0:01 Welcome to The Coaching Equation brought to you by Empire Partners and hosted by Ryan Lang and Brooke Bishop. Our mission is to help you build a profitable and impactful coaching business by cutting through the noise and all the expert advice to deliver tried and true actionable insights that you can deploy in your business today. Each week, we bring on expert guests, unveil cutting edge tactics and strategies, and share the secrets and stories that we've gathered from working with the most successful coaching companies on earth. Welcome back to the Coaching Equation Podcast.

0:41 I'm your host, Ryan Lang, CEO and co-founder of Empire Partners. And today's episode is probably one of the single best episodes on the subject of leadership that we have recorded on this podcast. I've got a special guest in the house with me today. Whitney Ferris is here. She's an internationally recognized coach, a keynote speaker, leadership expert who empowers her clients to overcome obstacles and achieve extraordinary levels of performance with greater fulfillment. She's built a reputation as a leading authority and developing high performing teams and coaching industry executives worldwide. Whitney is a former corporate executive turned professional certified coach.

1:25 And she's passionate about helping people master their mindset to unlock their full potential and thrive both personally and professionally. Listen, you're going to want to sharpen your pencil for this one because we are going deep. And in this episode, we're not just touching lightly on leadership. Whitney actually gives this fantastic podcast. five-part framework on leadership that you will want to capture. So you're going to want to get this one and probably go back to it for the notes and capturing that framework. Let's buckle up and dive in. This is episode 54 of the Coaching Equation Podcast. Welcome back to the Coaching Equation Podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Lang, CEO and co-founder of Empire Partners.

2:06 And man, I've got a guest that I'm so excited about today. Whitney Ferris is with me. Gal, so good to see you. I'm so excited to dive in. Good to see you as well. Yeah. Happy to share all of our expertise with your listeners. So Whitney, I have been obsessed and passionate about leadership since I can remember. I mean, literally since I was a little kid. And it's one of the reasons I'm so excited that you're here. And that we get to dive in and unpack all of this because all of the other pieces and strategies and tactics and skill sets and all that stuff that we learn in business, all of it falls short if we don't understand how to effectively and successfully lead.

2:51 But I really want to start here. I'm curious, what was it in your journey that kind of got you down the path of really being interested in leadership, how it works at really mastering it? Where did that start for you? Well, quite honestly, it started in sports when I was growing up. I was a big athlete and I played Division I college volleyball. And so my earliest mentors and coaches around leadership were the people that I played for and some of my teammates. And, you know, what always what struck me was that... When we think about leadership, so often in business, we're thinking about the outcome that people drive to.

3:35 When we're leading a team of any sort, there's a set of goals. And we're thinking about we want to get them to the outcome. But what I saw early on is that the outcome is only one piece. The transformation of the person is what I kind of fell in love with about leadership. is that if we do leadership right, we can not only drive outcomes, but we can help people grow, really become a better version of themselves, more fulfilled, more impactful. And I find it's great fulfillment in that work myself. I love this. And I love that you reference sports similarly. I think that's actually a big part of what got me interested in leadership early on as well is that I grew up an athlete also.

4:20 And I don't know about you, but I think about like Kiyosaki and, you know, rich dad, poor dad. Like I had good coach, bad coach. Yeah. situation. And I think we learn, you know, when we're intentional about it, we learn an equal amount from both. One thing that you said, I think is really important that I'd love to unpack a little bit more. You talked about not just driving outcomes, but truly helping somebody grow. Yeah. One of the things that we've noticed in all the work that we've done is especially when someone comes in and they are maybe not used to being in a leadership position.

5:02 I think many people that get into coaching have never been in leadership positions before. And really, many people opening businesses have never been in leadership positions before. Why don't we just want to drive outcomes? I mean, why shouldn't we just learn how to quote unquote, like squeeze the juice out of the people that are working for us? Yeah, well, that's probably an answer that we don't have enough time for, but I'll give you the high level thoughts. You know, I think good leadership, it's not an either or, it's a drive results and impact the people, scale the business.

5:44 Mm-hmm. I'll give you a great example. I'm coaching a woman right now who was a very high performing individual contributor. She's actually moved on to a leadership role and she has like 10 direct reports, which is a very large amount for a brand new people leader. And she's running into these barriers where she's utilizing a lot of her skill sets as an IC to essentially play a more hands-on role in getting outcomes for her people. Well, what do you think the obstacle is? that can't scale. If they are depending on her to have the hard conversation to provide the coaching on the next step and it's done through direction versus teaching and leading them through the process, then that leader becomes a single point of failure.

6:30 And then you also look at the other result of why don't we just squeeze the juice out of everybody is that how does that feel for the people, right? You're driving, driving, driving. Instead of bringing them along in the process where they're growing, developing, and feeling empowered, that's what makes them more loyal, want to run harder. And oh, yeah, they're doing the same amount of activity but with better quality, and they're getting a better result. So we all win. Well, why doesn't everyone just do it? Well, you have to... Why don't they? Right? Like you have to teach people how to lead. And I work with so many really successful organizations that they just...

