Attainable

In this episode, Brandon Dawson stresses the importance of working with purpose or intention. You never know when an opportunity will come your way, so put yourself in play today to reap benefits tomorrow! In this episode: Let us know how we're doing on iTunes by leaving us a review! https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/attainable/id1021277450?mt=2 This show is sponsored by: Audigy Group helps private-practice hearing care professionals reach their personal, professional and financial goals through their business. Find out more at a Guest Summit! http://www.audigygroup.com/events/guest-summits/ Stratus Dental Group is passionate about protecting private-practice dentistry. Stratus helps private-practice owners by providing business expertise that engages and supports clinical and operational teams, enabling them to provide exceptional care and create grateful patients while being well compensated and professionally fulfilled. http://www.stratusdental.com/guest-summits/

In today's Attainable, Brandon Dawson introduces us to the Law of Curiosity. Are you asking the right questions to make the best decisions? In this episode: Let us know how we're doing on iTunes by leaving us a review! https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/attainable/id1021277450?mt=2 This show is sponsored by: Audigy Group helps private-practice hearing care professionals reach their personal, professional and financial goals through their business. Find out more at a Guest Summit! http://www.audigygroup.com/events/guest-summits/ Stratus Dental Group is passionate about protecting private-practice dentistry.  Stratus helps private-practice owners by providing business expertise that engages and supports clinical and operational teams, enabling them to provide exceptional care and create grateful patients while being well compensated and professionally fulfilled. http://www.stratusdental.com/guest-summits/

In today's Attainable, Brandon Dawson provides some actionable tips for ways to work towards your bigger purpose -- even when you aren't sure what it is just yet.  In this episode: Let us know how we're doing on iTunes by leaving us a review! https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/attainable/id1021277450?mt=2 This show is sponsored by: Audigy Group helps private-practice hearing care professionals reach their personal, professional and financial goals through their business. Find out more at a Guest Summit! http://www.audigygroup.com/events/guest-summits/ Stratus Dental Group is passionate about protecting private-practice dentistry.  Stratus helps private-practice owners by providing business expertise that engages and supports clinical and operational teams, enabling them to provide exceptional care and create grateful patients while being well compensated and professionally fulfilled. http://www.stratusdental.com/guest-summits/    

In today's Attainable, Misty Stern, Executive VP of Marketing and Operations at Audigy Group continues her talk about remarkable branding that was given at a recent conference for audiologist and dentists. How can you focus on finding and pleasing your ideal customer?

In today's Attainable, Misty Stern, Executive VP of Marketing and Operations at Audigy Group continues her talk about remarkable branding that was given at a recent conference for audiologist and dentists. Does your brand make you, your customers and your team proud? 

In today's Attainable, Misty Stern, Executive VP of Marketing and Operations at Audigy Group shares the attributes of a remarkable brand. First up - is your brand acting as a friend to your customers?

In today's Attainable, Brandon Dawson explains that in order to change your fortunes for the better you may need to change your thinking. And, more importantly, before you can expect to change the thinking of your team you need to be able to demonstrate you can do it for yourself.

In today's Attainable, Brandon Dawson talks about the difference between security and freedom as it pertains to working in a business. This podcast is an excerpt of a recent public speaking appearance Brandon had to a conference of audiologists and dentists.

In today's Attainable, Brandon Dawson shares the best advice he has ever received, which has been a guiding principle in his personal, professional and financial life. 

Those who can’t do can’t really teach. But those who can do can lead and show others how they change in order to create a more impactful result. First, learn to influence yourself. Be that living example. Don’t do it because you have the title of business owner. Don’t do it because you have the title of manager or director or vice president. Titles alone give you no power. They only represent your ability to either influence through your experiences and your actual intentionality with your team or through title, dictatorship. “Do it because I told you to, not because I am going to help you do it to attain a higher level of success like I’ve been able to accomplish myself.” That’s influence. You can’t grow and develop your business to the highest magnitude of impact if you can’t use your influence by example through others, challenging them to challenge themselves the same way you did as the highest example in the organization. And that, my friends, is what influence is all about. “The true test of leadership isn’t held by title. It’s not held by position or rank.” The true test of leadership is held by your ability to impact and influence others to do things they otherwise might not do. And therefore, anyone and everyone in any organization at any level has the power to be a true leader, by helping and influencing others to succeed. Show links: Review this episode on iTunes

Everything rises and falls on leadership, that’s what John Maxwell says, and it is true in all we do. The true measure of leadership is influence. Your leadership effectiveness is directly relative to your ability to influence others, and it’s earned by example, not title. “If you can’t influence people, they will not follow you. And if people won’t follow you, you’re not a leader.” You have to first have the internal fortitude to influence and inspire yourself to believe higher. The higher you believe, the higher you will reach. Then once you believe at the highest levels possible, you then put the energy and effort into learning to do what you need to do in order to magnify and amplify at the highest levels possible your magnitude of impact through operational effectiveness. Change is not easy. In fact, the more you try to grow to become better at what you do, the increments become that much harder. If you can’t influence yourself to grow through trial, tribulation, and error, by having an open mind and reaching further tomorrow than you did today and really pushing yourself to grow — then how can you expect yourself to be an example to others? Show links: Review this episode on iTunes

Today we’re talking about the law of curiosity. Growth is stimulated by asking why. The single greatest difference between curious, growing people and those who aren’t is the belief that they can learn, grow, and change. That’s it in a nutshell. Those who believe they can learn, grow, and change, and who believe it with all their heart, go out and look for solutions and look for answers for growth. “Anytime a person is answering more than asking, you can be sure that they have limited their overall growth potential.” Think about this: Have you ever dealt with someone who already had all the answers? I think we all have, haven’t we? But what happens when I already know the answer to the question? And what happens when I stop asking the question? It sounds like this: “How do I grow my business double or triple?” versus “I’m only going to grow 10%.” “How do I create million-dollar producers or providers?” versus “I can only do half a million dollars.” So when you start talking to somebody, you can very quickly understand whether they have established a low level of belief about what they can attain or whether they are on a quest to elevate their belief. When I deal with any business owners, I ask very simple questions. In the past three years, how many million-dollar providers have you created in your practice as associates? Very few people have the answer to that. In fact, very few people have said “I’m a million-dollar provider.” Now, contrast that with someone who says “I’ve created five million-dollar providers.” Wouldn’t you want to know how they did that? Wouldn’t you be curious if it could be done? Wouldn’t you ask a lot of questions as to how they found the people, how they trained the people, how they developed the people, how they incentivized the people? Wouldn’t that be the list of questions, the primary focus of your exploration into how to do it yourself? Or are you going to sit back and say “I tried that and it didn’t work”? What about your employees who will tell you these things can’t be done, or we tried to do that but it doesn’t work? Did they ever think to ask whether they did it right in the first place? Did you think to ask the question “I wonder if, when my employees tried something, they did it right in the first place?” See, the law of curiosity says you’re always asking how, when, where, who, and why. These are natural questions; when you ask them about everything, and you quantify those things, you end up with process and programs and systems that work. But when you take an emotional approach to it — which is “Tried it, doesn’t work, doesn’t feel good, not going to do it” — then it’s guaranteed not to work. Show links: Review this episode on iTunes 

