Latest / The Start, Scale & Succeed Podcast / Your Leadership Identity Crisis — And How to Fix It with David C. Olcott (stage 3) - Ep. 388

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Your Leadership Identity Crisis — And How to Fix It with David C. Olcott (stage 3) - Ep. 388 · The Start, Scale & Succeed Podcast

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Scott Ritzheimer: Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again
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to the start, scale and succeed podcast, the only podcast that
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grows with you through all seven stages of your journey as a
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founder, I'm your host, Scott Ritzheimer, and today I want to
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talk to those founders out there who are experiencing the
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identity whiplash that comes with leadership. Because if
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you're a founder, you've probably created success by
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being the person who made everything happen. You were the
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closer. You were the problem solver. You were the one that
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clients wanted to work with. But as you do that and you get more
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and more clients, you need more and more help. At some point you
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wake up, you've got 567, maybe 10 or even 11 people. You've
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hired a handful and and those people, they just ask questions
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all the time. They they need things all the time, and it
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leaves you frustrated, and what I call a reluctant manager. And
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it's it would be one thing if it was just a business thing, but
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it's very personal as well. We start to look in the mirror and
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wonder what we've become. And here's what makes this so
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difficult. It's that the sense of self that you had being
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wrapped up in being the expert, being the doer, the one who
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delivers results, is now not where you get to spend most of
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your time. Most of your results come through other people, and
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here to help us navigate this space in a very, very clever way
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is our guest today, the one and only David C Olcott, who is the
1:25
founder, president and CEO of samurai success Inc, an
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International Executive, organizational and personal
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coaching firm headquartered in Denver, Colorado, David has
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poured his wisdom that he has gained from 35 years of coaching
1:39
and into the trademark samurai success coaching system, which
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provides a proven roadmap of success. David's clients become
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more purposeful and their businesses become more
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sustainable and profitable. In throughout the process, David is
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truly in the service of others, helping them create a successful
1:58
life, meet their destiny and leave a legacy of their own.
2:02
David, you've got this really cool business model, but you
2:06
also have a very interesting route to explaining it. Tell us
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a little bit about the swords of illumination.
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David C. Olcott: First of all, Scott, thanks so much for having
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me on board. Brother, I just I know it took us a while to get
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together, but, man, I'm really excited about being here and
2:18
having this conversation, especially with your tribe and
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your audience. Swords of illumination, Samurai success.
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Boy that started so many years ago, when I was just I was a kid
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in Bible school, if you could believe that. And our pastor
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said to us, he says, If you really want to live a
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meaningful, purpose driven life. And I remember I was nine years
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old. I remember the time he says, If you really want to live
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a purpose driven life, then you have to understand about the
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greatest life you can live is being in service of others. Wow.
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And it hit me in such a way now nine years old, of course, it
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didn't, you know, change my life and and stuff like this. But as
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I grew up and I got involved in sales and business and stuff
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like this, I actually read a book called samurai selling. And
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in that book, it said the word Samurai, loosely translated,
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means in service of others. Wow. And I took those two events
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mother and pushed them together into creating samurai success.
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Because I was like, what if a business owner truly understood
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that they have a boss, that's the marketplace, and that really
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isn't just an individual consumer. I'm talking about a
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group of customers called the marketplace, and you could truly
3:30
be in service to them. What would a business look like if
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you develop that business service philosophy, principle
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based upon no matter service or product you're selling, but if
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you had that principle and that philosophy, what would a company
3:50
like that look like? And that's what's thrilled me the last 35
3:50
years.
3:50
Scott Ritzheimer: That's fascinating, because folks who
3:50
listen to the show will know the root of the word entrepreneur is
3:53
to go between and so fascinating. How similar those
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are. Samurai is much cooler. I think we should just all call
4:00
ourselves samurai instead of entrepreneurs now, but I love
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that. All right. So there are these, what you call swords of
4:07
illumination, and those are specific things that you outline
4:10
in the book. And so I'm wondering if you could just kind
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of walk us through. We may not get to all six of them, but
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let's just start at the top and work through these. And how
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someone who's in this reluctant manager stage, who's who's
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learning to, you know, to thrive within their market, you know,
4:26
to please their new boss, or 1000 of them. But also, you
4:31
know, get this ragtag group of folks around them, all moving in
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the same direction.
