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Best of 2025, Part 2 · Something Extra

0:02
Lisa Nichols: Welcome back to the Something Extra podcast.
0:04
Lisa Nichols: I'm Lisa Nichols, and I'm so grateful for the leaders who joined us last
0:08
Lisa Nichols: year.
0:09
Lisa Nichols: In the second collection, we revisit more standout conversations.
0:13
Lisa Nichols: Gary Baker offered a powerful perspective on a love people approach.
0:17
Lisa Nichols: Where Schultz pushed us to never settle for anything less than excellence.
0:21
Lisa Nichols: And Joni Eareckson Tada inspired us with her faith, resilience, and
0:25
Lisa Nichols: calling to serve others.
0:27
Lisa Nichols: These are stories worth hearing again.
0:29
Lisa Nichols: Here is part two of our best of twenty twenty five.
0:33
Lisa Nichols: In this conversation, Lorraine Heywood, CEO and founder of Augustine
0:37
Lisa Nichols: Talent Group, explains how she assesses cultural fit using a
0:41
Lisa Nichols: proprietary behavioral analysis that emphasizes the importance of
0:45
Lisa Nichols: aligning a candidate's hardwired behavior with the team's makeup.
0:50
Lisa Nichols: Let me ask you this because sometimes,
0:53
Lisa Nichols: it's not just you've gotta have the competencies.
0:57
Lisa Nichols: That's table stakes.
0:58
Lisa Nichols: Right?
0:58
Lisa Nichols: You've gotta have the competencies.
1:00
Lisa Nichols: But what we see is every organization, Lorraine, has a different culture.
1:05
Lorraine Heywood: Yes.
1:06
Lisa Nichols: Has a different culture.
1:07
Lisa Nichols: So and then sometimes why people do not work out is because
1:11
Lisa Nichols: it just was not a good cultural fit, and it could be from either
1:15
Lisa Nichols: side.
1:15
Lisa Nichols: Right?
1:16
Lisa Nichols: So what are some of the ways that you assess that piece?
1:19
Lisa Nichols: Good alignment there with culture.
1:22
Lorraine Heywood: Thank you for asking that.
1:23
Lorraine Heywood: So that's where I'm gonna go back to what we call a talent selfie,
1:25
Lorraine Heywood: which is our behavioral analysis, which is how people are wired.
1:29
Lorraine Heywood: So not only do our candidates take it, but we but our clients take
1:33
Lorraine Heywood: it as well.
1:33
Lorraine Heywood: So our clients take it and we have them take it by departments and
1:36
Lorraine Heywood: we build what's called a quilt.
1:38
Lorraine Heywood: So it shows how they measure and then we compare the candidates
1:42
Lorraine Heywood: to the quilts.
1:43
Lorraine Heywood: So we're first starting with, do they behave alike?
1:45
Lorraine Heywood: Do they think alike?
1:46
Lorraine Heywood: Are they wired like and what we found a lot of times, which is
1:49
Lorraine Heywood: interesting when we've gone into some of our clients and had them all take
1:53
Lorraine Heywood: the test and build these quilts, that they maybe had someone in sales who
1:56
Lorraine Heywood: wasn't wired to be in sales, and they were failing.
1:58
Lorraine Heywood: But then we would so like, I'll be using one client as an example.
2:02
Lorraine Heywood: They weren't good at business development, but they fit the quilt of an IR,
2:05
Lorraine Heywood: and then they moved over and they started succeeding and flourishing because
2:10
Lorraine Heywood: that was the seat that was better aligned.
2:12
Lorraine Heywood: So that's one of the ways we try to do with the culture.
2:15
Lorraine Heywood: Right?
2:15
Lorraine Heywood: Is, first of all, are you aligned?
2:17
Lorraine Heywood: Or do you behave and are you wired in a way that fits the
2:20
Lorraine Heywood: team?
2:21
Lorraine Heywood: And then we believe in multiple interviews.
2:23
Lorraine Heywood: We believe in a Zoom first to kinda get to know you.
2:26
Lorraine Heywood: And as I mentioned, part of our package we send to our clients is
2:29
Lorraine Heywood: we we record our interviews.
2:32
Lorraine Heywood: We have a list of questions so you can see the behaviors.
2:35
Lorraine Heywood: And my favorite question is, what questions do you have for us?
2:38
Lorraine Heywood: Because you learn a lot about the questions they ask you.
2:41
Lorraine Heywood: And then we encourage our clients, let's do a Zoom first, then an in
2:45
Lorraine Heywood: person.
2:45
Lorraine Heywood: And we also encourage a social, which could be a lunch, a happy hour,
2:49
Lorraine Heywood: or dinner.
2:50
Lorraine Heywood: But get the whole team out and let them interview, not the the
2:54
Lorraine Heywood: candidate as well.
2:55
Lorraine Heywood: Do we all align?
2:57
Lorraine Heywood: Or do we have things in common?
2:58
Lorraine Heywood: Do I want to spend forty, fifty hours a week with this person?
3:03
Lorraine Heywood: Instead of just like, we don't just send a resume.
3:05
Lorraine Heywood: We send all of this data that says, hey.
3:09
Lorraine Heywood: We believe this person not only has the competencies as you were speaking to,
3:13
Lorraine Heywood: they have the EQ, and they match your culture.
3:17
Lorraine Heywood: Not do people surprise us?
3:18
Lorraine Heywood: Sometimes, but with all that data, we get it right more often than we're wrong.
3:23
Lisa Nichols: More often than not. Yeah.