What kind of people would you attract into your organization if you had the credibility, and reputation, for taking people who are inspired to do great things with their life, hiring them, and developing them so that they can attain a greater level of success by working with you because you took a personal interest in their development? And because you took a personal interest in their development, they took a personal interest in your business. By taking a personal interest in your business, they take a personal interest in the people you serve. They treat them like they treat their own family. Is that the type of environment you’d like to have in your business? “Do you have the belief that it is hard to hire good people? That it’s hard to find people who care? Is that your belief?” That it’s hard to get people who are inspired to do extra things that you don’t have to tell them to do? Or is it your belief that you’re going to attract high-thinking people, highly appreciative people. You want amazing employees? Have a belief that you can attract, develop, and inspire amazing employees. You want to grow your business significantly and more impactfully? It is an absolute guarantee you can! You want to have a business that gives back to you in direct proportion to what you invest in it? No problem. You want to have a business that can function and grow without you being there? Done deal. You want to have a team of people who are so inspired and so overwhelmed with the opportunities you give them that they bring all their phenomenal friends in to help you build the most dynamic organization in your community, becoming the category killer? Absolute guarantee you can do it. What is your level of belief about what you can attain and how you attain it with your team? Show links: Review this episode on iTunes

Gallup polls says that out of 100 million Americans, 70% of them who were surveyed in 2013 were either actively disengaged or disengaged at work. That means the core energy out of the 100 million who work, only 30% care about what they do. The question is how do you harness the power of your people to help you create an amazing organization? “It’s through doing things differently with your people. Who you surround yourself with contributes significantly to your life.” Let me tell you, if you don’t make it an absolute priority to surround yourself with the best people, with the best intentions, then it is a struggle building your business — a struggle for you and a struggle for them. And when you take two groups of people, you and your team, and you bring them together with a core purpose, a core objective, and a core agenda — which is to significantly improve the quality of each other’s lives through what you each choose to do together — that’s where power comes from. Your total success will be amplified and magnified through the total number of people you find who will allow you to add substantive, impactful value to their lives, so they can add substantive value to the lives of the people they care about. And when you have that kind of culture, when you have that kind of organization, when you have that kind of focus — enriching the lives of the people you serve, your employees who ultimately serve your customers, that becomes your culture. If you don’t exemplify how to do that each and every day in everything you do, you can’t expect your people to exemplify it each and every day in what they do. Show links: Review this episode on iTunes

Great businesses are built with great people. No great business was ever built with mediocre people; it just doesn’t happen. So how do you move beyond where you’re at to where you want to be? The only way to do that is to start thinking different. When you think different, you do different. So the question is how do I change my thinking? How do I increase my point of references? How do I have a richer, more dynamic take on what is available to me in my life, personally, professionally, and financially? How do I inspire and gather others to help me attain that purpose? “If you want to inspire and gather others, you have to make their purpose your priority too.” I thought I was a good leader, but I learned in reflection that I was a dictator leader. I was leading by position, not by using true power. True power is influence. When you have the ability to influence others to attain a bigger, better, faster quality of life, they will love you and follow you, and they will be inspired by you. The difference between working hard and working easy isn’t in the “what you do” but the “who you do it with” and ultimately “how you do it.” If you aren’t totally focused and have absolute intentionality on the development and incremental improvement of your people, tying in their personal, professional, and financial aspirations through what they choose to do following you — then you’re making things harder on yourself. Show links: Leave us a review on iTunes 

Today we’re talking about the law of curiosity. Growth is stimulated by asking why. The single greatest difference between curious, growing people and those who aren’t is the belief that they can learn, grow, and change. That’s it in a nutshell. Those who believe they can learn, grow, and change, and who believe it with all their heart, go out and look for solutions and look for answers for growth. “Anytime a person is answering more than asking, you can be sure that they have limited their overall growth potential.” Think about this: Have you ever dealt with someone who already had all the answers? I think we all have, haven’t we? But what happens when I already know the answer to the question? And what happens when I stop asking the question? It sounds like this: “How do I grow my business double or triple?” versus “I’m only going to grow 10%.” “How do I create million-dollar producers or providers?” versus “I can only do half a million dollars.” So when you start talking to somebody, you can very quickly understand whether they have established a low level of belief about what they can attain or whether they are on a quest to elevate their belief. When I deal with any business owners, I ask very simple questions. In the past three years, how many million-dollar providers have you created in your practice as associates? Very few people have the answer to that. In fact, very few people have said “I’m a million-dollar provider.” Now, contrast that with someone who says “I’ve created five million-dollar providers.” Wouldn’t you want to know how they did that? Wouldn’t you be curious if it could be done? Wouldn’t you ask a lot of questions as to how they found the people, how they trained the people, how they developed the people, how they incentivized the people? Wouldn’t that be the list of questions, the primary focus of your exploration into how to do it yourself? Or are you going to sit back and say “I tried that and it didn’t work”? What about your employees who will tell you these things can’t be done, or we tried to do that but it doesn’t work? Did they ever think to ask whether they did it right in the first place? Did you think to ask the question “I wonder if, when my employees tried something, they did it right in the first place?” See, the law of curiosity says you’re always asking how, when, where, who, and why. These are natural questions; when you ask them about everything, and you quantify those things, you end up with process and programs and systems that work. But when you take an emotional approach to it — which is “Tried it, doesn’t work, doesn’t feel good, not going to do it” — then it’s guaranteed not to work. Show links: Leave us a review on iTunes 

The strength of the team is impacted by its weakest link. You lose the respect of the best people you have working with you when you don’t deal properly with the worst. We have so many great examples of this. We have a business that, in Kentucky, had been in existence for 25 years. The front office person that had worked there, that runs the whole administrative team, had been there for 23 years. And she was an integral part of the business. She also happened to be the person who was the most negative. But the business owner abdicated the responsibilities of running the daily operations to this office person. Well, after struggling for many years to be able to move the business forward, even though the business owner was trying to implement much change, the bottom line was this, the front office person was the one that was resisting everything. It was also the front office person who was the most influential person in the organization because she was there every day. With the patients, the other employees, everyone, including the business owner, she didn’t like what the business owner wanted to attain because it caused– cause and effect– her to change what she was doing. So, ultimately, until the business, which was about a million-dollar business, found out in one month it was going to lose 50% of its revenue because of a change of reimbursement, that then the business owner had to get serious about what they wanted to do. Well, one of the things that happened is we had to radically change how the business was performed. The front office individual did not want to change with that radical change, so the business owner had to remove her, as painful as that was, a lot of pain. What happened when he removed that individual is his business lost 50% of its revenue in a two-month period. And, yet, the following 12 months the business grew by 20%. The rest of the team stepped up and realized the business owner was serious about what he wanted to accomplish. Show notes: Let us know what you think about Attainable (iTunes)

