Latest / Daily Influence / 739. From Self-Awareness to Impact: How Great Leaders Create Meaningful Influence with DJ Mitsch

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739. From Self-Awareness to Impact: How Great Leaders Create Meaningful Influence with DJ Mitsch · Daily Influence

• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Daily Influence, your daily dose of positive influence.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Brian Smith founder of IA Business Advisors and co-author of the Iain team series.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Each day we share stories and insights to help you find be and build your influence in a positive and responsible way.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm Greg Clino, partner at IA Business Advisors, and co-host of Daily Influence.
• 0:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Be sure to follow, subscribe, and share Daily Influence with someone who could use a little extra positivity today.
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And make us part of your daily routine, whether it's during your commute, on a walk, or an quiet moment just for you, because you're influenced matters.
• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Daily Influence, I'm Greg Lino.
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Today, I'm excited to welcome DJ Mitch, an accomplished executive coach, leadership consultant, and founder of Pyramid Resource Group and the health care coaching institute.
• 1:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: With decades of experience helping leaders and organizations elevate performance through stronger communication, accountability, and human-centered leadership, DJ has dedicated her work
• 1:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: who lead with intention and impact.
• 1:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Her approach aligns closely with what we talk about on this show, how each of us can show up as a more responsible and positive influence in the lives of others.
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: DJ, I'm so glad to have you here.
• 1:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Daily Influence.
• 1:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much, Greg.
• 1:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's nice to be with you.
• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: DJ, could you share a bit about your background in what led you to where you are today with our listeners?
• 1:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: So 33 years ago, my world changed.
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: I had been a broadcast leader, executive, and managed radio stations, and upstarts, and kind of did turn around.
• 1:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Things as a general manager, and the stations were sold, and I gave birth to my son who, you know, was like, all that happened to him within a week.
• 2:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And after that, I sent with my husband and looked out to see what we wanted to do and we wanted to create a lifestyle business.
• 2:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: He had a small consulting firm for the environmental kind of line of business.
• 2:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we just decided that we were going to build something ourselves.
• 2:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so again, 33 years ago, we built a lifestyle business and coaching was just coming online.
• 2:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I got involved with the upstart of, you know, of what coaching is today.
• 2:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was one of the founding members of the International Coach Federation and the sixth president.
• 2:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: So one of the first 25 master certified coaches in the world.
• 2:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I traveled the world helping to develop chapters.
• 2:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we really didn't intend to be very big.
• 2:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: We had a sort of a shopping center mall format for our businesses.
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: We wanted four anchor tenants, if you will.
• 2:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: In this area, in GSK, pharmaceuticals and SAS Institute, which is technology, company, I'm in North Carolina.
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we looked at our business map and thought, we can do this and raise our family and not work too hard.
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: But that just exploded.
• 3:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: We had an amazing, you know, second year.
• 3:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: First year was a little tough as most businesses are when they're first starting out.
• 3:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And people didn't know what coaching was.
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: They asked me if it was like, are you selling buses?
• 3:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Are you selling handbags?
• 3:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: What are you doing?
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, but anyway, low story shorter.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, that was, you know, three decades ago.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: And since then, we have been privileged to work with, you know, some of the foremost companies
• 3:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: to your name at professional sports.
• 3:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we've put a stake in the ground, goodness, in 2012, to start a healthcare coaching institute because we found that life sciences and particularly hospital systems, it was the late adapting, the latest adapting, field for coaching.
• 4:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there are so many people who really needed coaching.
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I wanted to have somebody explore their lives
• 4:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: did that and we've coached or we've trained goodness over 200 meters in that space in that time and small cohorts of 20 people and their surgeons and CEOs and cardiologists and nurse practitioners and they represent every facet of healthcare so we've been privileged and influenced in that space.
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'll just stop there because I could keep going.
• 4:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's just such a fun place to be
• 4:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you clearly built your work around helping others grow and lead more effectively.
• 4:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: In your work, you've likely seen leadership from many angles.
• 4:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: How do you personally define responsible influence?
• 4:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: And how is that definition evolved over your career?
