Start With A Win - The Fundamentals of Leadership Development with a Public Company CEO

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

In this episode of Start With a Win, host Adam Contos is on The Inspiring Leadership podcast with Scott Comey.  Scott interviews Adam about the leadership lessons he learned from his military and SWAT days, all the way through being CEO of RE/MAX Holdings and other ventures.  Adam shares the importance of Emotional Intelligence and offers the 3 A's of Awareness.  He also offers his best tips on the importance of personal development and how your people rely on YOU learning and growing.  This is a leadership masterclass that cannot be missed! 

What do I have to say about the fundamentals of leadership development? Today, we find out on Start With A Win. Welcome to Start With A Win, where we unpack leadership, personal growth and development, and how to build a better business. Let's go. Coming to you from Area 15 Ventures and Start With A Win headquarters, it's Adam Kontos with Start With A Win. This is an interesting one because I was on the Inspiring Leader podcast with Scott Comey. In this episode, we'll explore the importance of emotional intelligence, decision-making, and the systems that drive leadership success. We'll also talk about the lessons I've learned along the way about

personal growth, the power of daily development, and how small actions can make a big difference. Let's get started on the journey to becoming the best leader you can be with Scott Comey on the Inspiring Leader Podcast. Here we go. Adam, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks, Scott. I appreciate it. Great to see you, my friend. Absolutely. And by the way, this is an abbreviated version of his bio because he really has done it all. I mean, we didn't even mention the fact that he spent several years in the military and I can go on, but an amazing human being. Well, thank you. All right. Well, hey, Adam, this is a leadership podcast. And so my first question is just going

to be a basic one. I just want to kind of get your take on what is a definition, your definition of a leader? Well, I love this question because everybody has their own definition of a leader? Well, I love this question because everybody has their own definition of a leader. And I hear some that I agree with and I hear some that I don't agree with. But ultimately, my definition is really someone who guides and influences a person or a group of people towards a common goal or vision. So essentially, how do we put that fire in the belly, that inspiration in somebody's heart in a direction that we need to accomplish and get them to take action on that? So ultimately, we have to inspire people and guide them and influence them to get stuff done. Awesome. I love that. And so the difference between a leader and a manager then, let's

just kind of go there. So I love that, that you're guiding and you're inspiring people to kind of essentially follow that mission. What would a manager be in your, in your opinion? I think a manager basically says that's what needs to be done. Go do it. And I mean, essentially you're managing processes. You're not inspiring people, if you will. And it's a gray area, but ultimately it comes down to the leader cares about the people, the manager just cares about the job. Right. That makes a lot of sense, actually. Yep. Well, here's my next question for you. What is one of the top characteristics that you believe a good leader should possess? Oh, I think this is by far the minimum that you must possess to be a good leader. And that's emotional intelligence. We hear about the word empathy all

the time. Ultimately, what it boils down to is a leader's awareness. And I call them the three A's, awareness of self, awareness of others, and awareness of the business. So how does that awareness of myself and how, you know, to go back to your first question, how do I fit in with guiding and influencing and directing somebody or a group of people to action? How does my opinion of that fit in with their intrinsic needs? And when you take a look at their intrinsic needs as a human being, we go to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Where do they sit on that? Are they sitting in a safety zone where they're just living paycheck to paycheck? They're just trying to get something done because they have to and

they're afraid of the consequences of not doing it? Or you go up into belonging and then ultimately into that self-actualization of truly believing that they're making a difference in this world by accomplishing those tasks. Of course, how that fits around the goals of the business. Businesses have to make money. There has to be profitability for the owners, the shareholders, things like that, so that they can give that money in the direction that they want. Maybe it's bonusing the employees or raising salaries or reinvesting in the business that they want. Maybe it's, it's bonusing the employees or raising salaries or reinvesting in the business or the customer base somehow, but ultimately how do you tie those three things together? And that boils down to the emotional intelligence of that leader to be able