7:13 They look at how much money they have to spend and they say, with this amount of money, I'm going to invest in this or that. And my people are doing great just as they are. Like that, wait, there's no problems. But the reality is there's a cost to not training people how to be leaders in your organization, whether you're an org of one or you're an org of 20,000. There's a cost to that. And so we just got to be eyes wide open to looking at the metrics that tell us if our leaders are actually leading effectively. This is so good. What are the metrics that help us understand if our leaders are leading effectively or not?

7:58 They could vary based on type of organization, but I'll give you some high level. First is looking at retention, looking at your retention numbers year over year based against industry standards, looking at engagement. If you run some sort of an engagement survey within your organization, uh, looking at the number of people that are promoted internally. And is it just a one-time promotion or are those people growing leaders to go underneath them that are hitting the metrics for success and growing the people? How much are your promotions internal versus external? You're also looking at the amount of waste in your organization, productivity metrics. Those are all things based on the type of org that you have that I think are really good indicators.

8:42 But I will say nothing probably replaces just being engaged with your employees enough to hear what's happening in your org. And you don't need them to tell you the cold, hard truth. You can see by just some small conversations how they're feeling about working in that organization. And there was an article that was published by the Gallup organization that said that 70% of engagement is due to that person's direct leader. And when I teach all the programs in corporations, I start with that as one of the statistics.

9:23 And it's not, I tell people all the time, it's not we're pointing the finger at you. It's an opportunity. It means that whatever's happening in the org, you still hold so much power in driving that employee's experience, their ability to love their job, to succeed at their job and all of those things that we want for our teams. And, but it also underscores that component that we have to teach people how to make the shift from just doing the work to now being able to drive results through others. And in a way that... people want to stay and have a good experience with that leader. So I want to circle back to your, your, your, your mention of retention.

10:07 Wow. Okay. Yeah. That, that just happened. I want to circle back to retention for just a second. So a lot of times, especially as, as somebody is starting out as a business owner, you know, in a lot of times if it, especially in a coaching organization, you're typically going to start off probably just because of revenue and things of that nature with like a VA as, as you know, your, your, your first hire, if you will. Yeah. I would really love to hear from you. Why does retention in terms of actually driving results, why does it matter so much?

10:49 Like when we think about a virtual assistant as an example, why can't we just churn and burn virtual assistants versus really finding one? treating them well, helping them grow even though they're quote-unquote just a virtual assistant. Why does that matter and why does that help drive better results? Yeah, I think that the biggest thing is the cost of your time. And the people that I've... Just speaking to virtual assistants, I hear from people, gosh, I burned through three before I realized I was just doing a bad job of teaching them how to do the job. So they weren't delivering what I expected, but I realized they needed more...

11:30 They needed more direction and guidance from me to be able to deliver what I asked for. And so how much time do you spend burning through three VAs versus investing in being accessible, showing them how to do the job, setting clear expectations, showing them what good looks like? That does take time. Now, great leaders can do it reproducibly and effectively. Right. But it takes thought and it takes you sitting down going, okay, what do they need to know? How am I going to teach it? How do I make sure that we're, you know, everyone learns differently. One of the questions I always ask, whether I'm teaching a VA or I'm teaching, you know, a high achieving corporate person is how do you like to learn things?

12:18 What works for you so that I'm spending my time speaking their language differently? Some people want to just do it themselves and stumble through and ask you questions. Others want you to show them step by step. So all of that amounts to your time. And I think when people feel like they are connected with the person who's leading them in whatever capacity that is, a contractor to business owner or in a larger business like yours, they are more invested in doing a good job and they're more likely to stick with you. And every time you train someone new, there's a cost to that. So true.

12:58 And it's one of those things, right? That isn't initially... It's a lagging indicator. It's not going to show up immediately on paper. And it is one of those things that when you're bumping up against the ceiling of revenue or finding an inability to scale, it's one of those things that's going to be sitting below the surface and is a definite constraint. One of the things that you... talked about here was really helping people learn in the way that they learn. And I think one of the things as we think about taking time to do this, by the way, which I think about a lot of times when we're solopreneur and we make the hard decision to hire a VA, which, you know, or our first, you know, executive assistant or something like that.

13:49 We're running around pulling our hair out. You know, the house is on fire half the time. And Whitney over here is like, hey, slow down and do this right. Because if you do, this person will actually stick around. I'm curious if you've got any thoughts or advice for people who are in this space going, Whitney, you don't understand. Like my life, my business is insanity right now. The best I got is to shove a Google Doc. in front of this person and hope for the best. What would be some advice that you'd give that person? Yeah, I think that strategy can work if it's the right task.

