Latest / Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say / The Real Block Isn’t Failure — It’s Fear of Success with Ash Seddeek

Transcript

The Real Block Isn’t Failure — It’s Fear of Success with Ash Seddeek · Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say

• 0:00
  Welcome to another episode of 6 Figure Secrets for Fractional
• 0:04
  Experts. My name is Bradley Jacobs, your
• 0:06
  host, the founder and CEO of my lands.
• 0:09
  Today. I'm really excited to be joined
• 0:11
  by Ash Sadiq. Ash is the founder of Mevante,
• 0:15
  and he's a fractional OCM, which is organizational change
• 0:18
  management advisor. He helps executives at Cisco,
• 0:22
  Uber, Google, and others sharpen presence, clarify messaging and
• 0:26
  communication performance. Ash, welcome to the show.
• 0:30
  Ravi, so good to be here. Thank you for having me.
• 0:33
  So I'm going to dive right in because you have a quote on your
• 0:36
  LinkedIn that I find to be fascinating as soon as I read
• 0:39
  it. I've heard the quote before, but
• 0:41
  it really lands with me. And so I'm just going to read
• 0:43
  the start of it. Maybe we'll get into more of it
• 0:45
  as we go. But the beginning of the quote
• 0:48
  is our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
• 0:53
  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
• 0:57
  It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.
• 1:01
  What makes that your favorite quote?
• 1:03
  Like just go into it for. Me, I love this code because it
• 1:07
  always tells us that however far we go, we realize that if we
• 1:14
  just push a little bit harder, a little bit smarter, we actually
• 1:18
  can achieve a lot more. And I realized growing up and
• 1:21
  thinking with myself, my family, my sisters, my brother, my
• 1:24
  parents, I realize that sometimes the, the environment
• 1:29
  that we grow up in more or less creates these ceilings.
• 1:34
  And we don't even realize that, that it's so funny when you look
• 1:38
  at siblings, a lot of the time they're just comparing each
• 1:39
  other to one another. I struggle with this myself.
• 1:42
  And I try to say to to my siblings, let's broaden the
• 1:46
  circle because maybe there are even better examples.
• 1:51
  And I think there is also fear that if you achieve success,
• 1:55
  that maybe the people around you will see you differently.
• 1:58
  Maybe you lose some of the relationships because they
• 2:00
  actually love you up to this point.
• 2:03
  And if you go a little bit higher, maybe there's fear in us
• 2:08
  that maybe we would lose some of these friendships.
• 2:10
  And I think we need to grow through that discomfort because
• 2:15
  many of us are highly likely not reaching out far enough based on
• 2:21
  what we could accomplish. And that's really where this
• 2:24
  code keeps reminding us that maybe it is not our greatness
• 2:28
  that is making us afraid. Maybe it is these other issues.
• 2:34
  What I'm hearing you say is that the fear around powerful beyond
• 2:38
  measure is actually that I will lose relationships in my life by
• 2:45
  becoming powerful. And whatever that means to you,
• 2:48
  they might feel inadequate or they might not respect or they
• 2:52
  might be jealous or they might, you know, whatever it is.
• 2:56
  And so they're not going to be a valuable relationship anymore.
• 2:59
  Without a doubt, I think that's part of what is potentially
• 3:03
  shaping how we act on a daily basis.
• 3:06
  Even the words we choose are coming from the deep, deep, deep
• 3:11
  foundation system that basically says stay within these
• 3:16
  boundaries. And it's, it's an interesting, I
• 3:21
  think, thought for us to think about basically asking
• 3:25
  ourselves, are we limiting ourselves based on some deep
• 3:30
  down belief that if I extend my boundaries this way or that way,
• 3:36
  I might lose something? Maybe there's a risk there.
• 3:40
  Or also maybe we're also afraid of success.
• 3:42
  That's the other side of it where people are afraid of, Oh
• 3:46
  my God, I am. I know myself so well and I know
• 3:49
  how to live with my limited achievements.
• 3:53
  But if I go beyond measure, you know, what is going to happen?
• 3:57
  Am I actually going to be able to live day by day?
• 4:00
  That's the other fear. These fears, right?
• 4:03
  These beliefs, they're not super conscious normally, right?
• 4:07
  Exactly. That's that's the biggest
• 4:09
  problem, yes. And so how does one figure out?
• 4:14
  I think I agree with you that every single one of us limits
• 4:17
  ourselves. How do I determine what those
• 4:21
  beliefs are that are those subconscious maybe when I was,
• 4:25
  you know, being brought up as a child or or I'm just like not in
• 4:29
  touch with it before. Whatever reason, it's scary,
• 4:31
  it's uncomfortable. I don't know.
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  How do I get in touch with what beliefs exist within me that are
• 4:36
  holding me back? That's a great question because
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  one of the things that I'm finding so valuable about
• 4:41
  coaching is that you want a coach to push back on Bradley.
• 4:46
  When Bradley says I don't think I could, I can do that.
• 4:49
  You need a coach who says, you know what, Bradley, what if you
• 4:53
  could, what would that look like?
