Start With A Win - Fuel Yourself With Joy with Amanda Gore part 2

Episode Date: February 15, 2023

In part 2 with dynamic speaker and business leadership coach Amanda Gore, she offers heart-centered advice for building impactful relationships in business. In a climate where half the workforce is considering moving to a new job, leaders of organizations seek to make meaningful changes to keep team members on board. Amanda takes the approach of doing her inner work first. She is able to create a culture that values each individual for their unique gifts by first uncovering her authentic self. Once she is able to show up as the most genuine version of herself, she can empower those working with her by acknowledging their gifts and placing them in roles that set them up for success. By connecting human to human, heart to heart, leaders invest in the wellness of their employees and thus receive massive margins of return.  Main TopicsKeep employees happy by creating a human-to-human environment (03:00)What leaders can do to be present and create a culture that nurtures joy (06:20)The value of feelings and authenticity in business (10:28)We are not our stories (13:00)Cultivating presence in every moment by slowing down (14:05)Effects of intentional leadership flow from the top down (17:20)  Episode Linkshttps://amandagore.comConnect with Amanda:https://www.facebook.com/thejoyproject.amandagore/https://twitter.com/amandagore_joyhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/amandalgore/https://www.youtube.com/user/amandagoretvConnect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/https://www.facebook.com/AdamContosCEOhttps://twitter.com/AdamContosCEOhttps://www.instagram.com/adamcontosceo/Listen, rate, and subscribe!Apple PodcastsSpotifyGoogle Podcasts

Hey, welcome back to Start With A Win. This is a two-part episode and this is part two of that two-part episode. So if you haven't listened to part one, make sure you go back and listen or watch part one on YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcasts and come back here and listen or watch part two. I hope you enjoy. Welcome to Start With A Win, where we give you the tools and lessons you need to create business and personal success are you ready let's do this People love stories of other people, their challenges. So I think that story was fantastic. Well, one thing too, I mean, you interact with a lot of leaders and a lot of people who are high performers.

And I guess one thing I'd be curious to understand or know is, you know, what is some of the biggest hurdles that those people have to deal with? And what is the advice and the encouragement that you give to those people in order to, you know, kind of achieve their best? You know, Mark, that almost everyone I speak to, it comes down to the same thing that I said on the show, because that was like the core piece of it. So it's just a different way of asking people why they're doing things, what's driving right? It's like, okay, I love to do this thing, but I also need to make money. And I love to, you know, maybe have a hobby. I have some sort of thing that I'm interested in, but then it doesn't maybe necessarily meet with what I need to do in order to, you know, produce for my family and survive. So, and then there's always that risk and that fear of like, okay, if I really do what I love, can I be successful at it? You know? And so, you know, I guess that's just, it's, it's the constant struggle that, that we all have.

Well, some people are lucky enough to find a job that they do love and you still get all those issues happening because not exactly the same, but you still get the those issues happening, not exactly the same, but you still get the struggle because we're human and out of the human journey. And, you know, by the time you get to the place where you're, I don't know, fully, totally at peace all the time, you're either the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa or someone like that, and then you die. So I guess it's part of getting a different perspective and looking at things differently to appreciate what you actually have. So, I mean, I guess I could say that, but these are not new things.

No, I mean, this is all, I mean, I think all that's really great. I have a question also about this. So Amanda, and I'm sure you've heard the recent studies about upwards of half of workers in 2023, in the first half of 2023, are considering moving jobs. And a lot of that has to do with, you know obviously, people want to be happy where they work. They want to work for somebody who cares about their success. What's your perspective on that statistic, and what can an employer do in order to reduce that churn based upon really what's going on here, which is that fear, doubt out and overwhelm that, that reduces our, our liking of our, our business place. You know, you were CEO of Remax. So you get this because Remax to me anyways, always had a good culture, um, from the, from the times I've been

with it. And you said it in this question, it's how much you show people that you care. Okay. Because I wish I could quote the original person. I don't know who it was. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Right. So we go and we have all these fancy people talking about big, fancy things and there's B to B and B to C and B to something else.

And I usually say, what about H to H? And it's like, huh? And it's like human to human. There you go. Here we are. We're all humans. And I don't care who you are, where you are, who you're dealing with, whether you're an entrepreneur trying to sell your products, build a business, do something. Remember, you're dealing with humans and it's heart to heart and you can get as fancy wancy as you want. But at the very base level, if you have a core recipe and you screw up the core recipe, then whatever dish you make doesn't taste good. At the core, we've got heart to heart,

human to human. And if you believe your boss believes in you, if your boss demonstrates that he or she believes in you, if you're the boss, believe in your people. And if you don't believe in them, we'll move them on to a job where they'll be happier. And belief in your team and belief in their ability to do it and then upskilling them so they succeed, not setting them up to fail because that's not caring, and educating them along the way will keep people with you when you pay them less than they could get somewhere else. And these days, not only as part of that statistic you mentioned, Adam, but everybody is complaining about we can't find staff. We can't find enough people. Well, you want, it's absolutely critical that places become a workplace that's joyful, that people want to work

at, where the employees go off and tell others, you should work with us. It's such a great place to work. And that's a place where, you know, a fish rots from the head, doesn't it? I'm not actually sure if a fish does rot from the head. I don't know, but it's a saying. And, you know, a fish rots from the head, doesn't it? I'm not actually sure if a fish does rot from the head. I don't know. But it's a saying. And, you know, when you've got leadership, the responsibility of the leadership is to create the environment in which people can be the best they can be.