The leader must give up to go up. What does that mean? Well, think about it. Think about when you started your business. You did everything all by yourself. You answered the phones. You unlocked your door. You made the coffee. You greeted your patients.  Well, what happens when you hire your first employee? What happens when you train them to do those things for you? As soon as you start teaching others to do the things that you do, it frees you up to do other things.  Well, if you want to move up in your organization, if you want to do and accomplish a greater magnitude of impact, the only way you could do that is by bringing others into your influence, and then influencing them to do the things that add the highest value to your organization. And the more things you give up to others to do, in your organization, the more you’re freed up to do other things are more important.  Well, leadership is the same way.  “If you want to attract people who are aligned with your organization, you have to sacrifice something in order to gain something.” See, that’s your investment. Sometimes it’s sacrificing, letting go of the way you think it needs to be done, and trying to control everyone around you.  Sometimes the sacrifice is learning, to connect with others, to develop others, to make their priorities your priorities so that they’ll be aligned with your interests and they’ll want to help you build your organization. See, the heart of a good leader is sacrifice. It’s not a one time payment, but an ongoing process. The more you show your team, the more you show your community you’re willing to invest in them by giving something up, the more you attract higher [? lid-level ?] people. Show notes: Tell us what you think of this episode! (iTunes)

Let’s talk for a second about mindsets, because I talk to hundreds of business owners every day, and they vary from being a practice owner to an entrepreneur with a billion dollar business.  “If you ever want to understand any human being, at any level– and this is business, personal, doesn’t matter– when you start a dialogue with them, listen to the kind of questions they ask.” Because that will give you full transparency into where their mind is. And what I mean by that is when I run across anybody and I say, hey, how’s your business doing? And they go, I’m struggling, because my competitors doing this, or I’m not getting what I want out of that, or this person is over here doing this, or I got a question about what’s happening over there. And they never want to talk about themselves, they’re projecting. Those people are projecting away from themselves, because they’re struggling inside. When you’re sitting across from somebody and they’re looking you in the eye and you say, how’s it going? And you go, man, you know, it’s going OK, but I could be doing a lot better. And I need to figure out how to get from where I’m at to where I want to go. That takes self-reflection.  Let us know what you think about Attainable (iTunes Review)

To establish fact and belief, you have to write out exactly what it is you want to attain. You have to feel it. You have to see it. You have to visualize the attainment of what it is you want to be intentional about creating. Then you’ll have that emotional response, and it’ll trigger the reference points in your mind to go do the things that you need to do in order to make your picture come to life. But if you don’t write something down because you don’t have a picture, and you don’t visualize it, and you don’t put any energy behind it, it does you no good. So a picture and experience in your mind creates the triggers and the reference points to allow you to get the confidence to see a bigger result. Your self-activity involved in this accomplishment is so important, because if you first need to position yourself by creating a picture, feeling what it feels like to accomplish things to move you to that picture. Say you’re hiring your first employee ever, or say you’re bringing in your first associate ever into your practice, and you say to yourself, “You know, many of my friends have told me it’s very hard to integrate an associate into a business, so I want to have an associate integrate simple. I want to have no resistance. I want to have no stress, no friction, no anxiety.” Now if you say that, what are you going to have? You’re going to have stress, friction, resistance, anxiety. Why? Because the mind doesn’t differentiate “do” or “don’t.” It only knows what you tell it. So don’t do that. So what you need to do is pay particular attention to exactly how to create an intention state. “I want this. I will attain that. This is going to happen. This is what it looks like. This is what it feels like. Never talk about what you don’t want.”  And when you’re building and developing your team, don’t ever talk about what they should not do. All you’re doing is reinforcing and implanting in their mind to do what you’re telling them not to do, and then when they screw up, you beat them up, and you reinforce it over and over and over. So if you want to develop your people at the highest level possible — if you want the least amount of friction and resistance and things that distract you from the success you want to have — then always talk about where you’re going. Show links: Review this episode of Attainable on iTunes (we love your feedback!)

Those who can’t do can’t really teach. But those who can do can lead and show others how they change in order to create a more impactful result. First, learn to influence yourself. Be that living example. Don’t do it because you have the title of business owner. Don’t do it because you have the title of manager or director or vice president. Titles alone give you no power. They only represent your ability to either influence through your experiences and your actual intentionality with your team or through title, dictatorship. “Do it because I told you to, not because I am going to help you do it to attain a higher level of success like I’ve been able to accomplish myself.” That’s influence. You can’t grow and develop your business to the highest magnitude of impact if you can’t use your influence by example through others, challenging them to challenge themselves the same way you did as the highest example in the organization. And that, my friends, is what influence is all about. “The true test of leadership isn’t held by title. It’s not held by position or rank.” The true test of leadership is held by your ability to impact and influence others to do things they otherwise might not do. And therefore, anyone and everyone in any organization at any level has the power to be a true leader, by helping and influencing others to succeed. Show links: Leave a review of this episode on iTunes (greatly appreciated)

Is it possible for an organization to be operationally effective if they have a low level of belief? Absolutely not. Let me put it to you this way. OK. Let's take it on the individual level. I can be highly operationally effective, and not believe in anything you're doing as an organization. As long as I'm getting what I want out of your organization, I could care less what your purpose is. Now understand that you see this with great salespeople sometimes. They're making tons of money, but they really could care less about what happens after the sale. Would you agree that if the intentionality of the enterprise or the organization is to provide an amazing, remarkable experience for their consumer or their community, and someone has that short-term thinking-- but they're your best sales person. That's where people sometimes find themselves, as an enterprise, in a little bit of a problem. How do I get rid of my absolute best performing person when it's a train wreck for everything else? Right. And no one likes him. It's a short-term game. Short-term game. So here's-- can an enterprise work for a period of time without having a clear-defined higher level purpose? Absolutely. Remember, there's four kinds of businesses. You have the grinder business. You have the professor business. You have the friend business. And then you have, what I call, the advocate business. This is the work we've done with Dr. [INAUDIBLE] in dentistry, to try to identify the different environments in which we have to help operate it. Now the professor business-- you have it in audiology, you have it in any specialty business-- that's where the person performing the work is the smartest person in the world, and they're going to take their time to explain to you every granular detail of exactly why they're doing what they're doing, and you should just respect that and work with them because they're the absolute best. And we've all encountered people like that. I've encountered chefs like that. I've encountered doctors like that. I've encountered-- you call it, I've encountered it, OK? A grinder business is, I'm just spinning it out as fast as I can and anybody that's willing to pay me any amount, I'll just do it, right? And you've encountered grinder businesses, right? Where it's like, you're just churning and burning, babe. You're just a cog-- you're just another spoke in the tire, man. They don't even look you in the eye. They don't care. They're just-- you're in, you're out, you're fine. Then you have the friend business, which just feels really good. And you can get away with having not such a great business by being a friend business. So if you go to the local restaurant, you don't have the best chef. In fact, maybe you don't have a very good chef. Maybe the place isn't the cleanest. But you're treated so wonderfully. The wait staff loves you. They treat you like family. The owner comes out and hugs you and sits with you and gets you anything you want. Even if the glass is a little dirty, you might just clean it yourself and go, whatever, this person's amazing. So that's a friend business. You can get away with a lot in a friend business. But you can't grow in scale, a friend business, because not everybody that's going to work for you is going to see that sloppiness as-- the reason we can get away with this is because we're just going to love people to death. They'll come in and take a job, and they'll still treat people poorly. And the service-- if what you do is poor, eventually it's going to catch up the larger you get. The only way a friend business works is when you're fairly small. But an advocate business says, I need-- if I have a higher purpose, I need to have structure, I need to have intentionality, I need to align my team. I need to be able to have absolute clarity of what it is I want to attain, and how to get everyone working together for the attainment of that goal. That's an advocate business. So when you ask me, can someone have a high level of operational effectiveness without sharing in the belief about what can be done for an enterprise, or can an enterprise succeed without having a high level of belief, certainly. But then the question is, what is the belief?   Show links: Leave a review for this episodes on ITUNES  The Spotlight Podcast Attainable #18 Me Leadership and Charting a Course