to guide and direct that. That's awesome. Yeah. We actually have a chapter in my new book that as you know, is being released today, October 1st, But the chapter seven, the empathic leader. So we touch on a lot of what you just said, although I do like the three A's. That's really cool. The three different awarenesses. Very good breakdown of that. Now, Adam, you have served in the military,

as I mentioned, for many years. You also led a SWAT team. And I know that you learned some things about leadership in those roles. And I'm curious if you can share some of those with our listeners. Sure. So, I mean, ultimately it comes down to, and SWAT teams in the military and business for that matter, function around systems. You have to have systems and processes in order to guide the operations of the organization or the mission at hand. And those systems and processes revolve around what we would call SOPs,

standard operating procedures. It's no different than like in real estate, for instance, the contract is the contract and that's a guide for how do you move this transaction forward? And the traditional ways that the industry has operated have given this trial and error process in order for us to accomplish things without having to reinvent the wheel every time. But we have systems and processes. But ultimately, what has to happen around those systems and processes that leaders have to do is make decisions. You have these systems and processes as your guideposts,

but ultimately you're making decisions along the way. And people who can't make decisions cannot lead. They just become reckless and random in the direction that they'll allow things to happen in. And it really is a difficult thing for some people to grasp, but I'll tell you, when you're under fire, when lives depend on it, there's, there's things at stake that are way bigger than, oh, I can get to it tomorrow. You have to make decisions and in, in leadership in the military leadership and law enforcement, you're required to make those decisions because it's life or death at that point. So I think tying those systems and the decision-making the together are really some key things that I learned in that process. Yeah. I can only imagine, you know,

back in the days when you used to be in SWAT, the decisions that had to be made quickly. And I know in business that comes up a lot too. I mean, there's, there's fires that get thrown your way. There's certainly some things in the economy that could potentially affect your business. And so being quick on your feet and thinking outside of the box and having the right people to lean on during those times is crucial. Absolutely. Love it. Well, I've known you for many years, Adam.

And of course, I've read your book multiple times, Start With a Win. I know that you're big on personal development, personal growth. Talk to me, talk to our audience a little bit about the importance as a leader to plug into personal development and what kind of different avenues do you recommend or do you personally plug into? Well, this is a great question, Scott. And ultimately we have to understand one thing and that's that holistically as a human being,

if we're not getting better, we're getting worse. Okay. You don't just grow flat in the day. You know, you don't go, all right, today's gone. I didn't get any worse, but I didn't get any better. I mean, the reality is if you didn't get better, you did get worse. That's true.

Yeah. You know, so it's something to think about. So how do we get better every day? We have to be involved in personal development on a daily basis. And a lot of people are like, well, I don't have time for that, or it doesn't work for me, or I got too many other things on my calendar, stuff like that. You have to make space for personal development. And it has to come in many different factors. First of all, there has to for personal development, and it has to come in many different factors. First of all, there has to be personal development for you within. Physically and emotionally, you have to get better every single day. It's fascinating.

I was actually called out on this by my wife, Kelly, one day. Part of my personal development, my day starts in the gym. I get up. I have a cup of coffee. I catch up on a couple of things. I watch an inspirational video that I get every single day and, you know, write down what that meant to me, see my dogs, things like that. And we're off to the gym before six o'clock now.

And we're in the gym and I was walking around just doing a little bit of, you know, exercise here and there. And my wife looks at me, I had my phone in my hand and she goes, what are you doing? I said, well, I'm working out. She goes, you're exercising, right? I said, yeah. She goes, here's what you're not doing. You're not training.

You're not trying to get better. And I said, well, what's the difference between exercising and training? She goes, when I train, I have a system and I have accountability. When I exercise, I'm just going through the motions and I'm okay with whatever happens. So you're either pushing yourself to make yourself better because remember, growth is hard. Growth hurts. That's why we had growing pains when we were kids. Businesses have growing pains. Growth in a business is difficult and it hurts and it stretches your limits. But ultimately, that has to happen in every aspect of your life, be it exercise. If you're not lifting heavier or pushing harder or doing more or, you know, sweat a little

more, whatever it might be, you're not growing. You're just doing. So the idea behind this is to train. And how do we train? We record what we're doing and we push ourselves to greater limits. So I'm a big fan of fitness apps. I have a great one that I use. It's called FitBot. If anybody wants to try it, it's got like 250,000 five-star reviews uses AI and it'll push you. It'll push you to your limits. And I've seen it help people a lot and it's helped me a lot.

