Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Human Factor. I'm Kimberly diamond and today we're talking about real challenges and real wins behind building strong teams. You're watching now Media Television.
Welcome to the Human Factor. I'm Kimberly diamond and I'm glad you're here. Today we have some great guests. I want to tell you a little bit about myself. I have been in the talent acquisition and HR space for 18 years, primarily focusing on talent acquisition, working with a lot of wonderful HR business partners throughout the years, learning a lot of the ins and outs of HR corporately as well as working with startups, small businesses. And now I do some consulting work for those types of businesses. So I'm very happy to be here today and to join the NOW Media Television team. And I have some wonderful guests that we're going to meet and talk with about how we maneuver some of the challenges that we have in, in our small businesses relative to, you know, people and how we manage them and lead them and be able to grow, building and build wonderful teams. So today I have Joseph Reyes joining us. Joseph is a CPA with over 15 years leading JL Reyes accounting and tax.
He went to Drexel and he has very proactive approach to taxes and financial planning for, for people to be able to survive the tax seasons without going too crazy. Right.
I know, I've seen that before. I mean, oh my gosh, I've worked with many companies like that. So we are so happy to have you here today and we have a couple of topics that we're going to go over.
So tax season, people panic and they wonder why their teams are freaking out because they're trying to get information together. You're facing a lot of information that needs to be gathered last minute. So we're all in a panic. So how do you go about teaching them not to panic, to be prepared? So can you share with me how you, how you go about that?
[00:01:59] Speaker B: Yeah, happy to and thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be with you.
So there are two sets of people that go through chaos and panic during tax season.
The first one is the client. You know, businesses that maybe don't have their data together and properly organized.
And then there's the CPA who has to do the tax return and the craziness that they have to go through, especially when it's just two or three months of the year where you're crunching your time to get tax returns done for your clients.
What we recommend clients do is make you know that the data, the financial data process, a year round process, not A year end process.
The benefit to that is you can be proactive. You can manage your finances on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. At a minimum, get your bookkeeping done on a monthly basis and when the books are done, you can review with your financial person as to whether you made a profit, you made a loss, whatever.
But being proactive and treating tax time like it's a year round process, it literally take like half an hour a month. If you, if you do it that way, you wait till the end of the year, you're gonna have chaos.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: Makes a lot of sense. I've seen it happen.
Okay, well, and then there's that financial stress at the top and it tends to trickle down to the team and it can make people feel very stressed out. Are there some simple things that every leader can do today to prepare them without the panic? And I know we just kind of talked about that, but anything more specific? Because then their morale kinds to decrease. They, they're not serving their clients, they're just more focused on getting this information prepared.
[00:03:40] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a good question. So you know a business, whether it's large or small or a family, it's an organization and the leadership is what sets the tone.
So if you have a, and I get it, you know, if you're a small business, you're trying to make a buck and maybe things are hectic and you don't have enough personal personnel and whatnot, I see it all the time and it drives people crazy.
But if you could swing it, try to just stretch out the financial process throughout the year, that really is the key factor. If you're steady, slow and steady will win the race. Right?
Almost the time. So not being. Once you get stressed out during the year end, you know what's going to happen is you're going to get stressed out and the people below you are going to get stressed out, they're going to feel it and everybody's going to try to rush to get you, to satisfy you, to please you. If you're the boss, and that's all well and good, but if you're working a massive number of hours trying to get the data together for year end tax preparation and year end financial statements, your employees may act like they're trying to please you. They just want to get out the door after a 10 hour day to get home and cook dinner and be with their families and take care of whatever they have to take care of. So they will allow mistakes to go through. They're hoping that this little thing here, nobody's Going to notice that. And it's really very inefficient. Well run companies have a structure where they track their finances on a monthly basis. They review for 15 minutes, half an hour a month, make sure the bookkeeping is getting done, and then every quarter, talk to your CPA or your financial advisor.
It's gotta be steady. If you wait till the end of the year, you create all kinds of havoc. You feel it, your spouse feels it, your kids feel it and your employees feel it. Not pleasant, right?
[00:05:31] Speaker A: I agree, I agree. And like I said, you know, you see where the demeanor changes at that particular time of year. And just like you said, planning throughout the year, not just waiting till the last minute. Now, that being said, small businesses are a little bit more challenging with that. And I understand that, being a small business owner myself, just getting into the business, right? How, how do you teach people like myself or other individuals who are just starting out to be prepared.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: To be prepared for tax season?