• 4:55
  That idea of pushing back is a fantastic exercise that I
• 5:00
  recommend, that we all do. I recommend that people have
• 5:04
  what's called a meeting with Self on a Friday afternoon.
• 5:08
  And the part of that conversation is to basically
• 5:12
  look at what do you have coming up and then ask the question
• 5:16
  about what you just said, the limits.
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  Am I putting a limit here? When I ask a client for a
• 5:23
  $20,000 engagement fee, am I asking too much?
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  Am I asking too little and having some of those
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  conversation maybe will help unlock some of those underlying
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  beliefs? And I think it's that self talk
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  that's important sometimes. Let's just say all, every single
• 5:41
  listener is like, all right, I'm going to do this like self
• 5:44
  conversation Friday afternoon. Like am I sitting down with the
• 5:48
  journal and getting myself the prompt?
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  Am I going for a walk and talking to myself out loud?
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  Am I talking to chat PPT? Like what am I doing?
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  It could be all of the above and what I've done recently because
• 5:59
  I've actually seen and this happened a lot in my coaching
• 6:02
  clients and I ended up creating a planner and in that planner we
• 6:06
  actually asked the leader to think about themselves, their
• 6:10
  team, the organization. So when you said to your point,
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  and I love what you said because it can happen in any one of
• 6:16
  those, in any one of those ways, you can definitely have a
• 6:19
  conversation with ChatGPT where you say, here's my situation.
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  I'm trying to basically unlock some of my boundaries.
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  Or you could use pencil and paper, which sometimes that form
• 6:28
  factor gets that flow of thoughts coming up.
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  So that's another idea is to sit down with a physical piece of
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  paper or a planner like this one that gets you thinking not just
• 6:39
  about you, but also are you pushing the boundaries on your
• 6:42
  team? If you have a team, are you
• 6:43
  pushing the boundaries on the organization?
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  If you have an organization, because that underlying belief
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  is affecting every concentric circle, you know, it starts with
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  the individual. And then of course, if you have
• 6:57
  other entities that are built around you, highly likely are
• 7:00
  impacted. It's like we, we don't, we don't
• 7:03
  want to have more customers. Make sure you don't get get us
• 7:06
  more customers. Like why?
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  Is it really about scaling? Or is it because you're afraid
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  of success? If I think about two people, one
• 7:14
  that's constantly pushing the boundary and one that's not and
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  playing it a bit safer, I think it's fair to say the one who's
• 7:21
  constantly pushing the boundary is going to end up further like
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  100% right? If I'm reaching out to like
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  every big influencer and every famous person in every PR outlet
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  and like just, you know, just as examples, trying to get the most
• 7:34
  reach for what my product or service, whatever it is, I'm
• 7:38
  going to get some yeses. And this person who's scared to
• 7:41
  do that, just as the example, they're obviously not going to
• 7:44
  get it unless it falls in their lap, which, you know, sometimes
• 7:47
  people get lucky, but. Great point because the other
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  piece is that we, I think most of us, a lot of our listeners
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  would agree that we learn so much more from failing because
• 7:56
  succeeding we, we sort of assume, of course, you know,
• 7:59
  we're so smart, we have a lot of experience, of course we're
• 8:02
  going to succeed. But to your point, I think if
• 8:04
  you push yourself, and yes, maybe in the beginning I get
• 8:07
  some pushback or some rejection, that's when I actually get a
• 8:11
  whole lot more introspective and I think about maybe I could do
• 8:14
  it this way. Maybe I could do it that way.
• 8:16
  Maybe I can go talk to Bradley and find out how did he do it.
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  And then all of a sudden, then the second round, I am highly
• 8:23
  likely going to score more points than I did in Round 1.
• 8:27
  And that's the other pieces that we need to see ourselves as work
• 8:30
  in progress. We need to give ourselves
• 8:33
  permission to make the mistakes because a lot of the time,
• 8:35
  again, we're thinking, oh, we should never make mistakes or we
• 8:39
  should never fail. But I do believe that we need to
• 8:43
  see where we could potentially be in a discomfort zone because
• 8:48
  we don't know how to do it. And that's where if we can
• 8:52
  achieve a little bit of failure, we can learn so much from it and
• 8:56
  then we are much, much, much stronger.
• 8:58
  Yeah, I mean, two quotes there, right?
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  One is we learn so much from failing when I think most
• 9:05
  people, myself included, have this fear of failure.
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  Like what does it mean about me if I fail?
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  There's like an ego conversation there that's scary, frankly.
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  And flipping that around, because if we learn the most
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  from failing, which agree, the natural next step would be I'm
• 9:21
  going to fail as much as possible.
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  Yes, exactly. Versus I'm scared to fail.
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  Say I'm gonna fail as much as possible so that I can learn the
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  most and I can move the furthest.
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  Absolutely. And I love what you said because
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  we definitely need to deflect the association between failure
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  and ourselves because highly likely there is a process that
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  we're trying to understand how it works, a set of steps.
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  And then we come back and we say, OK, if we sit down and we
• 9:49
  were consulting with a client that has gone through the same
• 9:52
  experience, we're going to try to see if we can unpack the
• 9:55
  steps and see where we might be able to optimize, maybe do
• 9:59
  things differently next time. But definitely it has nothing to
• 10:02
  do with the horse and everything to do with the race.