But that's just one component. So you've got personal development. You have your relationships. Those need to be fostered and developed every single day. Have you picked up the phone and called some of those people you haven't talked to in a while? Do you have a list of the people that you want to maintain great relationships with? Well, be active in doing so and record that. Write it down. How do you handle your self-esteem and your self-worth? Do you feel good about yourself? Do something to feel good

about yourself. Maybe it's journaling or writing down things that you're thankful for on a daily basis. Maybe it's also uncovering the gaps that you've come up with during the day so that you can fix those things the next day. And also in our business. It's development in our business, both through leadership. I try to do something leadership-based every single day to give back to my people. Why? Because leaders grow leaders. We create other leaders. If we're not creating leaders, we're not a leader. We're not guiding and influencing and inspiring those people to get better themselves. We're just allowing mediocrity to happen. And guess what? They're getting worse. You might have people facing burnout. You might have people who are struggling internally with some sort of emotional challenge or mental health or something like that. If we're growing them in leadership, they're going to get

better. They're going to move past that. And they're going to be thankful to you for helping them get better. But ultimately, all of these things play into leadership. Our goal as leaders is to create things better than they were yesterday, not allow them to be the same. So long answer, but personal development in all aspects to me, including sleep, including drinking enough water, including having enough protein, all of that is something I think about on a daily basis. And I love it because I feel amazing. And I told my wife today, it was funny. I go, I feel like we're aging backwards. Let's make that our goal.

Hey, that's cool. I love that. So, so we're doing everything we can for longevity and health and happiness and life. And it's you know, it's a team plan, the two of us together. And I think it's a fun place to be going. A little Benjamin Button moment, right? We're aging backwards. I love that. By the way, Adam is very consistent too. And Kelly, I want to give props to Kelly too. I remember about six, seven years ago, we were in Las Vegas at a conference and my wife and I got up early this particular morning and we get down, we go down to the gym and the gym wasn't open yet, but guess who was out there waiting for the gym to open Adam and Kelly. I remember that still today, but yeah, no, that's, that's good stuff. And I love, I love how you answered that question about personal

development with yourself. You know, I think a lot of times anybody, not just leaders, but anyone would think about reading books and listening to podcasts and that's where they would go right away. And obviously those are all included in what we're talking about. But the fact that you started with yourself, your health, you're only as good as you are physically. Right. I love that. Let me, let me, let me touch on something you just said here. Yeah. Because I, you know, don't get me wrong. I'm a podcaster also. You're a podcaster. I love creating content for people, but here's, here's the reality folks. Being a leader is about taking action with that information, right? It's not just taking the information in. It's about taking action with the information. So if you learn something, maybe you listen to, I like Dr. Andrew Huberman, you know, and he talks about a lot of longevity and physiology and things like that. I also like

my good friend, Darren Hardy talks a lot about business growth and, you know, working with your people, things like that. But you got to do something with that. The information is worthless. In fact, it is nothing but a time suck if you don't implement it. So, you know, with respect to what Scott's saying, here's the reality. Learn something. Yes, we should learn something every day, but do something with what you learn. And that's where the magic happens. Right. Yeah. It's not about mastering the concept of attending classes and listening to podcasts, but implementing, right? I love that. We've certainly seen that in our coaching business. We've got lots of people that show

up to everything, but then they don't implement. So we need to help them. Those are the areas that we're working on them with. Well, great. All good stuff. Love all of this, Adam. I got a question that I'm kind of curious about, and I'm sure our listeners would love to know the answer to this too, but who would you say is your mentor? And I'm just going to leave it vague. It could be personally, professionally, whatever, but who's your mentor and why? I've had quite a few mentors in my life. I've also had a lot of paid coaches in my life. So I've always sought out people to help me get better. I'm also part of several masterminds where we hold each other accountable on a pure basis, which that's one of the hard ones is, you know, one person holding you