14:30 There may be something that's really simple that you could shove the Google Doc in front of them. Otherwise, it comes down to prioritization. And I always use the term ruthless prioritization. Oh, I love that. If prioritization isn't hard, you're actually not doing it well. I mean, that's the barometer that I use. If you are not sitting there going, I need to do all three of these things, which one am I going to do first and which one's going to wait till next week and the next? then you're probably not really prioritizing. You're just working more frantically. And hey, maybe it works for you. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe it works for a little while and then you're tired of it. But it's probably the thing that keeps me up at night the most is that there's so many things I know I need to be doing in my business.

15:15 More networking, more business development. And I have to ask myself... Am I doing the activities, all the activities as a solopreneur with quality? And if not, I'd rather pick quality for the majority of it and then do more with less. Because I'm just a big believer that when we don't have high quality activities, we're going to get what we put in. And, and when it's your brand, especially as a coach, you, you want it to look good because some people may just be making a blink on how, based on whether they want to work with you on social posts or, you know, what someone else's experience was. So I think the stakes are kind of high in that scenario that you're showing up the way that you'd want to show up and not just the way someone else can get it done for you.

16:04 This is good. And I think it really speaks to the importance of being willing to go deep instead of wide and quality versus quantity. These are really important concepts. And by the way, there are also concepts that we choose. You just highlighted this really nicely. It's a choice that we have to make. It's not, well, a lot of times we get into that crazy state and it's like, oh, no, this is just how it is. Whitney, you don't understand. Yeah, we do. And we get to choose how we treat it and how we show up in those moments.

16:44 Whitney, so you have a really, really wonderful framework that... talks a little bit about the identity of a leader. And one of the things that we talk about often and we work with our clients on very consistently is shifting the identity from... There are two in particular. One would be employee mindset to business owner. And the other one would be... you know, like elite practitioner to transformational leader.

17:25 So I'd love if you can take us through some of this framework around really cultivating our identity as a leader, how we do that. And, you know, and what are some of the things that we need to be watching out for along the way? Yeah. So I created what's called the Courageous Leader Roadmap. And it has five different components. Defining your leadership identity is the first, and that's intentional. And I will tell you that the roadmap, when I termed it the Courageous Leader, it could be a solopreneur. It could actually be an elite practitioner, which I love that term, that strives to...

18:06 Heighten their influence and their impact by serving more as a leader than just the doer of the business or whatever it is. But so it's meant to be able to apply to anybody that wants to put on that leadership hat. And I think I think leadership is a choice. I think we can have leaders that don't lead people. But those who lean into leadership are... Striving to raise their impact and their influence in business and people is how I look at it and how I define it. So define your leadership identity. I put first in the roadmap because it's hard to make that shift from a practitioner to a leader if we don't know who we are.

18:47 Now, seasoned professionals in any space are going to say, what do you mean? I've been successful for so long. I'm just, I'm going to do me, but as a leader. Yeah. Okay. I don't disagree that that's part of it, but I use this example. We all have values that guide us in our life at some level. You know, like the three to five things were like, we stand for these things. Yeah. And you actually need to define those as a leader. Because you don't just like stumble into leadership and be your best because you have the title or you decided I'm going to lead this person or this business. Yeah. You have to actually say, this is who I am.

19:28 And so... Defining your leadership identity, it's really a series of questions that helps you land on a set of leadership commitments. And it's usually five to seven things that are going to guide you, guide your decision making, guide how you show up, guide who you are as a leader. And in the first part of those questions strives to answer who am I authentically, right? And that's important because everyone talks about authenticity. And I feel like some people are sick of the term because they're like, oh, you know, we over index on this. But knowing who we are authentically is one thing.

20:12 Knowing how to utilize our authentic self to get what we want is. out of people and business and how our authentic self serves us and where we maybe need to redirect it to be more effective is really important. So I always say like with anything, you have to be intentional. Who am I? And what are my default tendencies in my authentic self that serve me? And what are the ones I need to judge a little bit so that they are productive and not, well, I can be really direct authentically. But that style doesn't work for everyone. It's not the best style for every conversation. So I can be direct and I can evolve that style to work in more interactions than just a one-size-fits-all approach.

21:00 So authenticity is a first piece and really defining who you are. The second piece is understanding the leader who you want to be. so that those two things can inform a set of leadership commitments that you're going to stand by. And so I'll give you an example. What would help if I gave you an example of a couple of leadership commitments that I stand by? I would love this. Absolutely. One of the things I always say is people first always. And what I mean by that is, and I can tell you, I learned this from doing it the wrong way as a early people leader is that you have to care in, in address, the person before you do the employee or the business partner or the person in your network.

21:42 Because let's be honest, relationships go much further when there's trust and some investment in each other. And so I used to be the leader that was like, why isn't this done on time? This was supposed to be done on time. We need this for the business. And And, you know, I, I'm not proud of that looking back. I didn't know any better. What I didn't, what I didn't think to do was understand why it wasn't done on time, which usually there's a really good reason that, you know, maybe is, has something to do with their family or a struggle that they're facing. And so I always think I'm a people first leader always. They come as professional second, because if I address the person, the professional side will take care of itself.

