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701. Small Stories, Big Influence: Finding Clarity at Leadership Inflection Points · 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 IE 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 momentous for you, because you're influenced matters.
• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Daily Influence.
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Greikelino.
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Today, I'm excited to welcome Dr. Bobby Foam Lipper.
• 0:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Leadership coach, keynote speaker, award-winning storyteller and the author of Small Stories About Big Things.
• 1:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Bobby spent two decades in professional ministry and served in the U.S. Army Chaplaincy before transitioning into coaching mid and late career leaders.
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Often those at pivotal inflection points in their lives and leadership.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Through storytelling, curiosity, and courage, he helps leaders rediscover clarity, resilience, and direction.
• 1:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Bobby believes great leadership and thriving cultures are built on collaboration, curiosity, and courage.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can't wait for you to hear his insights today.
• 1:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Daily Influenced Bobby.
• 1:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Great to be here, thank you.
• 1:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Bobby, could you share a bit about your background in what led you from ministry and chaplaincy into coaching, leaders, and pivotal moments in their careers?
• 1:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, absolutely.
• 1:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: For a long time, I was in professional ministry.
• 1:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was a pastor, a little bit of the chaplain see on the side as well.
• 1:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: And four months before COVID hit my mom died of a brain cancer and then then COVID hits and it is it is stunning how an encounter.
• 2:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: with death quite frankly has a way of stirring the deep waters out.
• 2:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: It certainly did for me, recognizing my goodness.
• 2:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's just no day that is guaranteed.
• 2:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just see what happened with my mom.
• 2:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm seeing all this COVID as we all went through.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's why I started a really question.
• 2:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, what, how do I want to spend my days in this earth?
• 2:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm good at what I do in pastoring.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: I even love it, but I just started to ask those questions.
• 2:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it took about a two-year journey with some mentors, some spiritual directions, coaching, and an insight that raised up in that time was a quote from a guy named Howard Thurman, a great 20th century thinker and leader.
• 2:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: He said, don't ask what the world needs.
• 2:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Ask what makes you come alive.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Go do it.
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because what the world needs are people who've come alive.
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: is really working with people in some of the hardest, most important moments of their time, whether individually collectively.
• 3:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: You get to do some of that in the church, but the positions I was in had become largely a lot of program management.
• 3:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was good, but I wanted to get back to the people.
• 3:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I follow that instinct and left that to step into what I'm doing now.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's amazing.
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry about your mom, but I'm glad grateful that you were able to take such, you know, a grieving challenging time and turn it into, but we're going to discuss today.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, thank you.
• 3:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: In a new spent decades walking alongside people during meaningful seasons of growth and challenge, in our I&TM series, we talk about responsible influence beginning with self-leadership, and many of the leaders that you coach arrive feeling tired or sensing something's off.
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: What do you see happening internally at those inflection points and how can leaders take responsibility for realigning themselves before trying to influence others?
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, goodness, this is so real like I find that the people I work with are right with one or two or both of these realities one is just there's something off the their energy just why can't I find that extra
• 4:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: I am just so busy.
• 4:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just am constantly going.
• 4:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: I get the hamster wheel image a lot from people.
• 4:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Their way of saying I'm going and I don't know what's going anywhere.
• 4:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And of course, these two are related, the sense of I don't even can find energy and I'm just so busy.
• 4:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's a lot that could be said here, but I think I honestly, I think of a guy I just started working with a couple of weeks ago.
• 4:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: He has a team director for it, and he's just constantly go, go, go.
• 5:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he does not have time to do coaching, except that finally he kind of realized,
• 5:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: That was the sign that maybe he needed to try something different for the first time in the years.
• 5:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so he slows down with me.
• 5:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Once a week, in last week, he's talking about a challenge he's dealing with on the home front and I just asked him how do you want to show up to this and he just said, I think I want to show up with authenticity, stability, and love.
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I said, oh, man, okay, what's that look like?
• 5:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then we pivoted and said, what's that?
• 5:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: What's that look like for your leadership right now with these 18 and all the changes in the company?
• 5:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it was it was like the skills just started to fall away and he's like, oh, that's that's how I want to show up with them.
• 5:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we unpacked it.
