Start With A Win - Put Your People First

Episode Date: January 19, 2022

In this episode of Start With A Win, Adam talks with Ryan Estis about the importance of employee well-being and how it can impact the long-term success of an organization. Ryan has more than 20 years of experience as a top-performing sales professional and leader. Twelve years ago, he decided to put that experience into practice and launch is own learning and advisory organization. He developed the Virtual Wellness series, a live, interactive program, complete with a curriculum grounded in original research on what employees need to thrive. The series features five modules focused on employee well-being:Peak Performance: Unleashing Your Potential Into the WorldEmotional Resilience: Responding to Change, Challenge & AdversityAn Introduction to Mindfulness: The Art of PresenceThe Communication Revolution:  Building High Trust High Value RelationshipsFit for Service: An Introduction to Physical Wellness & NutritionRyan shares that the COVID-19 pandemic was really just a tipping point for employee wellness and well-being. People have felt overworked, lonely and burned out for years, but it has been a call to action for leaders to get more involved in this issue.People are reconsidering their relationship with work. Ryan shares the statistic that the average white collar worker worked three more hours per day during the pandemic. But the Great Resignation is showing us that throughout the last 18 months, our perspective has been reset. Unhealthy balance in life and work just might not be worth it anymore. That’s where a bigger focus on employee wellness must come in. And the programs must be about more than the apps for meditation or Bring Your Dog to Work Day. People seek balance and flexibility and want to have fulfillment. They are shifting from organizing their lives around work to now wanting to organize work around how they want to live their life.Ryan also shares that the impact of focusing on employee well-being goes beyond the productivity and fulfillment of the individual. It has a great impact on the long-term success of an organization. If your focus as a leader or board is only on quarterly performance and maximizing shareholder value, you’re missing the longer-term opportunity. It’s not just a moral obligation, it’s speaking to the long-term health of the organization.Episode Links:Virtual Wellness Series: https://ryanestis.com/topics/corporate-training/virtual-wellness-series/Connect with Ryan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanestis/Follow Ryan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanestis/Order your copy of Start With A Win: Tools and Lessons to Create Personal and Business Success:https://www.startwithawin.com/bookConnect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/https://www.facebook.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://twitter.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://www.instagram.com/REMAXadamcontos/ Leave us a voicemail:888-581-4430

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. And coming to you from Denver, Colorado, home of Remax World Headquarters, it's Adam Conto, CEO with Start With A Win. How you doing, producer Mark? I'm doing so good. So good. Is New Year treating you well? That's right. The New Year is treating me fantastic. And I'm excited for our guest today. We got Ryan Estes on the podcast. Welcome, Ryan. Hey, thank you, Mark. Thank you, Adam. It's great to be with you both. Yeah. So Ryan, he's got more than 20 years of experience as a top performing sales professional

and leader as the former chief strategy officer for the McCain World Group advertising agency. He spent 15 years helping companies connect with employees and customers and just has a wealth of knowledge around so many things. So I'm glad that he's here to allow us to pick his brain and chat about business, life, all sorts of great stuff. I love it. And Ryan, it's so cool to have you here because you do so much work, not just around, yes, you were chief strategy officer working in sales and marketing and all this other stuff, but the reality is this is like a human world that we're in and people are the foundation for our businesses and your organization digs so deep into that and employee wellness.

I want to dive into that today because it's a big part of what we see creating those successes for business. How about that? Well, I agree. Human connection is an important conversation, especially after what we've navigated for the last 18 to 24 months. So it's something that we focus on. And I think it's something a lot of our clients are focused on for good reason too. Awesome. Yeah. I remember, geez, what was it? March of 2020 when everybody closed down with COVID and it seems like everybody just got a punch in the face with their wellbeing and emotions and things like that. And we saw a lot of organizations invest in employee wellness and we saw some just kind of go, oh, this is going to go away. Well, this will pass. And they ignored it. I mean, you've done so much research. In fact,

you have a web series about employee wellness, which is just amazing. So I encourage everybody to check out RyanEstis.com and take a look at that. But I mean, let's dig into employee well-being here. So you mentioned a Deloitte report also. What's the foundation for all of this education you're creating? Well, you know, let's get into some of the facts. So I think the foundation is based on a set of circumstances even prior to the pandemic. I consider the pandemic a tipping point in employee wellness and well-being because even prior to that, we were dealing with such a significant amount of change and transformation and disruption. And then you have this event, right? And so let's run down some of the facts. So 69% of people feel