[00:06:00] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: Well, again, you know, tax season is a year round activity, right? So if, if you're waiting to the end of the year to put your information together, you're behind the eight ball. And neither you normal, your cpa, your tax person and your employees are going to benefit. And then of course, the person who suffers more, it's going to be your client. So what we recommend people do is on a monthly basis, just get your bookkeeping done. If you can't do it yourself and really you shouldn't be doing it yourself.
[00:06:28] Speaker A: I agree.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: Bookkeeping should be done by bookkeepers.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: I agree.
[00:06:31] Speaker B: You know, and building should be done by builders. Right? So don't do your own bookkeeping because you're going to make mistakes.
Accounting rules and bookkeeping rules that you have no idea even exist. And you may think it's all, it's just mathematics. Well, it's not just mathematics. Right. So you got to know rules and regulations. So number one, just have a bookkeeper doing the books on a weekly basis. Transactions are being tracked at the end of the month, you make a few more entries to close the books and then reconcile your books. And by the way, whoever pays the bills should never be reconciling the bank account.
So always have a separate person do that because that's how a lot of theft occurs. So that's the one big thing. Don't wait till, you know, two months later to start catching up on your books. But I know as a business owner that's easier said than done. Right? You're struggling to make ends meet. You want to meet Payroll. And you've only, you just got one thing on your mind. You just want to, you just got to get that cash in the door. But somehow you got to find a way to either outsource and nowadays you can find inexpensive sourcing for bookkeeping. You'd be surprised what you can get all over the world and it doesn't have to be expensive and get it done on a monthly basis. That goes a long ways towards fixing that problem using automated software like QuickBooks Online or Sage.
These are AI laden softwares that will remember transactions, remember vendors will know where to put stuff. Still has to be checked, but you can relieve a lot of manual data entry and errors and whatever the AI and the software does not figure out, it'll just kick it out and say, hey, this needs to be reviewed. There's an account in QuickBooks Online that's called Ask my Accountant. Right. So the software, nobody knows where to put it. Stick it somewhere and then a professional, high level person can figure it out. So those are the types of things that are easy and consistency is the key.
You'd be surprised how year end does.
[00:08:29] Speaker A: Not have to be a nightmare, which is great.
And I wish I had a little bit of that coaching in the beginning because I felt like it was crunch time for me this last time. But I did learn a lesson from that. So I would definitely listen to Joe's advice on this because trust me, you do get panicked and you're not sure if you've done it right. And I absolutely did, you know, engage a professional to help me. So I highly recommend that as well. Perfect. Absolutely. Absolutely. So we're going to take a quick break and we're going to come back with Joe. We've got more to talk about. So we really want you to stay here with us on the Human Factor. And we'll be right back. Okay, thank you.
We'll be right back with more stories, insights, real world strategies. I'm here with purpose.
This is the Human Factor on NOW Media Television.
We're back. I'm Kimberly diamond and you're watching the Human Factor on NOW Media Television. Let's dive back into today's conversation.
We're back with the Human Factor. Thank you so much for coming back to join us. We are talking to Joseph Reyes. Joseph, welcome back.
All right, thank you. So we have a few more questions for you.
So growing your business without growing your tax bill, the problem facing many in this audience, they want to grow their business but they're scared, you know, getting, getting more people will be crushed by taxes. You know, oftentimes they feel like success leads to paying more and keeping less.
So.
So there's kind of a little trick there. Right. They get a little hesitant. So, you know, if you were to, you know, discuss this with your clients, you know, is it true that growth always means a bigger tax bill or is there another way?
[00:10:18] Speaker B: Yeah. So the bad news is that revenue growth, net profit growth, usually means a higher tax bill.
So that's the bad news. The good news is you can control a lot of that tax if you have some proper planning going on. But if you wait until the end of the year to go to your tax guy or galaxy in January, February of the new year, most of your tax savings opportunities are going to be gone.
And it's something that a lot of people, that's a huge mistake that a lot of small business owners make. They don't think that spending an hour every three months with their tax guy or tax cow is going to be productive. They see it as an expense, but it's not an expense. It's a revenue center. My biggest thing is tax planning. That's my main focus.
But getting my small business clients to understand that and agree to that, it's like pulling teeth, right? So at the end of the day, yes, you got growth, you're going to have complexity.
Hopefully you got more profit. Then the question becomes, what do we do with this profit? Can we invest it in something? Can I buy a machine and write it off entirely in the year that I bought it? And so I'm out the cash, but I'm also not paying tax unnecessarily. So the big thing is being proactive.