So let's back up a little bit and, for our listeners that might not know the established definitions of things like belief and operational effectiveness in the manner that we do, let's first talk about belief. What is belief mean, specifically in the context that we're discussing today? Perfect. So assuming that you have an employee that works for you and you're asking them to do something to contribute to your enterprise, the first and foremost is what is the purpose of the enterprise? If I'm an audiology practice, what is the purpose of the practice? If I'm a dental office, what is the purpose of the practice? If I own a restaurant, what is the purpose of the restaurant? If I'm a plastic surgeon doctor, what is my purpose? Now understand that, here's where people get really confused. And I've interviewed thousands of people in audiology and this is what it sounds like and why the confusion exists. So if I ask many people in hearing care, what do you do, they say we sell hearing aids. In fact, in almost all my role plays, and when you're doing your brand building and you ask what do you do, I sell hearing aids. I'm in the hearing aid business, right? Right. That's the what you do. But that's not really what you do. That's certainly not why you do it. The why you do it is to bring a high quality of life back to individuals who trust you with what you're doing, so that you can restore quality of life and bring value just to a human being. Like that's why, right? When you talk to dentist and you say what you do? Oh, I'm a dentist. OK. That's what you do but really what's important, the vision, the belief is why. Because I want to change people's lives by creating a high sense of confidence because they have a beautiful smile. And it's not something they have to think about, right? If I own a restaurant, I want to be able to feed people healthy food that can taste amazing but be substantive to adding health to their life, versus just stuff that detracts from health. So why I chose to do what I do. That's your belief. That's what you're about. Well, so first it's understanding, if I work in a dental practice or I work in an audiology practice or I'm front reception person at a restaurant, when someone says what you do and they say I work for a dental practice. I'm the front office person. I work for an audiology practice. I answer the phones. Oh, I'm a meet and greet person and reservation person in a restaurant. OK, that's the what you do. The basic function. The basic function. How do I assign a belief to that? Well, on a scale of 1 to 10, tell me how much you believe in what you do. That doesn't really-- well, I believe that I answer the phones good or I smile. I 100% believe answer the phone. Exactly. So, by definition, to understand what belief is or belief [? lid ?], you have to then be able to say what is the purpose? So if I am the first line of meet and greet at a restaurant and someone says, what do you do? I could say, well I take reservations and answer the phone for a restaurant. OK, that's what I do. What if the response instead is what I do is I'm the person who's responsible for making sure that every person that engages our enterprise, our restaurant, feels they're the most valuable person in the community, and that they have the single greatest experience that they've ever had before, at any other restaurant. That's what I do. That's a different explanation then what I do, is I answer phone and take reservations at a restaurant. That's a completely different mindset for the person, once they hear or understand that, that they actually have an influence over people's experiences. Imagine. What I do is I answer phones at a dental practice. No. What if what I do is ensure that every single patient that trusts our dental practice has the most remarkable experience in the whole process of being able to be reconnected to the things that are most important to them in their life, which is their oral health or the aesthetics of their teeth so they have a high level of confidence. So what I do is, if I'm working for an enterprise that has a higher purpose, oh I'm a dentist, and I have a front office girl or guy who answers my phones. OK, that's what you do, but why? So what I do is I create oral health and I beautify people so they can have a high level of confidence in the world. And the person that helps me do that, that ensures that's the very first impression, is the person that receives every patient that comes to the door, picks up the phone and calls us, to send that message that they are the most important thing that this business, this enterprise, this dental practice is about. The thing is, is that how you talk about your people and how they talk about themselves is a direct representation of you as a leader. So when you ask about belief, I first have to understand, if my job at a restaurant is to impress upon every single potential person in the community that we are the absolutely, the most focused, best focused on having an experience of a lifetime for them and making them feel like they're the most important person in the world, if I knew that was my job, instead of I answer the phone and take reservations, then I could be questioned as to, on a scale of 1 to 10, how well do I believe I'm able to impact that why. Do you understand? People don't have that clarity. And when I'm a restaurant owner who hires the best chef in the world, and then I'm acting like I've been victimized because people don't want to come to me, because I have a horrible wait staff, I have clutter everywhere, people can't get in timely, they get treated poorly when the phone answers, they get put on hold, well if that's the case, I can be a victim of that, but I created the conditions and my enterprise, as a restaurant, I created those conditions. But what if every person from my reception team understood your single most important job is to be the point of our commitment to our community, which is to create an experience of a lifetime, that they will never forget in the process of creating a reservation, showing up, and being made to feel like they're the most important person ever in this establishment. That's your job. Now, Nathan, I could score you on a scale of one to 10, what's your personal belief in your ability to impact that, with every person you encounter?   Show links: Leave a review for this episode on ITUNES (greatly appreciated) Attainable #30 Belief is a Choice The Spotlight Podcast