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  And that way you you re energize your ability to go at it again
• 10:11
  and go at it again. The other quote I wrote down as
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  you were talking is giving ourselves permission to make
• 10:16
  mistakes. And it's really the same thing,
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  right? It's saying like because there's
• 10:21
  a for me personally, I'm, I have that perfectionist in me.
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  It's ingrained in me that I get self worth and confidence from
• 10:29
  accomplishment doing well. And it's completely counter to
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  this whole point. Without a doubt.
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  It holds. I know it holds me back right.
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  If I'm just being honest with myself, I know my desire to be
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  perfect, desire to get it right, holds me back in probably every
• 10:46
  area of my life. And again, maybe there's
• 10:48
  something underlying all of that where what if I actually do
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  succeed? So you may be basically revving
• 10:56
  the engine with the intention that I'm trying to figure out
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  the engine and then I want to make sure when the engine goes
• 11:01
  out it's going to drive really well.
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  But maybe there is also fear of, again, as we said earlier,
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  sometimes we are afraid of succeeding actually, and that's
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  really where we may be spending some time over cycling in some
• 11:13
  area because we're avoiding the other one.
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  We talked about the fear of succeeding, being about losing
• 11:18
  relationships. I got to imagine the primary
• 11:20
  relationship we're scared of losing is our parents.
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  I think in that case with the for the parents, highly likely
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  they are the the only people in the universe who want to see you
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  succeed beyond measure. So I would actually think more
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  on the friends side, the siblings side, because again,
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  unfortunately, for some reason, as we said very early on, people
• 11:41
  are in that circle of comparison that is so limited.
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  So definitely one of the main ideas we have for our audience
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  today is broaden that circle so that you have more basis points
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  that you can compare yourself to.
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  And that gives us the freedom to say, Oh my goodness, I have
• 11:58
  these role models that are outside my circle to remind me
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  constantly to get out of that small limiting view of the
• 12:08
  world, that the world only consists of seven people.
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  I mean, that's ridiculous, you know, But then again, that's
• 12:15
  human beings. We, we are very human in that
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  fact. So we have to push the
• 12:19
  boundaries of how we think. I'm really curious what you just
• 12:22
  said about parents because I'm not a parent so I will preface
• 12:26
  that do not have children of my own so I cannot fully relate to
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  what the feelings are like as a parent.
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  And parents are human and imperfect and have their own ego
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  and insecurities and maybe resentments about their own
• 12:40
  lives or things they didn't accomplish.
• 12:43
  Do you not think some of that is subconsciously passed on to,
• 12:47
  let's say, a fear potentially, right?
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  Just one scenario, A fear that your son or daughter ends up
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  being more successful than you and you have resent.
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  You might have resentment towards them even though it's
• 12:58
  your child. It's possible, but it's I'm a
• 13:03
  parent of three daughters, so I can see, of course, to your
• 13:07
  point, there are a lot of things we don't know until we try them,
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  but I think the the percentage is much higher on the side where
• 13:15
  parents are ecstatic to see their kids doing even better.
• 13:19
  That is, I think you know what we can consider normal.
• 13:23
  There are cases, of course, where perhaps for one reason or
• 13:25
  another, we might see the other example you mentioned, which
• 13:29
  which hopefully would be rare because typically a child is one
• 13:33
  of their office spring and they want at least make sure that
• 13:36
  they are able to thrive on their own.
• 13:39
  Like the moment you got in a car and start driving and your
• 13:43
  parent is, you know, thinking and looking at you walking,
• 13:46
  driving away. Oh my God, Bradley is in a car
• 13:49
  driving by himself. And then, of course, you know,
• 13:52
  they pray for your safety. And it's like, oh, he's, he's on
• 13:55
  his own now. He can be self-sufficient,
• 13:58
  self-sustaining. And, and again, you pray for
• 14:00
  their safety and their success. And sometimes you have friends
• 14:04
  in your life would like that as well.
• 14:05
  You, they want the best for you. And a lot of the time, what's
• 14:09
  happening in their lives is also impacting their points of view,
• 14:12
  the economics and everything else.
• 14:14
  It's very interesting how when you think about something like
• 14:17
  COVID-19, how much of that was a big, huge disruptor that shifted
• 14:23
  a lot of mindsets and point of views.
• 14:26
  And I think if we think about our own lives, sometimes
• 14:29
  something happens and then it does shift our point of view.
• 14:32
  We talked about what we are scared of in being powerful as
• 14:35
  losing relationships. Are there other things we're
• 14:39
  also scared of in being successful and and powerful?
• 14:42
  That's a great point, and it comes a lot in coaching.
