May 13, 2025 • 58 mins
What separates a good event from a game-changing experience? Join Louie Sharp as he sits down with Colleen Murphy, powerhouse event producer and founder of Orchestr8, to unlock the secrets of seamless event execution and how to lead with love! Whether you're an event planner, business leader, or visionary looking to create unforgettable experiences, this episode is packed with game-changing insights to help you level up.
In this episode, Colleen reveals:
✅ The 8-step event questionnaire that prevents planning disasters. ✅ The power of a clear vision and how it drives success. ✅ How to lead diverse teams with confidence and avoid communication breakdowns. ✅ The art of pivoting under pressure when things don’t go as planned. ✅ A behind-the-scenes look at producing a major event for the Dalai Lama.
🎧 Don’t miss out—tune in now!
🔗 Learn more about Colleen & event planning: Orchestr8.biz 🔗 Connect with Colleen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/orchestr8 🔗 Get inspired with Byron Katie’s Loving What Is: thework.org
Louie’s Leadership & Love Nugs (Podcast Highlights) ⌛ 7:08 – Align events with a clear vision to streamline decision-making. 13:25 – Rally your team around a shared vision for maximum impact. 17:50 – Handle difficult personalities with positive communication & culture-setting. 23:36 – Mistakes aren’t failures—they’re process breakdowns! Learn to pivot. 27:01 – Manage stress with Byron Katie’s Loving What Is methodology. 33:39 – Channel the resilience of buffalo—charge into challenges head-on! 39:49 – Progress happens in small steps—don’t wait for the big wins! 51:50 – Elevate volunteer experiences with the “under-promise, over-deliver” method
#definevision #eventplanning #perseverance #processbreakdowns #ColleenMahon #LovingWhatIs #LeadershipandLove #thegiftedleader #LouieSharp #Podcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What I learned in the early days of my event production is,
(00:03):
if you don't talk about all of these things at the very
beginning, you have what I call the V8 moment,
and that's not a good thing. Where you gotta smack your
head and say, Oh you know what, we should have done... And,
at the end of the event,
the question is how will we know if it worked?
As a leader and especially in this particular case,
leading people that one don't work for you and people that
(00:26):
have a myriad of personalities.
What would your advice be to our listeners on how to lead a
diverse team?
People are more alike than they're different.
And everybody wants to feel like they're part of something
bigger than themselves.
Help people feel and understand where they fit in the
larger capacity, if you will.
(00:47):
One of the things she said is communication.
You always want to make sure that you've got communication
flowing constantly.
She couldn't run an event for the Dalai Lama and plan it
for months without consistently communicating with people.
The other thing she said is the ability to pivot, right?
You've got to be flexible enough to know nothing in life is
permanent is all going to change.
What's one of the things that you do with a process,
(01:10):
once something goes sideways,
can you explain to our listeners how you take advantage of
that?
The most important thing to remember for myself and to
communicate to the team, when something goes sideways,
that's a breakdown of process.
That's not a person problem.
What would your advice be, Colleen,
to leaders so that they can have that wisdom of patience?
(01:35):
The key to not losing the will and the interest to go back
to that vision. If there's a secret to success of managing
volunteers,
I think one of the worst things we can do is think, well,
I already know everything there is to know about that.
Colleen, you've got 24 hours to live.
You're gonna die at this time tomorrow.
What's the one thing?
(01:55):
What's the most important thing that you'd like to share
with all the humanity for eternity about being an event
producer?
Welcome to the Leadership in Love podcast.
We will cover leadership, mindset, personal development,
and sales and marketing.
You will experience thought provoking conversations with
(02:16):
both nationally and internationally recognized leaders.
Our goal is to inspire you and deliver actionable items
that you can implement that will help you accelerate your
growth.
Get ready to discover the magic and the power when you lead
with love.
So welcome back everybody to another episode of
(02:36):
Leadership and Love.
I am really,
really excited today because I've got a very special guest,
a dear friend of mine, Colleen, and she's just amazing.
Not only does she have a degree in marketing,
but she owns her own company called Orchestrate.
And it's really cool branding because it ends with an eight
Orchestrate.
And she's a event producer specialist at that.
(02:57):
She actually did a huge,
huge event when the Dalai Lama came and visited.
And I'll let her talk about that a little bit more.