4:34
David C. Olcott: So it's an interesting I love that you have
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a step seven step phase that you talk about with your podcast.
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And I've chanced to see some of those things. I really love
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this. And we're at number three, this reluctant manager you talk
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about, which is so perfect for what we do at samurai success,
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because so many of our clients are great entrepreneurs and
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they're great technicians, but they're really not good
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managers. And what we mean by that is that we have the title
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of manager, we have the paid grade. As a manager, but we
5:01
don't really understand what a manager means. And in our world,
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Samurai success, you can have all those things, but if you
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don't understand the five fundamentals of being a manager,
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being organized, understand how to plan, how to really lead
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through a system. And that's probably the biggest
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differential that we make at samurai success, is because most
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management concepts that are out there today talk about managing
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people. We do not do that. Scott, we we stay away from
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that, because I will tell you, if I took control of you and
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manage you for the next five minutes, you know, how long
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would that last? It's just not going to last. So people.
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Managing people is a outdated concept and has been a long
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time, but managing a system that everyone buys into. That's the
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game changer, and that's how automation scalability comes in,
5:46
because if I have to deal with all those personalities and all
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those questions you were asking about earlier, it's going to
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drive me crazy. I'll never be able to do that. So I have to
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replace all that with a structural system that allows
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for people to answer those questions on their own, set of
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standards, set of policies, principles, and those things are
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doable if you really understand your business and the system
6:07
that you want to create and the outcomes you're after. Once you
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have hacks, then you can get on to the fourth one, which is
6:08
really about understanding the controls of that system and then
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staffing most models that are out there today, talk about,
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let's put the people in the seats first. Good to Great. Is a
6:22
great example of that that says, hey, you know, go find the right
6:24
people and then put them in the right seats. Listen, that's a
6:27
company that has billions of dollars of debt. That's stock,
6:30
people, you know, debt stuff that you can go and get all this
6:32
money and have all the small, medium sized business. We can't
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do that. We've got very limited resources. So the idea here is
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that let's go build the system. First build the bus, know what
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that seat looks like and the characteristics that fit that
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seat, and then let's go hire the people for that seat. So it's a
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very different way when you're a small, medium sized business
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that you have to approach business to really be
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successful.
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Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, it's so true. It's so true. I love one
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of the things I'll say is, you know, there's not a founder. And
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tell me if you've met one, maybe you have, but I've never met a
7:08
founder who their reason for starting the business was to
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manage a handful
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of people. Yeah, it's just, it just, there's easier ways, you
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know, there's easier ways. And so I love, it's a really hard
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stage for a lot of founders. It's a really hard stage. And I
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love the distinction that you made between managing people and
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managing systems, and I think that's such a helpful way of
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thinking about it, because you will always be reluctant if
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you're trying to manage another human being, and that's such a
7:46
great distinction. So at the same in the same token, though,
7:51
like those people have to work within the system, and so it's
7:54
not necessarily quite as clear cut in the real world. So tell
7:57
me a little bit about what the difference between those two or
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better. Yet, how about some symptoms that you're still
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managing people when you could be managing systems.
8:06
David C. Olcott: So run a big systems, or what we would call
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KPIs, key behavioral indicators. Most people know what KPIs are,
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but most people, when you're dealing with people, you're
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going to start moving into this realm of key behavioral
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indicators. And if you have someone who is constantly
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showing up late, even though there's a standard in place,
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they can't follow a dress code, even though there's a standard
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in place, if they can't follow a structured system that you have,
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even though it's in place, then you've got some real issues to
8:32
deal with. And you're going to deal with one of these three
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things, either you realize that there's a training issue and you
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got to pull that person back into training about how to help
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them. Second part is they're just not the right person for
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that particular seat, and that happens a lot, especially when
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you're building a business, right? Yeah. And the third one
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is that potentially, you have to make a bus stop. Getting to Know
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Your business is as much as getting to know yourself, and
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that's what swords illumination is about. When you really know
8:55
who you are, then you'll start attracting people like this.