3:24
Lisa Nichols: That is so good.
3:25
Lisa Nichols: That is so good.
3:28
Lisa Nichols: Let me ask you this.
3:29
Lisa Nichols: You know, what are some of the most common
3:33
Lisa Nichols: hiring mistakes that you see from from the organization,
3:39
Lisa Nichols: standpoint?
3:39
Lisa Nichols: You know, not hiring you?
3:42
Lorraine Heywood: Not hiring me, that's the first one.
3:43
Lorraine Heywood: Absolutely.
3:44
Lorraine Heywood: Or hiring you on the technology side.
3:47
Lorraine Heywood: But other than that, they hire too fast.
3:50
Lorraine Heywood: I do believe in a gut feeling, Lisa, and I think people should go
3:53
Lorraine Heywood: with their guts.
3:54
Lorraine Heywood: But sometimes, especially when you're looking at people in business development
3:58
Lorraine Heywood: at all levels, they're known salespeople, so they can ace an interview.
4:03
Lorraine Heywood: I also believe sometimes and this is not a knock by any means on
4:07
Lorraine Heywood: education with anybody.
4:08
Lorraine Heywood: But sometimes people too put too much emphasis
4:11
Lorraine Heywood: on the school they went to or their GPA.
4:14
Lorraine Heywood: I know in certain fields, it's very important, but there are a lot of
4:18
Lorraine Heywood: people who just couldn't afford it.
4:19
Lorraine Heywood: I actually prefer someone who worked all through college because that shows
4:24
Lorraine Heywood: tenacity.
4:24
Lorraine Heywood: It shows the ability to multitask and things like that.
4:27
Lorraine Heywood: So I think it's one, too fast,
4:30
Lorraine Heywood: not doing enough research on the back end and not asking the tough questions.
4:34
Lorraine Heywood: I've said in some of my clients' interviews who just dance around, of course,
4:38
Lorraine Heywood: everything correctly within the law, but dance around tough questions
4:43
Lorraine Heywood: because they don't wanna offend someone or maybe get don't want the answer
4:47
Lorraine Heywood: to be no.
4:48
Lorraine Heywood: So you have to ask the questions that really dig into who they are,
4:52
Lorraine Heywood: what they're looking for, but where they've been and why they make the why
4:56
Lorraine Heywood: they made the decisions they made.
5:01
Lisa Nichols: In this clip, we learned that Gary Baker founded Undivided Wealth because he
5:05
Lisa Nichols: realized the financial advisory industry was missing the people part, leading
5:09
Lisa Nichols: him to create a holistic guide, helping clients use their wealth to truly
5:13
Lisa Nichols: live life and achieve fulfillment.
5:15
Lisa Nichols: You founded Undivided Wealth, and I just want to know,
5:20
Lisa Nichols: like, what sparked that leap.
5:21
Lisa Nichols: And I think, you know, I know what it is, but I'd love for
5:25
Lisa Nichols: you to tell our listeners.
5:26
Lisa Nichols: And it it goes back to a lot of what you just talked about
5:29
Lisa Nichols: and being able to help people.
5:31
Gary Baker: Yeah.
5:31
Gary Baker: And so what what you'll hear a lot of financial advisors talk about when
5:34
Gary Baker: they meet with their clients is they say, we talk about the markets or
5:37
Gary Baker: what's going on in portfolios, etcetera, for about ten minutes, and then we start
5:41
Gary Baker: talking about their life for the rest of the time.
5:43
Gary Baker: And and that that's a very true statement.
5:46
Gary Baker: And the reason why you only talk about ten minutes is because most people
5:48
Gary Baker: think, well, I don't know that.
5:50
Gary Baker: I don't care to know that.
5:51
Gary Baker: That's why I'm actually working with you so you guys can figure those things
5:54
Gary Baker: out.
5:54
Gary Baker: And I don't wanna be bored for the next sixty minutes or ninety minutes
5:57
Gary Baker: or whatever it is.
5:58
Lisa Nichols: Right.
5:59
Gary Baker: But then what happens is this is also a unique factor of being a
6:01
Gary Baker: financial advisor is it's one of the occupations that you actually meet with a
6:05
Gary Baker: client at least, you know, on a quarterly basis over a long
6:09
Gary Baker: extended period of time.
6:11
Gary Baker: So when you meet somebody over a quarterly basis, over a long extended period
6:14
Gary Baker: of time, and they're talking about something that's very private and sensitive to them,
6:18
Gary Baker: their money, they're also open now to talk about everything else
6:22
Gary Baker: that is going on in their life.
6:23
Gary Baker: And anything that they want to do that has real significant meaning, at some
6:27
Gary Baker: point in time, is gonna cost some level of money.
6:29
Gary Baker: So it starts to bridge that gap, you know, funding education, you know, just
6:32
Gary Baker: whatever the it may be.
6:34
Gary Baker: And so what I realized is, well, what our industry is missing
6:38
Gary Baker: is the people part, the the human part.
6:41
Gary Baker: And so if, back to that time, we're spending ten minutes on the financials,
6:45
Gary Baker: great.
6:46
Gary Baker: Nail that.
6:47
Gary Baker: Be a black belt in that.
6:48
Gary Baker: Understand it.
6:49
Gary Baker: But then also nail and be a black belt in the things that matter
6:52
Gary Baker: most to them, which is the other sixty minutes.