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was what these beautiful things were leader realized maybe the thing I need most is exactly the thing I think I don't have time for it.
• 5:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that was the first break.
• 5:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that internal recalibration often ripples outward.
• 5:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you've said that collaboration, curiosity, encourage our essential drivers of thriving cultures.
• 6:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: How can leaders intentionally create environments where those qualities aren't just talked about, but truly modeled and lived?
• 6:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: One thing that comes to mind is I think.
• 6:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: good leaders these days where, you know, when a city, then a world where we could find so many answers and even good insights of what they are in all the rest.
• 6:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think good leaders are differentiating themselves by their ability, like you're doing right now, asking good questions.
• 6:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think a genuine curiosity, by with questions, it's not overnight, but people start to learn, oh, you're so one who's not gonna ask, say, here's what we need to do, here's what we do, but what do you think?
• 6:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: What might we try here?
• 6:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: How could that work?
• 6:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: I read that you know, Jensen Wong, the CEO of NVIDIA, now goes almost entire days asking only questions because I think the benchmark for great leadership now is moved into the ability to bring that kind of tool in the workplace.
• 6:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: Leadership becomes real in the small everyday interactions.
• 7:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 7:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
• 7:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: You tell us about a moment, perhaps through your coaching ministry or storytelling, where you clearly saw that you made a positive impact on someone's life.
• 7:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, when it comes to mind in the coaching sphere, a woman who is in an executive position doing all the things, but just feeling kind of lost and trying to figure everything out after after COVID and feeling disconnected from both work and life and all the things.
• 7:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she starts on the story about going to the national park, the one in New Mexico with the
• 7:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: take it one orange post at a time.
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's how you make it through these dunes.
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's just these orange posts along the way.
• 7:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: You could just barely see the next one and as you go towards that when you get there and you get just barely see the next one.
• 7:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: You just keep moving one port to you get to your campsite and that and I say this out.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Is that what we're doing?
• 7:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Are we going to take it one orange post to the time and this journey to recover the fire that is you alive?
• 8:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she can't, that's what we're going to do.
• 8:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we did one orange post at the time.
• 8:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I remember the moment I felt like, oh my gosh, we just hit a really big orange post.
• 8:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: She gets on the call and she says, I think, Bobby, over the week I pulled out my old paint from the garage that I haven't touched in years.
• 8:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: You still love painting.
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I move the whole paint set into the middle of my living room.
• 8:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: See, the middle of the room you step into and you, you know, come home and that's the first thing you see that that's where the paints are.
• 8:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's like, I know it's strange, but it feels so right.
• 8:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's like, okay, there it is.
• 8:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: She started to find prioritized these ways that she finds herself and it was beautiful to see the ripple effects coming out from there.
• 8:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, that's a great example.
• 8:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate you sharing that and it really reminds me of when we talk about our smart management and that measurement piece,
• 8:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: And those orange steaks are like the milestones, right, the measurements that we have to help us make sure we're on track and we're going in the right direction and getting there.
• 9:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, yes, absolutely.
• 9:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: your book, small stories about big things, highlights how everyday stories carry powerful lessons.
• 9:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: How does storytelling serve as a tool for responsible influence and leadership and organizational culture?
• 9:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's funny.
• 9:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: I might start with the word data when we're talking about stories, but the data just tells us over and over again that storytelling hits on so many levels of the brain all the ones in a way that a purely rational insider bullet pulling
• 9:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: really storytelling is about trust.
• 9:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: When we talk about influence and culture, it is the quickest bridge to building trust.
• 9:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I find that being able to tell, if you tell a personal story of some sort in your own leadership, ideally making it one that's you're not the hero of it.
• 9:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're kind of learning something.
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: the humility that builds the trust of your telling the another story like the team that just did something great.
• 9:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: You lift them up for all the work, the challenge they face, what they did to break through and that that's story of five form.
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's about trust building and that is worth it.
• 10:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, much when we have so many reasons not to trust or have our guard up these days.
• 10:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's so true and, you know, as a reflection on our own stories, if you could go back and offer advice to your younger self at the beginning of your leadership journey, what would you share and how might that guidance help others who are early in their journey today?
• 10:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: I moved fast, and I liked it.