But the other thing that I think is so fascinating is there
are very few people I cross paths within life that are so
well-rounded and so well-versed.
And Colleen is one of those people.
She can talk about a myriad of topics with great
intelligence, and she's funny.
(03:19):
And one of the things that I thought was so cool when we
first met, she knew what a Stratocaster was.
For those of you that are not musicians or guitar players,
a Stratocaster is a Fender Stratocaster,
one of Leo Fender's genius pieces of works that he built in
the fifties and designed,
and they haven't been able to improve since.
Anyways, I'm not gonna go down the guitar rabbit hole.
But Colleen, thanks for being with us today.
(03:40):
Thank you, Louie.
You know, I have to say,
who among us hasn't thought to themselves,
I should do a podcast.
Everybody has an idea of that looks like fun,
and I should really do it, but you are doing it.
And Oprah says, love is in the details,
and you are definitely pouring love into this undertaking.
(04:01):
And your intentions are to share Leadership and Love with
all of us, and I predict great things.
So I'm thrilled to be here.
Well, thank you.
I appreciate your kind words.
I'm humbled, especially like, yeah, like I said,
we are one of the most well-rounded people I've ever
crossed paths with.
And I'd like to add to that,
she's right now in the middle for,
just so listeners have an idea of how skilled and talented
(04:23):
she is, she's in the middle of building, literally,
she's the GC, the general contractor,
and the laborer. She's building a tiny house in her yard in
Kentucky, outside her other house,
and she's nailing. She's pounding. She's painting. She's
measuring. She's hanging pocket doors. She's doing all that
stuff.
So Colleen, I'd like to start really in your sweet spot,
(04:45):
event producing.
So even though you've got a degree in marketing,
you've morphed into event producing.
What was it that made you make that transition?
You know, I feel like in some ways,
maybe I found it later in life,
but my actual calling and the skill set that I developed in
(05:05):
marketing, I found the best execution of it, which is,
you know,
event production kind of brings together so many different
skill sets.
And with the logo for my business,
the eight in the orchestrate is like the conductor of an
orchestra.
And I feel like that's what an event producer does.
So like a conductor might know how to play the violin,
(05:28):
but he's not the best violinist in the world.
He needs to know a little bit about every instrument.
And I feel like that's what an event producer does.
I have to understand the technical part,
the food and beverage, the venue, the lighting, you know,
all of these different disciplines and skill sets.
I don't need to be the master of any of those,
but I need to understand enough about what each discipline
(05:51):
does and how they interact with all the other disciplines.
You mentioned the tiny house.
It's a very similar skill set to a general contractor
actually.
And so I feel like, you know,
my ability to kind of look out ahead and look at the vision
of what the big picture is and then get down into the nitty
gritty and do everything in between and be the center of
(06:14):
that wheel that involves all the disciplines.
So I feel like that's the skill,
if there is a master skill of being an event producer that
I bring to that party.
And once I discovered that, that just kind of lit me up.
And I thought, you know, I really love this.
I love the left brain, right brain part of it,
the creative part of it, the spreadsheets.
(06:35):
I mean,
there's really nothing about event production that I don't
love.
So I just kind of gravitated more and more in that
direction.
That's awesome.
So again, for your listeners,
I want you to catch what she she loves what she does.
And she loves that she's having to work both sides of her
brain, the creative part and the analytical part of it,
which is really fascinating because through our
(06:55):
conversations, Colleen,
you're very good at both of those. You're very creative,
and you have that attention to detail.
Well, the next question I'd like to ask you is,
who are events for?
Well,
that's up to the person or organization throwing the event.
There's an event for anybody out there.
(07:17):
But I think that's one of the really important questions
that I challenge people to do early on when we...
Stephen Covey says, you begin with the end in mind.
I'm probably the only event producer in the world who will
try my best to talk people out of having an event.
Because what I find is that a lot of times they see the
event as the strategy when it's really a tactic.
(07:40):
So the...
Oh, oh...I'm sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt.
Please repeat that for our audience.
That, that's gold my friend.
Please repeat that for our audience.
Right.
Well,
the way it works in the perfect world is you have your
vision and then you have your objectives and those are
smart objectives.
And I won't go into that too deep,
but you can Google that smart objectives.
(08:01):
Right.
And then you have your strategies and then you have your
tactics.
