S2 E61: Unexpected Insight from Unscripted Keynote

Public speaking. A favorite assignment for many people. Right?!?

How about presenting an unscripted, unrehearsed 18 minute keynote speech without notes?  On a topic you just decided upon last night?   In front of your peers, being videotaped and critiqued in real time?  

Welcome to season 2. Episode 61 of the newly renamed For Love of Team podcast.  It’s the #BeginAgain moment for the podcast.

That was me a few months ago at my friend Kent Julian’s Speak it Forward bootcamp.  

I began the keynote with a story about my dream business.  

A service born out of necessity.  Reaching multi-million dollar status. Employing team members across 10 different states.  Enjoying a reputation for excellent customer service.  Growing market share.  

Paradise, right? There was a dark side. One I share during this keynote.  

Yet delivering  this speech gave me another unexpected benefit.  

An insight about other businesses which ultimately fail to meet their potential.  

So, let’s take you to that keynote, a few months ago outside of Atlanta.  

The precise moment when For Love of Team was born.  

Listen in to hear the first time I ever publicly said…“I fired myself.”

The podcast also reveals: 

• My first entrepreneurial venture and how I got my sister to pay a nickel to read her own book
• The leadership lessons I learned along my own journey
• The key role each leader needs to ensure they’re getting and also filling for others
• What’s worse than an ill-equipped leader and how to avoid it
• How God directed me to 1 Corinthians 13 and opened my eyes to For Love of Team 
• The one surprising thing every leader needs to do to multiply their impact

 And so much more.

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Connect with Winston

LinkedIn     https://www.linkedin.com/in/winstonfaircloth/
Facebook   https://www.facebook.com/forloveofteam
Instagram   https://www.instagram.com/forloveofteam/
Twitter        https://twitter.com/forloveofteam

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#TeamLOVE Book. Join the bold book writing journey as we write and share our first draft chapters from our upcoming book - Team Love: 28 Ways to Demonstrate Caring at Work here in season 3 of the For Love of Team podcast.

Be notified each week about a new episode and follow our journey at TeamLoveBook.com

