Coaching for Leaders Dave Stachowiak

Seth Godin: The Song of Significance

Seth Godin is the author of 21 international bestsellers that have changed the way people think about work. His books have been translated into 38 languages. Seth writes one of the most popular marketing blogs in the world, and two of his TED talks are among the most popular of all time.



He is the founder of the altMBA, the social media pioneer Squidoo, and Yoyodyne, one of the first internet companies. His blog is at seths.blog and his newest book is The Song of Significance: A New Manifesto for Teams*.



Seth says that the foundation of all real skills is the confidence and permission to talk to each another. No place is that more apparent than in our meetings. On this episode, Seth returns to help us move towards meetings of significance.

Key Points



The song of significance is about work that matters, being part of something bigger than each one of us, and doing things we’re proud of.

Many organizations and leaders hold meetings, but they are often reports and lectures. Meetings of significance are conversations.

Despite knowing the critical important of conversations, we tend to resist them in our roles. Our work is to begin those conversations.

Start with agreement on what a meeting is how we do work that matters through it. The problem is rarely with Zoom. The problem is how you show up to facilitate the meeting.

Create the culture you need to serve people well by setting the tone for it. You have more power than you think.



Resources Mentioned



The Song of Significance: A New Manifesto for Teams* by Seth Godin



Interview Notes

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

Related Episodes



Five Steps to Hold People Accountable, with Jonathan Raymond (episode 306)

The Way to Have Conversations That Matter, with Celeste Headlee (episode 344)

How to Lead Meetings That Get Results, with Mamie Kanfer Stewart (episode 358)

How to Use Power Responsibly, with Vanessa Bohns (episode 551)



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Gladys McGarey: The Well-Lived Life

Gladys McGarey is 102 years old and a still-practicing doctor. Recognized as a pioneer of the allopathic and holistic medical movements, she is also a founding diplomat of the American Board of Holistic Medicine. She is the cofounder and past president of the American Holistic Medical Association, as well as the cofounder of the Academy of Parapsychology and Medicine and the founder of The International Academy of Clinical Hypnosis.



Gladys lives and works in Scottsdale, Arizona, where for many years she shared a medical practice with her daughter. She currently has a medical consulting practice, maintains a healthy diet, and enjoys a good piece of cake every now and then. She has spoken at TEDx and is the author of The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Any Age*.



Our efforts in leadership development, personal growth, or getting better at anything, are all about starting. In this conversation, Gladys and I discuss the critical nature of movement in our lives and work. We also explore how to identify where to start and why it’s more about beginning that finishing.

Key Points



All life needs to move. If we're not moving, we can't function.

Stuckness is an illusion. If we know what to look for, movement is all around us and within us.

A flashlight in the dark can only see a few steps ahead — but that’s enough to move in the right direction and begin seeing more.

Look for the trickle around the dam. Noticing where movement already is will often be the starting point to go further.

Doctors don’t heal patients, only patients can heal themselves. Pay attention to beginning instead of finishing.



Resources Mentioned



The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Any Age* by Gladys McGarey



Interview Notes

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

Related Episodes



How to Tame Your Inner Critic, with Tara Mohr (episode 232)

Leadership Means You Go First, with Keith Ferrazzi (episode 488)

How to Make Progress When Starting Something New, with Michael Bungay Stanier (episode 562)



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Jeremy Utley: Ideaflow

Jeremy Utley is the Director of Executive Education at the Stanford d.school, and an Adjunct Professor at Stanford’s School of Engineering, where he has earned multiple favorite professor distinctions from graduate programs. He co-teaches two celebrated courses, Leading Disruptive Innovation (d.leadership) and LaunchPad, which focus on creating real-world impact with the tools of design & innovation.



He is also on the teaching teams of d.org, an organizational design course, and Transformative Design, a course that turns the tools of design onto graduate students’ lives. One of the most prodigious collaborators at the d.school, Jeremy has taught alongside the likes of Lecrae, Dan Ariely, Laszlo Bock, and Greg McKeown. He is the author along with Perry Klebahn of Ideaflow: The Only Business Metric That Matters.



Brainstorming sessions often emerge to address a problem requiring new ideas or innovation. However, the way many of us approach brainstorming vastly limits what’s possible for our teams and organizations. In this conversation, Jeremy and I discuss where leaders go wrong and some of the most helpful mindsets and tactics to do better.

Key Points



We tend to like cognitive closure. That often stops us from moving forward more substantially during brainstorming.

The Idea Ratio shows that 2000 ideas are needed for every one idea that goes to market. Most teams and organizations vastly underestimate this.

Set the expectation that brainstorming is a process, not a single event. That will help you surface vastly more useful ideas.

Gather initial suggestions before a session to avoid favoring extroverts and early anchoring on what’s said initially. A useful way to make this is ask the language, “How might we…?”

Warm-up exercises can substantially help put team members in the right mindset for creativity, especially for those with busy schedules moving between contexts.