accountable is great, but you know, if you have a dozen, holy smokes, you can really get some things done. I have to say this, this person has been a huge influence on my life and, and you know him very well, Scott, it's Dave Linegar, the co-founder of Remix. He started mentoring me in the late nineties and I was in law enforcement still at the time. And I met him and I said, can you mentor me on leadership and business? I knew police work. I could run a SWAT team, but I wanted to be the best leader. And I wanted to learn business as much as possible because I was also an entrepreneur. I'd started a couple of businesses on the side. And I learned a lot from Dave. I still am very close friends with him. He and I just did thousands of miles of travel together, working on some business projects into some of

the most crazy parts of the world you would ever think of. But ultimately, I still look to him and I go, what do you think about this? And it went from more of a mentorship to a friendship, but with a mentor level of accountability. And now it's kind of a mutual mentorship at this point. I'll come up with things and share them with him and he'll come up with things and share them with me. But he's done a lot to change my life and I'm forever grateful to him and his wife, Gail, for all of the mentorship that they've provided. Yeah. Amazing human being. Yeah. Love, love both Dave and Gail. Uh, this actually kind of segues perfectly, uh, since you just mentioned all the travel with Dave, um, you recently did a, uh, or, or posted on social media about all these thousands and thousands of miles that you guys traveled

and just some things that you learned along the way, which by the way, I have to tell, I have to share with you. Renee and I, my wife and I just got back from Italy. We read that post about two days before we left and guess what happened, Adam? I know you're going to be shocked. We had ferries get canceled. We had flights get delayed. We had trains get canceled. And so all the things that you talked about in this post happened to us. And I have to admit the, the patience that we, that we gained by, by reading your post first was huge. I mean, it was, we got through those moments a lot easier because you posted that. And so I want to thank you for that, but share with us a little bit about kind of what you went through and through and the lessons you learned from those.

Okay. So just a quick flyover for everybody. This involves the month of August. So in just less than four weeks, I did 31,728 miles. Wow. And that was 57.7 hours in the air, flight time in seven countries. It doesn't include the trains and the automobiles and the buses and things like that. This is just air travel we're talking about. But ultimately, I went one direction around the earth, ended up in Europe, Italy, Greece, things like that. Then I came back and I went the other way and ended up in Japan and Guam, um, stopped in Hawaii along the way for a sleep quick adjustment, but, um, covered,

I think it was like 23 or no 25 time zones, something like that. It was, it was a lot. So, um, I, I visited a couple of days twice. It was interesting. But ultimately, what I found out is we're all human beings on this planet. It doesn't matter if you're in your business or you're down the street at somebody else's business or you're on the other side of the planet. I learned some lessons. And I was taking notes the whole time. And I thought it was so much fun because these really struck home with me. The first one, a smile and a greeting go

a long way. I mean, just kindness builds bridges folks. And it doesn't matter what language somebody speaks a smile, a thank you, a little head bow, you know, appreciation. And I'll tell you as an American gratuity, you know, a lot of places,, gratuity is not accepted unless you're an American. And then they're like, we know Americans like to give gifts of cash or something like that. But just a small amount goes a long way with people and it gets a lot of stuff done. And I'm not saying you're greasing the wheels on anything, but the reality is appreciating people makes them want to do more for you. Right. You know, that leads into my second one, which is small gestures make a big impact.

Oh, yeah. It doesn't matter what it is. Hold the door. You know, thank you. You know, buy somebody a drink or hand them, you know, a bottle of water at the airport, whatever it might be. Let them in front of you in line. Who knows what it is? Small gestures go a long way. Here's another one. Confidence. Confidence is key. No matter where you go, presence matters. Act like a leader. When you exude confidence,

people are more likely to trust you and less likely to take advantage of you. And I don't mean to avoid people. And you see a lot of people on travel and they're like, somebody's coming up trying to talk to them and they're like, no, no. And they run away or whatever it is. I've turned and talked to people.