• 14:44
  When I'm coaching leaders, what we sometimes find is, you know,
• 14:48
  Bradley has been working as a project manager for, you know,
• 14:52
  seven years, achieved a lot of success, achieved a lot of
• 14:55
  recognition based on the fact that he's been an amazing
• 14:59
  project manager. And then one day you say to
• 15:02
  Bradley, hey Bradley, we want you to stop working as a project
• 15:05
  manager. We actually want you to start
• 15:07
  becoming a people leader, and you have a lot of people working
• 15:10
  for you. And then all of a sudden,
• 15:12
  Bradley sees this idea of shifting from something that
• 15:16
  he's very good at, very successful, and has built a lot
• 15:19
  of recognition. Now you're asking him to pretty
• 15:22
  much give up a racehorse that's been winning races and then put
• 15:27
  him in an area that is totally new to him.
• 15:30
  So sometimes also we are #1 we hate losing a winning stock and
• 15:37
  buying a stock that we do not know so much about.
• 15:40
  So a lot of these transitions is a is another source of fear for
• 15:43
  a lot of people because we don't know what's on the other side.
• 15:47
  So it's a bit similar to the idea of afraid of failing.
• 15:50
  But here it's almost like there's a double edged sword.
• 15:53
  I have to give up a win winning stock and go buy one that I'm
• 15:57
  not really sure how it's going to perform.
• 15:59
  OK, so number one is potential losing relationships. 2 is the
• 16:03
  uncertainty and fear of the unknown.
• 16:06
  Are there more here? You're also giving up assets
• 16:08
  that you built over time. Now you're walking away from it
• 16:11
  and you're going to have to start afresh with a whole other
• 16:15
  body of knowledge. Maybe it's the body of knowledge
• 16:17
  of leading others. That's a whole new field.
• 16:20
  There is that fear of am I going to be able to rebuild my system
• 16:25
  of success one more time? And I really want to double
• 16:29
  click on that for our customer, right, our listener who are
• 16:34
  fractional executives, independent consultants who were
• 16:36
  most likely almost all of them in corporate for 5/10/15 twenty
• 16:40
  years. Then they go out on their own.
• 16:43
  And even if they're performing a similar function, which most of
• 16:46
  them are, the way in which they're doing it is completely
• 16:50
  foreign, completely unknown, completely new.
• 16:54
  So it's like, can I replicate and even surpass the success
• 16:59
  even just financially performance wise, all of that
• 17:02
  that I was, if I were working at Uber or Google or whoever making
• 17:06
  a few 100 KA year doing great. Can I go out of my own and
• 17:11
  create the same success that I was in corporate?
• 17:15
  I think that's really what you're hitting on.
• 17:16
  Like can can I do that? And that's, that's scary.
• 17:20
  Yeah, very scary because of course when we're working inside
• 17:23
  a corporation, we have a whole lot of a support system around
• 17:26
  us. When we go out on our own, then
• 17:29
  all of a sudden we're at right, You know that that single
• 17:33
  individual is the marketing department, the finance
• 17:36
  department, the professional services department, the PR
• 17:39
  department. I mean, you name it, it's just
• 17:41
  one person. I end up creating a structure
• 17:44
  based on my experience working in Deloitte as a management
• 17:46
  consultant and reading a lot of books by Tom Peters.
• 17:49
  And the structure may be helpful for some people listening to us
• 17:52
  where you end up essentially seeing yourself as a
• 17:55
  professional services firm of one, which most of our
• 17:58
  fractional audience members are. They are basically having a
• 18:02
  professional services organization of 1.
• 18:04
  So we basically then end up saying, OK, we need to have what
• 18:07
  I call the own it when it crush it model where we see ourselves
• 18:12
  as owning the fact that, okay, now I'm in business for myself,
• 18:15
  I am going to develop a responsible mindset.
• 18:18
  I am the only machine that motivates itself on a daily
• 18:21
  basis because if I don't open shop, I mean, how are my clients
• 18:25
  gonna find me? So that the first one is really
• 18:28
  coming up with a set of mindsets that help drive the business.
• 18:31
  Definitely seeing a responsible mindset is 1.
• 18:34
  An abundance mindset is another part of that, owning it.
• 18:37
  And then the third mindset is a management consultant mindset.
• 18:41
  Understanding what that means and learning a lot from the
• 18:44
  management consulting industry because a lot of people end up
• 18:47
  doing fractional consulting, Maybe they haven't worked in a
• 18:50
  management consulting environment before.
• 18:52
  So definitely belonging to management consulting
• 18:55
  associations is 1. But those mindsets are helpful
• 18:59
  because then it gives them a lot of a psychological boost that
• 19:03
  they need on a daily basis because you don't have others
• 19:05
  from the company or scheduling calls with you.
• 19:08
  You're the one who has to initiate action most of the
• 19:11
  time. Yeah.
• 19:12
  And then the the winning in part is building a body of knowledge
• 19:15
  where you see a lot of your expertise as a way of building
• 19:18
  some kind of a framework of a methodology that people see have
• 19:22
  something unique that you can bring to the tables.
• 19:24
  That's what I noticed when I was at Deloitte.
• 19:26
  I saw that a big part of how they made the money was creating
• 19:30
  these frameworks. Creating a body of knowledge
• 19:32
  that they can. And now of course, with Claude
• 19:34
  or ChatGPT, you're able to develop a branding as well
• 19:38
  around the framework that you used to conduct, let's say
• 19:41
  marketing as a fractional service or CFO or CIO.