Again, like I said earlier, you know, month by month, steady and go, throughout the year, every quarter, meet with your tax advisor to discuss, hey, this is where we are. And then we can assess, you know, what tax planning opportunities there are. And you would be surprised at how many beautiful tax saving strategies that are out there. And we can save clients tons of money, but it has to be before December 31st. Now, there are some things that can be done after December 31st, but the, the sweet spot is throughout the year, especially towards the fourth quarter.
That's when you know what's going on with the business. You have an idea where you're going to wind up and you can take some action.
So the big thing is trust your CPA tax advisor.
[00:12:24] Speaker A: Okay, that makes sense. That makes sense. I would, I take that advice to heart in case I want to grow my business.
What are a few smart tax planning Moves that can help a business owner keep what they earn. So is there anything like specific you can, you know, give us some ideas on? Okay.
[00:12:42] Speaker B: How much time do we have?
[00:12:43] Speaker A: Lots. You're good.
[00:12:47] Speaker B: Well, an easy one is a business that's running as a sole proprietor. You know, they, they don't have an llc.
They just woke up one day and started running their business out of their home or whatever.
First of all, not a smart legal move. You should always be running your business as an llc. One of my favorite quips is even a babysitter should be running her babysitter business as an llc. Right. If for nothing else, for liability protection. If something goes wrong, you know, you got some liability protection. But a person running a business as sole proprietor is tax wise, generally inefficient. Tax wise. Right. So running the business as an LLC and then electing to be taxed as an S corporation, if you're an llc, you can tell the IRS hey, tax me as an S corporation or tax me as a sole proprietor or tax me as a C corporation. You have options. But you don't know that, right? A tax person will know that, but you won't know that. So S corporation is a great way to, to save on self employment taxes. Self employment taxes are also known as Social Security and Medicare taxes, just like on your W2. So how do you control that way? If you have a job, you can't control that. But if you have a business and you're running as an LLC, taxed as an S corporation, then you can control your self employment taxes.
And by the way, if you're, if you're incorporated, let's say you're not an llc. If you are incorporated, you can also elect to be taxed and as a C corporation or as an S corporation.
And S corporations are really a favorite of many tax planners. It's a great way to save on taxes.
Another way is on retirement accounts.
Now it's retirement accounts can be bittersweet. You know you have, you can put money into a 401k.
So if you're taking a salary from your business, let's say you're an S corporation taking a salary.
Well, you know, and you want to do a 401k for yourself and your employees, you can put up to 25, $30,000 into a 401k and you can make it a pre tax deduction that saves you money on taxes and that's good, right? Or you can do something called a SEP IRA. SEP SEP IRA, which allows a business owner to sock away maybe $60,000, $65,000 into a retirement account, pre tax.
But if you do it for yourself, you have to do it for your employees, unfortunately. So you got to weigh that out, you know, so you need to work through the rules and the plans carefully. But you know, Instead of a $30,000 401 contribution tax deduction, you can do a SEP IRA. The downside to a pre tax retirement account is that when you go to retire, you're going to take the money out, you're going to get taxed on that money coming out.
So I'm a big fan of the Roth, but the Roth does not come, the Roth IRA does not come with a pre tax deduction. But I'm a big fan of stocking money away today into a retirement account that's Roth. That when it comes out, when the money comes out in 20, 30, 40 years, you're not paying taxes on it. There are some very well known national figures in the United States who made hundreds of millions of dollars by investing in companies and investments, whatever, and they did it through their Roth ira. And when that money comes out and it's all profit, guess what? Never a penny of tax gets paid. So it's not just paying taxes or not today.
It could also be maybe not paying taxes in 20, 30 years.
So like you're a bitcoin investor, let's say, and you wanted to, you know, you went in at $500 of Bitcoin and now it's worth $100,000. I imagine what it's going to be in a few years where it might be a million.
If you don't take action now to shelter what's going to happen in 10, 20 years, then you're going to kill, you know, kick yourself for not having done what you were supposed to do, you know, years ago. Another thing you could do is like timing. You know, if you've got a bunch of cash and it's the end of the year, it's, you know, mid December and you've got a bunch of cash and you made a profit. And you're trying to figure out, how do I not do that? How do I not pay taxes on all this income? You can go out and buy a large machine, you can make, you can prepay expenses, you could do all kinds, or you could wait until the new year turns around and maybe a job that you're going to do towards the end of December, just don't do it to the beginning of January and push income into the new year. So prepay expenses I mean, you could prepay your rent if you have the money, prepay your rent in December for the whole year of the, the new year. It's tax deductible.