22:23 Another one of mine is I, I assume best intent. And this helps me stay in check when I'm in an environment where let's say that I'm butting heads with somebody and we don't see eye to eye. It forces me to step back and be curious and say, I think I'm going to assume they're coming at this this way for a reason. I'm going to seek to understand and I'm going to assume it's. It's generally good until I'm proven wrong instead of just reacting and wanting to resist and push back harder. So those are two things that, for example, I mean, it's easy in your day to day when things are going well to be the leader you want to be.

23:04 It's not so easy in times of stress. So I'm going back and leaning on the leadership commitments I've made to myself to guide how I act and who I am in those moments. I love this. I've got two questions on this before we move on to the next one. The first one, I just want to double click on your people first always. I'm curious for you, I love that you shared the perspective of having been there, not doing it that way. Was there something specific that you can point to that said to you, Whitney, this is not the way when you were kind of doing it previously?

23:47 A couple things. First is I felt a little bit off when I would know. I know these people. They're high achievers. They're successful. And when I saw a pattern of behavior, I thought, gosh, this doesn't seem like them. So that was one thing that I thought. There's something more that I don't know. But as a young leader, I was reactive. What they were giving me, I needed to give my leader something else's. They could give their leader something else. Yep. And so I'm like, in that moment, I'm thinking, I need this. Why don't you have it? Because I was just honestly thinking about myself and my business, right? The other thing was, I found that in these instances, the people were repeat offenders.

24:34 And so I'm thinking... how I drove home the point that there's a deadline, make time plan for it in your week. It's not working. So there's something else there. And, um, in, in, in, in those were the two biggest things. So I think it's like the real subtle things that in the back of your mind, you're like, there's gotta be something else, but you're so busy in whatever you're doing that it's hard to stop and go. What was that thing that I was missing in that moment? Yeah. Yeah. 2 things that I want to highlight as you're listening to this are 1, curiosity. And 2, noticing and finding the patterns.

25:15 I mean, it's so brilliant. And those are... I mean, if we can maintain an air of those 2 things really throughout our business, our lives in general, we're going to be doing pretty good at the end of the day. As we go back to understanding the leader that you want to be... Someone listening to this right now is like, I have no idea, Whitney. I don't know what kind of a leader I want to be. If we're stuck on that and we don't know, how do we start that process? Yeah. Okay. So the first place I would look is actually making sure you're aware of your greatest strengths and your weaknesses.

25:59 And that sounds silly, but how often do we stop and go, how are we doing in the world where we're so busy? We don't. We don't do it enough. We don't take that internal inventory often enough. And the reason why you want to do that is you want to understand the things that you're really good at that you may want to scale to others. And that doesn't just mean people that report to you, but maybe a colleague or someone that you partner with. There are things that work for you that you're really good at that can bring value to other people. So know the value that you can bring, not just in skill sets. but in who you are, right? If you're a connector, if you're great at having, meeting anybody, any place, and starting up a conversation and finding connection, gosh, like how many people could benefit from that?

26:44 That's something that you wanna know about yourself. And the same thing with your weaknesses, especially any tendencies that tend to creep in under pressure. That's something I would look at. And so it's just kind of like a process of jotting these things down to start seeing that picture of yourself. So I look there first. The second thing I always look at is authenticity, which I reference. But who am I at the core? When I say it's just my, the bottom line, who am I and how I want to show up and what's most natural to me, write those things down. And then ask yourself, how are they serving me? How flexible am I in those things?

27:26 Because again, if you have a one size fits all approach and every, you know, you have a hammer and everything's a nail, at some point you're going to... is you're going to miss, right? And then I also, I encourage them to go deep into three aspects of leaders that they've worked with. Who are the best leaders that you've worked with? And what inspired you? What influenced you about those leaders? Because a lot of times, we're inspired by both our best and our worst leaders. And so... When you start to think about what resonated with you, those things typically are linked to who we decide we want to be because we've had a really positive experience.

28:06 And the same thing goes for our worst leaders. We typically learn more from them about what not to do. And, um, but it's important to know those things too. And it's not because we say, oh, that's right. We don't want to be them. But what happens is we overcorrect. If somebody was gave you high amounts of feedback, maybe not a great approach. Sometimes those experiences cause us to swing too far the other direction where we don't want to give any feedback. We don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. We don't really want to tell them the truth. We soften it. Hey, you could be better at this, but you're doing so great. But you know, over here would be great to do this thing better. So knowing those things helps you really see who you want to be and what components maybe you're shying away from that.

28:53 You need a little bit of those things, but just in a different approach. And then I always tell people, what legacy do you want to lead? Think about that. And I say that because, you know, for me, for example, the people that I've led, I want them five, 10 years down the road to say, gosh, I had this great leader and she helped me be everything I wanted to be. She helped make me better. She's somebody that taught me this. I want to have a lasting impact, not because I want them to remember me, but because they got to where they wanted to be in their journey because of our working relationship. That's important to me. And that drives how I show up in the moments where maybe I'm frustrated, Um, so when you piece all those together, it's an exercise of reflection.