And the tactics are we're going to do this kind of event in
this venue, and we're going to invite these people.
Those are all tactics.
And in my experience, people want to skip to that stage.
They think let's have an event or let's have a party or,
you know. Umm, and what I usually say is, OK,
(08:21):
let's let's reel it way back.
Let's go back to the beginning and say, what's the vision?
So are we here to raise money?
Are we here to educate?
Are we here to have fun?
Well, what is why are we doing this?
Why are we even thinking of having an event?
And if you get clear on that,
a lot of the questions and the decisions that you have to
(08:43):
make later on in the process become really easy because you
just go back to why are we doing this?
And that will help you decide.
Should we be spending money on this or that, for example?
Should we be offering three entrees at this dinner?
Well, why...
why are we having this dinner?
If it's to raise money?
(09:05):
Maybe one entree is plenty, you know,
so it just really simplifies a lot of the decision making.
So,
for those of you that are listening and for those of you
that are watching,
the reason why I pumped both my fist in the air and got so
excited was,
I just did my first solo episode for the podcast and it
dropped today.
And the three things I talked about were core values,
(09:26):
mission statement, and vision statement.
And Colleen had no knowledge of that,
but she just lined it up perfectly because to have a great
event, you're absolutely right.
You have to have that vision of what's it going to do,
right?
What do we want to...
not only what do we want it to look like,
but what's it going to accomplish?
And is that in alignment with getting us to where we want
(09:46):
to go?
What's one of the things that you do when somebody comes to
you and they say, Hey, Colleen,
I want to produce this event.
What's some of the first steps that you do for them to help
make that successful?
Well, I would go back to the beginning, and I would say,
okay, so why are you thinking of doing an event?
And what is your goal?
What is your vision?
(10:07):
And, you know,
assuming we get past that stage and we really decide, no,
this is what we want to do, we do want to have an event,
then, you know, you go,
I have actually an eight step questionnaire.
Eight is kind of the key number there.
And we walk through such detail, you would not believe,
and some of it is really not applicable in any given
(10:28):
scenario.
But what I've done is I've gathered this all in one place.
So by the time we go through this questionnaire,
and each of the eight parts has many sub, sub, sub parts,
we really get clear on, you know,
who our target market is? What kind of entertainment we
want to have? What kind of technical, you know,
(10:48):
how high tech is it going to be?
Are we going to have PowerPoints?
Are we going to have videos?
You know, down to, you know,
are we having an online registration?
How are we ticketing?
I mean, really discuss all of that upfront,
because what I learned in the early days of my event
production is,
if you don't talk about all of these things at the very
(11:09):
beginning, you have what I call the V8 moment,
and that's not a good thing,
where you've got to smack your head and say, Oh,
you know what we should have done?
And that is the worst feeling because it's a missed
opportunity.
And usually in a situation like this,
it also means you've spent money on something that you
shouldn't have.
You've wasted resources because you weren't heading in the
(11:32):
right direction.
So we try to avoid that,
and we try to make sure that we're clear from the very
beginning where we're headed.
And at the end of the event, the question is,
how will we know if it worked?
And if we haven't been clear setting our objectives
upfront, then it's all loosey goosey, and we can say, Well,
that was great, but was it really?
Do we know that we accomplished what we set out to do?
(11:52):
We're kind of holding our own feet to the fire.
Yeah, I love that.
So Colleen's touched on a couple of things,
and I don't want you guys to miss it.
One of the things,
and I highly recommend you go check out her website,
if for no other reason to check out her logo.
Her logo is nothing short of brilliant.
And she's tied it to her messaging today.
(12:13):
So it's the figure eight, the number eight.
And it does look like an orchestrator with the little baton
in their hand as the figure eight.
And everything she's saying lines up to that,
that she's the director of this orchestra, the food,
the entertainment, the tickets, the lighting, the tables,
the table,
all those details that most people don't ever think about
(12:35):
when you walk into event.
So I want you to check out her logo because it's nothing
short of brilliant,
especially the way she just ties it to her marketing and
her message on how she runs an event.
Colleen,
I don't want to pass this opportunity up to ask you as a
leader, and especially in this particular case,
leading people that one don't work for you,
(12:57):
in some way you do, they're subcontractors,
you're hiring them,
but people that really don't work for you,
and people that have a myriad of personalities,
which is pretty much a business owner today anyway, right?
