This is the leading Podcast for Leadership globally. You’ll listen to top authors, C-suite executives and leadership coaches and unlock tips, ideas, insights along with top leadership hacks. It’s your way to tap into some of the best and most experienced leaders and business coaches in the world.
Episodes
Monday Feb 21, 2022
Context is King with John Reid
Monday Feb 21, 2022
Monday Feb 21, 2022
John Reid is the president of JMReid Group. He's an entrepreneur and author of multiple books, the latest being the Five Lost Super Powers, why we lose them and how to get them back. In this show explore:
- John survived cancer 4 times, find how that builds resilience.
- Why context is king.
- Compassion with Empathy is life changing.
- Explore the Five Lost Super Powers and if you need to get them back.
Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com
Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA
Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services
Find out more about John below:
John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-reid-a3007a2/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jmreidgroup/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jmreidgroup/
Company Website: https://jmreidgroup.com/
Full Transcript Below
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Monday Feb 14, 2022
Visual Metaphors at Work with Dr Kerstin Potter
Monday Feb 14, 2022
Monday Feb 14, 2022
Dr Kerstin Potter is an Executive Coach with over 30 years in international business the private and public sector, She is the Founder and CEO Visual Metaphors at Work. Explore these topics:
- What is the difference between metaphors and visual metaphors?
- The unconscious thoughts and neuroscience triggered by visual metaphors.
- How visual metaphors help leaders express themselves in situations they find difficult.
- It’s not about being a leader of – but a leader with.
Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com
Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA
Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services
Find out more about Kerstin below:
Kerstin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerstin-potter/
Company Website: https://www.visualmetaphorsatwork.com
Full Transcript Below
Read the rest of this entry »
Monday Feb 07, 2022
Spiritual Intelligence with Amy Lynn Durham
Monday Feb 07, 2022
Monday Feb 07, 2022
Amy Lynn Durham is the CEO of Create Magic at Work. She's also a Berkeley Certified Executive Coach, and one of the world's leading practitioners on spiritual intelligence. In this intimate
conversation we discuss some great learning including:
- What is Spiritual Intelligence (SQ)
- How we can use SQ and EQ at work as leaders
- What to do, to create magic at work
- How to feel connected with your teams or organization
Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com
Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA
Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services
Find out more about Amy below:
Amy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amylynndurham/
Create Magic at Work Website: https://createmagicatwork.net
Amy on Twitter https://twitter.com/durham_amy
Amy on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/createmagicatwork/
Full Transcript Below
Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach, or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.
Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors, and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush, and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you
Amy Lynn Durham is a special guest on today's show. Amy is the CEO of Create Magic at Work. She's also a Berkeley Certified Executive Coach, and one of the world's leading practitioners on spiritual intelligence. But before we get a chance to speak with Amy, it's The Leadership Hacker News.
The Leadership Hacker News
Steve Rush: Given today's show is about spiritual intelligence. We're going to start off by diving into emotional intelligence. So what is it? Well at the most basic level, emotional intelligence is the ability to understand your own emotions and other people's feelings. A high level of emotional intelligence will help us as leaders engage with others effectively. Emotional intelligence affects all aspects of our professional and personal life. From our ability to self-regulate our emotions to manage behavior, sell an idea and lead and form healthy relationships.
Many companies have determined employees with a high level of emotion, intelligence increase a company's productivity and significantly impacts on the bottom line. So as a leader, if you're looking ways to boost your emotional, here's a few steps to help you on your way. Learn to stay cool. As the saying goes, you attract more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. You're more likely to get what you need by being polite rather than being rude. We say things we regret when we are stressed and angry, while stress is of course a normal part of life, it can so distract us from the rational thinking that we absolutely need. Stress, however, dramatically affects how we deal with problematic situations. You feel yourself getting stressed, take a walk, get some fresh air, sip some water, but take a break. If you want to boost your emotional intelligence, you need to learn how to avoid succumbing easily to the stresses in our personal and professional lives.
Next, develop empathy and compassion. Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify and manage not only our own emotions, but for those around us as well. Their opinions, judgments, demands, requests of others can also cause us to lose our cool. But by stepping into their shoes, understanding can really set us apart. Be present in the moment and try and examine it from all angles. It could be entirely possible that you are reading into a situation that isn't actually happening right in front of you. Their intent could be altogether different from your understanding of their situation.
Be definitive. Are you someone who has things happen to them or are you the person that makes things happen? Learn how to take ownership of the situations in our lives. You're in driver seat after all. With higher emotion intelligence, you'll realize that you are in control of all of your outcomes, even though you might not think so, emotion and intelligence help you respond in an empowering way where circumstances and situations could be even really quite challenging and help you find a way around. Remember you're in the driving seat.
Change old habits, change how you engage with others. If you are in a habit of cutting people off, when they speak, practice stopping it. Learn to be fully present when engaging with others. Listen thoroughly to what somebody is saying without thinking how you're going to respond, just be in the moment. And yet it takes practice. And lastly, practice mindfulness. Mindfulness is the practice of observing the present moment without judging what you notice. The more you're able to observe without are judging the less slightly you are actually to react to the environment that’s around you.
And to sum this up nicely, Victor Frankl, author of Man’s Search For Meaning. States that everything can be taken from a man but one thing, the last of the human freedoms, which is to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances. And developing our emotional intelligence will help us all enjoy this freedom to choose your attitude in any given circumstance. So, in conclusion, researchers have determined that emotional intelligence has more impact on success than IQ, your intelligence. The good news is that your level of emotional intelligence is not fixed, and it can be changed, and we can nurture it and it can grow. If you want some more informational emotional intelligence. One of the godfathers that brought this to our four is Daniel Goleman and he has a book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. Please continue to keep your new stories flowing to us. But for now, let's get into the show.
Start of Podcast
Steve Rush: Joining me on the show today is Amy Lynn Durham. Amy is a certified executive coach. She's the founder and CEO of her company Create Magic At Work and they offer spiritual intelligence and emotional intelligence tools to energize and transform the workplace. Amy's also written fantastic book named of course Create Magic At Work. Amy, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.
Amy Lynn Durham: Thank you for having me, Steve. I'm happy to be here.
Steve Rush: We always love to kick the show off with an opportunity for you to share a little bit about how you've arrived doing what you're doing. So, tell us a little bit about the backstory?
Amy Lynn Durham: How have I arrived? What a question. Yeah, it's a roller coaster ride for sure. Being a solopreneur entrepreneur. My background is in the corporate world as a corporate executive. I've worked for private and publicly traded companies. At my peak, I was working for a large telecommunications company, and I was operating about 40 million dollars a year in operating income and managing a little over 400 employees. And I mainly ran half of California, which is the size of a small country if you will.
Steve Rush: It's in fact bigger than many countries, right?
Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah. And part of which was the Bay Area in Silicon Valley. So, I have a strong background in achieving sales goals, HR, recruiting, employee engagement, workplace culture, and all of those things that are involved with that. While I was in my position there, I really felt like my creativity was stifled in the workplace. And in my final year in that position, I made a goal within myself that I wanted to show to the C-suite leaders, that human connection improves productivity and profitability versus pitting people against each other in unhealthy competition. And so, I planned for a year to leave my job and I didn't tell anyone because I wanted to go on a journey where I reinjected myself back into the workplace to do these connecting activities. But what I did during the year that I stayed in my job was. I used my employees to test out these field, tested activities that I ended up putting in my book and I wanted to make sure I left on top, again, to show that these things work in the workplace.
Steve Rush: Awesome. And in doing that kind of test and learn under the radar, so to speak, what did you fundamentally learn about your existing team that happened as a result of you changing your approach?
Amy Lynn Durham: Wow, well, it freed me up as a leader to actually do my job. I'm going to start with the end result and then kind of unthread it from there for you. Once the team members saw the humanity within each other, with these activities, we were doing that really at the end of the day, elevated their spiritual intelligence, their SQ, and their EQ as well, their emotional intelligence. They worked together better. So, you know, one person would call the other if they had a question or needed help, collaboration skyrocketed. I wasn't the only main point of contact anymore. And the other thing that it did, which is a huge result of skill building and spiritual intelligence in the workplace, is it decreased the ego induced drama.
