protect themselves too much... to save their own back, they’re not interested in the bigger perspective,” he replies. [17:36]Martin shares an example of shaping regulations around empathy instead of placing regulatory issues at the center. “Politics is there when [the company] loses sight of reality, when you only have a one-way street and [your own] point of view,” he says. [18:31]“Technology has stripped our common sense, [and] we have lost a human touch,” Marcel paraphrases. He asks Martin what would happen if organizations didn’t have technology for a while. Martin shares a story where an organization lost control of their technology for six weeks, forcing them to use WhatsApp to run things. Sometime later, he asked 1000 employees how their experience was. He expected them to complain, but to his surprise they enjoyed it: they felt like there was new life in the company, and had a lot of fun. [24:17]“Boredom is the foundation for creativity,” Martin muses. “Being bored allows you to take a pause in your life, ...and see everything you do in perspective, and start to connect dots in ways you’ve never done before,” he says. [28:55]Martin shares some common-sense rules for running successful Zoom meetings. Having team members socialize and communicate with each other in informal ways is productive, as these interactions create the emotional glue and culture of the company. Leaders should allot time to conduct breakout rooms, where these informal interactions can be replicated. [31:42]Marcel asks Martin what steps should be taken by leaders to restore common sense to their organizations. “You must first ask yourselves what the most frustrating thing for you customers is,” Martin advises. [37:24]ResourcesMartin Lindstrom on LinkedIn | TwitterMartinLindstrom.com The Ministry of Common Sense: How to Eliminate Bureaucratic Red Tape, Bad Excuses, and Corporate Bullshit

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The Blue-Collar Boom with Ken Rusk

Ken Rusk is President at Rusk Industries and the author of Blue-Collar Cash: Love Your Work, Secure Your Future, and Find Happiness for Life. Ken is a blue-collar construction business entrepreneur who has launched multiple successful endeavors over the last three decades. He coaches and trains job seekers to take control of their lives; especially those without college degrees. He joins Marcel Schwantes to talk about his professional journey and how he gained control of his destiny despite his humble beginnings. Ken was motivated to pursue coaching after realizing that people were not as prepared for life as they should be. In the process of growing his business, he met countless individuals who weren’t taught basic necessities to deal with the challenges of life and resolved that he would do his part to rectify it. [2:45]The three tenets to success are comfort, peace, and freedom. Ken remarks that these tenets are interdependent on each other and encapsulate the true purpose of life. They are all that you need to be successful; however, because everyone requires different things to achieve comfort, peace and freedom, success will look different for each person. [5:21]Marcel asks Ken to give insights about the crisis that the American workforce is facing. He argues that removing shop class from the high school curriculum has prevented millions of children from discovering trades like carpentry, plumbing, and electrical engineering. Replacing it with college prep has only saturated the market with too many college graduates and not enough workers to do jobs where they would have already acquired the technical skills necessary. [7:06]People overlook blue-collar jobs because society focuses on college, Ken claims. Roughly 70 million out of the 165 million working people in the US work with their hands, which is proof of the need for blue-collar workers, but society is white-collar oriented. [9:33]Marcel asks Ken if he believes going to college is necessary in 2021. “If you have an absolute reason to go to college, [you should]... but it if you're going for one of those bland business degrees, you may want to reconsider,” Ken says. He explains why investing in a college degree may leave you worse off than you were without one. [11:13]Ken shares insights about lucrative blue-collar jobs. “Sometimes you just need to be willing to do something that other people aren’t,” he advises. [13:24]A key part of achieving any goal is creating certainty. “To change your goal from an ‘if’ to a ‘when,’ you need to have an absolute start date and an absolute end date. If you put yourself in the position to see the end in mind at the beginning, you will certainly get there,” Ken says. [18:22]Marcel asks Ken how he thinks leaders can show love at the workplace. “First off, we need to get rid of our preconceived notions about what a boss is. Just make sure that you are as excited and involved in the goals and futures of the people that work for you as you are for yourself,” Ken replies. [22:50]ResourcesKen Rusk on LinkedIn | WebsiteBlue-Collar Cash: Love Your Work, Secure Your Future, and Find Happiness for Life

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