Morning Tempo

Linda Johnston came to the Isle of Arran, Scotland on a contract as a physical education teacher. The island had no swimming pool, and so, to build and pay for a pool, she and her husband did the next logical thing - buy a country house hotel. Over thirty years on, Auchrannie Resort consists of the original hotel, two swimming pools, a spa resort, leisure facilities, a number of co-ownership lodges, retreats, a playbarn and much more.

Linda had no previous experience running a business, but she’s committed to learning, growing and putting in the hard work. Conscious of wanting to retire in the future, to ensure Auchrannie is left in good hands, they have moved to employee ownership. It’s a fascinating concept putting people over profits, and we discuss that and much more in this episode.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

We start off by discussing the pool that started it all and go on to discuss:

• The employee ownership model
• The percentage of business that comes from dog lovers
• Developing a strong relationship with your bank
• Walking the walk when prioritizing your staff
• Creating a consistent, quality guest experience
• Creativity in the hospitality sector

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Know your values. Act in alignment with them.
• Provide the best experience - happy customers are the best marketing device.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Auchrannie Resort 
• Linda Johnston on Girl Tries Life 
• Connect with Linda on LinkedIn 

For more resources to go MorningTempo.com

School is back in session with entrepreneur and lead instructor at Freelancer Masterclass, Mike Volkin. This time Mike’s telling us about neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to change and grow over time, and how knowing how to influence that change can help you break through the barriers and ceilings in your own life. We touch base with my Pomodoro experiment as well as Mike’s own takeaways from creative visualization and mindfulness.

Mike Volkin is a speaker, a trainer, an Army veteran, and if that’s not enough he’s the author of five bestsellers. Joining the Army three days after 9/11, Mike spent eight years as a Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Operations Sergeant. During his service overseas he began to write his books as well as receiving an Army Commendation Medal before coming home to build and sell four companies. These days he’s the owner and Lead Instructor at Freelancer Masterclass, a direction born from Mike’s personal mission to have a life remembered as one that launched ten thousand careers.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

We start this episode by catching up on my experiment with the Pomodoro app before settling into “headier” subjects like:

• What neuroplasticity actually is and what drew Mike to study it
• The personal and professional benefits of working with neuroplasticity
• Building creative visualization and meditation into our daily lives
• Taking the best from our backgrounds and interests into our career
• Moving beyond our limits and breaking through our income and interest ceilings
• Mike’s tips on increasing your brain’s neuroplasticity

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Having a successful career is about constantly being in motion. You pull from your past, your background, your interests to inform your present, and you look to your future goals as a way to challenge and improve your process. Never stay static.
• Aim to perfect what you do every day. Work to better concentrate your focus and get the most out of yourself through experimentation and education.

For more information go to MorningTempo.com

Mike Volkin is a speaker, a trainer, an Army veteran, and if that’s not enough he’s the author of five bestsellers. Joining the Army three days after 9/11, Mike spent eight years as a Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Operations Sergeant. During his service overseas he began to write his books as well as receiving an Army Commendation Medal before coming home to build and sell four companies. These days he’s the owner and Lead Instructor at Freelancer Masterclass, a direction born from Mike’s personal mission to have a life remembered as one that launched ten thousand careers.

In this episode I speak with Mike Volkin and we discuss how in order to learn one thing you often have to learn something else entirely. Like how tennis can make you a better entrepreneur, or why escaping a wildfire can lead you to understanding the importance of creating a personal mission.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

We start the episode by talking about how Mike’s love of tennis informed his career as an entrepreneur before delving deep into:

• The importance of creating a mission
• Hacks for fending off distraction as an entrepreneur
• How Osama Bin Laden made Mike a better marketer
• The lessons learned from building and selling four companies
• The struggles of modern freelancers

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• You have to have a reason, a mission, that can inspire and drive you forward. What do you want to be remembered for? Someone who built something, achieved something? Or someone who just worked a job.
• Focusing on the minutes, the small changes to our daily processes, can have incredible changes in the long-term.

For more information and resources go to MorningTempo.com

Doris Pickering, a presentation and speaking coach, is one of my favorite people in the San Francisco Bay area. Following a strong background as a manager with HP, Doris set out on her own to support executives, professionals and small business owners in delivering powerful messages. From business presentations to TED Talks, she helps her clients achieve their goals of being confident public speakers.

Our discussion touches on the evolution of her business and her personal mindset. Both of which I believe may resonate with you. She is a gifted observer of life and we talk about how comparison can hinder your personal and professional development. We discuss how effective presentations and speaking are things that create enormous stress for many people. With a lack of these skills, one can hinder themselves in business and the workplace.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

We start by discussing some of Doris’ early roles on her career path and go on to discuss:

• Why Doris chose to focus on executive speaking
• Communicating so that others hear your message
• Investing in your own professional development
• Creatively approaching your career growth
• The importance of connecting with yourself to succeed

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Becoming a confident speaker positively impacts your career.
• Stop the comparison game - it limits who you are.

QUOTABLE

“The cost of being brilliantly successful is often that we shut down who we are. Who we are is so much more important than what we do.” 

—Doris Pickering

“We always compare our insides (how we feel), with other peoples’ outsides (what we see). If you continue to do this, you will never win.”

—Doris Pickering

Get full show notes at MorningTempo.com/podcast.

Ben Brearley is a leader, manager, MBA, coach, and creator of Thoughtful Leader. He has managed teams across different companies, industries and cities. He knows what makes a leader tick. Living in Perth, Western Australia, with his loving wife and energetic dog, Ben created Thoughtful Leader to improve how people think about (and do) their work.