Steve Rush: Right.
Amy Lynn Durham: That is pretty time consuming in the workplace. And there were a lot more results. As far as like the ripple effect for humanity. I mean, there were some beautiful moments that I feel were healing that people had where they could really show who they are authentically in the workplace. And I know that team remembers each other forever now.
Steve Rush: Because they've got a deeper, more meaningful connection, right.
Amy Lynn Durham: A hundred percent.
Steve Rush: Yeah. So, you pivoted then into the world of helping others on this journey that you'd experienced yourself by really diving into that, what you call spiritual intelligence. Now for focus, listen into this. They may be more familiar with the language of emotion intelligence, but perhaps less so for spiritual intelligence. So maybe you can just give us a little bit of an overview if you like, as to what spiritual intelligence is and how that differs or not as a case maybe from EQ?
Amy Lynn Durham: Right? Right. Yeah. So, this is an arguable data point, but I'm going to share it because it's a great way to frame it. You get to SQ by way of EQ. So, if you have been working on self-awareness of your emotions and working on building connections in the workplace, that's sort of skill building in EQ. SQ you is when you start pondering, you know, why am I here? What is my life purpose? What are my values? And am I living in alignment with those values? And it's that point in your life where you start thinking of those different questions for yourself. The adult development theory says it typically happens around your early to mid-thirties, but obviously we're all human and there's exceptions, right?
Steve Rush: Right.
Amy Lynn Durham: The definition of spiritual intelligence is the ability. And this is from Cindy Wigglesworth who developed the 21 skills of SQ. And her definition is the ability to maintain inner and outer peace, make decisions with wisdom and compassion, regardless of the situation, even under great stress. So, if you take that definition and think, wow, what if all of our leaders were able to do that in the workplace? How amazing would that be?
Steve Rush: Be an amazing place. Yeah, definitely.
Amy Lynn Durham: Right, yeah.
Steve Rush: It's an interesting notion that in order to get to SQ, you've got to go through this emotional intelligence journey, but actually it starts with self, doesn't it? In that kind of foundation block.
Amy Lynn Durham: It does. I mean, you don't even have to know what emotional intelligence is. Again, the adult development theory says that that's around your early to mid-twenties where your brain is developed enough to really start experiencing compassion for others. But if you're in that space and you're working on self-awareness of your emotions, building connections, having emotional management strategies, all of those things.
Steve Rush: Right.
Amy Lynn Durham: The next steppingstone would SQ.
Steve Rush: If I was a leader, listening to this thinking around. Okay. So, I thought relatively grounded in my emotion intelligence. What's my next step to start exploring spiritual intelligence?
Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah. Okay. I offer an SQ experience that I take you through all of it. I issue an SQ assessment on the 21 skills, and you can see what level you're operating at, at this current timeframe of the 21 skills of SQ. And then you can go from there, you can deep dive into whatever skill resonates with you. You don't have to work on all 21 skills if there's a few that you're like, I don't even care about this. Great. we can work on the ones that resonate with you. And for me, it's a life lifelong journey. So, I have a client just to give you a client story that knew their life purpose for the majority of their adult life. And they really did a great job with their career, and you know, working in that life purpose space. Well, now they're in a different phase of their life. Their life has changed as our lives do, and they're trying to rediscover a new life purpose. And so, this stuff can be cyclical too. It's not like a one and done.
Steve Rush: Right.
Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah.
Steve Rush: Got it. So, what are the core elements of then spiritual intelligence?
Amy Lynn Durham: The first Is creating an awareness of your ego versus your higher self. Once you've created that awareness, this is my opinion. This is what I think is really the core element here is moving on to, okay. I'm aware of when my ego gets in the driver's seat, I'm aware of when I'm operating from my higher self, and now I can practice seeking guidance from my higher self. I can practice operating from the space of my higher self-more. And that to me is the core of all of this. How can we become aware of our ego and when it's operating? How can we work to have our ego in service to our higher self? And how can we practice seeking guidance from our higher self? So spiritual intelligence is faith neutral. You can be agnostic, you can be atheist, doesn't matter. As long as you believe there's a place within you that comes from wisdom, compassion, love, that you can access. You can work on the 21 skills SQ.
Steve Rush: I guess you have to have gone through that realizing first in order to be open to this, right?
Amy Lynn Durham: The realization of separating your ego?
Steve Rush: Yeah, and also realizing that there is something else to explore that you haven't yet gone through to find new ways of thinking and behaving.
Amy Lynn Durham: Yes. You have to definitely have some sort of awareness and some sort of curiosity to want to do the work that's required. Absolutely. It does take looking in the mirror and some inner work.
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Amy Lynn Durham: And some leaders don't want to do that. And that's okay. That's the space they're in right now, but I really truly feel, this is what will make you and your company a next level organization is operating from these skillsets.
Steve Rush: And from your experiences being a coach using the spiritual intelligence, SQ steps. Maybe just share with us a story or an example of where you've seen somebody really transition and make a significant difference to the way that they lead their business and the team?
Amy Lynn Durham: So, there's a really common skill that a lot of clients want to go to and talk about it. And it's in quadrant four at skill 19, and the skill is making wise and compassionate decisions. And let me tell you where the transformation happens. The transformation happens with the individual most often, lately. And I don't have the scientific data behind it, but I can speak to a correlation with the pandemic. These leaders are great leaders. And what ends up happening is when we dig a little bit deeper, we discover they need to make wise and compassionate decisions for themselves. And they're great leaders, obviously, because they want to dive into that skill, right? Oh, I want to dive into making wise and compassionate decisions. I want to operate at a really high skill level for my team and my people in that area. That is a great intention, beautiful, creating that ripple effect as a leader, but oh, by the way, are you making wise and compassionate decisions for yourself?
Steve Rush: Right.
Amy Lynn Durham: Are you burning yourself out? Are you overworking yourself for your team? Then we get into boundary setting and a little bit of self-care with that. So interestingly enough, the transformation happens with the individual taking care of themselves so they can take care of their people in a better clearer way.
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Amy Lynn Durham: That's one example.
Steve Rush: It's a great example. And I remember when you and I first met. You shared this story with me around how you go about helping people on this journey. And I remember you sharing the approach that you take because you genuinely take coaching to another level when it comes to SQ, where you not only do you get the report to make that spiritual connection yourself. I remember you sharing that, you know, you meditate over the report and the words you actually use, which I was quite inspired by was you actually almost ingest the energy that you get from their reports. And if you remember you and I had this conversation, is that the right word? And I think that felt really quite powerful for me. And I just wondered if you could share how that experience evolves?
Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah. So once we start the SQ experience. They start the journey with taking the SQ assessment, and then once the results come through, I spend a lot of time reading those results, meditating on the results. And really, like you said, and I ingest the energy of the results. So, I can really show up for my client and be there for them. And then I create custom coaching questions for them in order to help move them forward on their leadership journey with this. It's a really cool experience. I had one particular client. This is just coming to mind. I just love this story. I love to share it. He scored so high on being able to operate from his higher self. And I was like, oh my gosh, did you know that you have this magic gift already innately that you just operate from your higher self?
And when a leader can do that, you know, like I said, before ego induced drama just kind of falls away, or you don't attract drama or people that are angry in your presence, the anger sort of dissipates. And I pointed that out to him because it's nice to name that and to know like, yeah, when I'm in a space with other people, my energy as leader, or as someone in a position of power actually ripples out 10 times over. So how amazing is it that this type of energy, this coming from a place of common healing presence, inner wisdom, compassion, love, is rippling out to the people that I'm interacting with. And he said, oh my gosh, when I was a little boy in school, the teacher would always sit the bad kid next to me. And she always said she did that because he seemed to behave better when he sat next to me.
Steve Rush: That's really fascinating, isn't it?
Amy Lynn Durham: And I said, yeah. The things that come about with these interactions are really cool and people discover hidden strengths that they know we're there, but they just need a light shined on them.
Steve Rush: Yeah. So that's tapping into spirituality the much deeper level, isn't? Than perhaps most people would consciously be aware of.