highly overworked. 61% of people feel lonely. 50% of people feel burned out. 80% of workers feel significantly more anxiety and stress pre-pandemic. 50% of people say that the crisis has hurt their mental health. So, you know, when you look at that data set, you know, this period of time has taken an overwhelming toll on people's well-being, and it's having a significant impact on our ability to perform and be productive as teams and organizations. So I think for the first time, really, organizations are having to step into the middle of this long-tail mental health crisis and provide support and resourcing. And it's creating a call to action for leaders to get more engaged and

involved in this issue, which I think a conversation like this, a podcast like this, what you're focusing on is so important for those reasons. Well, thanks. You listened to all those numbers you just kind of threw out there. And I've done the research and read those reports and sat on the CEO roundtables also with a lot of the same folks that you've been chatting with. And it's fascinating when you look at the, you know, just kind of that, that, you know, bucket of cold water on the face of everybody going, whoa. And you mentioned the word leaders and it's, it's fascinating to, to think about those that did step up and lead and those that continued to fall into that rut of management of demanding results instead of helping inspire and help these people see that there is a way that they can find fulfillment and success at the same time. But we missed out on so many businesses actually taking this opportunity and

run with it. So why is it important for looking back and even, this didn't go away, obviously, this is how we're living life now. Why is this important for businesses if they're listening to it now and they didn't, or maybe they should continue to reflect on how to continue to improve with this? Well, this is the genesis of performance and productivity, right? I mean, if you're people, and look, you hear the great resignation or the great reset, and we've never seen quit rates like this. And then I'm always concerned about the people that quit, but keep showing up to take a paycheck. And so, you know, that, that's a factor also. And, and so, you know, not now it's getting down to the future of your success depends on your ability to, to engage and influence people and influence your culture. So, you know, the other challenge we're having too, I mean, that's ancillary to this is, you know, you talk about

this being a leadership crisis, leaders are burned out too. You know, we, so we're having, too, I mean, that's ancillary to this is, you know, you talk about this being a leadership crisis. Leaders are burned out, too. You know, so I talk a lot about leading from the inside out, or you have to lead yourself first, or you can't pour from an empty cup. And so, you know, this is that moment in time. Think about another statistic, too, and you think about why. I read this. The average white-collar worker was working about three more hours per day during the

pandemic. So the lines between work and life got blurred and, you know, dealing with a lot more personal stress in terms of, you know, family issues and childcare and education and just all of the things, right? So we got disrupted and, and coming out of this reset, I think, I do think people are really reconsidering their relationship with work. And so, you know, my mantra is put people first performance and profitability will follow. And if you don't, you're going to see you're going to see a performance impacted. I love that. And I want to dig into that a little bit, because, you know, obviously, companies, leaders, shareholders demanding something of boards, things like that. And, you know, we've always seen like stakeholder capitalism and, you know, shareholders really pushing boards to achieve results. But do you see a big part of that stakeholder capitalism and shareholder

capitalism becoming the shareholders demanding that boards focus on their people in order to get those results now? Do you see that as an emergence? I do. Well, so two comments about that. And as somebody who kind of spun out of a Fortune 500 company, you know, our mission was create shareholder value. That isn't a mission and it's not one that creates a whole lot of fulfillment. Now, that can be an outcome, right, of an emphasis on people and purpose. But that short-range thinking is being challenged right now. And if your focus as a board and a public entity is simply quarterly performance and maximizing shareholder value, I think you're missing the longer-term opportunity,

and that's going to catch up with people. And it is right now. I mean, it's happening, right? This is that, to me, defining moment. And so, you know, it's not just a moral obligation. It's speaking to the long-term health and success of the organization. So yes, I think it's the right thing to do. And I think this moment in time, we're being reset because employees aren't going to put up with it anymore. And it's just, I see it in my work all the time. I'm working with Fortune 100 companies right now. I'm working with a consulting company. I'm working with a law firm. And what does everybody want to talk about? Recruiting and retention. It's like, well, your business model and what you've focused on needs to change. And so that becomes a new leadership mandate. And I think that's a good thing long-term. Awesome. And let's unpack what you just said

a little bit more here, because obviously it's table stakes that a company has an employee wellness program. And I want to eventually dig into the five key components that, that you've outlined in your, uh, your online training about employee wellness. But, um, you know, we always talk about when, when somebody interviews with us, we have this really fancy little packet of information. We talk about the benefits and the pay and all this other stuff. Um, do you see the holistic wellness such as like, you know, yoga and employee assistance program and dog insurance? Because, you know, it's, it's about your whole life, the eight components of your life instead of just the one at the office now more than anything. Um, how important on a, you know, when somebody walks in a door to interview with a company of any of