That's awesome. So to that note, and I love the direction we're going here. We're talking about leadership creating, you know, you mentioned an environment where, you know. People can be the best they can be. They can be the best they can be. At REMAX, we always said we create an environment where people can be as successful as they want to be. Same thing. Yes.

So we always stressed that the leadership should be visible and present. And obviously, you know, walking the hallways is one way of doing it. Visible and present is not sending an email out saying, today we want you to do this. We either need physical presence or presence on video. You know, I've been coaching a lot of CEOs to do podcasts and videos like this so that the culture of the organization can be projected, constantly reminding the employees as well as the customers, because the customers want to know that they're doing business with a culture that's great. So what, I mean, I know you're a big fan of this. Give me a little bit of feedback on, is this happening enough? Oh, no, no, no. That was, yeah. You know? Oh, no. No.

No. Yeah. You know, pretty much no. What can we do as leaders? I feel like just grabbing people by their clothes and shaking them and going, slap, slap, slap, wake up, wake up. It's not that hard to prepare for people, you know, like genuinely. I always

say a leader's job is threefold. And the first is to create an environment in which people can be the best they can be. The second is to help people believe in themselves because belief in your own ability is a better predictor of success than any level of skill. And the third is to change people's behavior. And, you know, people go, you can't change, you can't teach an old dog new tricks, let them never change their spots. Yes, they do. People change in a heartbeat if you tell them a story that touches their hearts. So when you get success stories at work, when somebody does a great job, acknowledge them, share the stories. And remember, if you're in a leadership role,

and this I learned by having to go virtual during COVID, if I consciously connect with you too in this field, which I did before we got on the call, and I'm just conscious that we're part of the same field, and then I bring in all the potential listeners and all the ones who may be listening, not even if we're not live. If you consciously make that, create that awareness, then we connect in a much better way than we would if we didn't consciously do that. Yes. It's possible. You know, the metaphor here is you think of somebody you haven't thought of for six months and you go, geez, I haven't heard from Fred. And then all of a sudden, Fred rings you that afternoon, calls you in America, I think you say, or sends you a message and go, wow,

there's Fred. Well, guess why? Because Fred in the field picked up you thought about him and Fred responded to that. So wouldn't it be a shame if Fred was your boss and you haven't heard from him in six months? Oh, yes. That would be a very bad thing. I see that happening though. Seriously? Yes. Yes. I see people, you know, the first thing that customers or the employee level say is I haven't heard from my boss. I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. I mean, that's what all of the surveys are showing. And it's fascinating because it's just, it's a lack of presence creates a lack of trust and transparency in an organization. Also

creates a lack of clarity in the direction the employees need to be going. So it's fascinating that we're talking about this, bringing that joy, bringing that connection of everything from the interpersonal aspect, like you said, age to age, human to human, or heart to heart, I think is even more impactful because that is the passion that leaders have for the success of their employees. Yes. And it's so cool. And that's how the employees feel it. Yes. They feel it coming from you. Everything in business is about feelings. Everything. Totally. Nobody ever talks about it, but everything. People won't buy from you unless they feel good about you. Like I've just gone through the process of buying a new car here and I can guarantee there's two or three people I didn't buy from.

I could have, but I didn't because I didn't like the way I felt around them. Right, right. And that's just from a sales perspective. From a leadership perspective, how people feel about you and your product, your authenticity. And that's the other thing we can touch on with leadership in particular is the authenticity. And I prided, and I know people love hearing stories, so it's not like a me-fest, but it's just an example of how I've lived through this. I prided myself on being an authentic speaker because when I was very young and began my

speaking career, I'd met some famous speakers who were amazing on stage and they were like depressed hulks off stage. And I'm like, oh, this doesn't feel right. So I committed to being like me, really authentic on stage. Well, then I meet David Martin like 40 years later, 30 years later, and he pointed out to me how I had been living my life based on the stories of a two-year-old, which were those stories I mentioned in the podcast, The Three Core Fears. And so people need to listen to the podcast because we haven't got time now to talk about it. But he said, you've been living 60 years of your life based on the story of a two-year-old. Do you want to keep going? I went, well, ah, no.

And as I went through that process, which was extraordinarily challenging, but unbelievably valuable, I became more of who I really am. And I realized that I had created a persona and that persona was on stage. And instead of me bringing Amanda on stage, what I did was take the persona and put it into Amanda's life. And that doesn't lead to joy. And did I know it? Was I conscious of it? Absolutely not. I would never have done it if I was aware of it.