6:55
Gary Baker: So if you can get become skilled at understanding who they are, why
6:59
Gary Baker: they exist, what they want to accomplish, where they want to accomplish it, what
7:03
Gary Baker: do they wanna leave back.
7:03
Gary Baker: If you can actually become a guide on that side of the equation, in
7:07
Gary Baker: addition to the monetary guide well, to me, that's the dream.
7:11
Gary Baker: To everybody else, it's like, whatever.
7:12
Gary Baker: Glad you're happy doing that.
7:14
Gary Baker: But, I mean, that's been my dream since I was eighteen and t hankfully,
7:17
Gary Baker: I've just spun it into what it is today.
7:19
Lisa Nichols: I love it.
7:20
Lisa Nichols: I love it.
7:21
Lisa Nichols: Well, let me ask you this.
7:23
Lisa Nichols: You created the U ndivided E xperience C enter
7:25
Gary Baker: Yep.
7:26
Lisa Nichols: From scratch.
7:26
Lisa Nichols: I've been there multiple times for events.
7:29
Lisa Nichols: What was the vision behind that, Gary?
7:32
Gary Baker: So perfect.
7:32
Gary Baker: So,
7:34
Gary Baker: what I've always envisioned is I don't wanna help people think about life.
7:38
Gary Baker: I wanna have people live life.
7:40
Gary Baker: And so, you know, if you think about our building, you know, ten thousand
7:43
Gary Baker: square feet, twenty five hundred of it is the wealth management part.
7:46
Gary Baker: So we we cover their investment plan, we cover their financial plan, and then
7:49
Gary Baker: in their financial plan, they start to give us the things that they want
7:53
Gary Baker: to accomplish in life.
7:54
Gary Baker: Well, great.
7:55
Gary Baker: How do I do that?
7:56
Gary Baker: How do I start my business?
7:57
Gary Baker: How do I sell my business?
7:58
Gary Baker: How do I change my career?
7:59
Gary Baker: How do I, you know, you know, lead lead my company better?
8:02
Gary Baker: How do I give back to the community?
8:04
Gary Baker: All the how do I do and live the important things of life
8:08
Gary Baker: start to come up.
8:10
Gary Baker: Well then I said, this is great.
8:11
Gary Baker: Let's build an experience center that allows them to have a taste
8:15
Gary Baker: of that experience of something they want to do.
8:17
Gary Baker: It becomes like a catalyst.
8:19
Gary Baker: So if they wanna try something, great.
8:21
Gary Baker: Let's put it into the plan, understand it, but then let's just literally walk
8:24
Gary Baker: out of our wealth management doors and into our experience center doors and put
8:28
Gary Baker: it into practice.
8:29
Gary Baker: Make a connection.
8:30
Gary Baker: Launch a business, you know, change your career.
8:32
Gary Baker: Meet with one of our life consultants or, you know, business consultants or what
8:35
Gary Baker: have you.
8:36
Gary Baker: Let's put it into action.
8:39
Gary Baker: So I care more about people I care more about I do care about
8:43
Gary Baker: how much money someone has, of course.
8:44
Gary Baker: Right?
8:45
Gary Baker: And I want to grow that, of course.
8:47
Gary Baker: But I care ten times more what they can do with it and
8:51
Gary Baker: what that money can do frankly for others.
8:53
Gary Baker: So it's not even just what it can do for them.
8:55
Gary Baker: That's the first step.
8:55
Gary Baker: That's the success part.
8:57
Gary Baker: But the fulfillment part is but what can that success then do
9:01
Gary Baker: for others?
9:02
Gary Baker: And that's when the fulfillment comes in.
9:04
Gary Baker: So if we can do all of that in one place.
9:09
Lisa Nichols: In our next clip, Matt Nicolls, chief digital innovation officer at Technology
9:13
Lisa Nichols: Partners, discusses the relentless pace of change in IT,
9:17
Lisa Nichols: emphasizing that while AI is the immediate focus, the massive seven
9:22
Lisa Nichols: trillion infrastructure investment needed to support AI's demand is
9:26
Lisa Nichols: the critical future challenge.
9:27
Lisa Nichols: Your team has been really blessed.
9:29
Lisa Nichols: You've worked with billion dollar enterprises, designing, building custom solutions
9:34
Lisa Nichols: that power the backbone of operations.
9:36
Lisa Nichols: Iconic brands, really iconic brands, Matt, from
9:40
Lisa Nichols: Mastercard I know.
9:41
Lisa Nichols: To Panera Bread to, you know, oil pipelines
9:46
Lisa Nichols: and power grids.
9:47
Lisa Nichols: I mean, truly, you guys have worked with some of the best teams out
9:51
Lisa Nichols: there.
9:51
Lisa Nichols: It has been really a blessing.
9:54
Lisa Nichols: But I wanna get into more about what your team is doing today,
9:58
Lisa Nichols: and so I've got lots of questions for you.
10:04
Lisa Nichols: Really, you know, everything in IT if you're in
10:08
Lisa Nichols: IT, there's one thing we can all agree on.
10:11
Lisa Nichols: The change is incredible.
10:14
Lisa Nichols: The rapid pace by which technology is
10:18
Lisa Nichols: is changing.
10:19
Lisa Nichols: Lightspeed.
10:20
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
10:21
Lisa Nichols: AI, cybersecurity, infrastructure, modernization.
10:25
Lisa Nichols: So let me ask you this.
10:27
Lisa Nichols: What are you scrambling to get ahead of right now?
10:30
Matt Nicolls: You're a hundred percent right about constant change.