the people listening to this, is that employee wellness program when it comes to sitting down and talking to that interviewee. So I would say it's essential and, and it goes beyond that, right? So what do people covet today? They covet balance, flexibility. They want to work for an organization and a supervisor that has a sincere interest in their well-being and they want to have fulfillment. And so, you know, it's great. It's great if you have, you know, mindfulness training, right, and an app where I can meditate and, you know, bring a pet to work day, but it's about so much more than that, right? And so, you know, I think really good talent, you know, they're in

the driver's seat. Because guess what? We just found out work can get done anywhere. I'm at home now. I'm working. My team's at home. They're working. Work can get done anywhere. And I'm, you know, when you and I came up, Adam, we really, and I certainly did this for the first 20 years of my career. I organized my life around my career, right? It was, you know, my life fit in to how I got work done. And I was trying to climb the corporate ladder and get promoted and make more money and all the things. And people today are, I think they're recognizing that, you know what, I'm going to organize work around how I want to live my life. And that, to me,, I'm going to organize work around how I want to live my life. And that,

to me, is the great reset. So happiness before success instead of success trying to chase happiness. Success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. There you go. I like that. Success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. That's a big one. And mean, and it's weird because, you know, you talked about the great resignation or the great reset a few minutes ago. And the weird part is it's like 35 to 45 year olds are the focus of that. That which means that people are willing to throw, you know, 10, 15, 20 years of seniority out the window wherever they're at in order to go find that fulfillment. Because our perspective has been reset, right?

Like if you don't have your health and you don't have good relationships with the people you love and you're not maximizing the time and you don't have balance and you don't feel good as a person, it just might not be worth it. And sometimes it takes an internal crisis or an existential one to start to have that recognition. But we just went through one globally as a society and a culture. And I think people maybe are saying to themselves, hey, you know, maybe what I was doing before on 12 at the treadmill isn't the best way to live my life. And that's going to have an impact on our workplace. Interesting. And it's fascinating that my office is on the 12th floor. So

so, hey, you talk about and I absolutely love this because I really focus on these, uh, these different aspects of my life on a daily basis, but I want to throw the five components of your wellness overview at you and get a, a quick perspective from you, um, on, on each of those, you know, what comes to mind and, and, you know, I'll, I'll throw the, like the first one is peak performance, unleashing your potential. Um, hit me back with, what does this mean to me and my business? Uh, you know, from Ryan Estes expert in this situation perspective. So you ready? Let's ready to dive into this. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm totally ready. Yeah. So I, okay. So module ready? Let's ready to dive into this. Yeah, yeah, no, I'm totally ready.

Yeah. So I, okay. So module one, peak performance. Look, what I would suggest is that as a business leader and as individuals too, you know, we have so much unrealized potential, right? Either in ourselves or in our organizations. And that module really is about unleashing that potential, both into your business and into the world at large to contribute in a significant way. So that's sort of what that focus is. And that's a module that asks people some hard questions and asks them to look inside themselves to find their truth and their answers and puts people and teams in a position to perform at the absolute highest level. I love this. Hey, side question. Okay. I was in a mastermind not long ago, and we're talking about

how most employees show up at work with 25% of their potential. And it's up to us as when we lead them to try and unleash that other 75% potential. Have you heard that? And what is your thought on that? Yeah, I'd say that's right. I don't have research at my fingertips around the data point or the statistic, but I think that's absolutely accurate. I think so many people work to get by, to get through, to collect a check,

and aren't really become a better version of themselves. I read this quote over the weekend. Let's see if I can get it right. Adam Grant, who I'm a big fan of, his work and his writing and his research, and he said something to the effect of, it's easy to be a critic or cheerleader. It's harder to be a coach. A critic sees your weaknesses and attacks your work self, your worst self. A cheerleader sees your strengths and celebrates your best self. But a coach sees your potential and helps you become a better version of yourself. And if we really frame up our role as leaders in that way, it's really building a high trust relationship with someone, getting to know them, their dreams,

their visions, their aspiration, and then really unlocking their potential so they can be the best version of themselves. I think that's real servant leadership. I love that. All right, I'm going to hit you with the next one here. Emotional resilience, responding to change, challenge, and adversity. Yeah, look, the world is constantly changing and adversity is coming. I don't know what the next significant moment of adversity is going to be in my life or yours, but I've got a prediction. It is going to show up. And we can't control the external circumstances, but our source of power lies in how we respond to it. Resilience is like a muscle. You can strengthen your ability to be resilient. And you can look at change and challenge through the lens of opportunity. So it really is cultivating or exercising or really elevating

our own awareness around, hey, challenge. It's hard in the moment, but man, there's an opportunity around it. And it's coaching leaders to look for the opportunity inside the challenge because it always exists. Awesome. All right, the next one, mindfulness. Tell me about that. Yeah, that's about presence. And so it's about being aware to the generous gift of the present moment, right?