But as soon as someone pointed out to me, I went, oh, oh, that's not good. And I worked at changing it. And since I have, and it kind of ties into what I said in the podcast too, since I've come back more into understanding who I really am and I'm not my story, because we are not our stories. Our stories rule our lives if we let them, but we're not our stories. Then that authenticity comes out and it's as if you get closer to the essence of who you really are.

And then that essence emanates out. And if you're in a leadership role or speaking, I remember thinking one day, because my presentations have changed completely. They look the same from the outside, but the responses are, they astonish me. I'm grateful, but I don't feel like I'm doing much different, but everything's different. Wow.

And that's what happens. And it's a much deeper and richer experience. So as a leader works through their own garbage basically and and learns to become more authentic because we talk a lot about authenticity and transparency but nobody really tells you how to become authentic yeah it's true so so what what what is that so you when you found out later in life you know 30 years later what was that work that you were doing every day to remind yourself or try to be present? Like, what was that work that you were doing in order to grow and develop into, you know, who you were made to be? Well, it was kind of slowed down to the speed

of consciousness and try to be present in every moment. And by being present in every moment, I mean that you're not thinking about the past and you're not telling yourself a story. You're not thinking about the future. You're actually right here, right now, like we are. It doesn't matter what else is going on. We are here connected heart to heart and in each other's fields. And it's the same with the people listening. But if you're listening and you're, I don't know, cooking or driving or doing something else at the same time, which everyone does. This is not a criticism, but just know that that's not being a hundred percent present. And I do it all the time too. I'll be cooking, but I'll play a podcast, your podcast,

or I'll play another podcast or I'll listen to music or something, but all of that is not actually being present. So I tried to focus on being really present and silent as much as I could, because it's the silence that I hadn't really ever given myself permission to do. If things would get silent, I'd get very uncomfortable and I'd find a hundred things to do or I'd talk a million miles an hour. But I trained myself to be able to sit on my amazingly beautiful balcony in Australia and look out over the forest and the ocean. And I had all that before, but I never sat there and enjoyed it. Yeah. So it's really that training that we have, I mean, especially in this day and age, right? I mean, with social media and we have a computer in our pockets that we have, I mean, especially in this day and age, right? I mean, with social media and we have a computer in our pockets that we can Google search every thought that comes into our brain. We can start typing in a question. And so I could see how this is going to be very

difficult for people to really practice. But in the same way, I think it can be very powerful because if you practice that presence, then all of a sudden you can evolve into the greatest version of yourself. Yeah, and stillness. So it's the presence, the stillness, and slowing down to the speed of consciousness, as David says. Because with all of those, look, you know, it's only difficult in the beginning because we're so used to the habit of the busy and filling every second but practice with little pieces you know like two minutes I used to start off with two minutes and and I would try I would write little notes to myself everywhere saying present stillness slow down and um and then it becomes something that you miss. I miss it now if I

don't have it. And in those moments where you're present, you're still and you've slowed down, you get to look deeper inside and catch the stories that you've been telling yourself. So that's one part, Mark. The second part is as I went through every day, I would pick up. In the beginning, I had to pick up if I wasn't feeling good. First of all, I had to learn to feel. Like seriously, I had to learn to feel because I had so effectively severed myself at the neck because if I had a feeling, it was always going to be way too scary. So truly at the age of about 63 or 64, I started to learn to like really feel. So then once I could feel, I would then notice and people are probably thinking, well, she's some kind of weirdo not being able to feel. But I wonder how many people actually

are like that. We've had some sort of trauma between zero to seven that was so traumatic for them that they just, oh, not going to feel again. Because I know my head said to my heart, no, don't you worry. You just don't feel and we'll take care of everything. So you just no feeling here. And we'll just take. So I was brilliant at being in my head, but crap at feeling. So I would notice if I wasn't feeling well.

And then I would listen to the story I had told myself at the time, and then I could change that story. Can you tell us how do you start your day with a win in order to make these choices and pursue an effective day? For me, Adam, and Mark, the real secret is gratitude. And I had already led a life that had a lot of gratitude in it before I met David Martin. But he kind of lasered me in to the power of gratitude. So whenever I feel a bit down or challenged, like moving back to America was a really big thing. You know, it's like life part 17. And in the moments where I felt a bit overwhelmed or maybe I was bordering on burnout, if I consciously stop and I focus on gratitude, all the things for which I'm grateful, and there are many, many of them, and you can always find something for which to be grateful. And if you're

having a really, really, really, really bad week or day, then be grateful you're breathing. So there's always something for which to be grateful. Be grateful you have eyesight if you have it. And you can see beautiful things around you. So I start my days with a complete setting, if you like, of gratitude. And then I make a conscious choice to find things for which to be grateful. Amanda Gore, thank you so much for being on Start With A Win. We appreciate all that you do. And thank you for starting with a win. That's right. Hey, thank you for listening to Start With A Win. If you'd enjoy this podcast, please subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. And for more great content, head over to adamcontos.com where you can get blog posts, you can get access

to other great content as courses and, and the like. So until next time, remember, start with a win. you