You've got young people, old people,
all kinds of races and religions and political beliefs and
piercings and hair colors, the list goes on and on.
(13:18):
What would your advice be to our listeners on how to lead a
diverse team?
You know, it's
really interesting because I guess the best example I can
come up with of something that I did lead a very diverse
group of people was the Dalai Lama event because we had
several audiences different.
(13:39):
We had lots of religious people.
We had 20 mayors from different cities in the US.
So we had everything from, you know,
CEOs to volunteers to people that had come from other
states to come to this event.
We had people, we had American Sign Language.
So we had people that were hearing impaired.
(14:00):
Every possible audience that you could imagine that all
came together for this event.
And, you know,
I think it comes back to something that I know you talk a
lot about in this podcast and just part of the Louie Sharp
brand, if you will, which is,
people are more alike than they're different.
And everybody wants to feel like they're part of something
(14:21):
bigger than themselves.
Okay, stock cash.
Can you interrupt?
I'm sorry, can I interrupt you?
Can you please repeat that?
If you're leading a team, an organization, a company,
please pay really close attention to what Colleen just said
and is gonna repeat.
Go ahead and repeat that, please.
Just remember that people are more alike than they're
different.
And one of the I think the core desires that everybody has
(14:43):
is that they want to be some part of something bigger than
themselves.
So, you know, I...
with the Dalai Lama event in particular,
we had 200 volunteers.
I mean, that's crazy, you know,
to have 200 people volunteer,
and I'm not talking about showing up for an hour or two.
I'm talking about weeks and months of work on this event
(15:03):
for no pay.
Well, why would somebody do that?
Because, and they're not all Buddhist, by the way,
but it was part of a community effort.
Louisville positioned itself as the most compassionate city
in America.
People wanted to be part of that vision, right?
So whether it's something like that,
or maybe it's a for-profit event. But...
(15:26):
and I'm hiring a lighting designer.
I'm hiring a caterer.
I think it's really important to explain to them,
here's why we're doing this event.
Get them to buy into the vision and the mission that we
have for this event.
So they're not just, you know, selling food.
I mean, that's what they do, right?
That's what their business is.
But I hope to have them feel like they're part of our
(15:48):
mission as an organization,
that they understand here's how they fit into the larger
scheme of this event.
So they're not just showing up to do their job.
But I'm introducing them, first of all,
to other people in the community who are business people
who they may work with.
Again,
they might hire each other for different events or refer
each other for different events.
(16:10):
So it's not just you show up, you do your work,
you get paid.
But, you know,
I like to feel that when people work with me on an event,
they feel like they're part of a larger undertaking.
They get, you know, invited to, whether it's the pre-event,
the post-event, they're part of that community,
along with volunteers and sponsors.
(16:32):
And, you know, Louisville is,
I think about two million people.
It's not a small town.
But it can feel like a small town if you choose to involve
yourself with organizations and groups that share your
values.
So, you know, I look at it that way.
And whether it's the Dalai Lama event or a corporate event
(16:53):
or an educational event,
help people feel and understand where they fit in the
larger tapestry, if you will,
of this event and this undertaking.
That's awesome, thank you.
What would your recommendation be for leaders?
So that's powerful that you bring them in and tie them to
the vision.
(17:13):
Like I love that word tapestry, right?
Because every little piece makes the beautiful picture.
I love that word, that's a great word.
What would your recommendation or your advice and counsel
be for people to deal with the specific,
like for example, I play in some bands.
Entertainers can be really pretty difficult to work with,
right?
Whereas the people hauling the trash out of the event may
(17:36):
be so laid back that they're completely opposite of the
entertainer who's got that big ego and all that stuff.
What would your advice be to leaders on how to handle those
different personalities?
Well,
I guess the most important thing is to kind of check your
own ego.
If I'm the event producer and I show up like I'm the diva,
(18:00):
or I think that I'm the important person in the room,
then I'm kind of encouraging that in other people.
I guess the way I try to encourage people to behave is
we're all subservient to the vision of this event.
We're all here to serve the vision and the mission of this
organization, right?
(18:21):
And that includes me, that includes the talent.
I always love that word.
It's like, we call some people the talent,
like the rest of us don't have any talent, right?
Or the guy that's hauling out the trash.