[00:17:29] Speaker A: Oh my gosh.
[00:17:29] Speaker B: You're a cash basis. Yeah.
[00:17:32] Speaker C: All kinds of wonderful.
[00:17:32] Speaker A: You're teaching me a lot of great things right now. I'm going to be honest with you, I didn't even know.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: And it's not hard this year. And if you're making money, you know, half the battle is making the money. And in my view, the other half of the battle is keeping the money from lawsuits and taxes.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: Right.
[00:17:52] Speaker B: So if you can keep, if you can keep the taxes at bay, you'll be wealthier over a period of time. And that's why a tax professional is not an expense. But we're a profit center. I have saved my clients hundreds of thousands of dollars.
One person, and they can use that money to invest in their business, they can use that money to buy a car, to send the kids to college, whatever. So being tax efficient has a definite business. It's a good business idea.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:18:23] Speaker B: Yeah. And the last thing I would recommend is maybe, like I said, you could buy a machine and instead of depreciating the machine over a period of time. The federal government is very friendly towards small businesses writing off an entire machine in one year, even if it didn't even know it's expensive.
[00:18:42] Speaker A: I didn't. Yeah, makes a lot of sense.
[00:18:44] Speaker B: And the numbers, they can be very large for a small business, you know, so when you add on a few different items together that I just mentioned to you, you just created yourself a very nice tax savings, that then the money goes back into your business, which is my recommendation, because a nice small business is one of the best wealth building vehicles we have in the world, actually.
[00:19:06] Speaker A: Well, thank you for that insight. I'm looking forward to using quite a bit of that. And then one last question here is how can understanding taxes actually unlock better leadership strategy for a business?
[00:19:20] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good question.
So if you, if you're running a company and you know, and you have significant expenditures, let's say if you don't know what the tax impact of those expenditures is going to be, you really can't make such a great decision.
You know, I went to Drexel University, as you mentioned earlier. I have a master's in finance. And you know, one of the things that, you know, you learn in a master's program is, you know, you have to know the tax impact of significant expenditures, you know, because you Might be buying something for a million bucks. And in your mind, if you're not thinking about the tax impact, you're thinking to yourself, well, that's a million dollar hit to the bottom line or that's an expense that, you know, it's not going to look so good on my financials and whatnot. But if you knew, if you have a, a controller, cpa, financial advisor, you know, by your side, who can, you know, tell you, well, spend a million bucks. But the impact of that is going to be X amount of dollars. It may not be a million dollars, you know, and by the way, if you're making a nice profit, you want $1 million expenditure.
[00:20:31] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: You know, to, so that you don't have to pay taxes at a million bucks. But there's a difference between a financial statement, profit and loss amount and what the tax return shows. So if anybody, anybody who has a 1040 personal tax return, they know they get a standard deduction or an itemized deduction. Right. So the amount that you finally pay taxes on, it's not the amount of money you made, it's the net result of tax law.
Well, it's the same thing in the business world. Right? You own a business, you may be spending money, the financial statement may look great, but the tax return can look terrible, which is what you want because the tax return, the lower that number is, the less tax you pay. But you know, you have a set of financial statements that tell the true story of how you look.
You go to a banker, they may say, well, show us your financial statements and show us your tax returns. And you're afraid to show them your tax return because they're going to show that you had a loss. But your financial statements are going to show you made a grand old profit.
[00:21:28] Speaker A: Right, Right.
[00:21:29] Speaker B: Because the rules for depreciation are different for tax returns versus financial statements. Tax. So having knowledge of how the financial system works, including taxes, will make you an informed leader, a better leader and a better business person I think is critical.
[00:21:45] Speaker A: Wonderful. Thank you so much for that advice. It really makes a lot of sense.
So Joe, we would like to know a little bit more about you. Where can people contact you to get this great advice? One on one.
[00:21:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. So my website is reyesaccounting.com that's r e y e s accounting.com.
i'm just outside of Philadelphia.
My website has all my contact information, my phone number, my email address and whatnot. And again, I'm just outside of Philadelphia. We have a national presence. You know, we do business with clients all over the country.
We do have some clients that if I told you their names, you would know who they are. So for small accounting firm, we do all right.