• 19:45
  And then eventually crushing. It is when you do such a great
• 19:47
  job with each client, of course, you end up triggering this
• 19:51
  referenceability factor where each client would refer you word
• 19:55
  of mouth and other engines that you can automate that can then
• 20:00
  help you bring a lot more customers to you.
• 20:02
  Because I know how it is when you're dealing with one
• 20:04
  engagement, if you're not marketing for the next one, you
• 20:08
  finish one and then you have a dry spell and, and again you're,
• 20:11
  you're back at it again. So hopefully people can develop
• 20:14
  some type of a system where they can see an opportunity for them
• 20:18
  to chunk up some time to keep that flow of clients coming in.
• 20:22
  Yeah. And I'm going to challenge your
• 20:24
  hopefully and say like it's mandatory.
• 20:26
  Like I just actually recorded a podcast a few weeks ago about,
• 20:31
  you know, the people that I don't have time for business
• 20:33
  development. And I hear that just so often
• 20:36
  with this customer and it's just it's a non starter for your
• 20:40
  business. That's basically the oxygen for
• 20:42
  the business, yeah. And just to double click on it
• 20:45
  for a second, it is the thing that most of our customers are
• 20:50
  not practiced at. They're not B to B sales folks,
• 20:54
  they're not head of sales. They don't, they don't really
• 20:56
  know what sales and marketing really looks like it means and
• 21:00
  they're not great at it. And so they don't like it.
• 21:02
  And so it's the easy cop out of I'm really good at serving my
• 21:06
  clients. I'm really good at doing the
• 21:08
  things I love to do and know how to do.
• 21:10
  And so they say I don't have time.
• 21:12
  And the real answer is you're not making time because you're
• 21:16
  avoiding what is the oxygen for your business and it's just a
• 21:21
  non starter. Absolutely.
• 21:23
  And you know, I, I agree with you a lot of the time we we hear
• 21:26
  people saying, oh, I paid sales, take the label away from the
• 21:30
  converse, just basically call it a conversation.
• 21:33
  I'm going to be talking with Bradley.
• 21:36
  We're going to be exchanging some some ideas and maybe there
• 21:39
  is something that we can work on together.
• 21:41
  So let's just throw the word marketing sales out of the
• 21:45
  window and focus it more on you know what, I'm just going to
• 21:48
  have a conversation with Bradley and if the stars align, if
• 21:51
  there's something that we can work on together, great.
• 21:53
  You know what, I'll send them the statement of work and if
• 21:56
  they can get it approved, fantastic.
• 21:58
  So then mentally, I'm not really thinking about the sales, but
• 22:01
  it's more of a conversation. And that also makes it a whole
• 22:04
  lot easier for us to get into those conversations because
• 22:08
  what's so interesting, especially for fractional
• 22:11
  consultants, a lot of the time this is a business to business
• 22:15
  transaction. It's not a consumer transaction,
• 22:17
  which means higher likely companies have dollars for a lot
• 22:20
  of these services, whether it's the CIO service, CFO service and
• 22:24
  so forth. That we need to actually talk to
• 22:28
  ourselves more about the fact that these companies have so
• 22:31
  much money that they actually want to spend.
• 22:34
  Because otherwise, again, just like in our personal lives, we
• 22:37
  have to give it to the IRS. Instead, our government wants us
• 22:42
  to use these dollars to expand the economy by having more
• 22:47
  velocity of every dollar. So you're actually doing your
• 22:49
  client companies a service by giving them an opportunity to
• 22:54
  spend money. It's really more about, to your
• 22:57
  point Bradley, just talking through the conversations that
• 23:00
  are happening on the inside. It's an interpretation, Yeah,
• 23:05
  exactly. You are reframing the same
• 23:08
  thing, but you are coming with a completely different
• 23:11
  interpretation that feels empowering and aligned to you,
• 23:15
  right. Even a slightly different
• 23:17
  interpretation that I give is you gave the companies are
• 23:20
  looking to spend money, which they are.
• 23:23
  I'm going to say companies are are have problems that they're
• 23:26
  looking for you to solve. Sales is use.
• 23:30
  Yeah, you searching for the right problem to solve.
• 23:34
  That's all you're doing. Like do you have the problem I
• 23:36
  can solve for UK? Great.
• 23:37
  It's a perfect match. It's actually to that point
• 23:39
  where if you do see yourself as speaking to serve, if I'm
• 23:44
  speaking to serve, who's selling?
• 23:46
  Nobody's selling. Nobody.
• 23:48
  Nobody's selling, so I can see them.
• 23:51
  They're having a hard time figuring out what is the best
• 23:53
  architecture for AI and the finance department.
• 23:57
  Let's just have a conversation and if it looks like it's a
• 24:00
  piece of work that we need to work on together.
• 24:01
  Again, this whole other stuff about invoices, it's W, it's
• 24:04
  like it's noise. It's on the background.
• 24:07
  But to your point, I love what you said because it gets us
• 24:09
  focused on the fact that there is something they are struggling
• 24:12
  with and maybe you are the best gift for them.