I mean, even the volunteers, on some level,
they're the bottom of the totem pole,
(18:42):
but I elevate them to the top, right?
And I say, if you're here and you're not getting paid,
well, you really are a rock star.
You know, so
I think we have to set that example and really encourage
good communication.
And again,
if we all understand and we're all communicating of how
(19:04):
this all fits together, then it kind of, again,
begin with the end in mind.
We set the stage for the behavior and the culture that we
want to cultivate.
So if people understand from the beginning, Oh,
here's what we're doing here.
Here's how this is gonna go down.
And if something goes wrong, that is a great opportunity.
(19:27):
Rahm Emanuel,
who was the Chief of Staff under Barack Obama said, N
ever let a good crisis go to waste.
I love that because when something goes wrong,
it's kind of like when your kid falls on the playground,
I mean, look at you, like, How are we doing?
Should I be crying right now?
(19:47):
Everyone looks at the producer like, Oh my God,
what does this mean?
And it's my job to be calm and not be the stereotypical,
you know,
everyone thinks the event producer is the crazy person with
the clipboard.
That's not at all what my job is.
My job is to inspire confidence and to have a plan for when
this happens because inevitably something will go wrong.
(20:10):
And so the last thing I would ever do is point a finger or
throw somebody under the bus.
If everybody knows that when things go wrong,
that's just an opportunity for us to learn something and us
to like demonstrate our pivoting skills.
That's the most important skill as an event producer is to
be able to pivot on the fly and make it look like that was
(20:31):
your plan all along.
So Colleen, you just dropped a goldmine.
You blew by golden nuggets. You just dropped the goldmine. So I wanna make sure the audience catches it. First, and Colleen and I have had this conversation as a side conversation before we got on the call and just in conversation. We didn't know that we was gonna lead to this podcast, but she said something critical. When something goes sideways, it's the perfect opportunity to show one the world who you are as a leader. You remain calm. Two, it gives you an opportunity, especially if you screw up with a client. It's the perfect opportunity to cement that client to your business, your organization permanently, the way you handle that. Again, I want the audience to catch, you just laid a plethora of intelligence there.
(21:20):
One of the things she said is communication.
You always wanna make sure that you've got communication
flowing constantly.
She couldn't run an event for the Dalai Lama and plan it
for months without consistently communicating with people.
The other thing she said is the ability to pivot, right?
You've gotta be flexible enough to know that nothing in
life is permanent, it's all gonna change.
One of the things I'd like you to talk about now is how and
(21:43):
what do you do as a leader and as this event producer of,
and it was a big deal, right?
Everybody...
there was a lot hanging on you with the Dalai Lama coming
to the United States and ended up in Kentucky,
and you're the one planning the whole shebang.
What's one of the things that you do with a process once
something goes sideways?
Can you explain to our listeners how you take advantage of
(22:06):
that?
Well, let me back up just for one second,
because as I've already said, we had 200 volunteers.
And that's not even counting the 20 people that were on the
steering committee who were all volunteering to be on the
steering committee,
who kind of put their lives on hold for six months to a
year.
So I don't want it to ever seem like I think I produced
(22:28):
that event in a vacuum.
I mean, me and 220 of my best friends.
So that's really important.
And I think in terms of if something goes sideways,
as we say,
the most important thing to remember for myself and to
communicate to the team is that that is a breakdown of
(22:51):
process.
When something goes sideways,
that's a breakdown of process.
That's not a person problem.
So if nobody wakes up in the morning and says,
I'm really going to screw something up today,
I'm going to drop the ball, I'm going to miscommunicate.
I'm going to be AWOL and something, whatever.
(23:13):
So if something quote "goes wrong", it's either it rained,
and we weren't prepared for it.
That's a process problem.
That's a planning problem.
I mean,
you can go into 100 different examples of things that can
go wrong.
And I've got plenty of don't ever think that nothing ever
(23:33):
goes wrong in one of my events.
And it's always, it was a process.
It was a scenario that we didn't anticipate. You know, i
t was, I mean, you name it.
I can't think of one example where somebody just screwed up
as a person and dropped the ball.
There was always a missed opportunity,
(23:54):
either on my behalf or somebody's behalf,
to anticipate a situation and have a possible
solution, you know, in the back pocket.