And we offer advisory services, tax planning services, bookkeeping, things like that. And you know, just general counsel, you know. And so we are, we're well versed to help the small business owner succeed.
[00:22:42] Speaker A: That's wonderful. Thank you so much. And I've learned a lot as a new business owner.
[00:22:46] Speaker B: Good.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: So thank you.
[00:22:47] Speaker B: I'm glad.
[00:22:48] Speaker A: I appreciate it. Well, thanks for coming on today. It was really nice meeting you, Joseph. You have a great rest of your day and please stay with us. We'll be right back with more of the Human Factor. More guests to come.
We'll be right back with more stories, insights and real world strategies for leading with purpose.
This is the human factor on NOW Media Television. We'll be right back with more stories, insights and real world strategies for leading with purpose.
This is the Human factor on NOW Media Television.
Welcome back to the Human Factor. Our next guest on the show is Eric Himes. As the founder and president of INSPO Strategic Advising and Coaching, he helps businesses and individuals reach their full potential through tailored solutions, guidance and Support. With over 17 years of experience in business development and leadership, he has a proven track record of driving growth, innovation and transformation across various sectors. I'm so excited to have Eric on.
His expertise includes project management, team building, contract negotiation, strategy, mentoring. He creates effective plans, leads high performing teams and delivers exceptional results guided by a servant oriented leadership rooted in biblical principles.
He's passionate about making a positive, lasting impact through his work. So excited. Again, Eric, so welcome to the show today.
[00:24:10] Speaker C: Thanks, Kimberly. It's a pleasure to be here and be with you.
[00:24:13] Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you. So we have some wonderful topics to talk about today.
So, you know, leading without losing yourself.
The problem facing many an audience is they feel like they have to wear a mask. They aren't taken seriously as a leader and they often feel like they're losing themselves in the process.
And I can understand that. I have dealt with leaders who have kind of taken on that Persona.
Why do you think so many leaders feel pressure to be someone they're not?
[00:24:43] Speaker C: That's a great question, one that gets me really excited.
You know, leadership I think is seen and caught, not necessarily taught.
And the reality is that I think a lot of leaders wear Personas based on what the environments that they work on call for.
And they don't find themselves true until they understand who they really are internally before they can show up in their authentic leadership style.
I think it's really, really unique because as you think about it, leadership starts. And that influence can start as young as your parents raising you as a child through your first job and your first career, coming out of college or not going to college.
And the experiences that you have by those around you leave you with believing, this is what a leader looks like. This is what a leader is for some. And some this is not what a leader is. And I would never want to wear that mask because that's not who I am. But few leaders really, truly learn or know enough about themselves to say, this is me, and this is my leadership style. And so Inspo, we actually created and developed what we call is the 50 masks of leadership, where we have identified 50 Personas, and we help organizations and leaders take the mask off.
And we have gone through. Yeah, that's why I love this question. Really passionate about it. It's really some of the work that we do. And so us, as an organization, will take your organization through it and say, hey, this is your mask. This is how it's defined.
This is what you believe you're getting by wearing it.
This is the cost to your company culture by wearing it.
This is the cost to your own personal growth and development.
This is how you overcome it. And then this is what you get when you remove the mask.
And so for us, we see a lot of transformational leadership take place when we become vulnerable enough in ourselves to remove those masks and to really step forward knowing that it is okay to be the real version of yourself and be authentic.
And so you can discard the mask knowing that there's no risk in doing so. And then it's up to everybody else to decide if they like you or not. But as a leader, it's okay that we're not liked by everyone, and we're comfortable with that.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: Yes. And that's hard for a lot of people to really be their authentic self. I mean, it takes a lot of effort and introspection to understand that. Yeah. All right. Well, you know, I come across this a lot, and I have these conversations with other individuals about it. But what. Excuse me, what's one step a leader can take today to lead with more honesty and heart?
[00:27:52] Speaker C: You just nailed it. Introspection. Right. We have to do the work to lead with heart, because otherwise we're leading with other tools that aren't ours. And so we're picking up on things that we've learned along the way as it's an action or a behavior but it's not really who we are.
And so we have to do the work in ourselves to grow as individuals, to become the best leader we possibly can. And that's a journey that never ends. We have to refine ourselves daily, work on growing and developing daily in our skills and our ability to communicate, to cast vision, to be strategic in the way we think and engage those around us. And so that's a journey that's always going to be continuous. But then we also have to look at the vulnerability side of things and why are we showing up the way that we're showing up? And we have to ask ourselves the hard questions and then we have to face those questions and then work on growing out of those situations. And so that inner work is really, really important.