• 24:16
  You're going to help them figure it out.
• 24:18
  And then you come in and you say, I'm going to partner up
• 24:21
  with you in in getting it done because as a fractional
• 24:24
  professional, you're very much a a management consultant that is
• 24:29
  partnering with them and you're having this strategic
• 24:32
  relationship with them. And hopefully you get to the
• 24:34
  point where you become a trusted advisor.
• 24:37
  Yeah. And then all of a sudden, the
• 24:38
  conversation about money is completely irrelevant because
• 24:41
  they take care of that on the background, especially if you
• 24:43
  get on a retainer. Then we don't talk about it as
• 24:46
  much anymore. It gets renewed.
• 24:48
  It's more of an e-mail renewal. And life is good.
• 24:51
  It it feels like it gives a permission of instead of OK, I'm
• 24:54
  going to spend 30 minutes today doing business development and
• 24:56
  sales. I'm going to spend 30 minutes
• 24:58
  today looking for a problem to solve for someone else.
• 25:02
  Like what? An invitation to me versus like,
• 25:06
  begrudgingly I have to do this thing that feels gross.
• 25:10
  Absolutely. And I think if you see it as, as
• 25:13
  you said you're helping them solve the problem, then it's all
• 25:16
  about alignment. If if what you've got the
• 25:18
  experience you have is aligned, awesome.
• 25:21
  Yeah. All right.
• 25:22
  I want to come back to your quote, the quote we ended with.
• 25:26
  It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens
• 25:28
  us. We ask ourselves, who am I to
• 25:32
  be? Brilliant, Gorgeous, talented,
• 25:34
  fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?
• 25:38
  You're playing small does not serve the world.
• 25:41
  There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other
• 25:44
  people won't feel insecure around you.
• 25:47
  We are all meant to shine as children.
• 25:48
  Do I think this is so powerful? I'll just turn it to you.
• 25:53
  Like what part of this part of the quote what stands out to
• 25:56
  you? I love the piece where you know
• 25:58
  somebody sees Bradley on LinkedIn and and and they send
• 26:01
  them a message to Bradley. I love your journey.
• 26:03
  I'd love to learn more. The more we push the boundaries
• 26:06
  and achieve more, the more we will be sought after in the
• 26:11
  light of we become actually mentors to others.
• 26:14
  We can help others. We can help others expand their
• 26:17
  wings. So I think being in that place
• 26:19
  where you are the person that's helping another person expanded
• 26:23
  wearing wings and helping them see that they have a much bigger
• 26:27
  potential. My goodness, I mean, that is
• 26:29
  that would be the next stage to your point.
• 26:32
  But once we see ourselves as pushing the boundaries and
• 26:35
  achieving a lot more, we basically quiet down the voice
• 26:39
  that are telling us who do you think you are, You know, picking
• 26:41
  up the phone and calling Bank of America.
• 26:44
  When we quiet down those voices and we definitely push the
• 26:48
  boundaries and achieve success. And then all of a sudden we have
• 26:52
  the ability to then inspire others.
• 26:55
  It's unbelievable. And I think inspiring others
• 26:57
  happens even without us knowing because people see the journey
• 27:01
  you've been on and say, Oh my goodness, if Bradley has been
• 27:03
  able to do that, that's very inspiring.
• 27:06
  Let me ask him a few questions about how he how did he do those
• 27:09
  things? And that's very inspiring.
• 27:12
  I think becoming inspiring is a whole other goal that we need to
• 27:17
  be, and I think it's comes from a kindness mindset where you
• 27:22
  feel so much gratitude that you feel that part of expressing
• 27:26
  that gratitude is by giving. So this hits perfectly on the
• 27:29
  quote of you're playing small does not serve the world because
• 27:34
  even if I do accomplish a lot, but I choose not to share it,
• 27:39
  then it doesn't do what you're talking about.
• 27:41
  It doesn't inspire anybody because there's stories not out
• 27:44
  there. Being small creates that idea
• 27:47
  that you're not sharing right, Right Hiding right.
• 27:52
  So there's an element of I get to get out of my own way so that
• 28:00
  I can share my story and what I mean by that.
• 28:02
  And for anyone listening, I know I'm sure you get it, but for
• 28:04
  anyone listening who doesn't follow that, it is the
• 28:07
  insecurity that I might have or the self promotion conversation
• 28:13
  of I don't want to be, you know, promoting what I've done on
• 28:16
  LinkedIn or wherever. I get to let that go and put it
• 28:20
  to the side and share my story authentically, genuinely anyway
• 28:24
  because it might inspire 123510 people.
• 28:28
  And I get to get over my stuff so that I can create that
• 28:33
  opportunity. Absolutely.
• 28:35
  And, and there are a lot of people listening to us who set
• 28:39
  up shop as a fractional CEO, a fractional CMO and so on who
• 28:45
  think that they should never make mistakes in front of the
• 28:48
  clients. They should 100% buttoned up.
• 28:52
  And I actually argue that we should think unconventionally.
• 28:56
  Allow yourself to actually be more authentic and say something
• 29:00
  like there are three areas of analysis here.