Transcript

0:15

Hey there, it's Winston Faircloth. Public speaking. It's a favorite for many people, right? Well, how about presenting an unscripted, unrehearsed, 18 minute keynote speech, without notes on a topic you just decided upon last night. Now it's in front of your peers being videotaped and critiqued in real time. Welcome to season two, Episode 61. of the newly renamed For Love of Team podcast. That was me a few months ago, my friend, Kent Julian's Speak it Forward boot camp. I begin the keynote with a story about my dream business. A service born out of necessity, reaching multimillion dollar status, employing team members across 10 different states enjoying a reputation for excellent customer service, a growing market share. Sounds like paradise, right? Well, there was a dark side, one I shared during this keynote, preparing the speech gave me another unexpected benefit and insight about other businesses which ultimately fail to meet their potential. So let's take you to that keynote a few months ago outside of Atlanta. And this is the precise moment that for love of team, both the business and the podcast were born. Close your eyes for a moment. Imagine your future business. One where you are the market leader. People are coming to you for your expertise, your gifting and everything you can bring to them to help them grow their business. You're now in the multi million dollar income range. He's had a great growth trajectory in now. And you have team members in 10 different states who helping you execute and grow and have the impact that you really seek in your business. You have a great reputation. People are seeking you out for the work that you alone can bring to the marketplace. Sounds heavenly right. Sounds like exactly why you got into business. But there's a dark side to the story. Your team is in chaos. People are fighting with each other. People are arguing with each other. People are sabotaging each other. In the dream that you've built for 15 years to get you to this place is gone. The moment you fire yourself from leading the business that you failed to open your eyes. That was February 5 2015. That was my story from starting and growing a business that had achieved everything that ever dreamed of. And that morning I walked into a board meeting and I fired myself as the leader and founder of this organization. In Why? Well, because I love my clients and I love my idea way more than I love my team. And I couldn't take it anymore. See, I believe that every business owner can multiply their impact and their income when they surround themselves with people who do work that they love so that the owner can do the work that they love. And I want to help you Avoid that same fate that I experienced a few years ago. I wished someone had coached me that many years ago because when I started my first Well, actually, my very first business was one where I was six or eight years old, you know, small little neighborhood in Virginia. And what was going on there was, we didn't have anything to keep us entertained. We lived on a little country road, there was few neighbor kids behind us a horse farm on one side, a cow farm on the other side on a cornfield in front of us. And to keep us occupied and interested. I needed something to do, I needed some purpose to get me going and excited for life. And so my dad worked for Coca Cola. And he was able to bring home what was called a regular Coca Cola, which these are the six and a half ounce bottles that weren't quite full, or overfilled. So he could buy a case of those for $1 24 bottles. And so that summer, I decided to open up a general store for our neighborhood. So I took my dad's Coca Cola, put them on ice, and I took those shared behind our house, and opened up our little general store to sell these Coco's to the other kids in our neighborhood. But that wasn't enough, it wasn't enough to bring them in. So then I started rounding up the little kids books, that all the kids in the neighborhood head. And since I was a 16, kids, kid, you can imagine what I would call this library, decided to build a library, and I would charge kids to check out books out of the library, I called it peace library. And so I got my sister's books, I got my neighbor's books, and I put that in the general store. And I charged my sister a nickel to check out her own book. And so I guess I had that entrepreneurial spark from a very young age. But you know, one of the things about growing up and, you know, growing up with under teams and under leaders, it's, it's a lot like parenting, a lot of leaders just do what they've has happened to them, you know, we're, we're as good as the people who are in front of us. And so in, I was really blessed to have some really good leaders, but also was put in a leadership role very early in my career. So I didn't have all the mentorship that other people had. And so this is where I have to check the notes. You know, I had to draw upon other kinds of mentors. So I was really blessed with some mentors, who really spoke life into me and gave me lots of guidance. But a lot of times I was on my own, to kind of figure out how to do things and how to lead people. And I've always been an idea person is, as I shared with that nine or eight year old experience. So a lot of times I've been on my own to develop my own leadership style. And I'm so enamored with ideas, and with clients that I'm serving, that I forget that the best execution happens with other people. So I wonder how many of you have been in a team environment where you've not had great leadership? I think all of us have had that kind of experience where, you know, it's like, who put this person in charge? And who told them what to do, and how to handle people like me. I think, you know, we have different levels of training and understanding and experience of being leaders. But what's even worse than an ill equipped leader is an indifferent leader. And that's the person I was back in 2015. It wasn't that I didn't care. It wasn't that I, you know, didn't, I cared about the bottom line, I cared about the growth of the business, I cared about the clients, I would throw, I'd always take the client side. If somebody called and complains, like, yes, we're gonna fix that we're going to get this done, and you know, put the team under the bus. So, as I started processing this experience, when you fire yourself from a 15 year career, something that you put blood sweat and tears into, and really put a big chunk of your life doing, it really was a calling for me. I've had time to kind of reflect about what was going on with my leadership style, and what could I do? So one of the things I noticed recently I read Scripture, that I was looking at a particular scripture one day and I thought, well, how does this apply to life? leadership. We hear this scripture all the time for weddings, in wedding settings, but how would this apply to a leader? leaders or patient, leaders or kind? leaders don't envy. They don't boast. They're not proud. leaders do not dishonor others. Leaders aren't self seeking, not easily anger keeps no record of wrongs. leaders do not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. Leaders always protect always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. That was not a description of me back then. And I don't think it's a great description of a lot of leaders that we see today. And yet, without engaged members of our team, without people bringing their talents, their unique gifts. What's the chances of us gaining play in our unique