• 4:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, responsibility has a lot of different connotations, right?
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And one of them is that it's like you're in control of something.
• 5:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're responsible for this for this outcome.
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: And another way of holding it, and I actually have like a continuum of accountability, which, and that word kind of annoys me because of how it's used and weaponized in businesses today.
• 5:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's like their three components.
• 5:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: I see one is accountability, one is responsibility, which is the ability to respond to people, to connect with people, to really make sure that you are speaking hard to heart, to what is important to the people around you and to those you serve.
• 5:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then the other is ownership.
• 5:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: So for accountability and ownership, responsibility is in the middle of that.
• 5:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's one of the things that I see, it's almost like a flashing light word, that it comes up whenever we're working with teams, especially or creating culture change.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's always interesting to see what people say it is, and then how they actually demonstrate it.
• 6:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because those are different things.
• 6:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: But the influence is really engaging
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: you know, in organizations and and there are many ways to do that.
• 6:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: The most influential people sometimes are not the people who hold the keys or the executive child, so the people who really see others and cultivate relationships and deepen those in an organization.
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that real perspective really speaks to the I&T and how individual awareness shapes collective success.
• 6:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can you tell us about a moment or experience where you thought you made a positive impact on someone's life?
• 6:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, that kind of stops me because I feel like that's the space that we live in, right?
• 6:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: We embody what it means to be in the coaching space.
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: We look for ways to truly connect with people.
• 6:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: And as you do, and I think if I pulled out one story, has nothing to do with healthcare, has everything to do with a young woman who was an assistant,
• 6:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: program and to get manager for the Durham Bulls.
• 7:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: We live in the Raleigh Durham area and for the Durham Bulls baseball and we were hired to coach her because she was not happy in her job and it was obvious and we had done other work for the Durham Bulls and
• 7:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: I took her to a lunch and we said to her and I started asking her questions about what she really wanted.
• 7:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: And what she really wanted was to run a major sports team someday.
• 7:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: That was an aspiration of dream.
• 7:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: She was here, right?
• 7:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: She was not exactly at the levels she wanted to be.
• 7:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm exploring that.
• 7:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: She cast a vision.
• 7:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I just challenged her in our coaching over the first few weeks, actually, you know, to really get clarity on that.
• 7:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: So she decided to leave her job to create a book.
• 7:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: make sure that she was replaced well, went into an MBA program.
• 7:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the second week in the program, she gets a call from the Franz family and they're the family that started all of the stock car racing, you know, the Daytona 500, all those people.
• 8:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so she is hired to come and kind of
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they had her open three new racetracks, and Norm was in Kansas City, and one was in Los Angeles.
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: So she ended up living in Los Angeles and running these major racetracks and getting to know all the drivers and all that.
• 8:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she did that, had that career for the lower decade, and she was hired by the LA Clippers to be their general manager.
• 8:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: One of the first and few females in that space.
• 8:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, I got an angel when she went to the, that's up here or for my desk that when she went to, um, to take the job.
• 8:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, um, so a nod to Gillian Zucker and, um, and to the impact that she had on me for actually accepting the challenge, right, to go for something big.
• 8:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's one, you know, long, long time ago, um, but there's so many, it's, it's daily encouraging.
• 9:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's daily that we see the impact of what we're doing, particularly those that we're teaching in medicine to get,
• 9:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: into well-being and look at their lives differently.
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's a privilege to be in that conversation.
• 9:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's wonderful story moments like that, you know, come from those intentional choices that we have to make and they're not always easy, but great, thank you for sharing that story.
• 9:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
• 9:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: One of the core ideas in our Iron Team series is that influence starts with self-awareness.
• 9:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: How do you help leaders better understand themselves?
• 9:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: So they can lead others more effectively.
• 9:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so a Voking Awareness is a core competency encouraging.
• 9:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it is what we do, conversation, a conversation.
• 9:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I will tell you that if a Voking Awareness and then having somebody do something when is a really interesting thing.
• 9:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's not about doing something to people, but inviting them to look at who they are.
• 9:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: This core essence.
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we do that through archetypal language.