And inspo, we have a number of surveys that we have our clients go through to start the work process, to start the self evaluation, self critique on where we're at and where we need to go.
It's really kind, friendly, and it's very, very constructive for your overall growth.
[00:29:18] Speaker A: So, yeah, I'm curious about that. So can you dive a little deeper on how you go about that survey? It's just something that piques my interest. I've taken a lot of personality assessments and done some various things with organizations. So just a little bit more on how you go about that. And did you. Is this proprietary to your organization or is it a combination of things that you put together?
[00:29:40] Speaker C: It's proprietary to our organization. It's called the Inspired Culture Survey. And so what we do is when we work with individuals or organizations, everybody takes it, or if it's an individual, they take it. And what it does is it gives us our ability to take a look and see at what level they have inspiration from an inspired leadership perspective. The feedback that we get from the survey gives us a gap analysis in areas of growth and opportunity. And we also assess vulnerability and so understanding where people are vulnerable and not. And Brene Brown is the best and the expert when it comes to vulnerability, and her guidepost survey is incredible. And that tool helps us really, from INSPO standpoint and our leadership team, it helps us see you as an individual and it gives us the ability, one, to connect with you well and two, the areas that we need to help you work in, along with our personality profiles. So we have designed the 11 different personality profiles of the Inspired Culture. And so we understand them, where you fit in the organization and what are your gift sets and your core values. And so these surveys really help us.
[00:30:56] Speaker A: Help you grow they can be very helpful.
I've taken several before and used them when looking at talent and how they align with what they've determined has made a good leader within their organization based on this information.
And it can be very, very helpful to really get insight on how an individual is, thinks, motivates, walks, talks. I mean, it really. They've come a long way since the original few that were out there. I won't name them right now.
[00:31:28] Speaker C: Absolutely. Well, in one of my favorite surveys is we don't capture your action, we capture your thought.
And so we ask a number of similar questions throughout a survey index.
And it helps us help you see how you think and what's a priority in your life. Because the inspired culture is all about winning on all fronts, meaning, you know, our family, our relationships, our work, our careers, and our personal growth and development.
So our survey that we've developed helps us help you see what comes to mind first. And are you out of an out of balance in certain areas of your life based on what is taking up your brain capacity?
[00:32:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm sure a lot of people feel out of balance.
[00:32:21] Speaker C: Yeah, I was one of those individuals.
[00:32:23] Speaker A: I can see that would be me. Yeah. Okay.
So another side to this is how does authentic leadership impact trust and performance in a team? I mean, I've seen it. I know it can happen, but from your perspective and what you've seen.
[00:32:37] Speaker C: Yeah. If you don't have trust, unfortunately, you don't have a team that's going to pursue and chase the vision.
The authentic leader gets trust over time, but it's rooted much deeper than transactional engagements of management.
Leaders really foster an intrinsic environment where everybody on the team is bought in and committed to the vision because they understand that their role and what they do and how it impacts the organization.
The other thing with authentic leadership is that I believe it's about the whole person. It's not about just the activity at the job or the career that they're in, but if we're not investing into what's important to each individual on the team and cheering them on and encouraging them to be successful, we're not doing our job as leaders to really care and intrinsically motivate our teams, not only at work, but outside of work, we need to take a holistic approach. And those authentic leaders do that.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: Yes, I agree. And again, it takes a lot of insight to become that authentic leader. And it does impact their performance. I've talked to a lot of hiring managers over the times and they have, you know, I've tried to coach them on doing just that. You know, just being authentic, being, being open, transparent, having communication. It's all very, very important. And it's things that sometimes need to be learned and you know, so well. I think this is great. I'm really excited about our conversation. I'd like to continue it. So we're going to take a quick break. We're going to come back with Erica and continue this conversation. So please stay with us.
We'll be right back with more stories, insights and real world strategies for leading with purpose.
This is the Human Factor on NOW Media Television.
And we're back. I'm Kimberly diamond and you're watching the Human Factor on NOW Media Television. Let's dive back into today's conversation.
Hello. Welcome back to THE Human factor. We're here with Eric today having great conversation.
Thank you, Eric, for sticking with us for this next segment.
All right, so my question for you is from Stuck to growing, Embracing change without fear. And that's a big thing in organizations. Change. Right. People are always afraid of change.