Mr. Dawson, why don't we focus on people in the organization, and moving those people into the right roles in the organization based upon their respective skill sets? One of the things that we're really focused on here is making sure that we've got the right people, in the right role, at the right time in their career. But backing up, how do we identify who the right people are and the right roles for them? That's a great question, Nathan. And what we find typically is that organizations outgrow the role that you hired for. So if I own a small practice or a large business and I'm having success and growing, I tend to add more things on the plate of the people who work for me, hoping that they figure it out or they'll just do the work, even though it might not be in their core expertise or in their wheel house. And so being a responsible leader is always assessing where your team's at today, where they need to be in order to be more effective tomorrow, and what resources and tools that you're going to give them in order to ascend into that growth. And I think that one of the easiest ways we try to teach people to do that is through our three lids assessment-- belief, operational effectiveness, and leadership. If you go to each team member and just do an exercise. You sit down and you say, OK, write down Joe Smith. And say, OK, on a scale of 1 to 10, belief, how much does Joe Smith believe in what we're trying to do as an organization for our community, for our constituents, or for our peer group, or whatever it is you're trying to do. How much do they believe in our ability to actually do that? And write down, you know, scale of one to 10. I believe that they only believe, maybe, a five, because they don't seem to be putting a lot of energy into it, or they don't seem to be excited about it. And then you go and say, OK, what is their level of operational effectiveness, and what do they need to do to contribute to that? And you rank it on a scale of one to five, and then me, leadership-- how much energy, effort, and desire are they putting into their own personal growth in order to execute at a high level, be involved, and contribute from what they can contribute? And then you go to what I call we leadership in the leadership lid, which is how much are they helping others to try to attain their success? Now, here's the thing. If you say these people are a five or a four, and you don't believe that there is a high level of belief, then you have to ask yourself the question as a leader-- what picture have I painted? Right. Like, what have I given them in the way of a vision to get them excited about believing in what we do? The why? And what I find with most business owners and most managers is they talk about the what, and they spend a little bit to no energy talking about specifically the why. Right. So there's no emotional connection to the work that needs to be done. So what happens is you default into that operational effectiveness zone, and someone might be an eight or nine in operational effectiveness, and a low level of belief, and a low level of we leadership. In order to be highly effective, you have to have me leadership. You have to be willing to do the things that you need to do to push yourself to be highly effective. But that's potentially where it stops because the culture of the organization-- and this is what Seth Mattison talks a lot about with generations-- is the baby boomers, depending on what generation you are, we've had to fight for everything we have. And what we've been taught is when you're at the top of the pack, you try to hold what keeps your secret sauce, and you try to keep it to yourself because that's what your value is. Right. And you're just terrified emotionally that if someone comes up and does better than you that there won't be a need for you. So you have these cultural aspects that incorporate with the culture of your organization. If I'm a business owner, a practice owner, a manager, a vice president of a group or a team of people, it's my responsibility to say, this is our purpose. And this is what Jim Collins talks about in the hedgehog concept. When you align your highest level of purpose-- I call it intentionality-- with your highest level of impact and with a knowledge of what creates your highest financial impact for your organization. So you know what things you can do exceptionally well, and you don't try to do things you can't do well. And then you know what drives the economic levers of your business. That's the center of the hedgehog concept. If you're a practice business owner or manager, whatever, your passion may be specific to the reason that you found yourself in that role, or why you started your business. But the people who work for you may not have any alignment with that passion. So if you haven't found a way to bridge the objective to pursue your own passion, whatever that may be, with the objective of the individuals you're dependent upon to help you, that's where leverage comes from. And identifying what their passion is and drawing the parallel so they can share in the vision-- not necessarily the vision of your passion for what you want to do, but the vision for if they help you do it, what they can do to attain their passion. That is the secret sauce to aligning the interests of your people with the interests of the organization. Not trying to shove them into caring about what's important to you. No, but creating a tangible overlap of your passion, my passion, where do we meet in the middle, and where can we move forward together. Links: Seth Mattison on "Spotlight"

eople get confused about what their brand is. And a lot of times they think their brand is what their logo looks like or what their colors are. What your brand really is, is the total sum of all experiences that somebody gets when they work with you or they engage you or they encounter you.  Your brand is everything you do and everyone doing it, and you’re either every day intentionally adding value and building your brand in all you do, with everyone doing it at a high level of intentionality and a full level of alignment with team members doing it.  Or you’re degrading and undermining your brand. And for somebody to say they’re great and they’re not intentionally focused on greatness, you cannot make that promise, and the result of that will be a broken business.

You cannot lead people without really liking them. Intrinsic connection is a key to great relationships. So think about this: If you don’t like being around somebody, if you don’t like spending time with them, if you don’t like connecting with them, if you’re not really fond of being in the general presence of that person and you can’t connect that way, how do you create permission leadership? “Permission leadership occurs through empowerment.” It’s through developing people to their highest impact so that you can trust them to go and do it on their own. It says, “I am empowering you to make good decisions and to do the right things, because I trust that you understand you can represent the organization at the highest level possible. Therefore, I’m not going to constrain your ability to do that; I’m going to amplify it by assisting you and helping you so that we can impact the organization at the highest possible potential.” How do you do that if you’re not spending time with somebody? How do you do it if you’re not connecting with them?

Great leaders know how to align the interests of their people with the interests of the business. This is an absolute must. When you don't have the right people in the right place, you can't attract core energy invested into what you're trying to accomplish. It becomes much more work. It becomes very difficult to get things done, because their passion, their joy is not aligned with the function. Jim Collins talks about this in the Hedgehog Concept. The number one thing he identified that separated companies that struggled or failed for companies that were amazing was how much passion the people had for what they did. Well, when you have an organization that doesn't align your people's passion with the functions or with the whole plan of the organization, then it becomes a struggle. Now, how do you do that? You have to spend time with each person working for you. You have to figure out how somebody can do something better than the person before. And that becomes your highest elevated success. Then you platform that, and you benchmark it. And that becomes your duplicable process that everyone strives to attain. Ask yourself a simple question. If Gallup poll says 100 million people, Americans that they surveyed last year, out of 100 million, 70 million said they're actively disengaged or disengaged at work. So if you have 10 people working for you, seven of the 10 have admitted they're actively disengaged or disengaged at work. That leaves you three people to build a business that's centered and has expenses for 10. Now, does that mean you have the wrong 10 people? Many times I will tell you, you might have a few that you probably should shake loose of but generally speaking, you have the right people. They're just not contributing in the right areas for your organization. And when you can take the people who have been there and that are passionate about you and passionate about working with you, but they're not finding the level of success they otherwise could have, it's because you haven't aligned the business interests with the passion and interest of the people who work for you. Therefore, everything seems to be so much harder. Do you have the right people doing the right things that add the highest value to your organization?

If you want a business that’s surviving and thriving rather than a business that’s struggling, that’s a decision — that’s a choice. You have to make that choice yourself. And the first part of getting what you want is clearly understanding and identifying exactly what that is. See, that’s where law of picture comes in, and law of compass. This is why law of picture is so important. If you have a picture and you use law of compass so you know what direction you’re going, and you surround yourself with people who have clarity and understanding and are attached to that picture — because their picture is inside of your picture — then you can all succeed together. “The first part of getting what you want is first clearly understanding what that is.” And then you have a team of people who understand what that is, and you have a clear picture and you have a compass that says we’re going to sail due north, and people understand how they contribute, because their pieces of the puzzle are inside your pieces of the puzzle. Everyone can accomplish the goals together, aligned with shared interests. This is how you build an organization. Everyone understands where they’re going, what the expectation is for how to get there, and that they all need to stretch and understand cause and effect and the process of doing it. And that culture has a high level of accountability. That’s how you grow your business from where it’s at today to the level that you’d like it to be. If you don’t decide exactly where you want to be in business, someone else will make that decision for you.

You have to have humility and gratitude if you want to be an innovator in somebody else’s business or if you want to be a remarkable entrepreneur that can create large impact. You have to have humility and gratitude, because if you don’t have those two things you can’t find people who are going to give you everything they have, because no one wants to work for somebody who’s an egomaniac. So my first kind of self reflection was because of my first business I just hired lots of people and I just put my foot on the accelerator and you were either hanging on for the ride or it was OK if you blew away. I’d find somebody else. And I never really thought about who I was doing it with, although I had great relationships with people I worked with.  “You know quite honestly I was indifferent. I was more pushing to the result.  And so when the business sold I realized I didn’t have a lot of personal relationships in that business with 400 or 500 employees. And so I made the decision that if I’m going to go spend 3, 4, 5, 10 years working and doing something I want to be close to the people that I’m doing it with and I want to have an environment that’s not just a churn and burn, press as hard as you can and burn people out type situation. I actually want to have an environment where we all care about each other, we enjoy working together, we enjoy accomplishing together. So what I realized for me, I needed to have humility and I needed to have gratitude. I needed to be thankful for people that are showing up every day putting all their energy and effort into it and being very respectful of the contribution that they bring to the organization.