Resources Mentioned



Ideaflow: The Only Business Metric That Matters by Jeremy Utley and Perry Klebahn

Jeremy Utley's website



Interview Notes

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

Related Episodes



How to Be Present, with Dan O’Connor (episode 399)

The Way to Nurture New Ideas, with Safi Bahcall (episode 418)

How to Build an Invincible Company, with Alex Osterwalder (episode 470)



Discover More

Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

Donald Miller: How to Grow Your Small Business

Donald Miller is The New York Times bestselling author of Building a StoryBrand and Business Made Simple. He has helped thousands of businesses grow with his powerful framework. In 2010, Don started the business he’d always dreamed of. Although his business was doing ok, he quickly realized it wasn’t what he thought it would be. Everything depended on him, and he was drowning in the mundane day-to-day.



For years, his business struggled to produce dependable, predictable results. Over years of fits and false starts, Don grew his business from nothing to nearly $20 million. In the end, he realized there were six key parts of a business, and if they were managed well, the business would fly far and fast. He’s captured those lessons in his book How to Grow Your Small Business: A 6-Step Plan to Help Your Business Take Off*.



A huge percentage of businesses fail before they have any significant success. One key trigger is failure to market the business effectively. In this conversation Donald and I discuss how to power the marketing engine of your business by using the key elements of the StoryBrand framework.

Key Points



Most small businesses think more about how their marketing will look rather than what their marketing will say.

People are attracted to what helps them survive and thrive…and it helps to communicate those message simply.

People buy products and services to solve problems, not because they care that much about the business.

The customer is the hero. Never play the hero; always play the guide.

People who are insecure talk about themselves. People who are confident talk about others. Talk about yourself only in the context of how it helps the customer.



Resources Mentioned



How to Grow Your Small Business: A 6-Step Plan to Help Your Business Take Off* by Donald Miller



Interview Notes

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

Related Episodes



Serve Others Through Marketing, with Seth Godin (episode 381)

How Leaders Build, with Guy Raz (episode 491)

How to Quit Bad Stuff Faster, with Annie Duke (episode 607)



Discover More

Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

Brian Feroldi: Financial Statements Explained Simply

Brian Feroldi is a financial educator, YouTuber, and author. He has been intensely interested in money, personal finance, and investing ever since he graduated from college. His mission statement is to spread financial wellness. He loves to help other people do better with their money, especially their investments.



Brian has written more than 3,000 articles on stocks, investing, and personal finance for The Motley Fool. In 2022, Brian’s book Why Does The Stock Market Go Up? was published. The mission of the book is to demystify the stock market. It was written to explain how the market works in plain English. He's also the co-creator of the course, Financial Statements Explained Simply.



Most of us are not accountants, but whether you work in a small business, a large corporation, a non-profit, or a government agency, the numbers define what resources that we have. Being able to understand and speak the language of financial statements is essential for leaders who want to influence decisions. In this episode, Brian and I review how to understand and read one of the most important reports for any organization: the income statement.

Key Points



A few hours of focus on the fundamentals of financial statement can provide you understanding and influence throughout your career.

An income statement (also called a profit and loss statement or P&L) shows revenue, expenses, and profit over a period of time. It’s similar to your personal budget.

Revenue minus cost of goods sold is gross profit.

Subtracting operation expenses from gross profit give you an organization’s operating income or EBIT (earnings before income and taxes).

Depreciation spreads out the cost of tangible assets (equipment, vehicles, buildings) their useful lives. Amortization does the same thing for intangible assets (loans, copyrights, patents).

The “bottom line” is literally the bottom line at the end, either net income or net loss.



Resources Mentioned



Brian Feroldi’s newsletter

Financial Statements Explained Simply (course)



Related Episodes



Improve Your Financial Intelligence, with Joe Knight (episode 244)

How to Approach Corporate Budgeting, with Jody Wodrich (episode 355)

Dumb Things Smart People Do With Money, with Jill Schlesinger (episode 396)



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Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

Kwame Christian: American Negotiation Institute

Kwame Christian is a best-selling author, business lawyer, and CEO of the American Negotiation Institute. Following the viral success of his TED talk, Kwame released his best-seller Finding Confidence in Conflict: How to Negotiate Anything and Live Your Best Life back in 2018. He’s also a regular Contributor for Forbes and the host of the number one negotiation podcast in the world, Negotiate Anything, which currently has over 5 million downloads worldwide.



Under his leadership, the American Negotiation Institute has coached and trained several Fortune 500 companies on applying the fundamentals of negotiation to corporate success. He's also the author of the book How to Have Difficult Conversations About Race and the creator of Negotiable, an Online Community to Learn to Negotiate Anything.



We often think about questions as a way to discover more — but have you also considered how your questions might influence? Kwame Christian and I discuss three key steps in order to persuade better through your intentional questions.

Key Points



Rapport questions help you make a connection with the other party and establish a baseline for how they communicate.

A helpful place to begin on rapport is noticing something that you genuinely admire or are curious about in the other party.

When gaining information, start broadly and then pull the thread when the other party leads you down a path. Beware that your role/positions can cause people to say more than they otherwise might.

“What would it take?” is often a helpful way to illuminate a path forward.

Even if you ultimately are more directive, laying the foundation through questions allows the other party to be heard and understand.



Interview Notes

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

Related Episodes



These Coaching Questions Get Results, with Michael Bungay Stanier (episode 237)

How to Ask Better Questions, with David Marquet (episode 454)

The Way Out of Major Conflict, with Amanda Ripley (episode 529)



Discover More

Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.