Amy Lynn Durham: It is.
Steve Rush: And I wonder as a coach, how do you get people tuned into that depth of understanding?
Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah. So, I have two parts to the way that I operate. I have that deep stuff that I was just talking about with you. And then I have the super fun, playful tools that I offer. So that's why I designed Create Magic At Work. I put all the fun leadership activities in my book that leaders can grab. My book is like 64 pages, it's tiny. And I did that on purpose, and I designed it for the leader that can just grab it and go to an activity and do the activity with their team. The activity elevates their EQ and SQ, but it's super fun.
Steve Rush: Right
Amy Lynn Durham: So, yeah, we do the deep inner work with the one-on-one SQ experience or the workshops or the speaking engagements. But at the same time, you can just do something fun with your team and it can start simple. It doesn't have to be this huge, deep dive into SQL. I have a journaling exercise in my book. It's called journaling with a twist. I designed a journal prompt card deck for the workplace and for your career. So, you can pull a journal card for your team to journal on a theme. Time them for 10 minutes. They rapid write answers to the questions. And then if they're comfortable, they can share it with everyone. That was a huge connecting activity that I did with my team that brought everyone together. Because once everyone hears each other's answers, you start seeing the humanity in each other. And it's simple.
Steve Rush: Yeah. And fundamentally, this is about that human connection. About how we become more connected so that we become more empathetic, more productive, more, right?
Amy Lynn Durham: Absolutely, yeah.
Steve Rush: What would be your experience that generally in corporate life? We don't have as much human connectivity as we both perhaps could have or should have.
Amy Lynn Durham: Okay. I'm really glad you asked me this. I saw an article the other day on some neuroscience data and I know that there's all kinds of intelligences coming out right now, but it narrowed it down to the three to IQ, EQ and SQ. And to answer your question in the short form, it's because the workplaces that we're working in are mainly designed to only operate under IQ, that part of your brain that works under the IQ space.
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Amy Lynn Durham: And then, I'm going to answer your question longer now. I'm just going to give a simple example. Let's say you're working for a company that's like super IQ only, you know, P&L statements, Excel spreadsheets, no team connecting. They don't care about EQ. We're not going to do that woo, woo stuff. We're not going to kumbaya by the fire. Whatever, right? Like boiler rooms. And then you finally get to go home, and you get to kick up your feet and relax a little bit. And then that EQ part of your brain starts being able to kick in. And this neuroscience data was showing that it's actually different parts of your brain that you're accessing when you're utilizing these skills. And so, yeah, you get to use some emotion at home. You get to relax; you get to be who you are. And then finally, what they were saying is the spiritual intelligence part of your brain is another place you can access that takes you into that beautiful feeling where you're aligned with the ebb and flow of life, where you're in that creative, innovative, playful zone. As a couple of examples.
And as I read that article, because I know Steve, you and I are on LinkedIn, and we see all of the latest and greatest for workplace topics. And lately, even on my podcast, we talk a lot about how to be your authentic self at work. Can you be your authentic self at work? Why can't you be your authentic at work? All of those things. And I thought, no wonder, no wonder why some people feel like they can't be their full, authentic selves at work. Well, it's because a lot of these systems and these places that we work in. Their environments that allowing for accessing one third to maybe two thirds of our total potential.
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Amy Lynn Durham: Of our brain.
Steve Rush: And typically, and I could be really candid here, right. We just don't teach spiritual intelligence in the same vein as we do with emotion intelligence as we look at leaders, right?
Amy Lynn Durham: No. And I think that some leaders might get caught up with the word spiritual and think that it's religion. And then, oh, we don't want to talk religion in the workplace. We don't want to touch that. And for lack of a better word, I think it's just a little bit of un education or ignorance on what exactly it is and the benefits of it. So that's why I'm happy you have me on The Leadership Hacker to talk about it because it's so deep and it's so much more than that, yeah.
Steve Rush: It's really more about higher self, right?
Amy Lynn Durham: Totally. And when I talk about accessing your inner wisdom and your higher self, if you have a specific religion that you follow, that's beautiful. And if you want to utilize seeking guidance from your higher power, same thing, right. and so whatever works for you in your life.
Steve Rush: we're going to ask you at the end of the show, how folk can get a copy of what you're doing around, Create Magic At Work and so and so forth. So, hang fire to the end of the show and you can find out how to access Amy great stuff. Before that, though, we're going to just flip the lens a little bit Amy. We're going to hack into your broad and deep and wide leadership experiences. I'm going to try and get you to get them down to your top three leadership hacks. What would they be?
Amy Lynn Durham: Top three leadership hack. Okay. So, if you want to asked corporate Amy, like 10 years ago, they would've been like super corporately answers, like on time management and on productivity. But now that I am the spiritual executive coach, I am going to share my top three leadership hacks that are going to be so different for you. The first one is when mistakes and chaos occur in the workplace, take a moment to look for the innovation and inspiration hiding underneath. That will put you in a quantum leadership space and move you into the space of being a true wise and effective change agent. So that's the first one. The second one is, remember, it's never too late to start and there are never perfect circumstances. And the third is, I'm tying it into our whole theme today, Steve. Take time when making decisions to practice accessing your higher self and your inner wisdom or that higher power if you believe in that. We seek advice from a lot of experts. That's okay, as long as you're not just literally doing what they're saying, and you're taking a moment to sit with advice, you seek from an expert and see if it's actually right for you and practice seeking that guidance from your higher self and putting that ego aside in the process. I
Steve Rush: Love that last one. I can honestly say I act on advice that intrinsically feels right and seems right. And off I go into a direction of activity yet had I maybe just spent more time trying to tap into that thinking it might have changed the activity instead, right?
Amy Lynn Durham: When we feel unsafe or scared, sometimes we run to experts to tell us what to do. And I just say, take a pause and see if that really sits right with you before you make a decision, whatever it is. You know, I'm just, real broad here. But think about that because giving away responsibility to someone else to make decisions for your life is not where you want to be. I was going to say it's an SQ failure.
Steve Rush: I know you mean.
Amy Lynn Durham: I don't want to say that. Because it sounds so harsh, but the only reason why I'm sharing that is because I personally went through that journey during 2021.
Steve Rush: Right.
Amy Lynn Durham: And it was a beautiful learning experience for me and yeah.
Steve Rush: And often we will behave differently at work than we would do in our non-work life. We will ask people for advice and decisions and help me make these decisions at work. Whereas at home we probably make them ourselves because we have less people and noise around us.
Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah, or, I mean, sometimes people really have their EQ and SQ like really locked in the workplace and then personal relationships forget about it.
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Amy Lynn Durham: And so, that's our practice. Thank you for the lesson. Sometimes it's our personal relationships. That's really our practice that makes us better at work.
Steve Rush: Definitely. Yeah, I can resonate with that one for sure. So, the next part of the show we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where an event, an occurrence, a thing, has happened in your life or your work that hasn't worked out well, but as a result of the experience, you know, use it as a positive force in your life, in your work. And you've clearly articulated a direction, travel using some of those techniques, but was perhaps one event which created that Hack to Attack for you?
Amy Lynn Durham: I'm going to be super vulnerable and share something I did with my business that I don't like. At one point I decided that generating a bunch of leads for my SQ experience was a good idea. And I got talked into using the LinkedIn automated thing, you know, I should have sat with it like we talked about and felt whether it was a right fit for me or not. And I utilized it for a couple of months, and it just was not authentic. And it was not for me. I really learned from that because, it's my whole, you know, transforming workplace culture, human connection. How did I miss that within myself? And I had to shut it down. And what I learned from it is the power of, again, as we know, a reminder, the power of just connecting with people.
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Amy Lynn Durham: And having a real conversation. And I knew that, and I gave up my responsibility to some expert, you know, quote unquote experts and I had to take it back.
Steve Rush: That's great. And then trustingly, you know, even when you look at some of the advances in machine learning and data science, there still needs people that are humans that are connected to each other and to the work that they do in order for making the data science advancements in the last 10, 20 years as well. So, without human connection, we still can't even advance through our automated life.
Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah, absolutely.
Steve Rush: Yeah. Last part of the show, we get to give you a chance to do some time travel. So, you get to bump into Amy at 21 and give her some words of wisdom. I'm fairly sure I know we is going, right? But I want to sense check and get a sense from you as to what would your advice to Amy 21 be?
Amy Lynn Durham: Oh my gosh, she was a completely different woman than the woman she is today. And my advice would be to slow down. Everything's going to be okay. Take moments, really, to be with yourself, stop running away from yourself.
Steve Rush: Like it. Really wise words. Great stuff.
Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah.
Steve Rush: So, I'm conscious that in the world of human connection, what we do through our medium of podcasting and writing is about that connection and therefore want to make sure we help you connect with our global audience. So, where's the best place for us to send them now we're done.
Amy Lynn Durham: Well, I already mentioned LinkedIn. so, I'm Amy Lyn Durham on LinkedIn. And then also my website createmagicatwork.net has all those fun tools I talked about for the workplace and also the SQ experience that I offer. And you can message me on LinkedIn. You will get me responding now, the full human Amy.
Steve Rush: The real you.
Amy Lynn Durham: Exactly. And I love to connect and chat and discuss the topics like we discuss today.
Steve Rush: So super.
Amy Lynn Durham: yeah.
Steve Rush: We'll make sure we put those in the show notes, along with your other social media links as well. So, folk can head straight over and connect with you from here.
Amy Lynn Durham: Perfect. Awesome. Thanks Steve.
Steve Rush: Amy. Thanks for coming on our show. I love chatting with you. I think the whole notion of SQ is going to explode in the future. I'm a big fan and would love to explore personally some more. So that's call to action for me. And thank you ever so much for being vulnerable, being part of our community on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.
Amy Lynn Durham: Thank you. Thank you for having me. And I hope we sent some magic to everyone today.
Steve Rush: We certainly have. Thanks Amy.
Amy Lynn Durham: Thank you.
Closing
Steve Rush: I genuinely want to say heartfelt thanks for taking time out of your day to listen in too. We do this in the service of helping others and spreading the word of leadership. Without you listening in, there would be no show. So please subscribe now if you have not done so already. Share this podcast with your communities, network, and help us develop a community and a tribe of leadership hackers.
Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there: @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.
Monday Jan 31, 2022
Show 100 with Steve Rush - The Leadership Hacker
Monday Jan 31, 2022
Monday Jan 31, 2022
Steve Rush, The Leadership Hacker interviews the top 5 guests by download during the shows 100 mega episodes. Listen in to this special show with special guests, Dr Oleg Konovalov, Michelle Boxx – The Blonde Fixer, David Marquet, Andrea Sampson and Andrew Bryant.
Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com
Leadership Hacker Apple Podcast
Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA
Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services
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Monday Jan 24, 2022
Scaling Leadership with Jeff Chastain
Monday Jan 24, 2022
Monday Jan 24, 2022
Jeff Chastain is a business transformation coach, he’s the founder and CEO of Admentus Inc and the podcast host of Building to Scale. In this show you can learn about:
- The differences between leadership in a Start-up vs. a growth-oriented business.
- Leading with a visionary mindset, how is that different from the well versed Growth vs. Fixed.
- The key components of an effective business vision and how does the business leader make that vision actionable.
- The reasons some leaders are unable to break through the glass ceiling that could be holding their team or business back.
Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com
Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA
Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services
Find out more about Jeff below:
Jeff on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/omarlharris/
Jeff on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeffDChastain
Jeff on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/admentusinc/
Admentus Website: https://admentus.com
Full Transcript Below
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Monday Jan 17, 2022
The Conflict Paradox with Jerry Fu
Monday Jan 17, 2022
Monday Jan 17, 2022
Dr. Jerry Fu. Jerry is the founder and owner of Adapting Leaders; specializing in helping Asian American professionals. He’s an executive coach with expertise in conflict resolution. This great conversation is full of hacks and learning for everyone including:
- The importance of mindset in Leadership
- What causes conflict in the first place
- The reason people will avoid having a difficult conversation
- The framework for dealing with those hard conversations
Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com
Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA
Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services
Find out more about Jerry below:
Jerry on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerry-e-fu-pharmd-acc-53710187/
Adapting Leaders Website: https://www.adaptingleaders.com
Full Transcript Below
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Monday Jan 10, 2022
Be a J.E.D.I Leader Not a Boss with Omar L Harris
Monday Jan 10, 2022
Monday Jan 10, 2022
Welcome to our first show of 2022. I’m delighted to kick start this year off with Omar L Harris. Omar is a former Executive Leader of GSK and Allergan with more than 20 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He's the founder managing partner of Intent Consulting and author of The Servant Leaders Manifesto and Be a J.E.D.I. Leader, Not a Boss. This warm and insightful conversation is packed full of learning including:
- The greatest gift that diversity has presented to Omar.
- The difference between equality and equity.
- How inequality can so easily disrupt your team and organization.
- How to be a J.E.D.I Leaders and not a boss.
Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com
Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA
Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services
Find out more about Omar below:
Omar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/omarlharris/
Omar on Twitter: https://twitter.com/strengthsleader
Omar on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/omarl.harris/
Omar’s Website: https://www.omarlharris.com
Be a J.E.D.I Leader not a Boss (BOOK)
Full Transcript Below
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Monday Dec 20, 2021
Sustainable Leadership with Eddy Badrina
Monday Dec 20, 2021
Monday Dec 20, 2021
Eddy Badrina is the CEO of Eden Green Technology, he was previously the President and founder of BuzzShift. Eddy shares some amazing entrepreneurial insights and leadership hacks including:
- How to adapt in a changing world, during and post pandemic?
- What does sustainability means for leaders?
- How he keeps innovating in a world that's already innovating at light speed.
- Why we should treat our teams generously to evolve a great culture.
Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com
Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA
Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services
Find out more about Eddy below:
Eddy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eddybadrina/
Eddy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/eddybadrina
Eden Green Website: https://www.edengreen.com
Eddy Personal Site: https://www.badrina.com
Full Transcript Below
Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach, or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.
Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors, and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush, and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you
Joining me on today's show is Eddy Badrina. He's a CEO of Eden Green Technology and AgTech company, which is changing the way people grow food and people. He was previously the president and founder of BuzzShift, digital strategy agency. But before we get a chance to speak with Eddy, you got it. It's The Leadership Hacker News
The Leadership Hacker News
Steve Rush: With the great resignation, still looming. Employee engagement is key for any successful organization. So, employee engagement is based on trust, integrity, two-way communication, commitment between the organization and its team members. And you will know, as I. Great engagement leads to increase productivity, performance, wellbeing, and can be measured in a number of different ways. And organizations have taken to a number of different methodologies to measure employee engagement. As a leader, and as an employee, what does employee engagement really mean? For me, it's about getting up in the morning, thinking, great, I'm going to work. I'm going to make a difference. And I'm going to make a change. Employee engagement is about understanding individually what that means for each person that works with you and be really clear and sight and energized where that fits into the whole organization and aligning it to its purpose and objectives.
And alignment to that core purpose. and objectives is really important in fulfilling the organization's longer-term goals and purpose and objectives too. It's about being inclusive, fully inclusive and included as a team member with clear goals, trusted and empowered, receiving regular and constructive feedback and feed forward support in your development and innovation and opportunity. So as leaders, how aware and how engaged are you in unlocking your employee engagement? Are you regularly and restlessly, always looking to draw out deeper commitment from your team, finding new ways of working, drawing on their experiences and their backgrounds for innovative ideas, are you helping them make parallels to the organization's purpose by connecting the dots to their own purpose and experiences? And it's sometimes helpful to think of employee engagement about what it's not. Employee engagement cannot be achieved by a mechanistic approach, which tries to extract discretionary an effort by manipulating employees and commitments and their emotions. It's not about the number you get once a quarter, once every six months on a scorecard around a load of measures. And it's not something that you tactically do.