10:34
Matt Nicolls: If you ever have,
10:36
Matt Nicolls: a vision in your mind as a as a young professional that in IT,
10:39
Matt Nicolls: you're gonna get to a point where you can just be settled and be
10:42
Matt Nicolls: in a leadership position and and coast that will never happen.
10:47
Matt Nicolls: I remember when my dad told me, I brought him some new technology,
10:51
Matt Nicolls: and, he said, you know, I'm just kinda tired of learning new things.
10:55
Matt Nicolls: Like, well, you're done then.
10:56
Matt Nicolls: You're done, bro.
10:57
Lisa Nichols: Right.
10:58
Matt Nicolls: So you you you always have to be ready ready for that change.
11:03
Matt Nicolls: And, you know, what's what I'm really excited about, what I'm really focused on
11:07
Matt Nicolls: the big change ahead of us, you know, obviously, AI is top of the
11:10
Matt Nicolls: heap.
11:11
Matt Nicolls: Everybody's figuring out how they can, leverage AI the best in a in a
11:15
Matt Nicolls: in a responsible way, right, a safe way, secure way, but
11:19
Matt Nicolls: really harness that power.
11:21
Matt Nicolls: I remember the first time I used, GPT when it came out,
11:25
Matt Nicolls: and I'm my first thought was, this is gonna change the world more
11:29
Matt Nicolls: than the Internet.
11:32
Matt Nicolls: Mhmm.
11:32
Matt Nicolls: Things are gonna be completely different.
11:34
Matt Nicolls: And, but what a lot of people aren't thinking about is the
11:39
Matt Nicolls: infrastructure that it's gonna take to support the demand for AI.
11:42
Matt Nicolls: The compute needs for AI is, it's very, very expensive,
11:47
Matt Nicolls: and the the demand is going through the roof.
11:50
Matt Nicolls: So when you think about the data centers that we're gonna have to build,
11:53
Matt Nicolls: to support the demand in our country alone, we're gonna have to double
11:58
Matt Nicolls: in the next four, four and a half years, double that, which is gonna
12:01
Matt Nicolls: be hundreds and hundreds of data centers, which means a lot of construction
12:05
Matt Nicolls: and, cooling.
12:07
Matt Nicolls: How are we gonna cool the data centers?
12:08
Matt Nicolls: We gotta get water there.
12:09
Matt Nicolls: We gotta get power there.
12:12
Matt Nicolls: We have to manufacture chips.
12:14
Matt Nicolls: There's a a seven a seven trillion dollar investment in this level
12:18
Matt Nicolls: of infrastructure.
12:19
Matt Nicolls: Trillion with a t.
12:22
Matt Nicolls: Now we need the the companies to to be able to step up and
12:25
Matt Nicolls: do that.
12:25
Matt Nicolls: We need those infrastructure companies to be able to step up and do that.
12:28
Matt Nicolls: And so I wanna take everything that I've learned and everything that my team's
12:32
Matt Nicolls: done over the years.
12:34
Matt Nicolls: And by the way, going back to your comment earlier about good teams If
12:37
Matt Nicolls: I had a hundred dollars, I would bet all one hundred dollars on my
12:40
Matt Nicolls: team because they're they're they're so good.
12:43
Matt Nicolls: They're so good. I'm so proud of them.
12:44
Lisa Nichols: They are so good.
12:45
Lisa Nichols: Best of the best.
12:46
Matt Nicolls: But I wanna take everything we've learned.
12:48
Matt Nicolls: How can we how can we use digital innovation to support
12:52
Matt Nicolls: those infrastructure efforts that are gonna support the new critical
12:56
Matt Nicolls: infrastructure?
12:57
Matt Nicolls: The new critical infrastructure
12:59
Matt Nicolls: is AI in those data centers.
13:01
Matt Nicolls: Because if those go down,
13:04
Matt Nicolls: every business in our country will, in one way or another, be
13:07
Lisa Nichols: It's gonna be affected.
13:08
Matt Nicolls: It's gonna be affected.
13:09
Matt Nicolls: Right.
13:10
Lisa Nichols: Absolutely.
13:11
Lisa Nichols: Absolutely.
13:12
Matt Nicolls: So if you think about the the critical infrastructure that's gonna support
13:16
Matt Nicolls: the critical infrastructure, That's where our focus is right now.
13:19
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
13:20
Lisa Nichols: And I've got a lot more questions around that, and I'm excited to talk
13:24
Lisa Nichols: about it more.
13:26
Lisa Nichols: Matt, you have said that nothing compares to the moment we're entering into right
13:30
Lisa Nichols: now.
13:30
Lisa Nichols: What do you mean by that?
13:31
Matt Nicolls: A hundred percent.
13:32
Matt Nicolls: Yeah.
13:33
Matt Nicolls: I mean, if you think about the technology arc that's happened since
13:37
Matt Nicolls: the creation of the wheel.
13:38
Matt Nicolls: Right?
13:39
Matt Nicolls: Wheel fast forward to the Internet, like,
13:43
Matt Nicolls: long time.
13:45
Matt Nicolls: The the arc between those two bits of technology, I think,
13:49
Matt Nicolls: may be less than the arc that we're about to experience in the very
13:53
Matt Nicolls: near future.
13:54
Matt Nicolls: Because if you think about AI,
13:58
Matt Nicolls: include robotics, of course And then quantum computing,
14:03
Matt Nicolls: you know, and nanobots, like, you marry those things together with with just
14:07
Matt Nicolls: some of the just some of the things we've heard about quantum computing just
14:10
Matt Nicolls: in the last few weeks and month about the the computational power
14:15
Matt Nicolls: and speed,
14:17
Matt Nicolls: it's going to drastically change the world in ways that I think that we
14:20
Matt Nicolls: can't even really comprehend right now.