Anyone can steer a ship, but it takes a leader to chart the course. When it comes to leadership, the first leadership you have to master is me leadership. Once you’ve mastered that and you’ve become an example to others, then you have to master we leadership. “Leaders who navigate do even more than control the direction in which they and their people travel; they see the whole trip in their minds before they even set course.” They have a vision for getting there. They know who they’ll need on the way and what kind of team they’ll need to be successful, and they recognize obstacles long before they appear on the horizon. If you know where you want to go and you know how to get there, you’ll do it bigger, better, and faster. And let me tell you, the wider your team and the deeper their experience, the faster and more successful you’ll be.

Hello everyone. I’m Dr. Paul Homoly. And let me say this. Just Because You’re an Expert Doesn’t Make You Interesting. That’s the title of my new book. When I tell people I’ve got a new book they go, oh, what’s the title? I go, well, Just Because You’re an Expert Doesn’t Make You Interesting. And they laugh. It’s kind of like a punchline on a joke.  And then they usually follow with boy oh boy, at my XYZ needs that. And the XYZ is boy, my dentist needs that. Or my physician needs that. Or my boss needs that.  “Everybody knows an expert who really knows their stuff but is boring to listen to.” So here’s a tip. When you’re an expert you got to remember that your listeners don’t know what you know.  But you can connect with them by feeling the way they feel. Get better about how to make your listeners feel as you speak. And that’s going to be making sustained meaningful eye connection.  That is minimizing your movement, eliminating distractions from flicking a pen or pacing around the room, about using your voice in a way that people can tell how you feel. I mean, as you listen to me now, how do I feel about this topic? Can you sense that I’m excited?  Can you sense that I’m committed to it? How am I communicating that to you? I’m communicating that to you through my tone of voice and through my rate.  And you know what else I’m doing? I’m letting you think about what I’m saying. You notice the pause intervals between my main thoughts.  If I was to exaggerate that pause interval, then what I’m doing is I’m letting what I’ve said sink in. You hear the pause intervals increase? Now, if I take out the pause intervals and I just continue to talk like this, you can understand every word I’m saying.  But I’m not giving you time to think about it. Do you know what I mean? And I can go on like this.  Now, I’m not really talking any quickly or any less slowly than I was before. But what I’m doing is I’m not letting you think about what I’m saying. And I can talk just as fast.  But if I allow intervals between my main thoughts, like I am right now, I’m giving you time. I’m giving you time to make a decision. You see, people make decisions during your silence.  So there’s a lot of techniques to this. And what I would say to you, if you’re more interested in this type of thing, go online to www.TheInterestingExpert.com. That’s my website.  And check out the book Just Because You’re Leading Doesn’t Mean They’ll Follow. Or a companion book called Just Because You’re an Expert Doesn’t Make You Interesting. You’ll love both. I’m Doctor Paul Homoly. Thanks for listening.

Winning teams have players who make things happen. Catalysts are not consultants. They don’t recommend a course of action; they take responsibility for making it happen. So think about this: Who’s the catalyst in your business? Who’s the person who just gets it done? And then has time and energy and effort to do more? Because that’s the type of people you want to surround yourself with. “Bring in the right people in alignment with your organization and they will get things done.” They inspire and move the rest of the people around them because they realize, “Gee! If I actually do that and I get a better result, I do it the right way. Look at the good things that can happen from it.” What you need in your life are as many catalysts as possible. The only way you can attract a catalyst is to be one yourself.

Hello Attainable listeners! My name is William Smith, and I'm the producer for the Attainable Podcast Network. I'd like to take a moment to thank you for listening to the podcast, and give you some updates for the holiday season coming up, so you know what to expect from Attainable. As an avid podcast listener myself, I thought it might be nice to share some information about our plans for the show.. Attainable will be on hiatus during the month of December, but we are already underway recording all new episodes slotted for the start of the new year! During the holiday break we are going to be re-playing some of our best episodes, and mixing in some clips from some of the other shows on our network that you may not have heard before. We're also looking for your feedback on the show -- what do you like? what would you like to hear more of (or less of) and generally, how can we improve! We've got a web site, attainable.fm, where you can leave feedback, and of course, on iTunes in the review section. Finally, we want to let our Android listeners know that we've submitted all of our shows to the Google Play Store which just started taking submissions for podcasts. We realize its a little bit of a hassle to subscribe to podcasts generally on the Android side of things and this will make it much easier.

Great teams have depth. And with a great bench, the options for your business are endless. I want to directly relate this story to Audigy Group. When I started Audigy, I wanted to build one key person at a time, one key contributor at each function of the organization. And the whole point was getting that person elevated to their highest level of impact. Then once I identified with that individual what they were doing to create the highest level impact, I taught them how to duplicate that with each employee that we hired to do the same function. And over a period of time, we mushroomed out as a large organization where we had dozens of leaders who were experts in the thing that they perfected, duplicated through many individuals doing the job that we are trying to innovate every single day to create a greater impact for our members. Our first finance manager then had to learn how to get your finances cleared up, how to structure them, so we can do peer-to-peer analysis. This was all manually done. Once they figured out how to do that and convert over to our chart of accounts and build all this, they had to teach somebody else to do it, then somebody else, then somebody else, but you're not just teaching him to do the work, you have to teach him to understand what the numbers mean. So we had to create a bench, because people come and people go. And you can never have your business be keyman dependent on one person at all functions, or you're going to find your business in trouble.

The strength of the team is impacted by its weakest link. You lose the respect of the best people you have working with you when you don't deal properly with the worst. We have so many great examples of this. We have a business that, in Kentucky, had been in existence for 25 years. The front office person that had worked there, that runs the whole administrative team, had been there for 23 years. And she was an integral part of the business. She also happened to be the person who was the most negative. But the business owner abdicated the responsibilities of running the daily operations to this office person. Well, after struggling for many years to be able to move the business forward, even though the business owner was trying to implement much change, the bottom line was this, the front office person was the one that was resisting everything. It was also the front office person who was the most influential person in the organization because she was there every day. With the patients, the other employees, everyone, including the business owner, she didn't like what the business owner wanted to attain because it caused-- cause and effect-- her to change what she was doing. So, ultimately, until the business, which was about a million-dollar business, found out in one month it was going to lose 50% of its revenue because of a change of reimbursement, that then the business owner had to get serious about what they wanted to do. Well, one of the things that happened is we had to radically change how the business was performed. The front office individual did not want to change with that radical change, so the business owner had to remove her, as painful as that was, a lot of pain. What happened when he removed that individual is his business lost 50% of its revenue in a two-month period. And, yet, the following 12 months the business grew by 20%. The rest of the team stepped up and realized the business owner was serious about what he wanted to accomplish. 