Many people in the audience are stuck in the old way of doing things and it often feels like it's scary or too big to handle. How does your organization and you help them break out of that way of. We've always done it that way. That's always the word that you always hear. And I have that conversation a lot with candidates when they're coming into a new position or stepping into a leader role in a new organization where they know they're going to hear from the existing group. We've always done it that way. Okay, so how do people handle that response?
[00:35:46] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a great question, Kimberly. I love it.
How do we do it or why do we do it or, you know, we've always done it. Right. Well, you know, it really stems from a behavior and a habit that's been developed over time. The organization creates systems, SOPs, which are also from a human behavior standpoint, considered to be habits. Right. And so we show up to work. Our frontal cortex is a super highway of information that we're consuming in and we're responding and reacting based on what it is we know and what's comfortable to us. Right. And so as we have programmed our frontal cortex over time we get these deep grooves just like as deep as the Grand Canyon. Think about it. To try to like change ways.
Walking out of the Grand Canyon takes a while, right? Well, that's how our brain operates. And so when we're doing something so long, in a way, it's really hard for us to change. And so a lot of the challenge of, well, we've always done it this way and now we need to do it this way. It's not more so about the vision of doing it differently, because most people can agree that's actually probably a good idea and the direction we need to have head. The reality is it's really hard for them to change because of their mindset's been programmed in a way to function and operate differently. And so I think that from the perspective of we've always done it that way equates to I need to grow in developing new habits to help me grow and challenge myself. So I'm not comfortable.
And it becomes a habit of being discomfort, you know, comfortable in discomfort.
And that gives us the ability to grow and change and be more open to it and willing to put in the hard effort because it is hard to change. But people think it's hard to change because it's different.
The challenge is it's hard to change because we're asking our brain to process information differently, to execute things from a different capacity than they've had to before, which makes things slow down in the beginning, which kills efficiency for what it is that they're doing, which makes things really hard. You know, if you brush your teeth with your right hand and then you begin to brush them with your left, that's a challenge. And if you had to first pick up the toothbrush with your left hand, but you've always picked it up with the right, how many times would you have to remind yourself and say, oops, I just picked it up again with the wrong hand, Even though I want to change my behavior, it's really tough.
But that's where we have to grow a habit of change. And we have to be open and honest with ourselves, saying, look, if we continue this way, we're not being innovative as an organization or as an individual. In order for us to be innovative, we've got to be in a place to where discomfort is our new comfort and our growth and opportunity ahead of us is what is going to help us get to the next level, not only as an organization, but as an individual, as a leader, as a contributor, you know, and we want to keep taking strides forward, and we want to continue to grow. And so by moving away from. We've always done it that way to the opportunities ahead, that also brings life into the organization, if it's communicated well, right?
[00:39:19] Speaker A: And then with the growth mindset, helping people move forward with confidence instead of fear, that's, I think, that that's the problem is they get the fear. It's, you know, they're, they're just, they're stuck. So they don't. How do we instill the confidence to get through that change?
[00:39:36] Speaker C: Yeah, you know, I love that you say that. That's one of the things we focus on at Inspo in our inspired culture. And we have a scorecard system we use and we work on everybody holistically.
And in order to get into the growth mindset, first of all, you have to be willing to try something new.
But then you need to start winning in small steps.
Inch by inch.
We're like, I'm going to change everything about myself. And then we're deflated after 10 days or five days because it's so exhausting to try to change everything all at once. The reality is it's small steps at a time. You know, I'm a five time marathon runner and you know, I didn't start running marathons. I started running at 40, you know, and I didn't just show up and say, I'm going to run a marathon. I started picking up running and doing about three miles a day, four days a week.
And I said, you know, I could do this. And my mile times are around 10 minutes.
You know, today I run and I can average a marathon pace in about 7 minutes and 30 seconds for the whole thing.
And the reality is that didn't happen overnight. It wasn't a light switch. It was endurance and time investing into growth. And what running taught me is it's hard, but it's hard only one step at a time.
And growing and adopting a growth mindset is only hard one step at a time. When we pick the right habits and select the right goals to want to accomplish personally and professionally.
And I believe that everybody can get there. And the thing is, is that we're climbing a mountain. No matter where we go in life, if we're choosing to have a growth mindset or if not, we're climbing a mountain.
And each mountain has its own cost.
And if we're not choosing to grow, I believe we're dying.
And over time, we're not exercising our brains, our minds, all of it, which takes away the life that's given to us.