14:24
Matt Nicolls: I'm really excited to be alive in this time, and be a part of
14:28
Matt Nicolls: that.
14:31
Lisa Nichols: In June, I had the privilege to sit down with Horst Schulze, the co-founder
14:35
Lisa Nichols: of the Ritz Carlton, who details that the nonnegotiables are gold
14:39
Lisa Nichols: standards of the luxury hotel brand were derived from deeply understanding
14:43
Lisa Nichols: customer expectations and ensuring excellence in every detail.
14:46
Lisa Nichols: I believe, you know, the things that are gonna get you there.
14:49
Lisa Nichols: Right?
14:50
Lisa Nichols: So excellence is one of those.
14:52
Lisa Nichols: But when you founded the Ritz Carlton, what were those non-negotiables?
14:58
Horst Schulze: Well excellence is, a ll non-negotiables have to be accomplished with excellence.
15:02
Horst Schulze: Well, let me put it this way.
15:04
Horst Schulze: A great company
15:06
Horst Schulze: understands the expectation of their market
15:10
Horst Schulze: relative to their product.
15:12
Horst Schulze: See, it's not about me.
15:14
Horst Schulze: It's about the market.
15:16
Horst Schulze: So we had careful studies done by JD Power , in fact.
15:20
Horst Schulze: What is the expectation in the high market segment for an
15:24
Horst Schulze: excellent, for a luxury hotel?
15:26
Horst Schulze: What is the expectation of experience?
15:29
Horst Schulze: Then we determine those expectations.
15:33
Horst Schulze: There was,
15:35
Horst Schulze: things that you can imagine.
15:36
Horst Schulze: For for example, exception cleanliness.
15:40
Horst Schulze: So if there's exception cleanliness, I had to say, how do
15:44
Horst Schulze: I make sure and what are the processes to
15:49
Horst Schulze: assure that I have the cleanest rooms in the industry?
15:52
Horst Schulze: If I wanna be the best in the world, I have to have an
15:54
Horst Schulze: expectation like that superior to my competition.
15:58
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
15:59
Horst Schulze: So I actually created a team to say, how do we create a room
16:02
Horst Schulze: that is actually cleaner than anybody else's room?
16:06
Horst Schulze: And I know my hotel's room is better, cleaner than anybody else's room.
16:09
Horst Schulze: I know that, based on the process that we created.
16:13
Horst Schulze: We know that the customer
16:17
Horst Schulze: seemingly unimportant thing,
16:20
Horst Schulze: like, one of negotiate number sixteen.
16:25
Horst Schulze: I know the numbers too.
16:27
Horst Schulze: Number sixteen was if a guest asks for direction,
16:32
Horst Schulze: never point.
16:33
Horst Schulze: Take them there.
16:34
Lisa Nichols: Take them there.
16:35
Horst Schulze: And and so we developed twenty non-negotiables
16:41
Horst Schulze: of which were called gold standards or service principles,
16:45
Horst Schulze: whatever.
16:46
Horst Schulze: I call them non-negotiables.
16:49
Horst Schulze: And, we made sure every employee understood
16:53
Horst Schulze: them, and then we kept them alive.
16:56
Horst Schulze: We repeated them.
16:56
Horst Schulze: Once a day, we discussed them.
16:58
Horst Schulze: And and or when I called non-negotiables because I happened to call
17:03
Horst Schulze: my early on at that time, my general manager in Shanghai
17:07
Horst Schulze: because something happened.
17:10
Horst Schulze: And, the general manager said, well, Horst, you don't understand
17:14
Horst Schulze: Shanghai.
17:16
Horst Schulze: Yeah.
17:17
Horst Schulze: I said, and I don't want to.
17:18
Horst Schulze: That's why I have you there.
17:20
Horst Schulze: But those twenty points are non-negotiable.
17:24
Horst Schulze: No matter where you are because that's what Ritz Carlton is.
17:29
Horst Schulze: So and so instead of Gold Standard, I call them non-negotiable.
17:33
Horst Schulze: They cannot be negotiated.
17:35
Lisa Nichols: Well, Horst, and I'm thinking to myself, it's the feeling that you're leaving
17:39
Lisa Nichols: with your guest.
17:40
Lisa Nichols: So I know that I read this somewhere.
17:43
Lisa Nichols: It may have been in your book or something else.
17:45
Lisa Nichols: But even when someone pulled up,
17:50
Lisa Nichols: you know, the people that were helping with the luggage would look at the
17:53
Lisa Nichols: luggage tag.
17:54
Horst Schulze: You read it in my book.
17:55
Horst Schulze: Yes.
17:55
Horst Schulze: You read it in my book.
17:57
Horst Schulze: Yeah.
17:58
Lisa Nichols: The friendliness.
18:00
Horst Schulze: You know, what is the expectation of a customer?
18:04
Horst Schulze: The customer wants to have good service.
18:06
Horst Schulze: What is service?
18:07
Horst Schulze: What is service?
18:09
Horst Schulze: And and and, you know, I talked to I'm a consultant with a lot
18:12
Horst Schulze: of people now and talk to a lot of people.
18:14
Horst Schulze: And
18:16
Horst Schulze: many companies I work with that are actually the service industry, w hen you ask
18:20
Horst Schulze: them to define service, they cannot.