29:35 You start to get more clear about the commitments that you want to set for yourself. I love that. And it's such a... Taking the time to reflect and just take inventory and evaluate without judgment, by the way. It's not about this sucks or this is great. But really, just being able to take inventory is such a valuable process. And I think that... I think that generally speaking, human beings, we don't do it enough before we start something. And it's such a process that can drive better intention as we, you know, as we grow and become this next version of ourselves growing into a leader.

30:22 Really good. All right. So number one, define your leadership identity. Where do we go from there? Yeah. Let me tell you one more thing on leadership identity. Once you have your set of commitments, it is the ultimate form of accountability. Because I always am looking back at those, you know, maybe it's not quarterly, but, you know, couple, two, three times a year to say, how am I doing? Whenever anybody who I am working with closely... Or is especially if they're working for me, I share them. This is what you can expect of me. This is what I want you to hold me accountable to. And yes, there are times I don't live by those. But once you you name them, then it drives you to.

31:03 Own when you don't do it, right? So there are times where, you know, I say people first always and someone calls me and I know I shouldn't pick up the phone and I pick up the phone and I don't show up how I want to show up. And I got to call the next day and say, hey, I'm sorry. Like, I know it was short. I know it was... I probably didn't sound like I was really listening. I apologize. But that's okay. We all move on from that. It's the ownership piece that really matters. So on to your next question. Second one is connect to inspire. Yeah. And I will tell you, I was all business so early in my career, mostly because a lot of my leaders were, you know, very stoic. I'm high energy. I'm very much a people person. And I was younger in my career, doing roles much bigger than most people my age.

31:48 And so I just mirrored those above me. And connection was very secondary to business. And I learned over time that I actually needed to embrace connection because you get the most out of people in trust building and their approachability when you actually connect. So I call it connect to inspire because connection is not soft. It's actually very strategic. Yeah. for any type of leadership role that we're in so that we can create a relationship that is really healthy and productive. And there's this joint investment in what we're trying to do. I love that you make the distinction that connection is not soft.

32:34 Because I do think that that's a lot of... I mean, especially when we look at a lot of the old school leadership examples, there is a lot of that. Like, oh, if I connect, then now I'm relating and it's going to make me look weak. I want to ask a question on that front. How do we, and I don't want to go too far down a rabbit hole. I want to keep us on track. But how do we connect while still maintaining the word that I'm looking for?

33:17 Obviously, as leaders, there has to be a sense that we are leading, that we are leading the ship. How do we connect without losing that? Like, can we take it too far the other direction? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is a great question. So that's what I call the franager. It's a term that this leader that I used to work with, he's a great mentor of mine, used to say, he's like, don't be the franager to his frontline manager. He's the friend and the manager together. I love it. It's catchy, right? So you still have to maintain a leadership position, which means the behaviors that you might... The below-the-line behaviors, as I like to call it, that you might do as a friend, where you're griping, you're commiserating, you're showing up one way in the meeting.

34:06 But then when you talk to them behind the scenes, you're like the friend and... Those are the things that I think are detrimental. So it's really about you still maintain that authoritative position. There's still a layer in between you and that person that wouldn't exist if you were friends. But it's the little stuff. I mean, this stuff is not hard. It's just, you know, you jump on a call with somebody and they're like, hey, how was your weekend? You're like, oh, good. I did this. You're like, how was yours? Okay. I mean, that's not really connecting. We all know we're just checking the box to get the awkward introduction out of the way. knowing a few things about people, making small talk that you actually, you retain, gosh, like how many kids do they have? What do they like to do?

34:46 Throwing in questions that are actually meaningful about them in their life that you've picked up on after working with them. That's what creates connection. Yes. Yes. I love that. That's a great distinction. And it's funny. This is actually something we talk about a lot in our sales training as it relates to quote unquote, creating rapport. We all hear about that at the beginning of a sales call, creating rapport. And it's the same thing. You show actual genuine interest instead of checking a box. It matters and people feel it. Um, really good. Okay. So, so connect to inspire, um, what more on, on, on this one in particular?

35:27 Yeah, I think it's about really understanding what drives people, what their motivators are, what they want to achieve in their career or in their business or in whatever you're working with them on. Really understanding and learning about them. That's what the connection piece is. You don't have to be best friends. You don't have to hug every time you see them. It's just about being curious and learning about them. And honestly, dropping your guard just a play. I love that. I love that. And I think that's such a stark contrast to the way that a lot of people view folks that are going to come and be a part of their team in whatever capacity is we immediately start with like, what are you going to do for me?