So it's minimizing regret and anxiety and really cultivating the ability to be intentional, to react instead of responding and getting control of our emotions. Mindfulness has been a huge practice in my life over the last couple of years. I think it's made me a better person and a much more effective leader. Awesome. And we get, we actually, it's experiential. So we meditate a little bit. We do a little bit of breath work. We have some practices. We make decisions about our routines and rituals. So that's really what that's all about. Amazing. All right. We've got two more listeners. This is gold. If you haven't gone back and written this stuff down, you absolutely need to. I've been taking a ton of notes on Ryan

and what he delivers and absolutely love the content and the efforts and blog posts that Ryan has put forth. His courses are amazing. So, all right, next one here. And I want to ask, why did you put these two words together? And that is communication revolution. Well, look, so this is interesting. So this one was actually an addition, right? So we delivered the wellness series and it was four modules. And then I realized so much of it focused internally, but so much of our success at work or fulfillment in life comes through our relationships, right? You can even make the case that the quality of our life is determined by the quality of our relationships with the people we love the most.

And the revolution is here. I mean, you think about 18 months. I mean, where are we going to work? And we're going to work from everywhere. And are we virtual? And what part of virtual? And now people are going back to the office, but they're on eight hours of Zoom meetings locked in their office. Right. Like it's so there's been a reset. And I think reconfiguring both the essential how essential communication is to our ability to trust and build these connected relationships,

how how critical it is to building the fabric of a culture and a team, and then how we're going to do that in this new era. I felt it was essential content to weave into this programming. And I think there are implications both not only in the workplace, but in our personal lives as well. I mean, when you think about what happened, like swaths of relationships got eviscerated, right? I mean, we were hunkered down with our families. You might've done like a few Zoom happy hours with the extended family or a few close friends, but these casual ambient relationships

that we counted on either in the coffee shop or in our neighborhood or in the office or with a client, they just sort of got eliminated for 12 to 18 months. And I think realizing how important those things are and getting back to how we need to be around that is just was really essential. So I'm glad we added that. It feels right. It fits in there perfectly. I completely agree with that. And your overview of it is amazing. All right. Last one here. And I'm a huge fan of this because I believe truly that we can't get our mind right until we work on our bodies and our health.

So you've got fit for service. What do you throw that at us? You and I are very aligned. So if I was going to start with a client doing executive coaching, I might start with this one. And I would look at routines and rituals and daily practices. And this one for me, I, you know, physically, I was at the onset of the pandemic, I had come off a big year in my business. But I wasn't I wasn't healthy. I think I probably in 2019, I probably I did over 150 nights in hotels, 82 live events, presentations,

and I was hustling. And it took a toll. And so my, you know, I just, I just, and so I just decided, okay, I've got this pause. You know, I can either fall apart and start drinking wine at noon and, you know, ordering takeout or whatever, whatever, right? Like a lot of people did. I did that for a couple of weeks. I'm like, okay, this is not sustainable. And what's the opportunity? All right. I've got the gift of

time. I'm grounded. And so I made a huge commitment. It's just an investment. I hired a trainer and I got real serious. I got a whoop strap and started tracking everything. And just, it was a whole reset and you know, it's, it's incredible. There you go. There's alignment here. So, yeah. And it's funny. We actually use screenshots of my dashboard in this module to kind of explain how, you know, it's the old adage, you can't improve what you don't measure. But my health reset, just even getting seven or eight hours of sleep, and I know when I'm in the green, and I know what alcohol does to my recovery and just the awareness. And what you realize is successful people and particularly leaders, they become self-aware, right? You know, you're out through all of these practices around well-being. When you elevate your own self-awareness and then you expand it to include others, you're becoming a better leader.

And that's really what the series is all about. So you got to get your body right to get your mind right. And that's what the last module is about, fit for service. Awesome. Ryan, we've talked a lot about different aspects of not just business success and how to create those, but it's through creating amazing people to do amazing work in your organization. And I mean, just so powerful and so important. A big part of what you do and how you do it. Where can people find you online and do some more research about this? Yeah, check us out at RyanEstis.com. That's the website. I'm an open networker.

Hit me up on LinkedIn. Follow me on Instagram. And let's make 2022 the best year of our lives. I love it. I love it. Thanks for being with us, Ryan. Thanks for joining us at Start With A Win. That's right. Thank you so much. Hey, if you're ready to create personal and business success,

subscribe to this podcast and head over to wherever you get your books and order Start With A Win, the book. Not only will you be helping yourself, but all author proceeds go to Children's Miracle Network Hospitals, so you'll be helping others as well. Head over to startwithawin.com for more great content. And until next time, remember, start with a win.