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This is like frequency kind of concept. So if you're a tuning
9:02
fork, which we are, we're frequency generators as human
9:06
beings. And people sense this. For me all the time, right? And
9:09
so when you show up and you're authentic, for example, people
9:11
feel that when you're inauthentic, people feel that.
9:15
And what's the people in the sales game don't realize that
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you can spend all your time on your scripts you want, your
9:19
structure, your principles, if you haven't lived what you're
9:23
selling, there's a missing authenticity and missing
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vibrational frequency that your customers are picking up on,
9:30
that if you don't change that, they're not going to be buying
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from Yeah. So there's this Attractor Factor that when you
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start being authentic with being a manager, you're going to
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attract other managers. If you are an entrepreneur, you're
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going to attract other entrepreneurs. Even if that
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entrepreneur isn't the right person right seat, you're still
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going to attract them. And that's what we run into as
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founders of a business, is that we don't realize we have to
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change our frequency. We have to change our identity based upon
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where the company is in these. Seven cycles, or these seven
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steps, these seven elements, you've got to be able to make
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that shift, and that's what swords elimination give you back
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the power to be able to do. You can change your identity, you
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can change your program, you can change those elements and
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actually start attracting those people you're looking for.
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Scott Ritzheimer: It's so good because the other part of it,
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it's not just an attraction, it's also an amplification. One
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of the things that I see a lot of especially stage three
10:27
leaders, fail to recognize is their bad habits have a way of
10:32
showing themselves in the rest of the team, right? And there's
10:36
a lot that are really common, like founders are generally not
10:39
great at accountability. They're they're not necessarily, you
10:42
know, many of them are not great at discipline or routine and and
10:45
so when you get a group of people around, there needs to be
10:49
accountability, there needs to be some organizational routines.
10:52
There definitely needs to be discipline. And, you know, in
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earlier stages, when it's mostly just you, it's kind of like you
10:59
live with it, you know, or you know it's but when it's the you
11:02
and then it's being amplified and compounded many times, the
11:06
frustration that we see in our team is just a reflection of the
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challenges that we're we haven't dealt with ourselves well since.
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Yeah, so when we're looking through this lens, I want you to
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pull this apart a little bit. You said you can change your
11:32
identity, and I think that's a really important thing, because
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one of the reasons why we get stuck in these different stages
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because we can't let go of what served us well in the past. But
11:33
a lot of people would say your identity is your identity. You
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can't change it. So unpack that for us a little bit. What have
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you learned about identity and how can busy entrepreneurs apply
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that to their life?
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David C. Olcott: So there's a huge difference between your
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identity and something called your role distinction. So for
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example, there's three very classic role distinctions within
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a business. You have the entrepreneur, you have the
11:49
manager, and you have the technician. So if you go back to
11:51
the E Myth, that's where you're going to get a lot of that
11:53
information from. Those are role distinctions. If you're a CEO of
11:59
a company, but then all of a sudden, you're a small business
12:01
owner and you're also the CFO and you're also the COO and the
12:05
CTO and the you know, M, O, U, S, E, you got to be able to
12:09
understand that your role distinction is something you're
12:13
going to be placing these hats on. But that doesn't change your
12:16
core identity about who you are. So core identity, your mission
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and purpose. And also, then there's these, these forks, or,
12:26
sorry, these spokes in the wheel of this balance we call it. And
12:29
that is, those spokes are the different individual things that
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you have to be able to accomplish every single day. For
12:34
example, you would probably not go into a nightclub and act the
12:38
same way that you do at church. And if you do, probably
12:41
someone's going to suggest some medication. Suggest some
12:42
medication to you. But the same thing is, if you approach just
12:47
being a CEO when you're being the CFO, you're going to find a
12:50
lot of conflict in that, because that mindset skill set, tool
12:55
set, that's necessary to make that person or that role
12:59
distinction be successful isn't the same mindset, skill set,
13:03
tool set, that makes you successful in other areas of
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your life, and those discernments is what systems
13:08
allow you to see. Because if I'm going to do a presentation, I'm
13:12
going to be very right brain creative. But if I'm going to
13:14
jump into Financials, I'm going to jump right into my left part
13:17
of my brain. And if I don't understand those role
13:19
distinctions, my identity before going in that I'm going to
13:22
create some conflict. Another great example, if you've ever
13:26
been in a creative meeting, right where a bunch of
13:28
entrepreneurs are talking about ideas, and you walk into that
13:32
meeting as a technician, how are we going to do this? Oh, my God,
13:36
Scott, the conflict that create you don't understand. I mean,
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I've seen great ideas just get blown out because there was too
13:43
many technicians in the room forgetting their role
13:46
distinction about, hey, this is just a creative meeting. We're
13:51
not figuring out how we're going to do this yet. We're just
13:51
talking about the idea and see if it really is of service to
13:51
the community, the marketplace and our business and our vision.
