497: How to Create Self-Leading Teams That Win with Kyle Buckett and Chris Mefford

One is a retired Navy SEAL. The other is an award-winning business executive. Together they’ve built a company called Culture Force. Dare I say both the company and their new book is a force to be reckoned with.

Kyle Buckett and Chris Mefford

Their new book (released August 29, 2023), has quickly become a favorite among those in my Read to Lead Community online. It’s easy to see why.

Leadership as it is, just isn’t working. Say Chris and Kyle, despite the countless seminars, courses, and management books designed to hone good leaders, over 79% of employees leave their jobs due to poor leadership. Why is this happening? Chris and Kyle argue that organizations need more than just leaders. They need successful teams.

Both Chris and Kyle are passionate about how our leadership model has failed and spotlight a new work culture that actually works. In their book, they draw on the SEAL model and on their decades of knowledge and experience coaching industry leaders to answer the question: what makes a productive team? The surprising truth is that behind every successful team is a cadre of empowered, self-starting employees.

I hope you’ll click the play button below to learn more about Chris and Kyle’s and their work. For a summary, just keep scrolling.

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495: Turning the Power of Mindset Into Action with Eduardo Briceño

When the topic of the book your writing centers around mindset, and the one and only Carol Dweck (author of Mindset: The Psychology of Success) gives it a glowing endorsement, then yours is a book worth paying attention to.

eduardo briceño

Such is the case for my guest today, Eduardo Briceño. His new book, out now, is called The Performance Paradox: Turning the Power of Mindset Into Action.

To succeed in a fast-changing world, Eduardo says, individuals and companies know they must create a culture of growth, where experimentation and feedback are encouraged, and learning is integrated into the everyday. Yet we often get stuck in a well-worn pattern of habits that don’t move us forward. Why?

Because many of us get trapped in the Performance Paradox: the counterintuitive phenomenon that if we focus only on performing, our performance suffers.

How can we give ourselves the space to experiment and grow while also delivering high-level results? That is the ultimate question Eduardo’s book, and today’s episode, attempt to answer.

I hope you’ll click the play button below to learn more about Eduardo and his work. For a summary, just keep scrolling.

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494: How to Speak Successfully When You’re Put on the Spot with Matt Abrahams

It’s probably no surprise to you that I appreciate effective communicators. Well, that’s just one of the many reasons I am excited to present to you today’s guest, who’s written a wonderful book on an aspect of presenting not often covered. Impromptu Speaking!

matt abrahams

His name is Matt Abrahams, and his brand new book, out today, is called Think Faster, Talk Smarter: How to Speak Successfully When You’re Put On the Spot.

In the book, Matt provides tangible, actionable skills to help even the most anxious of speakers succeed when speaking spontaneously.

He also included science-based strategies for managing anxiety, responding to the mood of the room, and making content concise, relevant, compelling, and memorable.

Drawing on stories from his clients and students, Matt offers best practices for navigating Q&A sessions, shining in job interviews, providing effective feedback, making small talk, fixing faux pas, persuading others, and handling other impromptu speaking tasks.

I hope you’ll click the play button below to learn more about Matt and his work. For a summary, just keep scrolling.

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493: The Inner Journey of Leadership with Dan Rockwell

Just about a month ago, I featured a business fable here on the show. Today, I am pleased to feature another. This one is cowritten by an author who’s appeared here before (John David Mann).

dan rockwell

However, my guest today is the other half of that co-author duo. His name is Dan Rockwell. If his name rings a bell, that may be because you’ve heard of his successful Leadership Freak blog.

Dan’s book with John is called The Vagrant: The Inner Journey of Leadership.

The Vagrant is a modern parable for ambitious people on the relationship between success and self-reflection.

The book follows Bob, a bright, up-and-coming leader in the health care business who leads a team of forty at a large city hospital. When he’s called up to the seventh floor one fine spring morning, he fully expects a promotion in line with his C-suite aspirations.

Instead, he’s fired.

Moments after losing his job, Bob has a strange alleyway confrontation with a homeless man rambling about “the four impediments of the Apocalypse.” To Bob, his words are nothing but incoherent ranting, but they soon prove eerily prophetic. In the weeks that follow, Bob loses everything he holds dear—his apartment, possessions, reputation, and health—and ends up living on the street . . . until chance leads him back to that same alley and he crosses paths with the strange man once again.

In this timeless, eye-opening tale of redemption, Bob’s tailspin journey through loss and catastrophic failure invites readers to examine the nature of genuine leadership and embark upon their own story of self-discovery.

I hope you’ll click the play button below to learn more about Dan and his work. For a summary, just keep scrolling.

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491: Your Future Self with Hal Hershfield

Today’s feature book is one that I can’t wait to read with others. Yes, I’ve read it myself, but I want to talk about with other people and share insights ASAP. That’s when you know you’ve stumbled across a great book.

hal hershfield

And that book is Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today, and it’s written by Hal Hershfield.

When my mastermind group asks me to recommend our next book we’ll read together, this one will be at the top of my list.

In my course, Note-Making Mastery, we talk at length about the importance of writing notes as if you’re writing for someone else. Why? Because, I argue, Future You is someone else.

In his book, Hal shows us how to connect with our “future selves” so that we can improve our lives right now and achieve our greatest hopes for the future.

Your Future Self presents the science, describes the mental mistakes we make in thinking about the future, and gives us practical advice for imagining our best future so we can make that vision a reality.

I hope you’ll click the play button below to learn more about Hal and his work. For a summary, just keep scrolling.

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