Our employees are hardwired to spot that kind of behavior and when they do spot it such attempts will fall quickly and become vain and create cynical and disillusion behavior across your workforce. So, the leadership hack here. Allow employee engagement to be a behavior, not something that you do. Provide the opportunity for development, inclusion, and innovation, aligned with super leadership years. Your teams will be engaged. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. Please get in touch with us if you want us to feature anything on our show.
Start of Podcast
Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is Eddy Badrina. He's a successful entrepreneur. And now at the CEO of Eden Green Technology, a leading vertical farming business and AgTech company, Eddy, welcome to The Leadership Hacker podcast.
Eddy Badrina: Hey, thanks so much. I'm happy to be here.
Steve Rush: We delighted your here and I'm really intrigued to get underneath how the business is growing and, in more ways, than one, excuse the pun, but also, we'd love to find out a little bit about the background of our guests before we get into that. So perhaps you can tell us where it all started for you?
Eddy Badrina: So, I was born here in the states to Philipino immigrants. And so, I think that's important to note, because I think it really developed my work ethic. My parents started from scratch here in the United States. So, I had a very, very high work ethic, resourcefulness and just this sense that there was no safety net, if you will that others had to rely on. And I tell that to entrepreneurs and folks that, you know, just ask me, like where does the drive come from? And I tell them that, you know, the risk to jumping out on your own or the risk to do something big here in the United States is actually not that risky at all.
If you think about, you know, what's the worst that can happen? And I'll ask folks who are jumping out on their own or starting up businesses, what the worst that can happen? And they say, well, you know, I'd lose my house. I would have to go back; I'd probably have to move in with my parents, right? You think about that, like, oh, man, that sounds devastating. I said, well, stop there because most of the world already does that. That's just their normality, right?
Steve Rush: Right.
Eddy Badrina: And so, when you can put it in that context, and I have family in the Philippines that four generations under one roof. And when you look at it like that, then you understand the the risk that we have and the safety net that we have is actually normal in everyday life for everyone else in the world. So, it puts the element of risk into context. And so, it just gives me confidence, like, hey, what's the worst that can happen? Right. So, that's important to note. Just my background of how I grew up. And then, you know, spent a couple of years in DC. I got my undergrad and masters, and then went up to Washington DC. I was an analyst at the State Department for about four years, both pre and post 9/11. So really got to experience what it was like to work. I didn't know it, but I was right in the middle of history.
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Eddy Badrina: And work under extreme pressure on some really high-profile subjects when I was, you know, at the old age of 24. So that really helped me cut my teeth on what it means to work under pressure. I think a lot of folks think they're pressure, but contextually, it's not that much pressure compared to what other folks around the world are doing in industries and in topics that, you know, one, I think all consuming from a world point of view, but also two, the stakes are just so much higher.
Steve Rush: Very similar to the whole principle, isn't it? That you talked around with regards to risk.
Eddy Badrina: Yes.
Steve Rush: People's context and perspectives are sometimes skewed by comfort, right?
Eddy Badrina: Yes, absolutely.
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Eddy Badrina: I think it’s also important thing to do from a leadership perspective is to always gain more context about the world that we're living in. And look at other people doing other remarkable, you know, things in high pressure situations, because it does give you context for the work that you're doing. And in a lot of senses, it gives you a little bit of relief, like, okay, this isn't world crushing what I'm doing here. I can work a full day and go home at night and sleep well knowing that I gave it my all for the day and then wake up tomorrow and start all over again. And nothing's going to fall apart if I don't get that last email done.
Steve Rush: Right.
Eddy Badrina: Right. So, there's a lot of benefits to having that context. So, you know, worked again, four years in the State Department then actually got to work at the White House. I was President Bush Asian American spokesman for about two years. And that was a really, really wonderful time in my career. I couldn't have imagined doing that. And I was 28 at the time. So, I couldn't have imagined that in my wildest dreams coming out of college. Those six years in DC from a leadership perspective really showed me instances of great leadership and instances of bad leadership. And because of all the pressure that was in there working at the highest levels of government. Your strengths and your weaknesses are very amplified in that setting.
So, I got to see some leaders that because of the pressure just came out to me, at least in my eyes, came out golden. And really my respect raised for folks like Colin Powell, who I was able to work under for a bit, Condoleezza Rice, and then both Presidents Bush, senior and W. The things that I learned just the viewing them from a very near point of view, I think have shaped my leadership acumen up until this point, for sure.
Steve Rush: And it's interesting, because most people can only ever really see the exterior perspective of how they operate. And those of you have the opportunity to work very closely, get to see a different dynamic I suspect.
Eddy Badrina: We do. I think for the good leaders it's very cliche and again, you can usually only read this in books or hear it on interviews, but the great leaders are separated from the good leaders in that. They always remember the personal side of things. They look at the people around them, the team around them, and they remember that they're humans. And that they have lives, they've got families, they've got their own things that they're going through on a very personal level. And they take that into context when they're making decisions. Those great leaders are ones that ask about how your family's doing, and they want to know how your family's doing because it helps them as they interact with you, and it helps them coach you and mentor you. And that's what great leaders do, right? So, I think that was probably the key takeaway from my time there, noticing what made great leaders different from just good leaders. It was that personal attention to the humanity of the folks working around them.
Steve Rush: And I remember from the last time that you and I met, that's still really cool for your leadership style today, isn't it? That's something you carried forward and there's still a real core tenant of how you do things.
Eddy Badrina: Yeah, I do. I really try to do that and not just do that on a personal level. I try to do that honestly, on a company level and it’s a part of how I've built my companies. As much as I can advocating for the person. I follow this creed of redemptive framework for building companies. Leaders are sacrificial. It's where employees are not just treated fairly, they're treated generously and it's where culture and society around the company are not just advanced, but they're actually redeemed and restored.
And I had a, you know, an audience member asked just, hey, how, how practically do you apply some of that redemptive framework? And I said, well, when it comes to employees, treating them fairly is giving them, you know, and this is a real practical application. Treating them fairly is looking around at the market and saying, okay, what does maternity leave look like? You know, maybe it's eight weeks, maybe it's, you know, even 12 weeks. Okay, so how do you treat that generously? Right. How do you think about that generously? Not just treat them fairly in relation to the rest of the marketplace. Well, generously would be saying, okay. I know personally that I've got three kids and that my wife was able to bond with them. Three months was really the minimum time.
And she could have gone back to work, but man, if she had only just had that extra two weeks it really made a difference. And I don't know what that three-month mark is, but it just is. And so, to treat employees generously, then my response is, well, gosh, what would it cost the company to give four months of maternity leave, right. Is it really all that much? Is it a difference between 12 and 16 weeks really all that much? And the answer is it is, but it isn’t, right? Can we do that and can that scale?
Steve Rush: And it's also investment, isn't it?
Eddy Badrina: It absolutely is an investment.
Steve Rush: It's an investment in people.
Eddy Badrina: That's what we do. We give people 16 weeks of maternity leave and then we think broader, like, okay, I value adoption and I value my friends that do foster care, okay. So can we provide adoption, same as pregnancy, right. Can we give 16 weeks for leave for adoption? Can we give an amount of time for foster care? Can we give paternity leave? That's more generous? Right. There are just practical things that I don't think a lot of folks, you know, care to think about and expand just a little bit that make a world of difference to the employee, a world of difference to my teammates. And so that practically is how I take the personal care of my employees to a corporate level. And does it, you know, affect margins in operating margins? Yeah, it does. But is it totally defensible to, you know, the world outside, whether it be investors or capital partners? Absolutely.
Steve Rush: And also, I remember in the conversation, you and I had last, that was a real key pivotal moment for you when you once sold BuzzShift, the successful marketing agency that you created and founded, but then bought it back for the same reasons.
Eddy Badrina: Yes, and that's a, you know, that's a really remarkable chapter in my life of taking a company from scratch, bootstrapping it with my business partner and then getting it up to the size that we were able to sell it. It's about six years later. So, we started it in 2010 and then sold it in 2016. And when we sold it, I think everyone was on the same page, the acquiring company and us about vision and mission. But I think really quickly as with a lot of M&As, actually the vast majority of M&As, I think the visions just get sidelined by practical realities. And so, we had one party I would say that was focused on using the agency as Bizdev and the other party, including us, were focused on seeing it as a business unit, a profitable business unit.