And sometimes there are street vendors and they're like, hey, they want to have a conversation. I've actually tipped street vendors thinking this person is one heck of a salesperson right they should get something walking away from this oh yeah you know yeah i don't need what you're selling but that effort was amazing here you go right totally i learned something from that person right so um a couple others uh you know and you mentioned this one organization creates

efficiency yep i'll tell you what if you're going to travel, packing cubes are the way to go. You know, I put air tags, Apple air tags in all my bags. I had the peace of mind knowing that where my bags were, you know, luggage locks, work wonders. I mean, just packing ahead of time. So we were on the move so much that I would pack one day in a packing cube and I would put that in my carry on everything else went under the plane or whatever. And I knew I had clothes for at least a day or two at that point. And I didn't have to unpack all my stuff in order to get to it. So, you know, just plan ahead um you mentioned flight delays always prepare for the unexpected you know extra protein bars and some food and you know i wear contact lenses so i had extra contacts with me and um you know if your your flight is canceled you're not getting your bags back folks until you get to where you're going so true yeah very good. Very good point. Um, but it's, you know, planning ahead makes a

difference. Uh, if you're on international travel, join the airline lounges so you can go have a place to live. If your flight gets canceled, um, pass the air services are game changers everywhere you go overseas. This is outside of the.s everybody uses whatsapp if they say hey communicate with us via whatsapp do it yeah because you'd be surprised what you can get done on whatsapp absolutely yeah um and you know walking into a hotel and tipping the concierge 10 or 20 bucks uh to help you out you get their help the entire time you're there. Believe me. A couple others real quick. Language. So it's always nice to learn a greeting or a compliment in somebody else's language and they really appreciate you for that. And then be a happy traveler. Things are going to

happen. Don't let them upset you. I sat on the floor in the newark airport for like 14 hours before they decided to cancel my flight um and you know what people were mad at the pilot um yeah it wasn't the pilot's fault that mother nature put a thunderstorm above us right so i mean i don't want him flying us in dangerous situations and he wasn't about to, but, um, you know, some gratitude for those folks and thanking them for caring and, um, you know, doing what they do goes a long way. And it also makes your heart feel good. So, I mean, tons of leadership lessons in there, Scott, it was so much fun to look at it from a leadership perspective instead of, oh, this is a horrible travel experience.

Right. And, uh, it took a horrible travel experience. Right. And it took nothing away from our trip because we were understanding. Yeah. And so if you take the silver linings in these scenarios, right, what are the positives that came out of it? And in your case, you kind of made the connection to leadership. And I love the first two that you started with, you know, kindness builds bridges. You know, a smile can go a long way with your staff, with, with your coworkers can go a long way.

Um, small, uh, would you say are small? I can't even read my own handwriting. Look at that. Oh, small, small things make a big impact. Small gestures make a big impact. Yeah. Love that. Right.

Just small things. And I think about it from a leadership standpoint. There's so many little things that you can do in a work environment that can really pay off dividends, if you will, in the future, right? Just those small gestures. So very good tips. Appreciate you sharing those. And now I'm just going to kind of transition us to kind of wrapping up the podcast by asking my first question here of that which is what's a book that you've read that has helped change who you are today and I'm talking you can only pick one Adam I know that you've read a ton

but if you had to pick only one which what would come first to mind I have to say good friend of mine Darren Hardy wrote a book called the compound effect. Yeah. And that one, I keep going back to over and over and over again. That's, that's fantastic. I'm going to share a couple of them with you. Go for it. Yep. Yep. Um, so the compound effect is fantastic. I, that's one of the first reads that I throw at people when they're like, give me a good book to get better. I mean, that that's it. And then, um, of course, atomic habits by James Clear. Oh, absolutely. Number one business book for a long time. I have to say Dave Linegar's book, The Perfect 10,

that just came out not long ago. It's a big book and it has 10 chapters on business lessons. And each chapter has a whole bunch of different, very well-researched, very effective business principles in it. So it's like an MBA in a book. So I would say The Perfect 10 by Dave Linegar also. It's a bestseller. Make sure you check it out. And then one more is The Success Principles by Jack Canfield.