Or we can choose to work and expand our minds and live our best life possible by challenging ourselves to grow daily. So there's a cost either way, but one gives you a greater gift than the other.
[00:41:58] Speaker A: Well, yeah, but you do need to grow. Like you said, if you're not growing, you're dying. And it's hard. Yes. I mean, I. I face similar challenges in my life as well, but for me, it just doesn't make any sense to just sit in fear.
But everyone is different, and everyone goes about that differently. And it's great that you offer this organization to help people understand that and get them going in the right direction. I think that's awesome. Can you share a story?
Yeah, go ahead.
[00:42:27] Speaker C: I was just going to say one more thing. I want to speak to FEAR specifically for all of our viewers out there.
I want you to know that the story in your head isn't always true.
And so whatever we believe about ourselves doesn't mean it's true. And what other people say about you also doesn't mean it's true. Take the information and the story in your head along with what people share with you, and you get to decide if it's true or not. But don't let it cripple you in fear not to take action, because fear is, you know, fear is our friend only from the standpoint that it doesn't get to decide what we do, we get to decide where we put it.
[00:43:10] Speaker A: That's great advice. Thank you. Thank you. I'll take that to heart, too.
Well, I'd love for you to share a story where embracing change led to better results.
[00:43:23] Speaker C: Yes. So, you know, one of our clients, they have a number of leaders that are participating in our program today.
And, you know, you walk in and you share that. We're going to go through the inspired culture, the senior leadership, the CEOs on board with the program.
And you come in and you can look at the team, right? And, you know, reading the room, you could just see that about 7% of the people are excited that Inspo is there because we're creating change, right? And it's just like, well, here we go. You know, you can see it. And then you can see, you know, just the number of the comments that come through.
You know, people questioning, you know, does this really work? And why am I going to get invested in this? And is this the shiny new nickel, you know, that's only going to be here for a month, and then it's going to get kicked down the street for the next month. And, you know, this client, I'm talking about spinning our program now for two years.
But at first, you know, the CEO was bought in and convinced this is what they needed because they wanted to grow and develop their culture and scale their organization. Right? And so what happened was the light bulbs went off over time because Leadership was transactionally taking place and it was all about productivity and it was wasn't about people.
And we shifted the model to focus on people and have everybody develop their own personal whys.
And then we helped them as an organization tie their personal whys into the organizational why, understanding that when why they are showing up matters and they actually do impact the organization.
And so as we've been putting all these lines in place and doing the different surveys of strategic thinking and really evaluating are we strategic thinking as leaders or not, and putting you through our process of doing that to the breakout sessions, to vulnerability workshops, including the 50 masks.
Over time, what has happened was the light bulbs went off, excitement came about and everybody grew in vulnerability and in trust.
And guess what? They as an organization were able to set their first two OKRs as a company.
And then with that also their VGOs and the objectives and key results for the company and the vision growth objectives, which has been designed by Inspo for them personally, each one of them. And through that process, they've had conversations, strategy sessions that have opened up their organization to the greatest potential that they have ever had today.
In doing so, in all of this, we reduced their turnover by 46.5% and we increased their productivity value by 125% per hour.
And so the shift was significant.
[00:46:36] Speaker B: In.
[00:46:37] Speaker C: Utilizing the tools and what we do at Inspo.
And the really cool thing was, is they were evaluating us and Gallup and they decided to go with us.
And I asked the CEO, why, why did you go with us?
Because they said you offer something much different.
It's not transactional. It's a relational vision that you have that really is going to help everybody on our team get better.
And they all have gotten better.
And their Inspired Culture survey score rose 22% from the initial time to where they're at today.
[00:47:16] Speaker A: Oh, that is excellent. Excellent.
That's a great story.
Wonderful. Well, Eric, thanks so much for joining us today. I want to be sure and give you a moment to share with the audience where they can find you, how they can reach you and get more information on what you have to offer. It's a wonderful strategy and I would love to learn more about it myself. So we'll do this again another time, but go ahead and share with them where they can find you.
[00:47:41] Speaker C: Yeah, definitely. So my social media page is up on the screen, but you can also find us at www.yourpathinspired.com, which is our website.
And feel free to reach out and connect with us. We'd love to hear from you. And we would love to invest in your vision for yourself and your organization.
And it's been a pleasure being here with you today, Kimberly.
[00:48:07] Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that very much. Well, thank you, everyone, for joining the Human Factor. You can catch us on Saturdays at 4pm Central Standard Time on Now Media Television.
Thank you.