18:22
Horst Schulze: Service starts to instantly make contact.
18:26
Horst Schulze: It it it doesn't matter if that is on the Internet or in person.
18:30
Horst Schulze: It doesn't matter.
18:31
Horst Schulze: That instant when they contacted us in any form
18:36
Horst Schulze: should be an exceptional moment.
18:40
Horst Schulze: Excellent.
18:41
Horst Schulze: So service starts with the exceptional greeting.
18:45
Horst Schulze: Welcome.
18:46
Horst Schulze: Not hi.
18:47
Horst Schulze: If I say hi to you, it's every equal.
18:50
Lisa Nichols: Right.
18:50
Horst Schulze: But if I say good morning, ma'am, welcome.
18:53
Horst Schulze: How are you today?
18:54
Horst Schulze: I'm saying I respect you.
18:57
Horst Schulze: At the same time, I'm stating though that I'm professional if I said that,
19:00
Horst Schulze: if I treat you right.
19:02
Horst Schulze: The first step of service is a fine greeting.
19:06
Horst Schulze: The second step of service is it's all about you.
19:10
Horst Schulze: It's me helping you to make the best decisions about
19:14
Horst Schulze: my product.
19:16
Horst Schulze: I'm helping you relative to my pro, I'm here for you
19:20
Horst Schulze: relative my product.
19:22
Horst Schulze: And that's the second step.
19:23
Horst Schulze: And the third step is for about thank you for allowing me to serve
19:26
Horst Schulze: you.
19:27
Horst Schulze: That's the moments of service.
19:29
Horst Schulze: And and and that first impression, by the way, is an essential one.
19:33
Horst Schulze: Welcome.
19:36
Lisa Nichols: Next, I was honored to get to speak with Joni Eareckson Tada, who shares
19:40
Lisa Nichols: how the Johnny and Friends ministry goes beyond providing wheelchairs and holding
19:44
Lisa Nichols: family retreats by establishing Joni's H ouses in sixteen locations
19:49
Lisa Nichols: worldwide to meet the holistic needs of people with disabilities.
19:53
Lisa Nichols: Joni, I just wanna mention this for our listeners.
19:55
Lisa Nichols: You have got so many ministries.
19:57
Lisa Nichols: I was telling my husband this morning, you've got W heels for the W orld.
20:01
Lisa Nichols: You've already kinda talked about that, but I think you've given over three
20:06
Lisa Nichols: hundred thousand wheelchairs so far, maybe more than that.
20:10
Lisa Nichols: You've got the family retreats, the getaways, an international family retreat,
20:15
Lisa Nichols: an internship program,
20:18
Lisa Nichols: the Joni's House programs that are all over the world.
20:21
Lisa Nichols: Tell us more tell us a little bit about that, Joni.
20:24
Joni Eareckson Tada: Well,
20:26
Joni Eareckson Tada: giving wheelchairs is great.
20:28
Joni Eareckson Tada: And, of course, holding retreats,
20:31
Joni Eareckson Tada: for special needs families in Peru or Thailand or El
20:35
Joni Eareckson Tada: Salvador or,
20:38
Joni Eareckson Tada: Eastern Europe,
20:41
Joni Eareckson Tada: Cuba, Africa, Uganda.
20:44
Joni Eareckson Tada: It's great to hold family retreats.
20:46
Joni Eareckson Tada: I mean, these people live in such dire conditions that they need more
20:50
Joni Eareckson Tada: than a wheelchair.
20:51
Joni Eareckson Tada: They need much more than a week of rest and respite.
20:56
Joni Eareckson Tada: They need medical supplies.
20:58
Joni Eareckson Tada: They need to be scholarship for a surgery.
21:01
Joni Eareckson Tada: They need hygiene kits.
21:03
Joni Eareckson Tada: They need diaper pads for their, incontinent child with
21:07
Joni Eareckson Tada: cerebral palsy.
21:09
Joni Eareckson Tada: They need so much more.
21:11
Joni Eareckson Tada: And so we have sixteen Joni's H ouses, located
21:15
Joni Eareckson Tada: around the world in places like Nepal and Uganda
21:20
Joni Eareckson Tada: and Serbia,
21:22
Joni Eareckson Tada: Brazil and more.
21:24
Joni Eareckson Tada: And these are places that are usually located near a hospital.
21:29
Joni Eareckson Tada: We scholarship children with disabilities to have surgeries.
21:33
Joni Eareckson Tada: We provide food for the family.
21:36
Joni Eareckson Tada: We provide the necessary medical supplies, such as chucks and
21:40
Joni Eareckson Tada: diapers and urinary care products and things of that sort.
21:45
Joni Eareckson Tada: We do bible studies and bible counseling for,
21:49
Joni Eareckson Tada: husbands and wives who are having a tough time.
21:52
Joni Eareckson Tada: We also do micro enterprise so that young people with
21:56
Joni Eareckson Tada: disabilities can learn a trade.
21:59
Joni Eareckson Tada: In fact, in our, Joni's H ouse in El Salvador, there are young adults with
22:03
Joni Eareckson Tada: Down syndrome who pack up our coffee bags and
22:08
Joni Eareckson Tada: are part of shipping them out.
22:09
Joni Eareckson Tada: So we really try to address the holistic, needs
22:13
Joni Eareckson Tada: of those with disabilities.
22:16
Joni Eareckson Tada: And it's the legacy program at Joni and Friends.