• 9:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: And when people can get clear about who they are as an archetype, about the gifts they were born to express,
• 10:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: about the things that don't work for them in the room, and about choosing which type if fits the room and they are flexible in the way they navigate into the world.
• 10:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: We use the Enneagram, which is an ancient diagnostic and spiritual tool, psychological and spiritual tool, to help people just sort of look at the nine primary patterns, and
• 10:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Anyhow, means I'm right, Graham is the sketch of something, so it's a symbol, but it was kind of rediscovered through Narrative, through folk narrative, if you will, in several different places in the world, and it's pretty contemporary and it's rediscovery, but it's having a moment, so That it's one of the tools I've studied about 160 hours of any Graham and teaching any Graham and
• 10:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so we integrate that into our work and our courage team is well versed in it so that we could take a look at who people really are their shadow side and making friends with their shadow and we use a real sense of likeness around it and playfulness so that it's not so heavy in the responsibility space right and they look at their influence from multi facets of who they are now choosing how to show up in a room instead of just always showing up with the same patterns.
• 11:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: had that level awareness is awesome.
• 11:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you could go back and offer advice to your younger self, what would you share?
• 11:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And how might that guidance help others who were early in the journey today?
• 11:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think about it too often, but I had a friend that was dear to me.
• 11:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: She was at the birth of both babies.
• 11:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she contracted ALS, and she had a little iPad that she could write notes to me on before she left.
• 11:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: She wrote, you have spent your whole life trying to prove that you're enough.
• 11:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: You need to know that you are.
• 11:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think I would say to my younger self, you're enough.
• 12:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Whatever you survive as a child, whatever you thrive in as a child, those are just going to inform who you become as an adult.
• 12:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you're going to have the life of your dreams.
• 12:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: I would tell myself that because I have the life of my dreams.
• 12:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then consciously chosen this thing.
• 12:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: So whatever it tells someone else is, you know, as a child and as parents of children, you know, explore, play, try different things.
• 12:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're never gonna land just in that prayer that you study and college.
• 12:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're gonna end up being many different things in your life.
• 12:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: So explore all the things that you're excited about.
• 12:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: I paint angel wings over back of denim jackets for friends because I love art.
• 12:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, so there are many different things that you can bring online and bring to life and cottage industries or more and out of people doing that all the time.
• 12:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I would just say to, I would say we're always enough.
• 12:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're always enough and we're always seeking to contribute to each other.
• 13:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: We've just been doing a really messy job of it lately, right?
• 13:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Isn't that the truth that's beautiful advice?
• 13:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for sharing that DJ.
• 13:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: You've worked extensively with teams and organizations.
• 13:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: What are some of the most important behaviors or mindsets that create a culture of accountability and positive influence within a team?
• 13:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm gonna simplify this because there's so many things I could say on this.
• 13:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: We worked with 90 teams simultaneously in an organization.
• 13:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: We were addressing a change initiative for engagement.
• 13:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: and design a few pharmaceuticals.
• 13:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we've done work in big companies to be a small boutique organization.
• 13:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: But what I would say is start with curiosity, right?
• 13:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: That most people feel like they're going to get that next level on the ladder and move up the ranks and everything based on what they know.
• 13:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And everybody can say the same thing about what they know.
• 13:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Which I think is BS.
• 14:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: So if we start with curiosity,
• 14:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: If we just make that shift, we're going to learn so much together.
• 14:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And one of my mentors over a time has been met quickly.
• 14:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: He was over now in the anthropologist and harbour trained organizational effectiveness guru.
• 14:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she's in her 80s now and celebrated in my world.
• 14:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: But she said, you know, we each want to do three things.
• 14:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: We want to learn and contribute.
• 14:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the behaviors are all around getting to each other's best contributions.
• 14:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you're going to a room, you're going to work with a team, beginning to cultivate.
• 14:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: What is everybody's individual and unique contribution?
• 14:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: What do they want to bring online?
• 14:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because everybody wants to really have some way of being recognized and seen for who they really are.
• 14:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so in our work in coaching and particularly in team coaching,
• 14:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: people get patient with each other around.