And that has 52 chapters in it. So it's like a chapter a week. And if you just focus on a chapter every single week, um, you know, even if I read multiple books at once, so I I've got that one going, I've got, you know, like the perfect 10 going, I've got the compound effect going, but, um, but they're all great principles and they keep you centered, but here's the, here's the reality leaders. It gives you something to give back to those you centered. But here's the reality, leaders. It gives you something to give back to those you lead. So you're gathering. And my mentor, Dave Linegar, said, the secret to leadership is to be a sponge. I said, oh, so I'm supposed to gather as much as

I can? He goes, no, you're supposed to gather it, but sponges give back. So you gather it, then you squeeze it out and you give all that information and all that knowledge back to everybody because they're the ones that you are interested in developing as much as yourself. You're interested in making them the best. Love that. Yeah. And the reality is, is a lot of the people that work below us, let's say if we're a leader, a lot of times they might not value personal development the same way that we do. they might not have the time that we have. And so if we are able to take some of the best nuggets or the best ideas of the stuff that we learn and share it with them, they're kind of getting the highlights, if you will, the cliff notes version of what we soaked up, right? So love that. I love that analogy of the sponge.

That's very cool. And you dropped some good books here. I've read all of these. The Compound Effect, I mentioned multiple times and Darren Hardy and his darrendaily.com and all of that is mentioned in my book as well. In fact, by the way, I don't know if you got the version. I know Adam got a chance to read my book before it was even published, but I don't believe that I had the reading list in there yet. I've got some books in the back that I kind of recommend based on what kind of area of development you want to work on,

but the compound effect is certainly in there and it's something I've touched on in both my books and just absolutely love it. So I'm glad that you started with that because I 100% agree with you there. Awesome. All right. I mean, those are books you read more than once for sure. Oh yeah. Yeah. And then my last question, you do a lot these days. I know you wear a lot of hats, including the fact that you're a husband, as you mentioned, you're, you're a father, you're a dog father. You've run up, you got your podcast going. If somebody wanted to get in touch with you though, learn more about you, how would they

get in touch with you? They can go to my website at adamcontos.com. And if they would like to sign up for some of the leadership teachings that I engage in, they can go to adamcontos.com slash leadership and just put your name and email address in there, and I'll keep you up to date on everything I'm working on. Perfect. And we'll make sure to put that link in our social media as well, referenced with this podcast episode. Well, let me just give a couple of highlights from some of the best stuff that

Adam shared today. He definitely says that a leader guides or influences, right? That's what we want to think about as a leader. Are we guiding? Are we influencing? And if not, how can we improve that part of our leadership? He mentioned the three A's when it comes to awareness, awareness of self, awareness of others, and awareness of business. And then his wife, Kelly, taught us a little bit about the difference between exercise and training. And exercise, you're going through the motions. And I'll be honest with you, Adam, I do that sometimes. But training, I love that. You're pushing yourself a little bit further than maybe feels comfortable and maybe is in your comfort zone. And so that's how you grow. But to any final words of wisdom, Adam, before we wrap up. Yeah. I mean, first of all, Scott, I want to say thank you for having me on your show. It's you're a great friend. We've known each other a long time, done a lot of business together. I'd like to share with your audience something that I always think about every day, and that's never settle. So, you know, always go for something more.

When I'm training, yes, Kelly, I'm adding a little bit more weight. I'm doing a little bit more reps. But also in business, I'm trying to be a little more kind and a little more helpful. So ultimately, it's about not settling for the status quo. It's pushing yourself to be a little bit better every single day. Love that. Thanks so much, Adam. Appreciate you being on once again. Thanks, Scott.