22:20
Joni Eareckson Tada: It's got my name on it, and I can't,
22:24
Joni Eareckson Tada: I can't believe,
22:26
Joni Eareckson Tada: I am so privileged, so honored, so grateful.
22:29
Joni Eareckson Tada: What did I do to ever deserve something like that?
22:32
Joni Eareckson Tada: You know, to help the least of the brethren, the most unfortunate
22:36
Joni Eareckson Tada: is just to me, it's wonderful.
22:40
Lisa Nichols: It is wonderful.
22:41
Lisa Nichols: And I'm just,
22:43
Lisa Nichols: oh, I'm teary eyed just listening to you.
22:45
Lisa Nichols: But, again, but God.
22:47
Joni Eareckson Tada: But God.
22:48
Lisa Nichols: But God.
22:49
Lisa Nichols: Right, Joni?
22:51
Lisa Nichols: He has
22:53
Lisa Nichols: plans that are more than we can hope or imagine.
22:56
Lisa Nichols: So,
22:58
Lisa Nichols: I am I'm just grateful to you.
23:00
Lisa Nichols: Well, let me ask you just this, and then I wanna get into your ,
23:04
Lisa Nichols: I just want you to talk a little bit about your latest book.
23:06
Lisa Nichols: But, you know, you've been at the helm of Joni and Friends
23:11
Lisa Nichols: for a long time now.
23:12
Lisa Nichols: You know, what are some of those key leadership lessons that you've learned
23:17
Lisa Nichols: leading this organization?
23:19
Joni Eareckson Tada: Well, I have served as the CEO of Joni
23:24
Joni Eareckson Tada: and Friends for well over four and a half decades.
23:27
Joni Eareckson Tada: And in that time, I have had to forget everything.
23:31
Joni Eareckson Tada: Everything about personal power leading to effective
23:36
Joni Eareckson Tada: leadership.
23:37
Joni Eareckson Tada: Because confidence and charisma and chutzpah,
23:41
Joni Eareckson Tada: it counts for little in the long haul.
23:43
Joni Eareckson Tada: It really does.
23:44
Joni Eareckson Tada: The most effective leaders, they don't rise to power in spite
23:48
Joni Eareckson Tada: of their weaknesses.
23:50
Joni Eareckson Tada: They lead with power through their weaknesses because
23:54
Joni Eareckson Tada: they have yielded, as you put it, they have surrendered themselves wholly
23:58
Joni Eareckson Tada: to God.
23:59
Joni Eareckson Tada: And I think the better that a leader tells his story
24:03
Joni Eareckson Tada: of grace in his life, the better a leader is transparent
24:07
Joni Eareckson Tada: with his executive team and with his staff,
24:12
Joni Eareckson Tada: the more he invites others to consider their own stories of redemption,
24:17
Joni Eareckson Tada: and the more he endears himself to those he is leading.
24:21
Joni Eareckson Tada: So I think those are the two biggest lessons, And, of course,
24:26
Joni Eareckson Tada: how God loves to leverage weakness and minimize
24:30
Joni Eareckson Tada: power to get his work done so that when the work is accomplished,
24:35
Joni Eareckson Tada: he gets the glory.
24:36
Joni Eareckson Tada: Yes.
24:37
Joni Eareckson Tada: He gets the glory.
24:38
Joni Eareckson Tada: You said that earlier, and I love it.
24:41
Lisa Nichols: In our last clip, Michael Staenberg, founder of T he Staenberg Group, explains that
24:45
Lisa Nichols: his company's philosophy is rooted in being good partners and giving locally
24:50
Lisa Nichols: to enhance the community.
24:51
Lisa Nichols: So, Michael, I know that you and Carol in twenty
24:56
Lisa Nichols: twelve formed T he Staenberg Group.
24:59
Lisa Nichols: What is TSG's philosophy, and what does it mean in practice?
25:03
Michael Staenberg: You know, our philosophy is to be, good partners.
25:06
Michael Staenberg: You know, live locally, give locally, be part of the community where you are.
25:11
Michael Staenberg: I always had that, feeling.
25:13
Michael Staenberg: You know, it's important because, you know, it's nice to make money.
25:17
Michael Staenberg: I like making money, but I also think it's important something bigger
25:21
Michael Staenberg: than just making money, what you do with the money, and how you can
25:25
Michael Staenberg: enhance the community you live in.
25:27
Michael Staenberg: And, I could live anywhere in the United States.
25:31
Michael Staenberg: I choose to live in St.
25:32
Michael Staenberg: Louis and, you know, it's a region in, twenty I guess,
25:36
Michael Staenberg: twenty years ago, twenty five years ago, somehow someone asked me to join the R
25:40
Michael Staenberg: egional B usiness C ouncil, Kathy Osborne.
25:43
Michael Staenberg: Yeah.
25:44
Michael Staenberg: It changed my life again.
25:45
Michael Staenberg: You know, another opportunity to to be part of the region.
25:49
Michael Staenberg: Like, really, I like that, and that's what TSG is about.
25:52
Michael Staenberg: You know, it's great to have these shopping centers, and, yes, I have two
25:56
Michael Staenberg: million square feet in, you know, Chesterfield,
26:00
Michael Staenberg: and I built The F actory.
26:01
Michael Staenberg: But how do we, you know, help people?
26:04
Michael Staenberg: You know, like a little unknown fact is that we give away a hundred
26:07
Michael Staenberg: thousand dollars a year to, nonprofits.
26:10
Michael Staenberg: I call them the orphan nonprofits from T he F actory.