And so, when those two diverged at a point in time, I think everyone looked around and said, man, this is not working the way we intended it to, and maybe it would be better if you guys just bought the company back. And so, we did and, you know, I'll just say we sold high and bought low, so that was really good. But the main reason that we bought it back was because we saw our team just kind of falling apart and really going through some painful just merger type scenarios. And I think on both ends, we were just like, this is not the best for the teammates that are in here. And would it be better to go our separate ways and to rebuild these business units.
And so that's what we did and, you know, that was the driving force for me, was the relationships and those people in there that I just didn't want to leave high and dry. And then two years later, we were able to sell it again actually for a second time. And I told my team on the last day, the CEO who's, my business partner stayed on, and I left. Actually, I had been gone. I had taken a step back to run Eden Green, but on the last day, just as an owner I was able to talk to the staff and I just said, hey, here's the reason that I feel confident about the sale the second time is that the whole time that I've been running BuzzShift for the last, you know, call it 10 years or been an owner for 10 years, the point of it was to be a good steward of that, which God had given to me, it wasn't really my company to begin with.
I was just tasked to be a good steward of it. And when I could find someone who could steward it as well or better than I could, then it made sense for me to let that go. And so, I just told them, I think, you know, this acquiring company who is fantastic by the way that they can be a better steward than I can. And so that why I'm selling my portion of the company and, you know, I think it was well received because one, it was authentic. It was actually true. And two, because they knew my stance was consistent with what I was saying at the very end. I think everyone knew from the very beginning that man, I just wanted to grow a company, but do it in such a way that my identity is not tied up in it and more importantly do it in such a way that they can thrive those employees and those teammates can thrive because it's growing.
Steve Rush: And therefore, it becomes a sustainable business that you can confidently leave behind in good order knowing that that's going to continue in that spirit too.
Eddy Badrina: Yeah, absolutely.
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Eddy Badrina: Yeah, absolutely. And they've done a fantastic job of stewarding it and helping it grow.
Steve Rush: And you're now on a new journey with Eden Green and Eden Green technology for those that aren't familiar are leading the way really of this whole kind of farming ecosystem that you've managed to create. Tell us a bit about the journey so far.
Eddy Badrina: Absolutely. So, to two years ago I became CEO of Eden Green, and we'll call it greenhouse's infrastructure, but it's a vertical farming inside of a greenhouse, which is remarkable in and of itself and it's a platform that allows us to grow really efficient efficiently and really profitably a large quantity of greens that is safe. It's season agnostic and it's really quite accessible to the consumer. And we're able to do that because of my COO who invented the technology back in 2011. And they have a remarkable personal story as well. That was really the Genesis of Eden Green. They were engineers and they were handing out food and actually candy in South Africa where they were born and raised.
And a kid came up and stuffed his pockets. Five-year-old boy came up and stuffed his pockets and they asked like, hey, why is he stuffing his pockets? Like there's enough food to go around. And the response was that, well, it's actually for his three-year-old sister at home. It's not his day to eat, it's hers. And so, he's bringing the candy back to her and for them that really struck a chord. And both of them said, man, this is not right. Like, we've got to find a way to fix this problem and, you know, kudos to them. They were engineers, construction engineers, and they just turned their minds. Both of them turned their minds to figuring out a way to grow greens really efficiently in an economic and an environmental scenario that is South Africa.
And so, it was very resourceful. They invented it out of their garage actually, and it was very resourceful. And after about six or seven years, they took it to the United States for expansion of capital and commercialization. So probably, you know, a couple years after they took it over, took it here to the states is when I came on board as CEO. And I was just tasked with providing vision. The mission remained the same, which was to change the way that we're farming food and change the way that we're feeding people, but the vision of what it could become and then taking it to market and providing product market fit and taking it to market was something I was tasked with. So, I came on four months before the pandemic hit.
Steve Rush: Exactly, yeah. Timing's everything, isn't it?
Eddy Badrina: Yeah, timings everything, right. And so, a lot of teams and organizations have suffered because of the pandemic. And I think because of the flexibility and the adaptability and the grit of our team. We were able to not just survive it, but really thrive in it. The pandemic hit and we realized, man while capital drying up for now, we can really focus on what we do best, which is the technology. Can we use this time? And obviously with patient investors, can we use this time to up our yields per plant spot, which is kind of the going metric in our industry. It's how much produce can you yield in a year from a square foot? So can we use that time to work on our tech? Work on our operations to get that yield per square foot, to a point where it was not just competitive with organic, but it was actually competitive with conventional produce.
And we're just about there. And so that's really exciting for us. Someone once asked me like, hey, what's the best piece of business advice you learned? And really, the biggest competition that you have is who you were yesterday. And so I tasked my team to say, hey, every day, I just want us to get better than we were yesterday, whether that's the yield going up 0.1, you know, 0.1 pounds or operational efficiency going from a 96% cleanliness rate, is rated by you know, third parties to a 97% or from sales and marketing, let's go from 24 leads a month to 25 leads a month, right, whatever that is, if we can just be better than we were yesterday it really sets the tone for a company, even in the pandemic where we looking for positive improvement day to day.
And I think as we added that up over, you know, the past two years, I think what that's resulted in is the team is very confident about our product. We're very confident about the numbers and the quantitative data that we're putting out to back up what we're saying. And more importantly, we're very confident about the team itself because we're all on the same page and we're all working towards incremental improvement.
Steve Rush: Yeah
Eddy Badrina: So, that's what the pandemic did for us. And, you know, again, I would be nothing without my team. I just had a good team that responded to the call of self-competition every day. And I think it's proven to be just a winning recipe for Eden Green.
Steve Rush: One of the other things I loved about the mission of Eden Green is, it's not just around sustainability from a produce perspective as well as its great eco centricity that comes with it, but also the sustainability about the communities that you're in. So, I know one of the core tenants you have is making sure that if you're going to build a business or a location you do so by employing the neighbors, tell us a little bit about that, how that's disrupting the marketplace you're in?
Eddy Badrina: Yeah, you know, from a broad point of view, the parameters that you set on a business are really the values that you instill in the business. And so, if you say, hey we're going to try to make this as profitable as possible. That takes a business to its logical end. And that logical end is just, eking out every bit of margin that you can out of the business. I'm not going to say whether that's a good or bad thing or healthy or unhealthy, but I'm saying that's not where we're at. One of the parameters that we put in is we want to employ as many people as we can while maintaining a good margin, positive economic margin, because if a business is not profitable, it's not a business, it's a hobby, right?
So that's one of the parameters that we put in and it is really a core value of saying, hey, how can we care for the community around us? Well in practical terms, what that means is, hey, we've got to make the rest of our operations so efficient. The rest of our greenhouse is so efficient that we don't have to rely on robotics. We definitely use AI to assist our growing methods, our nutrient mixes all the way that we handle air and water and the environments inside the greenhouse. But when it comes to planting and monitoring and harvesting. We love the fact that human hands are touching that and are monitoring it and are looking at it. We never want to take the humanity out of the feeding other people.
Steve Rush: Right.
Eddy Badrina: So, because we have that core value and I'll even call it a parameter in place then we had to work. If that's just a part of our margin is up to 30 full-time people in one of our greenhouses, then what do we have to do on a technological and operational end to make sure that fits in healthy business margins. And so that's what we did.
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Eddy Badrina: We're proud to say, hey, we actually want to be in the urban areas. We want to be in and around the communities that we're feeding. One, because it's just smart business. The geography of underdeveloped and under-resourced economic areas are the best and the cheapest places to put these greenhouses. But then also once you put them in there, we have the ability to hire our neighbors.
And so, our neighbors can work in these greenhouses. They're no longer migrant workers. It's full time with benefits living days' wage for these workers in these greenhouses. So, they're able to provide for their families consistently. They're able to partake of the harvests that are coming out of them. So, they're really changing their dietary and health lifestyle, not just for them, but they're or families. And then finally, they're in an industry that's on the cutting, it's one of the top 10 industries of, you know, technological growth for the next, you know, 10 to 20 years. And these folks are right at the base of it. And it's not a dead-end job for them.