36:17 What are you going to do for me? How are you going to improve my organization? And not that we don't want to know how somebody could improve our organization, but I think there's so much value in flipping the script here and going, how is this serving you? How can I serve you to your goals? And it's such a great point that if we... If we truly spend the time and the effort and the intention and the energy asking and wondering what other people really want or how they learn or what makes them happier, what's driving them right now, we just go farther together, period. And I think that's a...

36:59 I believe this, and I'm curious if you do as well. I believe that leadership... is I think one of the ways that we get it wrong is that we think that leadership is done to someone. And I believe that leadership is done with someone. I 100% agree. Yeah. Okay. So number two, what is number three in our five-step process here? It's activate your power zone. So we all hear people say that, oh, they're in beast mode when they're really delivering, right? In sports or they're in their zone. And I believe your power zone is a choice.

37:39 We all have a... a set of things that put us in our best headspace and mood and mentality and our worst. And having awareness to what those things are gives us the ability that within a short time, we can shift from being in a place where we're not at our best to a mindset where we can show up much better. It may not be our peak performance state, but... I think leadership requires us to be at our best as much as we can. We're making decisions. We're leading people or we're leading the business. We have lots of adversity. And so we have to know how to get ourselves into the space where we thrive.

38:23 And so I take people through some different questions and some exercises to really help them define that. Because if we are going to get ourselves into the best place possible, who is, right? Do we want to? Are we willing to compromise and go through our day kind of being half with it and half not because our day started off poorly? I mean, I'm not. I don't think our business is going to thrive like that or we're going to serve our clients better. in the best way in that state. So you, I think it's, it's upon us to take ownership on knowing what puts us in the space to be our best, to best serve our customers and know when we kind of drift from that place and how to come back to it.

39:08 This is one that I can... Everything you're talking about, I can so relate to. And this one in particular was a big one for me as a young leader. You know, in my previous company... I was starting to lead people, you know, at, at bigger levels, really between the age of like 25 and 27. And it, it, it, it never occurred to me that like going out and getting hammered on a Tuesday, um, and shown up to work on four hours sleep might not be in my power zone and really probably more so the ripple effect of that for the others around me.

39:59 And I'd love to hear this from you. What do you feel like is the... What's the difference... in because I think we can all relate to the idea of personal performance, right? Yeah. But for the people that are around us, talk a little bit about the responsibility that we have to show up for them in a way that is truly going to help them get the best out of themselves and to execute on the things that we've asked them to do at the very highest level. If we're not doing that, what are we really missing there? Well, here's how I would answer that question. If you don't want to serve the people that you're serving in a leadership role, you don't deeply want to do it.

40:43 I don't mean you want to do it for the money or for the title. I mean, you don't want to be there for the people. Please don't be a people leader. Or please don't take on that leadership role in whatever environment it is in. Because what I actually wrote, I've written posts on this and blogs about is people leadership right for you? Because so many people do it because they think they should. They want the money. They want the upward career mobility. They need the title. They don't realize what it is. Right. a lot of leadership is dealing with problems, whether it's people problems, business problems, which is why you need to know how to activate your power zone. Because if you're dealing with problems all day, every day, you know, more or less, you know what I mean?

41:24 A couple problems. Then, or things that don't go as expected. It's really easy to just be pulled into a place where you're not showing up as a leader that you want to be. Right? So I think it's imperative. Like you got to want to do the job because... that there's a reason why I get paid more money. It is not as glamorous as people think. Oh, that's so true. You have to be able to generate value from being able to take somebody on your team or take a colleague and be able to get them to a better place. If that doesn't fuel you, don't do it because the money ain't going to be worth it. I can promise you it won't be worth it if you don't like the dynamic of the job. Thank you for saying this. And I'm in total agreement.

42:05 I think that too often the should is something that creeps in for people. And here's the thing. If you're listening to this right now and you're listening to all the things that Whitney is suggesting, you probably ought to be intentional about or do or think about, consider. And it's like, oh boy, I don't know. Probably not for you. And by the way, okay. I don't know about you, Whitney, but for me, one of the things that I think I found to be so true in leadership is that there are so many people who became leaders because they thought they should when they never had any business doing it.

42:48 And as a result, they created such a negative ripple effect amongst the people that they were leading and in their organizations because they were never willing to do some of these things and or get intentional enough to truly become a good servant leader. I think it's a major issue. And I would just encourage... I would echo your statement and encourage you to think real long and hard about this. And if you think you shouldn't, don't. Yeah. If you're hesitating, it's not an automatic no, but you got to figure out what's driving that hesitation. And one of the things I think that you should do as you're looking at whatever career change or next role you want to go into is make sure you're...

43:38 ultra clear on what the day-to-day of the job is. Don't just look at the job criteria or the job description. Talk to two or three people in the job and understand it because ultimately, we spend so much of our time at work. If you don't like what you're doing, you're probably not going to be super happy. And that's going to be felt by the people that are working with you and for you. Amen to that. And I think that goes also for as you're building a business. What size team do you want to have? If you know you're going to have to have a few folks on your bus, don't go build a 20-person team because you think you should or you have to. Ask yourself, what kind of a team do you want? How many people do you want to have?