• 29:04
  We finished two areas. There's one area that we're
• 29:06
  still stuck on. Just show a little bit of
• 29:08
  vulnerability with the client so they can see that you are
• 29:11
  actually just like them. You're not perfect.
• 29:15
  So if they are not perfect, they will actually open up and share
• 29:18
  with you that there is an imperfection in their process
• 29:22
  that they would love for you to help them with.
• 29:25
  So I would basically say find an elegant way.
• 29:27
  Of course, we don't want to look like completely, you know,
• 29:30
  messed up and we don't know what we're doing, but showing a
• 29:33
  little bit of a difficulty that we've been in or a challenge
• 29:39
  that we're facing and speaking about it, giving it voice.
• 29:42
  The client then sees, Oh my God, Bradley is just like me.
• 29:46
  I mean, he's struggling with the same stuff I'm struggling with.
• 29:48
  You know what, let me schedule lunch with Bradley because I
• 29:51
  want to talk to him about XYZ project.
• 29:54
  I am incredibly surprised of the time by what clients come to
• 29:59
  talk to me about completely because of the fact that you're
• 30:03
  really coming across a bit more human, a bit more like them, and
• 30:07
  not an imperfectionist who would only send them the PowerPoint if
• 30:11
  it's 100% perfect. Let them know that you're
• 30:15
  willing to embrace progress and not so much perfection, because
• 30:20
  that's also is in the best interest of the business.
• 30:23
  What I'm hearing you say is you're inviting them into the
• 30:26
  vulnerability with you by leading with it yourself.
• 30:29
  Exactly, absolutely, absolutely. Because fact of the matter is
• 30:33
  we've been in these corporate settings, we understand nobody
• 30:36
  is perfect. So if you if you soften your
• 30:42
  approach so they feel like you're comfortable with the fact
• 30:45
  that you could sometimes make mistakes or don't have
• 30:49
  everything buttoned up 100%, that tells them that you are
• 30:53
  just one of them. Yes, they expect you to be at a
• 30:56
  higher level of service because you're a management consultant
• 30:59
  and you're doing fractional consulting.
• 31:01
  Absolutely yes. But also see a way where you can
• 31:05
  soften the vibe and let them know that yes, sometimes we make
• 31:10
  some mistakes. But you know what?
• 31:11
  Rest assured that as soon as we identify an issue, we we address
• 31:15
  it, we jump on it, we take care of it.
• 31:17
  Yeah, the next part of this quote is I'm like using this as
• 31:21
  a guide for our conversation. I love.
• 31:23
  It Yeah. I just, I love the quote so
• 31:25
  much. And as we let our own light
• 31:28
  shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the
• 31:32
  same. As we are liberated from our own
• 31:34
  fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
• 31:38
  Without a doubt, yeah. I mean, even if we think about
• 31:40
  our small town or our small family, if you have a nephew or
• 31:44
  a cousin looking at you and seeing you struggle and then
• 31:47
  seeing you come through the waves, I mean, that is so
• 31:50
  inspiring. And again, we don't.
• 31:51
  Sometimes we won't even know about it and that's OK and
• 31:55
  that's OK. So so to your point, then you
• 31:57
  need to give permission to Bradley.
• 32:00
  And that's all we have to think about is we think about
• 32:02
  ourselves. We give up ourselves permission
• 32:05
  to push the boundaries. Maybe that is a bigger level of
• 32:08
  success that I can do because maybe in so doing, someone else
• 32:12
  is going to see that and be inspired.
• 32:15
  By it, I think it's so powerful to lead with vulnerability, to
• 32:20
  show up big, get out of your own way, and you don't at all
• 32:25
  realize the ripple effect that you're creating.
• 32:27
  And that's the magical part. That's the magical part for
• 32:31
  sure. I love this podcast to be as
• 32:33
  practical and actionable as possible for everyone listening.
• 32:37
  So we've talked about, honestly, some of my favorite concepts
• 32:40
  here that I continue to work on every day.
• 32:42
  I'm not going to pretend like I have this all nailed down,
• 32:44
  right? I certainly don't.
• 32:47
  What are some steps, like actionable steps that our
• 32:50
  listeners can take as their maybe resonating with this
• 32:53
  conversation? Maybe they identify with playing
• 32:55
  small fear driven conversation. Don't do the things they need to
• 32:58
  be doing or know they need to be doing.
• 33:00
  What should they do? Definitely, I'd recommend.
• 33:03
  I love the idea of a reset and the idea of a reset, especially
• 33:06
  for someone who's running their own consulting business, is give
• 33:09
  yourself permission to get together with yourself this
• 33:13
  Friday. And then basically say if I were
• 33:16
  to kick it up a notch across all the dials, what would Gicki
• 33:20
  Banach look like by looking at how are we are building our
• 33:25
  brand, how are branding ourselves, the framework that
• 33:28
  we're using, can we actually take it to the next level?
• 33:32
  If you look at your customer conversations, are you investing
• 33:36
  time talking to your customer? Are you investing time talking
• 33:38
  to your customer enough? Are you scheduling time with
• 33:41
  your customer where you get together with your with your
• 33:44
  client and say I'd love to do a check in what's working, what's
• 33:49
  not working? What could be better?