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Eddy Badrina: It's actually a career platform. So, because of that core value, all of those benefits can result, but it's only when you have that core value and you stick to it that you have to find ways to make, you know, the company profitable while sticking to that core value. And that's super, super important to me.
Steve Rush: Yeah, and sustainability is just that one keeps echoing in my minds. I'm listening to you speak Eddie around. It's not just about the sustainability of the produce, but the whole ecosystem of that organization and how it fuels itself by getting that core value, right?
Eddy Badrina: Yes.
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Eddy Badrina: You know, when we talk about sustainability, we talk about economic and environmental sustainability because if it's not economically sustainable, then there's no scalability and there's no longevity to the business. So, we're very practical about it. About finding ways to be economically sustainable, but while also adhering to the environmental values that we've set.
Steve Rush: And sustainability's got a lot of press of late with COP26 happening, not so long ago with lots of focus on the environment that we're in and what's happening with global warming or not as a case may around the world. And sustainability is quite cliche at the moment, you hear lots of leaders diving into and using the word sustainability in some senses and having now clear ESG measures in their business, et cetera. What does sustainability mean to you personally when you hear that as a, business leader?
Eddy Badrina: That's a great question. I think for me, sustainability is, you know, if you break down, I took Latin as a kid. So, if you break down the word sustain, it really means to maintain a consistent level of wherever you're at to sustain energy for a period of time or to sustain success for a period of time, you know, really means to provide for long term presence. And so, when I think about sustainability for Eden Green, sustainability for the environment is how can we endure? How can we thrive for a long term without draining and exploiting the resources around us, right?
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Eddy Badrina: And so, on an environmental level, how do we run a company? So that the operationally, we're not exploiting the environment around us, but we're actually adding to it, we're additive to it. And then from a company level, how do we continue to exist? How do we grow without exploiting the community and society around us? I think in very basic terms, that's what sustainability means to me.
Steve Rush: Good answer. I love it. So, one of the things that I'm keen to explore with you is this whole notion of how you keep innovating? In a world that's already innovating at light speed. Where do you go for that inspiration? Or how does that come about?
Eddy Badrina: I think it just comes about from that thing that I mentioned at the very beginning, which is, how do I get better every day? Right. And innovation I think for me, comes from when I start to sort of level out or the incremental gains in my own personal life are starting to become smaller and smaller. I just take a step back and I've afforded myself to take a step back and say, okay, how do I do things differently? If I had to scrap all this. I'm not saying I would, but if I had to scrap all of this, all the structure and the parameters in my life, how would I do things differently? In order to, you know, achieve a better life. And I really think, that's where my personally, my innovation comes from, but then it just goes to goals, right? Before I can say, you know, get a better life. Well define better, right? So, I think from a corporate, but then also from a personal level.
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Eddy Badrina: You really have to know what you want. And I tell on entrepreneurs that all the time and folks who want to be entrepreneurs, but also just leaders in general, in order to be a great leader, you have to know what you want. And it's actually a part of my personal story moving from BuzzShift to Eden Green. BuzzShift was going really well. It was running quite well, so much so that, you know, I had a bit of time on my hands, but I'm not a maintainer. I'm a builder, I'm a creator. And I knew that as much about myself that I just became really impatient. I became, you know, honestly a little bit unhappy because I was just maintaining and incrementally growing this business, which was great. I think from the outside looking in, I had it all, but from the inside I just wasn't happy. And so, the first thing I had to do was, I had to define, and this required a lot of what I call heart work. Not hard work. It is hard work, but it's heart work. And in this heart work, I really had to define what I wanted. That took a lot longer than I thought it would.
Steve Rush: What was the reason it took so long?
Eddy Badrina: I think it as a type A in engram, I don't know if you're familiar with any engram. I’m a type three which is an achiever. And most of the folks who are really high up in business are achievers, engram achiever status or they maybe, what's called a challenger. We see a goal and we get it, we see a task, we hit it and we just go on to the next one and the next one and the next one, and we get caught up in sort of this task and performance. And at least for me personally, because when I just do that and I feel I have this temporary, like feeling or dopamine hit of success, I sort of lose sight. I can lose sight if I'm not careful of what I'm really about and what I want. And from a day to day to the level, I want to hit those goals, but from a year to year or a legacy type level, that just takes more thought work.
Steve Rush: Right.
Eddy Badrina: And you have to get off that cycle of success after success, after success, and really take a step back and say, okay, what is this success about? I'm climbing this ladder, but is it leaned up against the wrong wall? Right. I think that's why it took so long is because I was just used to getting the daily and weekly successes. And I lost a little bit of vision, my own personal vision because of that. Back to the defining what I want. After about nine months maybe even closer to a year. Three things emerged, you know, out of that time. One is, I had to define very clearly and succinctly and articulate what I wanted to others, but more importantly to myself, right? And those three things were, I wanted to run a hardware/software business. I had been there and done that gotten the M&A t-shirt for professional services.
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Eddy Badrina: Two, I wanted to have an exponential impact on my level of effort. So, for every one unit of effort that I put out, I wanted to see it a 10 to 20 X return in community and culture around me. And then three is I wanted to run a redemptive type of organization. So, the fact that I'm able to articulate to you, those three things so clearly took a lot of work, but I was able to do that. Once I was able to articulate those three things. Then the second thing I did was I passed it before friends and colleagues and family. And she said, hey, tell me if this is coming from a healthy place, or tell me if this is coming from what the Bible calls a selfish ambition and vain conceit.
Steve Rush: Often also known as ego.
Eddy Badrina: It's ego, right. Great book by a guy named Ryan Holiday and he studies the Stoics, but he talks about the ego is the enemy, but two, I had to, you know, run it through a filter of friends and family who were going to be brutally honest with me. And that's another thing that most entrepreneurs don't have besides that they can't articulate clearly what they want. And then two, they don't have the courage or the wherewithal, or even the friends around them to say, hey, is this a healthy thing for me? And then for friends, to be honest enough with them and say, yeah, it's healthy, or no, you are being very, very arrogant, and egotistical. You should not pursue that. I articulated it, passed it to friends and family. And then the third piece that did. I let it go, and I knew that if that was supposed to happen and my friends and family approved of it. I just had to let go of striving so hard for it. And I worked towards it, but I also wanted to be diligent and excellent in my work at BuzzShift and to the team there. And so, I just had to release that and be mindful and hopeful that it would come back to me if that what's supposed to happen. And indeed, it did.
Steve Rush: And it's often the case, isn't it? When you strive so hard for something you don't necessarily see it or experience it, but when you do let go, you are open to natural occurring, coincidences, opportunity, higher spirit, call it what you will.
Eddy Badrina: Yeah.
Steve Rush: But that then find you in another way, right?
Eddy Badrina: Some people call it serendipity. I call it providence, right?
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Eddy Badrina: That was probably the biggest thing of it all. I was just talking to my wife the other day about what I've been learning over the past couple of years. And I think the loss of control has been the biggest learning for me, you know, the pandemic obviously heightened it. But really the core issue is one that everyone goes through at some point in their life of you realize even over your own body, you don't have that much control.
Steve Rush: That's very true,
Eddy Badrina: Right.
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Eddy Badrina: Pandemic prime example, right. You can mask up or you can take the vaccine as much as you can, but the reality is you might still get sick and that's totally out of your control. And it's so frustrating for people. We see it right now. It's so frustrating for people who don't accept that they can't control everything.
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Eddy Badrina: And that comes out in terms of the way it manifests. Mostly it manifests itself in terms of fear, and sort of a protective nature. But when you can understand and except for me, especially when I can stand and accept that I don't have control, it really frees me up. I don't even have control over, like I said, over that, which I articulated and was able to, you know, confirm with my friends and family. Like, this is a really good thing that's on your heart and you need to go after it. Even as I go after it, I realize I don't have a lot of control over the external factors.
Steve Rush: Very true. Wise words. I'm going to turn the table to a little bit now, Eddie.
Eddy Badrina: Yeah.