What's the purpose of a morning huddle? It's to talk about what's happening today that we can have a greater level of impact on. Because if you're not talking, if you're not communicating, if you're not aligned in your thinking, then how can you possibly have a business that's excellent or remarkable? People running off doing their own things trying to make their own impact does not allow you to build a business of excellence. It will barely get you to a good business. But when you work together you win together. You should have a daily, weekly, and monthly meeting with your team. Daily you should talk about what worked well yesterday. Where could we have done better? What are we going to do today to exemplify what works well, always looking for perspective from your team on how to add the highest incremental value in everything you do, and communicating with your team when they do well and when things don't work, creating and fostering an environment where the team understands it's their job to do an autopsy when something doesn't work and to exemplify and duplicate when something does. 

Great leaders know how to align the interests of their people with the interests of the business. This is an absolute must. When you don't have the right people in the right place, you can't attract core energy invested into what you're trying to accomplish. It becomes much more work. It becomes very difficult to get things done, because their passion, their joy is not aligned with the function. Jim Collins talks about this in the Hedgehog Concept. The number one thing he identified that separated companies that struggled or failed for companies that were amazing was how much passion the people had for what they did. Well, when you have an organization that doesn't align your people's passion with the functions or with the whole plan of the organization, then it becomes a struggle. Now, how do you do that? You have to spend time with each person working for you. You have to figure out how somebody can do something better than the person before. And that becomes your highest elevated success. Then you platform that, and you benchmark it. And that becomes your duplicable process that everyone strives to attain. Ask yourself a simple question. If Gallup poll says 100 million people, Americans that they surveyed last year, out of 100 million, 70 million said they're actively disengaged or disengaged at work. So if you have 10 people working for you, seven of the 10 have admitted they're actively disengaged or disengaged at work. That leaves you three people to build a business that's centered and has expenses for 10. Now, does that mean you have the wrong 10 people? Many times I will tell you, you might have a few that you probably should shake loose of but generally speaking, you have the right people. They're just not contributing in the right areas for your organization. And when you can take the people who have been there and that are passionate about you and passionate about working with you, but they're not finding the level of success they otherwise could have, it's because you haven't aligned the business interests with the passion and interest of the people who work for you. Therefore, everything seems to be so much harder. Do you have the right people doing the right things that add the highest value to your organization? 

Your greatest gains come in the middle of your pain. Think about what that's saying to you. Pain is an opportunity. It means that you're reaching a threshold that starts to become uncomfortable. Then pain settles in. Why? Because you're doing something that doesn't feel good. Most people at that point in time stop. The rate limiting factor between businesses that move on the magnitude of impact scale from poor to remarkable is how well they're able to manage through the pain. The things that seem so hard, they hurt so you want to quit. That is really, if you think about it, the rate limiting factor beating your competition in the marketplace. Doing the things that others are unwilling to do. When you start doing things that others are unwilling to do, it hurts. Especially when you can't quite figure out how to do it. And what that looks like when you go to your front office person, or you go to an employee, and ask them to do something different. And in the process of getting them to do something different, they squirm, and they say they're not comfortable with it. And they don't want to do it, and they become negative about it. That's the pain that then you feel because you get this negative emotion. And a lot of times you as a business owner says, fine then. Let's back off. Let's not do it. Pain can tell you one of two things. It can tell you're either significantly moving in the wrong direction, and it really hurts. Or you're moving in the right direction, and you've never experienced it before. And you feel that sense of pain, and you become fearful and secure. Or you become excited and motivated and then inspired based on how you feel about those circumstances, or the situation. Pain can be interpreted and embraced two different ways. Fear or opportunity. 

The difference between where we are and where we want to be is created by the changes we're willing to make in our lives. People cling to an unsatisfactory way of life rather than change in order to get something better for fear of getting something worse. This is something that is important to understand, especially when you're dealing with your team. You see, if you want something different tomorrow, you've got to create a change today. It's as simple as that. If you want your business to get to a different level of success, then you have to do something different, incrementally, improving every single day. That's what operational effectiveness is. You have to be conscious and aware and have the intentionality that there's going to be trade-offs every single day. If you want something different tomorrow, in all that you do-- personally, professionally, financially-- in your belief, your operational effectiveness, or your leadership and you want to create a business that moves in the magnitude of impact scale from good to excellent or remarkable, then you have to understand that you have to trade something that you're doing today for something new that you should be doing tomorrow. But you don't do it by winging it. And you don't do it through emotion.

In everything you do, every single day you have to be consistent so you can measure the effectiveness of what it is you're doing. See, predictability creates confidence. The more transparency people have into what makes the business work, the more they're apt to try new things because they know it'll have an impact on your organization. And the more you tie their personal, professional, and financial aspirations into the result, the more they'll challenge and inspire themselves, and be self-motivated to accomplish the goal. Now, when people know their work is being measured, their productivity increases significantly. So once you have a model of what it is you want to attain, and once you've started adopting consistency as the core behavior in your organization, the core discipline, the core expectancy, then you can start designing the incremental improvements every single day by function, by individual, by contributor, that allows your business to breathe and grow to become the organization that your belief lid says it can become. And it's very important so everyone understands it there is a purpose in everything they do. And the way that they understand there's a purpose and intentionality is to have a design of what it is, and create that design so that they can feel it, they can see it, they can to live it every single day. 

Motivation gets you going but discipline gets you growing. Now think about this. This is true for all three lids. Let's take your belief lid. If you have a very clear picture of what you'd like to attain. And you are elevating everyone's thinking around your belief-- so you're talking about it all the time-- to get them focused on what it is that you need to do in order to attain your goals. And yet you're always changing what those goals are. You're always questioning, can we really do it? Is it really possible? Will it really happen? I don't believe it. When struggle and anxiety comes in, and you start changing your picture. And you become inconsistent about what you want to attain, then others stop believing you're serious or committed to the attainment of that goal. So being very consistent in what your picture is is critically important to the success of attaining it. The same is true for leadership. If you're inconsistent in how you engage your team-- one day you're all about inspiring them and the next day you're beating them up for something that they did wrong-- you will create this level of belief that says that you could be any way at any time. And therefore people start to tap around trying to be creative on how to engage you, so that you can either be in a good mood, or avoid you if you're a bad mood. And people won't have that level of consistency that comes with intentionality in how to engage you. And therefore they'll lose confidence in their ability to engage you. The same is true for the leadership lid. Think about it this way. Your team needs a level of consistency on how you're going to be engaging them on a regular basis. If one day you're emotional and you're yelling at them, or you're acting like you're upset with them, and the next day you act like they're your best friend, how will they gain the confidence to engage you if they never understand which kind of mood you're going to be in and you're going to engage them?

Most experts believe that the typical use of most people is 10% of their true potential, and the most common reason people don't overcome the odds is that they don't challenge themselves. They don't stretch themselves enough. And if most people today are only using 10% of their true potential, because they're not stretching enough, it's your job to be that example. Stretch their belief about what can be done. Stretch their ability to attain the highest level of impact through operational effectiveness. Stretch yourself and your ability to inspire and motivate yourself to learn to do things that you never thought you could do before, learning new things and generating new results. Then take that to teach others through example to do the exact same thing. And when you elevate your belief lid, and you elevate your operational effectiveness lid, and you elevate your leadership lid, you expand capacity, which adds more capacity. And that's how you create the largest most significant impact-- by growing and increasing capacity through growing and increasing people's ability to attain success within your environment. Lead them by example, so they can attain a higher level of capacity and success personally, professionally, and financially through driving that incremental value to your organization. 