• 15:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's missing as a behavior is just simply being fully present in patient with each other, right?
• 15:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that is so true when each individual human comes together and makes the greater individual group that they bring together, it really can cause such a ripple effect and have positive influence.
• 15:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.
• 15:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it is the ripple effect.
• 15:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: It is the, you know,
• 15:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think we really understand energy.
• 15:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it is the biggest study from, you know, it's always been a play for me.
• 15:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love quantum physics.
• 15:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: I loved, you know, how you pull on something over here and something over here is a kind of a hide.
• 15:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And just the notion that one of the practices we use is an accomplishment narrative.
• 15:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: When we work with the team, we have them looking for things that are designing and then project themselves out, you know, 90 days, six months a year.
• 15:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: whatever the length of time we are working together and and right in the accomplishment narrative as if it has already happened so already come true.
• 16:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Where are you sitting?
• 16:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: What are you eating?
• 16:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, what is your sensation?
• 16:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: What are you experiencing?
• 16:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: What are you celebrating all of this things?
• 16:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they write on from the depths of their soul and when they read them it's like they can't help but be compelled into that direction every day.
• 16:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: to have that experience waiting for them, right?
• 16:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: So they're living into something, and I think, you know, we use those things with individuals, but we forget that they're available to groups of individuals and teams.
• 16:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so that's one of the practices I would recommend everybody to try.
• 16:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's a great advice.
• 16:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: DJ, in closing, what message or words have encouraged?
• 16:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Would you like to share with our listeners who aspire to make a positive difference in the world?
• 16:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: If we all share the same appetite,
• 16:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: it would be that we made a difference right.
• 16:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, as I said, and think about the difference, I want to make right now, given that I think many of us are heartbroken over what's happening in the world around us on this, you know, April Day in 2026.
• 17:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: That what we're really looking at is that we have the unique opportunity to realize we signed up for this time in human history.
• 17:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: a blueprint and we're in this program and we're looking around going, I don't think this is what I signed up for.
• 17:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the truth is we did.
• 17:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: So what is it that we can contribute?
• 17:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: What is our biggest gift now?
• 17:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's what I hear you're asking.
• 17:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: And my biggest impact is to have people really feel seen heard and valued, right?
• 17:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I think that we're
• 17:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: live into and I actually print it out this quote for you because this has been sort of a guiding principle for me and that contemporary philosopher Plato and he says this and I think this is a great way for us to end today but the souls of people on their way to earth life pass through a room full of tapers.
• 18:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Each takes a taper, often only a spark to guide it in this dim country
• 18:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: have time to grasp a handful of tapers, which they weave into a torch.
• 18:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: These are the torch bears of humanity.
• 18:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's poets, seers, and saints who read and lift the race out of darkness toward the light.
• 18:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: They are the law givers and Savior's, the light bringers, way of shallers, and truth tellers.
• 18:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: And without them, humanity would lose its way in the dark.
• 18:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's beautiful.
• 18:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for sharing that DJ.
• 18:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: DJ, this has been such a meaningful conversation, your perspective on leadership, self-awareness and intentional influence really reinforces the idea that each of us has the ability and the responsibility to shape the environments and the people around us in a positive way.
• 19:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: If our listeners want to get in touch with you, what is the best way to do so?
• 19:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: We'll put that information in the show notes.
• 19:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: DJ, thank you so much for joining us on daily influence and the impact that you continue to make through your work.
• 19:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so grateful for you.
• 19:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
• 19:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm grateful for this connection as always.
• 19:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love the symbolism of everything that's going on in your office and on your body and you've got a big game sister.
• 19:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I can't wait to see what you do.
• 19:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much, DJ.
• 19:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: And to our listeners, thank you for joining us for another episode of The Influence.
• 19:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I hope today's conversation brought you inside and inspiration.
• 19:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: If it's spoke to you, share it with someone who could use little positivity today.
• 19:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Remember, the most powerful influence starts with the choices you make every single day.
• 19:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Small actions create big impact.
• 19:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Keep showing up, leading, and growing one data time.
• 20:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Until next time, stay inspired and keep having a positive responsible influence.
• 20:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: You