26:13
Michael Staenberg: Every concert we, you know, have people, we donate money, you know, so we
26:17
Michael Staenberg: can make a difference.
26:18
Michael Staenberg: I don't have to do that.
26:19
Michael Staenberg: I don't know any concert venue in America that does this.
26:24
Michael Staenberg: At all.
26:25
Lisa Nichols: So The Factory gives away a hundred thousand a year?
26:27
Lisa Nichols: I did not realize that.
26:29
Lisa Nichols: The F actory, for those of you because we have people all over the world
26:33
Lisa Nichols: that listen, Michael.
26:34
Lisa Nichols: For those of you who do not live in S t.
26:36
Lisa Nichols: Louis, T he F actory is such a cool concert venue.
26:41
Lisa Nichols: Beautiful, beautiful in Chesterfield.
26:43
Lisa Nichols: I love that venue.
26:45
Michael Staenberg: I do too.
26:45
Michael Staenberg: And, you know, I'm proud of it.
26:46
Michael Staenberg: But Yes.
26:48
Michael Staenberg: Again, you know, as I said, I can't write, but I can certainly figure
26:51
Michael Staenberg: things out.
26:51
Michael Staenberg: And I, you know, I feel like I'm an artist.
26:53
Michael Staenberg: I can be the artist and the framer.
26:55
Michael Staenberg: I like being the artist.
26:56
Michael Staenberg: But, you know, I built this from scratch, and then people, you know, looked
26:59
Michael Staenberg: at me like I was absolutely crazy when I did this.
27:01
Michael Staenberg: And, you know, I think it's important to give back.
27:04
Michael Staenberg: I think it's important to enhance people's lives.
27:07
Michael Staenberg: You know, I was watching Jimmy Valvino's speech the other day.
27:11
Michael Staenberg: You know, it's, you know, it's, I think, the twentieth anniversary.
27:14
Michael Staenberg: Maybe it's even the fortieth when he passed away.
27:17
Michael Staenberg: And, you know, he said he wakes up and does three things in the
27:20
Michael Staenberg: morning.
27:21
Michael Staenberg: You know?
27:21
Michael Staenberg: Those aren't the three things I would do, but you know what?
27:24
Michael Staenberg: Pick three things that make a difference. Y ou know what?
27:27
Michael Staenberg: That's really what I try to do, and that's one of the things about
27:30
Michael Staenberg: TSG.
27:30
Michael Staenberg: How do how do we make it a better place?
27:32
Michael Staenberg: How do we enhance, you know, if it's Firestone, Colorado, we give money up
27:36
Michael Staenberg: there.
27:37
Michael Staenberg: How do we do things?
27:38
Michael Staenberg: You know?
27:38
Michael Staenberg: I mean, I don't wanna hear that MODOT or that, CDOT doesn't maintain something.
27:43
Michael Staenberg: Let's go out and clean it up.
27:45
Michael Staenberg: Someone to do that and put art and, you know, art invokes emotion,
27:49
Michael Staenberg: things like that.
27:50
Michael Staenberg: But more importantly, you know, the savings, when I do, you know,
27:54
Michael Staenberg: I'm good at development.
27:55
Michael Staenberg: So a lot of these nonprofits, I'll go in and do the development and
28:00
Michael Staenberg: I've saved these nonprofits three or four hundred million dollars.
28:03
Michael Staenberg: You know?
28:04
Michael Staenberg: They would have to go raise.
28:05
Michael Staenberg: And then I've raised, you know, three hundred million because if I step
28:09
Michael Staenberg: up and they see my name on it, they say, well, we should give.
28:13
Michael Staenberg: You know, there was a, a mentor of mine by name of Tommy Green,
28:17
Michael Staenberg: and he said one day, well, stop giving anonymously.
28:20
Michael Staenberg: Put your name on it so people can see.
28:23
Michael Staenberg: And that's really what's important to me, and that's what I'm trying to get
28:25
Michael Staenberg: people to, y ou know, I call it the converging ripple theory.
28:29
Michael Staenberg: I'm in the art, so I built this piece of art that's forty foot
28:34
Michael Staenberg: by forty foot in Omaha on a blank wall, and it moves in the
28:37
Michael Staenberg: wind.
28:38
Michael Staenberg: It's, road signs that Boris Bailey did, and he
28:42
Michael Staenberg: said to me, well, what do you think we should call it?
28:44
Michael Staenberg: I said, converging ripples.
28:46
Michael Staenberg: And he looked at me, so what do you mean?
28:47
Michael Staenberg: I said, well, it's like a still pond.
28:50
Michael Staenberg: You know, you can take a little pebble and throw it in, it creates
28:53
Michael Staenberg: a ripple.
28:55
Michael Staenberg: Take a boulder and throw it in, it creates a ripple.
28:57
Michael Staenberg: It doesn't matter how big the ripple is.
29:00
Michael Staenberg: It's the fact that you do a ripple, and you make a difference.
29:04
Michael Staenberg: And that's all I ask.
29:05
Michael Staenberg: And that's what I'm I'm trying to encourage people to make a difference and
29:08
Michael Staenberg: help people's lives.
29:10
Announcer: Thank you for listening to today's show.
29:12
Announcer: Something extra with Lisa Nichols is a Technology Partners production.
29:16
Announcer: Copyright Technology Partners Inc two thousand and nineteen.
29:19
Announcer: For show notes or to reach Lisa, visit t p I dot co
29:23
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29:25
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29:29
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