See, if you can't use your natural influence skill-set to show people that you're willing to challenge yourself, that you're willing to test yourself, that you're willing to believe higher, and reach further through operational effectiveness to attain a better result tomorrow, then how can they honestly respect you when you ask them to do the same? You can't just go to somebody and say, I want you to make those number of phone calls. Or I want you to do these things. Or I want you to see these patients. Or I want you to talk this way. You have to show them that by doing these incremental changes, you can get a better result than you were getting before, through being a living example to them in all you do. The more of an example you are, the more people will respect you as a person. They can admire you. They can like you. They can love you. But here's the truth. Only when they respect you as a leader, they'll follow you. People aren't going to follow you just because you have owner behind the name on your business card. See when you intentionally focus your energy on the personal and professional financial growth of the people that work with you, and align their interests with the interests of the business, and you start to develop them, raising their belief level, raising their effectiveness level, what they do-- man, you want to watch somebody glow, show them how to be twice as effective at what they do. Show them how to earn more income by doing things smarter not harder. Show them that by respecting others, even if they're not going along to get along so you got to move them off your team, but doing it respectfully. Demonstrating to your team that you're going to respect others and focus your energies on their development and their success, working with you as part of the contributing team. When people can see that, and they see everyone is treated that way. And you've aligned their interest, they become loyal. They become courageous. They become more successful. And success breeds more success. So if you want people to respect you, you're not going to do it by telling them what they need to do. 

In today's Attainable, Brandon Dawson reflects on sacrifice and its role in helping to free you up to do other things while empowering others to reach their full potential.

Let's talk for a second about mindsets, because I talk to hundreds of business owners every day, and they vary from being a practice owner to an entrepreneur with a billion dollar business. If you ever want to understand any human being, at any level-- and this is business, personal, doesn't matter-- when you start a dialogue with them, listen to the kind of questions they ask. Because that will give you full transparency into where their mind is. And what I mean by that is when I run across anybody and I say, hey, how's your business doing? And they go, I'm struggling, because my competitors doing this, or I'm not getting what I want out of that, or this person is over here doing this, or I got a question about what's happening over there. And they never want to talk about themselves, they're projecting. Those people are projecting away from themselves, because they're struggling inside. When you're sitting across from somebody and they're looking you in the eye and you say, how's it going? And you go, man, you know, it's going OK, but I could be doing a lot better. And I need to figure out how to get from where I'm at to where I want to go. That takes self-reflection. 

In today's episode we talk about Reach, a new show on the Attainable Podcast Network. For more information on Reach, visit http://attainable.fm/reach.

You have to have humility and gratitude if you want to be an innovator in somebody else's business or if you want to be a remarkable entrepreneur that can create large impact. You have to have humility and gratitude, because if you don't have those two things you can't find people who are going to give you everything they have, because no one wants to work for somebody who's an egomaniac. So my first kind of self reflection was because of my first business I just hired lots of people and I just put my foot on the accelerator and you were either hanging on for the ride or it was OK if you blew away. I'd find somebody else. And I never really thought about who I was doing it with, although I had great relationships with people I worked with. You know quite honestly I was indifferent. I was more pushing to the result. And so when the business sold I realized I didn't have a lot of personal relationships in that business with 400 or 500 employees. And so I made the decision that if I'm going to go spend 3, 4, 5, 10 years working and doing something I want to be close to the people that I'm doing it with and I want to have an environment that's not just a churn and burn, press as hard as you can and burn people out type situation. I actually want to have an environment where we all care about each other, we enjoy working together, we enjoy accomplishing together. So what I realized for me, I needed to have humility and I needed to have gratitude. I needed to be thankful for people that are showing up every day putting all their energy and effort into it and being very respectful of the contribution that they bring to the organization. 

For a lot of people when they start their business, they don't see themselves as an entrepreneur or as an innovator, and I think this is another important factor. They see themselves, in a lot of cases, as the technician or the practitioner. And that's what eMyth talks about 70% of all businesses have been started by a technician who, if they are successful at being a technician, they become an entrepreneur. And so they don't go into it with an entrepreneurial mindset. Let me talk about the difference between an entrepreneur mindset and a practice owner or an innovator mindset. An innovator mindset says, I'm going to build something that's unique or that's different. And I'm going to go out and create a marketplace for it, and it's going to become greatly successful. That's how an innovator we think about their business. A practice owner says, or a technician-owned practice says, I'm going to go out and I'm going to be good at what I do. And I'm going to be so good at it, everyone's going to want to see me, everyone's going to want to be around me, and I'm just going to have a great life with a great reputation of being excellent at what I do. An entrepreneur mindset steps back and says, where do I want to be in 5 years? 10 years? What do I want it to look like? What do I want my life and what do I want my engagement in that situation to be? And how do I want to go create it in order to create that impact that I want to create? It's a much different perspective. So I think it's important to understand, whatever first and foremost your perspective is, how you're thinking about whatever it is you're going to do. And so the person that creates a widget, a Steve Jobs, and goes out and creates the largest business in the world, that's an innovator who became a highly successful entrepreneur. A practice owner that goes out and creates a practice it's got 30, 40, 50 locations and hundreds of people working inside of it, they started as a practice owner and they became a business owner-entrepreneur. But for that same particular business, if somebody goes and starts it as a practitioner and they don't grow beyond themselves, they're not really an entrepreneur, although they started their own practice. Because an entrepreneur has a bigger perspective of a much grander scope in what they want to attain or accomplish.

If you want to create a mission, if you have a mission and if that is to build a significant audiological practice, a significant dental practice, a computer technology company, create a new invention or a new widget, if that's what your intention is, if that's what your desire is, that's what your mission is, you have to ask yourself, how do I-- what's the fastest and most successful way to get there? And if it is you doing it all by yourself, then you're not going to be very successful. If it's to align yourself with a group of people who are just as emotional, just as passionate, just as thrilled, just as excited about doing that, you get the whole input and the whole effort and energy of all those other people that are pursuing that same mission. Not all people are actually as interested in that particular mission. There is a subset of a lot of people that have their own internal personal mission. And if you can't show them how they can attain mission for themselves by attaching to your greater magnitude of mission, then they're not as aligned with where you want to go and how you want to get there. 

People get confused about what their brand is. And a lot of times they think their brand is what their logo looks like or what their colors are. What your brand really is, is the total sum of all experiences that somebody gets when they work with you or they engage you or they encounter you. Your brand is everything you do and everyone doing it, and you're either every day intentionally adding value and building your brand in all you do, with everyone doing it at a high level of intentionality and a full level of alignment with team members doing it. Or you're degrading and undermining your brand. And for somebody to say they're great and they're not intentionally focused on greatness, you cannot make that promise, and the result of that will be a broken business. 

In today's episode, Dr. Paul Homoly makes the case that just being an expert doesn't make you interesting. You need to connect with people in a meaningful, deliberate way to convey your expertise.