Ben helps people become better leaders by focusing on the important foundations of leadership: effective time management, building self confidence and inspiring your team. We talk about how better time management allows leaders to focus on strategic shifts and business gains, the impact that self-confidence has not only on your team but on the bottom line, the value of online courses and much more. As we discuss in the episode, Ben wants to know what challenges you have with your team, so let Ben know.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

We start by discussing Ben’s podcast and re-purposing content and go on to talk about:

• The evolution of his writing
• How creativity feeds itself
• The value of SEO without getting hung up on it
• The 80/20 rule balancing core functions and big ideas
• The challenges and benefits of online courses

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Balance quality and quantity with your content. Don’t overextend yourself.
• Don’t be a victim of your time management system. Take charge of it.
• The more confident a leader is, the more confident their team is.

Victoria Smith is a Stress Reduction Coach who helps women reduce their stress so that they can actually enjoy their daily lives. Experiencing shingles twice before the age of 30, Victoria realized that she had to turn her health around. Following her own wellness journey, she became certified as a health and life coach and now supports women around the world to reduce their own stress.

We discuss the unique challenges that entrepreneurs face with stress, the programs that she's created to combat stress, her own journey as an entrepreneur, our shared love of podcasting and much more.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

We start by sharing how Victoria and I began working together and go on to discuss:

• Freelancing as a means to remove business pressure
• The origins of her podcast
• How creativity affects every aspect of entrepreneurship
• Self comfort vs. self care
• The importance of boundary setting
• Her experience with depression

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• You are in the driver’s seat of your relationship to stress. You can change it.
• Life isn’t stressless, but you can stress less.
• Self reflection is key. Take the time to build your own awareness.

In August 2011, André van Hall suddenly and unexpectedly lost his eyesight. When it would have been easy to fall into depression and frustration over such a life change, André chose to embrace curiosity as a key to move forward with a positive attitude.

A native Argentinian, André discovered hospitality during his military service. This sparked a passion that sent him to Hamburg, Paris and finally onto Cornell University to study Hotel Administration. A demanding sector, hospitality is what grounded André in the core belief that hard work and curiosity can take you anywhere.

In this invigorating conversation we discuss how curiosity can decrease your stress, spark a new direction and build initiative in your life and career.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

We begin the episode by discussing André’s introduction into the hospitality sector from humble beginnings as a pot washer and go on to discuss:

• Volunteering as a positive way to integrate into new communities
• Adapting to new cultures
• How losing his eyesight shifted his career focus
• Creating a unique lane in professional speaking
• The acceleration of change and how we can embrace it
• Why adversity warrants humility

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Don’t judge - assess.
• You can choose pity or you can choose curiosity.
• Take responsibility for your life. Take initiative.

For more information go to Parnter4Leads.com

John Faisandier of Thrive Under Fire (TUF) is an emotional intelligence expert. He and his team specialize in helping teams, managers and frontline staff to better deal with customers both internal and external. We talk about what emotional intelligence is, how it works, and why it’s so important in the workplace. John shares with us how psychodrama and neuroscience feed into the running of a business, how leaders support their teams, the impact it has on the end customer and more. 

Episode Highlights

We start by talking about John’s new book, Thriving Under Fire, and go on to discuss:

• Mind mapping as a form of working on your business
• Psychodrama therapy to help work through challenges
• How to support staff who are customer-facing
• Tools for leaders to manage their emotions
• The long-lasting value of internal rewards

Key Points

• Take the necessary time to think about your business (not doing tasks). 
• Good relationships in the workplace are rooted in internal rewards and clear purpose.

For full shownotes go to Partner4Leads.com

Jason Criddle of Smartr Marketing is my guest today. We talk about sales as a core function of any business, app-based referral business and the importance of content creation.

Lifetime compensation of multi-level marketing models and the opportunity to work with a multi-level marketing company is what brought Jason to where he is today. His company reached out to me to pitch a product called the Smartr Marketing App and an opportunity to make a little income for the podcast. I looked him up and found that Jason’s career and views looked pretty interesting, so I reached out. Jason is located near my hometown in the Dallas Fort Worth Metro area. The Smartr Marketing App wanted to create an MLM-type compensation without all the drawbacks of pay-to-sell models, non-competes and other elements that we discuss. 

Jason is one bright guy whose company is doing a lot of different things, though they are in the process of niching it all down - I love that. He’s a millenial with a passion for helping entrepreneurs and small businesses succeed.

We start the episode by talking about his experience working with multi-level marketing organizations and go on to discuss:

• How to track your word of mouth marketing 
• Jason’s introduction to software and apps
• The importance of focusing on a core product or service
• His views on the law of attraction
• The difference between the present and future ‘you’

Visit Parnter4Leads.com for additional content related to this episode. 

In this episode I speak with Gretchen Bell. She and her husband are doing a second act in their career as expats in Loreto, Mexico. Their venture involves real estate and a wine bar. We talk about the wanderlust idea that took them from California to Mexico, working with local artisans and the careful planning of a seasonal business. 

Gretchen is a veteran of the San Francisco Bay Area real estate world. In recent years, she and her husband fell in love with Loreto, Mexico. While it wasn’t all planned out, now they own rental property and a charming historical building in downtown Loreto - the new location of Gitano’s Wine Bar. 

Episode Highlights

We start the episode by talking about how Gretchen came to start working in Mexico and go on to discuss:

• How the idea of a wine bar came from their early dating days
• The process of sourcing local wine
• The challenges of importing products
• Creating a strong customer experience
• Designing the WOW factor into your business
• Managing staffing for seasonal businesses 
• Their approach to financing Gitano’s

Key Points

No matter the business - prioritize your customer experience above everything.

Careful planning is key with seasonal businesses. Know your needs in terms of product sourcing and staffing.