• 33:51
  I mean, sometimes the most basic things, but it will take their
• 33:55
  practice from one level to another.
• 33:57
  How do you likely on Friday if they come up with 10 ideas and
• 34:01
  pursue them and do this every single week.
• 34:04
  We can of course imagine the compounding effect of that
• 34:08
  meeting with self and the opportunity to say, if I were to
• 34:11
  kick it up a notch next week, what would that look like?
• 34:14
  If you're able to proactively reach out to a client and say, I
• 34:17
  sent this, this report, I haven't heard back.
• 34:21
  I realize it may be a little bit difficult for some people to
• 34:25
  digest some of the information. You know what I'm going to do?
• 34:27
  I'm going to set up a call when I walk you through it and here's
• 34:31
  how I'm going to walk you through it.
• 34:32
  And then you bring a deck that explains ideas so clearly that
• 34:36
  they think you have basically opened up their eyes and helped
• 34:40
  them see the information in a whole lot different way than
• 34:44
  they would have on their own. So there's definitely always an
• 34:47
  opportunity for us to say, if I kick it up a notch, what would I
• 34:50
  do? And I love being a management
• 34:52
  consultant or fractional consultant because you are in
• 34:56
  this position where the more you do so well with your clients,
• 35:00
  the highly the likelihood that they will get do more business
• 35:04
  with you or become a reference. And this idea of reference
• 35:08
  stability is the best lesson I got out of the voyage, this idea
• 35:12
  of making sure that every piece of work is an ad in and of
• 35:16
  itself. It's going to do more for you.
• 35:19
  So don't worry about the money they're paying you for it.
• 35:22
  Make sure it's going to be incredibly good that whoever
• 35:26
  touches it will ask the question, who did this?
• 35:28
  And then they say, Bradley, oh, you know, do you have the
• 35:32
  contact information? So that piece of work is an
• 35:35
  opportunity for you to create a flying wheel effect of the
• 35:39
  quality of the work that you do. And that's what for anybody in
• 35:42
  that business management consulting, I mean, you want
• 35:45
  every piece to be in and of itself an opportunity to
• 35:48
  advertise your work by virtue of the quality of the work that
• 35:51
  you're doing. Every piece of work, especially
• 35:54
  if I am serving Cisco or Google or Uber, I have to do so well
• 35:58
  because who knows, maybe another senior director sees it or
• 36:03
  another VP sees it and says, can you come work with us?
• 36:07
  Because they are such big companies.
• 36:09
  Cisco's more than 70,000. Can you imagine how many
• 36:12
  managers are there? How many directors, how many
• 36:14
  senior directors, how many VPS? So that's why if you think about
• 36:18
  the multiplied effect of your work and then make sure that you
• 36:22
  embed the quality that you want to speak for itself.
• 36:25
  And that's, that's huge. We're going to wrap up here in a
• 36:28
  minute or two, but is there any piece of wisdom or advice or
• 36:33
  just a thought you want to leave our audience with today?
• 36:36
  If if anybody listening to us does not have a group of people
• 36:40
  that they consider their master class of experts that they work
• 36:44
  with, highly likely I recommend that they get together with a
• 36:48
  few others from different disciplines and maybe leverage
• 36:51
  that as a way to help them build momentum.
• 36:53
  Because it gets lonely when you are working by yourself.
• 36:57
  Highly recommend that they try to find a set of professionals
• 37:01
  that they can get together on a regular basis.
• 37:04
  I love that, so important. Yeah.
• 37:06
  If our audience, anyone in the audience, wants to find you, we
• 37:10
  can put the links in the show notes.
• 37:11
  But where is the best place to find you?
• 37:13
  The best place is LinkedIn of course, and then one of the
• 37:17
  websites is communicate with clarity.co.
• 37:20
  That's where people will find out about the different
• 37:22
  programs. And of course one of the
• 37:24
  opportunities available is for people to leverage a a
• 37:27
  complimentary one-on-one coaching call with me if they'd
• 37:30
  like to. Happy to do that because we're
• 37:32
  kindred spirits if we're working and consulting.
• 37:34
  We all are in the same boat. So happy to do that as well.
• 37:38
  Amazing. I asked about actionable steps
• 37:40
  people can take, and one of those to me is working with a
• 37:42
  coach. I mean, I work with a coach.
• 37:44
  I think everyone really needs to to see my blind spots, help me
• 37:48
  prioritize making sure I'm working the right things,
• 37:50
  limiting beliefs, all of it. It's like, I think it's the most
• 37:54
  important thing. Every every single professional
• 37:56
  has a coach. Why shouldn't I?
• 37:58
  Exactly has superstars. Yeah, yeah, every every single
• 38:02
  professional athlete. So Ash, thank you so much for
• 38:05
  being on the show. I love this conversation and
• 38:07
  just a huge value add so. Thank you so much.
• 38:09
  Really enjoyed it. Thank you so much, Bradley.
• 38:11
  Really appreciate it.