13:56
And then we jump right into that technician role, and you just
13:59
cancel that thing it's done, even if it was a brilliant idea.
14:02
So understanding the difference between identity and role
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distinctions is the first three chapters of the book, because
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that's exactly what we talked about, swords of identity, and
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then outcomes, and then we wrote in a role distinction. So very
14:15
clearly you start to identify that there is discernment
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between these aspects which take different mindsets, skill sets
14:22
and tool sets to really be successful.
14:24
Scott Ritzheimer: That's such a great word, discernment. I love
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that. Yeah, I love that. Because, again, it isn't
14:32
changing the fundamental of who you are, but it is changing the
14:34
skills that you have access to and the ones that you use. Got
14:37
it. Okay, we're 100% same page there. I love that. David,
14:41
there's this question before I let you go, I have to ask it. I
14:44
ask every one of my guests. I'm very interested to see what you
14:47
have to say. But the question is this, what is the biggest secret
14:50
you wish wasn't a secret at all? What's that one thing you wish
14:53
everybody watching or listening today knew?
14:55
David C. Olcott: It's kind of a reason why I wrote the book
14:57
selfishly on my own part, that if I. Okay if I ever come back
15:01
to this place, I wanted that book in my hand when I was at an
15:04
early age. Here's the most brilliant thing I've learned in
15:08
this entire lifetime. I'm 59 at saying some things that I've met
15:11
some really remarkable people in my lifetime. But my whole life,
15:15
I thought I was here to discover who I am. I thought like under
15:18
some rock or some treasure chest I was supposed to dig something
15:21
up, or I was here to discover and find out who I am. This is
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not how successful people work. Successful people work with this
15:30
idea. They're here to create who they are. Your identity is a
15:36
self creation. If you're going to be successful this lifetime,
15:40
you think about any celebrity, whether you like that celebrity,
15:43
or President or anybody else. These people know this secret,
15:47
which is they are here to create who they say they are and do the
15:51
things that align with that beingness, if you will, that
15:54
identity. And that is a true secret that now that I know what
16:00
that is, it has truly changed my world.
16:02
Scott Ritzheimer: That's fantastic. That's fantastic. I
16:05
was wrong about why I thought I was here. What a statement to
16:07
open that up. So good. David, there are some folks that have
16:12
been wrestling with this, these different roles and how to get
16:15
them all to work together. They'd love to get a copy of
16:17
your book. Tell us where we can do that, and then also, where
16:20
can they connect with you and reach out for more information?
16:23
David C. Olcott: Yes, the best hub for us is Samurai
16:25
success.com we have all kinds of channels. Matter of fact, I
16:28
think there's over 200 different videos available to you right
16:31
now that you can really get some of the insights in this. The
16:34
book is available on amazon.com. It's the number one bestseller
16:37
right now. We just passed the 10,000 sale points. So very
16:41
Congratulations. Thanks. And then as on also, what's the
16:46
audio.com you can actually pick up, so if you don't want to read
16:53
it, and I know a lot of entrepreneurs just like to
16:55
listen to stuff in the car. Really a great discounted price
16:55
right now on sale. Take a look at that. That's swords
16:55
illumination. Anything you want to know about our company and
16:58
how we might be able to be of service Samurai success.com. Is
17:02
our best hub for you to be able to reach us.
17:05
Scott Ritzheimer: Fantastic, fantastic. Well, David, thank
17:08
you so much for being on today. It was real privilege and honor
17:10
having you here. So glad we were able to finally get our
17:13
schedules to work out together. For those of you watching and
17:18
listening, you know your time and attention mean the world to
17:18
us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation, as I know
17:21
I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.