44:18 What feels right? Yeah, that's such a great point. All right. Moving the train along. Number four. Execute with resilience. And adversity is all around us, especially in the world we live in today. There's so much change and change brings adversity and anxiety and all those things. And one of the practices that I've seen be so effective as I've led teams and even just for myself is the ability to view adversity as opportunity. And so I've kind of adopted this mindset where it's Whatever the adversity is, I'm going to turn the struggle into strength. I'm going to find a silver lining. It may not be in that moment. But if we all look back, most of the time, adversity helps us grow.

45:03 It makes us stronger. It teaches us something. It connects us with a person that we weren't connected with, whatever it may be. And when you view adversity as opportunistic, And then you, I teach a reproducible process called the adversity reframe, which allows you to kind of separate emotion from what's happening in the adversity so that you can solve for adversity. And we want to process the emotion. I'm not saying like toss it to the side, but we got to separate them so that we can solve for the adversity and then process the emotion along the way. But when you can view it opportunistically and then you have a process to go through, I think it makes it less scary. Yeah. to people because it's like, all right, whether this is small or big, I'm going to be able to get through it because I know how to, and, and I'm going to, um, and I'm going to be able to find some value in whatever I experienced.

45:53 Yeah. This is something everybody listening to this will resonate with what you just said. But I'm curious, when we think about our ability to view adversity as opportunity, how does that impact those around us and on our team? What is the ripple effect of that? Well, anytime you're in any type of a leadership role, there's eyes on you. And how you handle adversity is going to set the example for how other people do it. And the other piece of it is that as you're helping others to keep morale high and to keep them growing through their process, their pain points that they're facing.

46:39 You've got to be able to, to see it, train your mind to see it yourself so that you can highlight it for them. Now I'm, I'm not suggesting that we look at a verse and go, man, I want to live through that again. That was so great. I mean, this is not a pipe dream here. It's a way to say, you know, This is, this sucks, right? This is not, this is not how I wanted to start my Tuesday morning, but I'm going to find the good. It's just not going to be this moment, you know? And then you can go through your process. But it's, it's something that if you can't think that way and, and, and, and embrace that mindset, then it's hard to lead others through it. Mm-hmm.

47:20 I, yes, yes, yes to this, especially because think about this. If we think about a team of people, let's just say even you got, you know, three people on your team, but they watch you day in and day out, you know, really executing with resilience and viewing adversity as opportunity. And they start going, Ooh, okay. Yeah. Ooh, I think I could do that. If everybody in your organization did that, I mean, so many of our quote unquote problems in business would go away. That person that we're so tired of constantly complaining, that goes away. The dips in performance go away.

48:03 I mean, so many of those issues go away if people start taking that. And I think one of the things that I really love about this, Whitney, is that that is taking true personal responsibility. It's the difference between I'm going to allow something external to define my experience and or I'm going to choose. I'm going to choose what it means. I don't have to like it, but I'm going to choose what it means. That's so powerful. And I'm in total agreement that it's a trickle down. Yeah. And one of the things about leadership is I always say, you know, you stand behind your people when they're in the spotlight, right?

48:45 They do something well. You have to give away that praise. It's your people's work. But guess what? Yes. When they're under fire, you stand in front of them. Yes. And so... if you're going to be under fire, you've got to be able to process the adversity and the problems like that, because sometimes you don't get a second chance to react. And so you, you have to really know and trust how am I going to see my way through this? How am I going to maintain my composure? Because there's just a lot of that, you know, it just is part of the job. Yeah. Yep. No question. All right. Um, bring us home here. What's number five. I'm on pins and needles here.

49:26 It's fearless communication. And I intentionally chose a bold word to put in front of communication because I think that it is a journey to be able to consistently communicate in various situations with with courage and from a place of power. Yeah. And so often it's easy to not speak up. It's easy to find an excuse to let somebody else do the talking. But to really maximize your impact, you have to know how to contribute and you have to be willing to work past the self-doubt and the hesitation that enables you to say what you think, which may be giving hard feedback.

50:11 It may be the unpopular opinion. It may be approaching somebody that you don't have a relationship with and discussing a topic. And all those things really call on us to be courageous and to have some checks and balances so that we don't find excuses to sit in silence. I think what you're talking about here is so important because I honestly think that the ability, I mean, it's a skill that we cultivate, but the ability to have difficult conversations is, I think, is a total superpower and especially being able to do it swiftly and in a way that that.

50:54 allows the person that you're communicating with to not feel like absolute dog shit when the conversation is over. Right. Yeah. And I mean, in fearless communication, I always tell people, here's what it's not. It's not being the loudest person in the room all the time. It's not live tweeting your inner monologue. That is not, that's not fearless. That right there is reckless. Come on, Whitney. It's, it is, it's, it's being able to speak in spite of fear. It's, it's when we feel the hesitation, being able to quickly diagnose like, What is the thing in my way? Is the thought really not baked? Or am I holding back because that person over there is going to disagree with me?