gifting? Very low. Yeah, you probably have experienced this in your own business, you got to wear lots of hats, especially when you're starting out. We're all those hats, things that you enjoy, that come to you with joy and ease? probably not the best equipped then to pay for those things. Yes, we have to grind. Yes, we have to do things at different stages of our business. So if that is, you know, so what were some of the characteristics of some of the people that were working for me, then? I don't want to use their names, but I will use kind of ways I was thinking about it from a bad from from a mindset that wasn't as empowering. Not like the standard I just shared. So I had people who were backstabbers people who are land grabbers. People who were let's see, land grabbers, credit takers. Process blockers. Clock watchers. Now where they bet, were they really all those labels? No. They came, they wanted to do a great job. And that anybody who picks up a label like that, in my experience, that's a leadership failure. People people want to come and do a great job. And so what would it be like? To have a team that you actually loved a team who was falling under the leadership that I just described at these standards? What would that feel like? Well, I also have had some great experiences with teams. So I think about sports, when I was in high school. The one thing I loved about how our leaders prepared us for the games was it didn't matter what the other team did. It absolutely did not matter what junk defense they threw at us, or what, you know, craziness they were going to throw at us. We knew what our role was, and we knew what our options were. It made it super simple for a 17 year old to be in their gifting and to be effective in their role. And that's an example of great leadership. I had another experience I was the I was the sole male, living full time in a freshman women's dorm, as a senior and, and I got to hire and manage a group of women all raise. And it was a great experiment. And what was wonderful about that team was that each of those young ladies had a very different skill set that they were able to bring to the team. One was a great organizer of parties. Another one was a great listener. Another one was someone who had had a very challenge academic process she was pursuing it could speak we had these people who could speak into the lives of these young freshmen women coming into our dorm. I was really fortunate to be able to have around me that kind of diversity of skills and talents and that was a great experience. And then the third grade experience was the very first professional team that I started managing. At age 24. I was throwing into a roll, you know, so a lot of not for profits that kind of throw you into the water. Baptism by fire. That's the kind of leadership training and equipping we do in the nonprofit space. And so I was given a leadership opportunity to be the first vice president of our organization. It NASA nationally, the youngest vice president in our organization at age 24, leading a $10 million fundraising organization per year. And, and promoted over people who had been there many more years and much more senior than I, people saw potential in me, but I was really, really green. And I got to work with the CEO named Tom Simons. He was a fortune 50 CEO. He taught me very valuable leadership lesson in my very first encounter with him. My my boss had really prepared us to meet and work with someone with that kind of stature and that kind of experience. He was a no nonsense kind of guy. So we brought a very thick, three ring binder into the meeting. And in that binder, we had the game plan, because he's not a fundraiser. He's a CEO of an insurance company. And so we'd laid out the game plan and he stood up, he says, gentlemen, when you have a real plan, come back and see me and deposited into the garbage can. And in that moment, I learned a very valuable leadership lesson, give the client what they want. We call this his assistant the next day and say what the heck happened. He said, he likes he gets, he makes decisions all the time. He doesn't have time to read a binder. He wants it in one pager, if you can't boil it down to one page, but but other people like detail. So you don't know you just because you have that experience doesn't mean that's the way you have to do everything in leadership. But over that, over that six or seven years in leading that team, what was beautiful about that experience was that my job became easier and easier as the leader, the more I found people who were really gifted at one thing, and I got the heck out of their way. And really, all I had to focus them on was the white power. What's the purpose? What's the Why? And as they discovered that, and as I got out of their way, with that, they really move forward, and began to understand that they had gifting, and I was there to support their gifting. So you know, there's nothing worse. Well, there's probably some things worse. But it's hard to imagine something worse than a leader who's indifferent about their team, love me or hate me, give me critical feedback or give me praise. But that indifferent leader. And so my, my plea to you, my invitation to you is to think about that multiplication opportunity that exists in front of you at this stage of your business right now, when's the best time to start planning for your team? A little while ago, what's the next best time right now. Building a team or building a business takes a team that has the orientation of a be rich business versus a get rich business. And the more that we pour into our team, the more that we recruit, nurture, grow, a team that we can love with all of our heart, the more we're going to multiply our impact. And the greater the opportunity, we have to change the world. And that's why we got in business. That's why we're doing this work. So I'd like to invite you all, if you want to go along with me on this journey. I've written a guide that I call seven lessons of a seven figure CEO. And it's the mistakes that I've made. And some fortunate lessons that I've learned in growing that business to seven figures, but more importantly, the potential impact you can have as you begin your journey. Entrepreneurship. Thank you very much. Are you hitting the wall of complexity in your business? Does the idea of a team feel like a four letter word to you? And are you spending more time grinding in the business than doing the work you love? When you're ready to multiply your impact your income, your margin and your freedom in business? Join hand selected business owners just like you in an upcoming for love of team weekend retreat. Our intimate, immersive and interactive experience helps you one sharpen your focus by doing more of the work you love to simplify your business by eliminating automating delegating other tasks, and three, surround yourself with others doing the work that they love. Our next love team weekend retreat is coming up in just a few weeks, and we limit registrations for the maximum support and interactions there. To apply. Check out the show notes for this episode. For a special link to connect directly with me. We'll discuss your situation I'll provide some coaching and we can discuss the next right steps to help you build grow and keep a team you love. That's the four love of team weekend retreat when you're ready to multiply your impact income, margin and freedom in business. And remember, loving your team multiplies your results. I'll catch you on the next four level team episode.