• 10:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: I liked a fast pace, knocking things out, knocking down the to-do list, I even had an nickname for a season called The Mission because I just, that was how fast, just seemed like I was all that guy is always walking really fast.
• 10:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's on the mission.
• 10:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Which is great.
• 10:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: I got a lot done and it was part of why I got exhausted.
• 10:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I stumbled into a couple of the groups in my leadership over the years where we would meet every other week.
• 11:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: People liked mine, did.
• 11:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: even like career-ish, and it always felt hard to show up to those, because that was slowing down for an hour or 90 minutes.
• 11:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And every time I left those groups where we just got together just sort of related where we were and hurt each other, sometimes help each other.
• 11:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: I felt refreshed, and I felt actually now I'm actually going to be faster than Bobby all by himself.
• 11:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I felt more gentrative.
• 11:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the advice I wish I'd give my early underself and others out there is
• 11:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Man, find that group.
• 11:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Honestly, find that group.
• 11:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: That is what will sustain you.
• 11:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Not only sustain you, but actually you move faster and more meaningfully with that group of people rather than trying to do it all by yourself.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that is a great point.
• 11:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think also that other message there is, and live well first of all, I'm glad you found that group to help you slow down.
• 11:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: But we always say, slow down to speed up.
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly what that group hope you do.
• 11:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: You were moving so fast, they made you slow down, and you were even able to speed up.
• 12:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Speed up, that's right.
• 12:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hold on.
• 12:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: And for those listening who may be at their own inflection point right now, what message are words of encouragement?
• 12:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Would you like to share with our listeners with inspired and make a positive and responsible difference in a world, especially during seasons when they feel uncertain or stretched?
• 12:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: What if the uncertainties are gift?
• 12:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: what if what if the thing that is causing the deep amount of anxiety is the gift.
• 12:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: I sometimes see the sexual size with groups.
• 12:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have them draw, I've speaking with the marine association recently, had them all draw a boat on a piece of paper.
• 12:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Artists are not that matters draw a boat.
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: At least a picture of your leadership in life these days.
• 12:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Draw the really strong parts, the good parts, the parts you want to show off about your boat.
• 12:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Also draw some hard things if there's holes in the boats.
• 12:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Draw holes in the sales.
• 12:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: What ever it is, storm clouds above.
• 12:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: So they all draw it.
• 12:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they say, okay, let's look at your drawings and you don't have to share with anyone just take a look at it.
• 13:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, would you look at the hardest thing you're drawing?
• 13:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: What is that?
• 13:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Is a gift.
• 13:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think when we reframe that, we realize, oh, that is probably the piece that's calling me into who I actually really want to be more of.
• 13:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: The best version of myself, and it's not going to happen through the easy thing.
• 13:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's going to happen through the whole thing.
• 13:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: The invitation is actually that very thing we're naming as the problem.
• 13:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think I might start with that.
• 13:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's really good advice, Bobby.
• 13:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for sharing that.
• 13:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you're welcome.
• 13:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Fabi, thank you for reminding us that influence doesn't always come to our grand gestures.
• 13:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's often about finding it in the small stories, a courageous conversation, and the willingness to reline ourselves before leading others.
• 13:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: If our listeners want to get in touch with you, what is the best way to do so?
• 13:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sure, everything that I do is at BHL, my initials BHL.
• 14:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: that coach, and I'm pretty active on LinkedIn as well.
• 14:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Perfect, we'll put that in the show notes.
• 14:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: On daily influence, we believe responsible influence starts with the eye, the individual choice to show up with integrity, curiosity, and courage.
• 14:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And today, you've given us practical and meaning way it's to do that.
• 14:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for being positive influence in the lives of so many.
• 14:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so grateful you're able to join us, Bobby.
• 14:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right, thank you, Greg.
• 14:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: This was a lot of fun.
• 14:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Appreciate it.
• 14:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And to our listeners, thank you for tuning in today with the influence.
• 14:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I hope today's conversation brought you insight and inspiration.
• 14:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: If it's spoke to you, share it with someone who could use a little positivity today.
• 14:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Remember, small actions create big impact, keep showing up, leading and growing one day to time.
• 14:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Until next time, stay inspired and keep having a positive, responsible influence.
• 14:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Bye-bye.