51:38 And I'm not sure that I can withstand that pushback. But for us to maximize our impact, which as leaders, we need to do. We need to elevate the people around us. And we need to drive results and we need to lead the way. We have to be okay speaking up in a variety of situations, even when it's uncomfortable, when it's unknown, and when it's hard. And I will tell you, I think it is one of the things that really sets exceptional leaders apart from those that are just great. Doesn't mean you can't be a great leader, but they have... The courage and the confidence and the finesse to be able to flex their approach, respond when they don't get the reaction that they want.

52:23 But most importantly, they say it and they get the group thinking, they give the feedback. And that's powerful. That's what sparks change. This is so good. I would love, just to kind of recap, hopefully you get a chance if you're driving or you're working out or something like that, you get a chance to go back and actually take copious notes on this. But define your leadership identity, connect to inspire, activate your power zone, execute with resilience and fearless communication. I absolutely love this courageous leader framework. a question for you before we finish up here at Whitney.

53:09 How would you, how would you kind of contextualize the, the, not just the immediate impact you've shared a lot about the immediate impact on the people that are around us in terms of being a great leader, but yeah, What is your belief about what happens when more of us learn how to become great leaders? What do you see in terms of bigger change that is possible if we can really get intentional and master this? Yeah. I'm going to speak to us as people first. You've all I'm sure everyone that's listening has felt a time when they're able to do something and they get it done, but it doesn't feel easy.

53:50 It feels clunky. It's awkward. And then there are times where it feels seamless. Yeah. And I think when we really hone different aspects of becoming a leader, it feels so much easier. And when it feels easier, we have more fun and we get better results and we're just more comfortable on a day-to-day basis. And so I think that's a big piece of it, right? Like we don't want to go to work every day and it to be a struggle. And I will say like I've mentioned it, but this applies to not just leading people, but leading in a variety of facets in our lives. Right. But let's talk about more outcome driven stuff.

54:30 Certainly when we're doing this, I think we can expect to drive better results, to have more ease with gaining alignment when we're when we're talking to groups of people to be more influential where you're bringing people along with you instead of driving an outcome because you say it. because it's your decision, but because people are, they see the vision that you're creating and you are compelling them to, to jump in and go along the ride with you. And, um, that's, that's a lot of fun to be a part of when you see people saying, yes, I want to be a part of this versus, uh, they have to, because you, you're making the decision. So good.

55:11 I feel like I could just do this for another three or four hours with you. So, so wonderful. Whitney, first of all, I just want to thank you for taking the time to come on the podcast. But in addition to that... Thank you for what you're doing. This is so needed and so necessary. And your specific way of addressing this topic, making it approachable, making it something we really understand why we want to do, not just quote unquote need to do, is absolutely brilliant. And you are an absolute gift to the people that you're serving. And I just want to honor you and thank you for that because the work that you're doing in the world is, is you are making an enormous impact.

55:58 And I have no doubt we're just barely scratching the surface of it. So thank you for sharing time with us. I'll give you one last thing on this that I probably should say for your previous question, which is, you know, so often we, we focus on learning skills. And specific skills around how do we create a business plan? How do we run a P&L? Like whatever the skill is to lead something, to lead whatever we're striving to lead. But true leadership comes from developing ourselves. And that's what the intent of this model is. Is that so often we focus on all the external skills that are needed, that people say that we need to execute a job. Right. You will hit a ceiling if you don't develop yourself.

56:39 And that's what this model is about is, uh, there, if it's not making you question, gosh, like, I don't know where to start with this. I don't know where to start on being a fearless communicator or my leadership identity. That's okay. That's the intent is to give you the, the process. And obviously there's more exercises and stuff I teach to walk you through it. And then we have time for, but that's what it's all about. So it's good to feel that way. It just, it just encourages you to lean into your own development. Yeah. Hmm. I'm not going to tell. We don't need to go any further than that. That's a perfect mic drop moment. Whitney, thank you. And if you want to learn more about Whitney, potentially having her speak, working with her in some capacity, go to her website at www.whitneyferris.com.

57:25 I will link that up in the show notes so that because the spelling is a little tricky. Uh, I'll put it in the show notes so you can go do that. Whitney, thank you again. I hope this is the first of, of more to come. I'm, uh, you were absolutely wonderful. You're brilliant. Um, I'm happy to have had you and, uh, can't wait to do more together. Thanks again. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to this episode of the coaching equation podcast until next time. Take care. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Coaching Equation. Please hit subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you got value out of this episode, we would be so grateful if you would share it out with a friend and leave us a review on iTunes or your favorite platform.

58:13 To learn more about Empire Partners or to inquire about working with Ryan and Brooke, please visit www.empirepartners.io forward slash go.