Steve Rush: And we are going to flip the conversation a little bit to focus on taking all of your learnings, which are in abundance. And we've had bucketloads of hacks already, but I'm going to try and distill them down as best we can to your top three leadership hacks. What would they be?
Eddy Badrina: Man, I think you would go back to top leadership hack one, know what you want, know yourself, right? That takes a lot of work. It's not a hack in the sense that you can get to it quickly but knowing yourself self and being brutally honest with yourself about your strength and your weaknesses is number one. Because when you know that you'll immediately hire for your weaknesses, right?
Steve Rush: Definitely.
Eddy Badrina: And that's a good goal to have, you know, the biggest jump for a lot of leaders and entrepreneurs is hiring that next person. Hiring the first person in your company, because that's a very real equation of I'm going to take profits out of my own pocket as a one-man band, and I'm going to give some of it to someone to short up my weaknesses. That's a crazy equation, but the equation actually works out in your favor if you're willing to do it. I would say the second big hack is have a circle of advisors who can be honest with you. A lot of leaders have yes, men around them and they'll just say yes to whatever. Is this a good idea? Oh yeah, sure it is, go.
Find that person that you can say, hey, is this a good idea? And they will say, no, that is a horrible idea. You are off your rocker, right? Or that is not healthy for you. For leaders and just for people in general, I try to get people away from saying right and wrong, and I get people more into the mindset of healthy versus unhealthy. And that changes your posture towards letting other people in, because if you can let other people in and say, hey, is this right or wrong? It's sort of, it can be offensive to you, but if you can say, hey, is this healthy for me? Or is this unhealthy for me? One that connotes that they know a level of health about yourself and two that they're able to say in such a way that is for your benefit. Yeah, that's not really healthy for you. I'd probably go in a different direction.
Steve Rush: I love that.
Eddy Badrina: And then yeah, I'd say those are the top two and then read a lot, read a ton.
Steve Rush: What would be your hack number three?
Eddy Badrina: Read, read all the time.
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Eddy Badrina: And allow yourself the time and the space to read. So, I actually have a blog post on my own personal blog. I don't have many blog posts on there, but I have a blog post on there just on books and on how I read, when I read, what I read. And that for a number of folks have gotten back to me and said, man, that was a really, really, really useful framework to go by in terms of reading.
Steve Rush: Next part of the show we call Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something hasn't worked out as planned, and yet you've managed to use it as a force of good. What will be your Hack to Attack?
Eddy Badrina: I think the Hack to Attack has actually been the reading piece. I used read a lot of social and then thought I was reading the right types of social media or the right types of blog posts. And I was just doing it really inefficiently. And I think over the course of a number of years, I've really been able to dial in for me at least what has been a good intake of info information, why I take the information in, and then and then really, you know, the modes of intake, and it's helped me to focus more. And it's helped me to be more mindful and thoughtful about how I lead.
Steve Rush: Awesome. And it's an interesting notion actually, because many top execs that I liaise with, worth work, coach, one of the core foundations is often just consume knowledge as much knowledge as you can, because knowledge is power.
Eddy Badrina: Yeah, but it's also the type of knowledge, right?
Steve Rush: Right.
Eddy Badrina: Long form books are the result of long form thinking.
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Eddy Badrina: And as a leader, that's what you're tasked to do. You are tasked to think critically. People don't get paid the big bucks or the mediocre bucks in my case to just fire off emails, because anyone can do that. The good leaders, the great leaders are ones who have to think through five emails in a day, right? And think really, really critically before they hit send. And that type of deep thinking is critical to good leadership. And you can't do that unless you're intaking deep knowledge and deep knowledge comes from books.
Steve Rush: Wise words. The last thing we wanted on the show, Eddie is to give you a chance of time travel now. So, you're going to be at a bump into you at 21 and give yourself some advice. What do you think it might be?
Eddy Badrina: Oh man. I would tell my 21-year-old self, keep your eye on the prize and the prize is relationships.
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Eddy Badrina: I try to think with the end in mind as do most good leaders. And when you think about the end in mind, the end-end for me is when I die and when I die and they're reading my obituary, they're reading the homily, you know, in the church, they're reading my tomb, my tombstone. I think it would be a total failure if they ever mentioned the words, Eden Green or BuzzShift. That would be a failure in my life if the companies actually came up in my obituary. What a waste if your corporate success is the thing that people remember about you, what I want them to remember is, he loved people, he loved his wife well, he loved his kids well, he loved his friends well, he was a good friend and honest and a faithful friend. He loved others, even folks that he didn't know, he was generous. He was winsome. He spoke truth in love. He was bold, right? He was adventurous. That's the stuff I want people to remember me by and more importantly, that's the legacy that I want to leave with my kids and the folk around me. And so, as you think about generational legacy, you think about legacy at the end of your life. None of that involves the names of my businesses necessarily. Those are just means to an end.
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Eddy Badrina: It all involves the relationships that I pursue all along the way. So, beginning the end in mind, I would tell my 21-year-old self to focus on the relationships.
Steve Rush: Great advice too. So, Eddie, how can we make sure our listeners from all over the world are able to tap into your blog and the work you do, and to find that a little bit more about Eden Green Technology?
Eddy Badrina: Sure. So edengreen.com is the best way to find out. We've got a treasure trove of information just about hydroponics and about what we do, about the industry, edengreen.com and then on the socials, it's all Eden Green Tech. In terms of my personal it's badrina.com, it's my last name, badrina.com. And either one of those have ways to get ahold of me if they really want to ask me questions.
Steve Rush: And we'll also make sure those links are in our show notes. So, folk can head straight over once they finish listening to this.
Eddy Badrina: Absolutely.
Steve Rush: Eddie, thank you, my friend, it's been a great opportunity to talk to you and have you on the show. And I'm really excited to see the trajectory that Eden Green on and in future. So, congratulations and thank you for being on our community here at The Leadership Hacker Podcast.
Eddy Badrina: It's been my pleasure, my pleasure. Such a great way to have a part of my day to talk to you and to be able to share some of this.
Eddy Badrina: Thanks, Eddie.
Closing
Steve Rush: I genuinely want to say heartfelt thanks for taking time out of your day to listen in too. We do this in the service of helping others, and spreading the word of leadership. Without you listening in, there would be no show. So please subscribe now if you have not done so already. Share this podcast with your communities, network, and help us develop a community and a tribe of leadership hackers.
Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there: @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.
Monday Dec 13, 2021
Catapult with Punit Dhillon
Monday Dec 13, 2021
Monday Dec 13, 2021
Punit Dhillon is the chairman and CEO of Sky Bioscience. He's an entrepreneur, keen athlete, an author of the book, Catapult: How to Think Like a Corporate Athlete to Strengthen Your Resilience. Learn about how Punit’s athletic approach to live has helped catapult his business including:
- Growing up as an athlete he noticed the parallels in corporate life,
- The components of a corporate athlete.
- What mindset has to do with growth as a leader?
- How to live by true accountability and be purpose driven.
Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com
Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA
Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services
Find out more about Punit below:
Punit on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/punit-dhillon/
Punit on Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/PunitDhillon
Punit on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/punitdhillon/
Sky Bioscience: https://skyebioscience.com
Catapult (Book) https://punitdhillon.com/book/
Full Transcript Below
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Tuesday Dec 07, 2021
Be More Wrong with Colin Hunter
Tuesday Dec 07, 2021
Tuesday Dec 07, 2021
Colin Hunter is the author of Be More Wrong, he’s a mentor, entrepreneur and coach and the CEO of Potential Squared. Colin shares an intimate journey of how his career developed and led to the work he does now. We can learn some great lessons in this weeks’ show including:
- Why being more wrong helps us unlock great learning.
- How creating “virtual playgrounds” can provide the perfect environment for development.
- Colin’s three enablers of leadership: Purpose/Identity & Presence.
- A new take on leaderships styles.
Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com
Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA
Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services
Find out more about Colin below:
Colin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinhunter
Colin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bemorewrong
Potential Squared Website: https://www.potential2.com
Be More Wrong (Book) https://info.potential2.com/en-us/bemorewrong
Full Transcript Below
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