And I don't know if your listeners might be familiar with
Marcus Lemonis from the show, The Profit.
He talks about this and he says, We focus on people,
processes, and products.
(24:16):
And so you invest in your people.
And the way you do that is you make sure that you have the
right processes in place.
And so when something goes wrong,
and I've had situations where somebody comes to me and oh,
I'm so sorry, this is. And I always say,
let's look at this and see where the breakdown occurred.
Let's look at this as a learning opportunity.
(24:38):
And you have to really believe that because people can feel
if you're speaking the truth,
if you really mean that from your heart that you don't
blame them.
And you really wanna use this as a learning opportunity
because that's what's great about doing what you do for how
many decades have you been in your business, right?
(25:00):
It's like, we've had the opportunity to see these mistakes.
And now, like I said, I've got this 10-page thing,
a lot of which is, I learned this the hard way. You know,
I mean,
Amen, sister.
Shame on us if we don't use that opportunity to make that
(25:21):
list even longer that we're going to go through before the
next event.
So I think people can tell when you're genuine and you
really do not hold them responsible for something that went
wrong.
And very rarely is it something earth shattering.
It's usually something that the client doesn't even know
happened.
Unless you have a meltdown, then they'll know.
(25:44):
Right, yeah, that's very why.
So again,
I want to touch on a couple things she just mentioned. And
one of the things I love about everybody that I've had on
my podcast, and you're no exception,
Colleen is living what she's talking about.
So did you notice how she instantly went to humility and
gave credit to the team?
(26:05):
She said,
I didn't pull off this Dalai Lama thing by myself.
And she said there were 200 volunteers and 20 people that
were on the steering committee,
and she gave credit to all those people.
She could have easily been an egotistical leader and said, Y
eah, I pulled this bad boy off and then not giving credit,
right, not giving credit to anybody else.
Colleen,
I'd like you to talk for just a minute because I know
(26:26):
you're a big reader and you're, like I said,
at the outset of this, you are so well-versed.
You and I have talked about a myriad of topics,
conversations, you know,
and you can hold a conversation on all of them.
What have you done through your life to be so educated and
some of it's the experience,
(26:46):
right? Like building the little house,
some of it's life experience,
some of it's you intentionally going and finding wisdom or
knowledge.
What's been your path and how would you recommend leaders
do that to improve themselves?
Wow, that's a big question.
I guess I look at it from two different angles.
(27:07):
One is back in the day when I was a corporate person,
and I was reading the corporate leadership books like,
Who Moved My Cheese and all that kind of stuff.
And to me,
those always felt more like putting on a suit or acting in
a role, like, Oh, this is how you play the corporate game,
(27:30):
and I can do that.
I mean, I did it.
I did it pretty well for a while.
But it never felt authentic to me.
And I think now, what I focus on,
and I have for probably 20 years, is, quote unquote,
personal development, which, of course,
it's for your personal life.
(27:50):
But I think it also, all of it for me,
applies also in the business world.
And I have to say,
my favorite personal development book of all time,
because I think it's the grand, when you say granddaddy,
I would say grandmommy since that's Byron Katie as the
author, Loving What Is.
Because listen, if we can get that,
(28:13):
if we can find ourselves and come back to an event,
and something goes wrong, and our first inclination,
our natural reaction is to say,
this shouldn't be happening.
This isn't how this is supposed to go.
And that's what gives us the stress,
because we're seeing a situation,
and we're thinking it should be different from what it is.
(28:34):
When in reality, it's exactly as it should be,
because this was the natural conclusion of how this
situation developed.
So she does a process called The Work,
and you can go to thework.org and download a,
it's called the Judge Your Neighbor Worksheet,
I've recommended this to so many people.
(28:55):
And you basically question that stressful thought.
You question the thought of whether this shouldn't be
happening, and you turn it around, and you say, no,
this should be happening, and here's why.
And you get to the point in your life where you're able to
do this process almost automatically. It's kind of running
in the background like an app on your phone.
And instead of having the meltdown,
(29:15):
you go right to the place of, Oh, this should be happening,
this is what's going on.
Why is this happening?
How did this situation end up the way it is?
And what do I wanna do in this moment?
Because your only power is in this moment,
to go back and say, we shoulda woulda coulda,
(29:35):
or next Monday when I'm doing the recap of this event,
I'm really gonna blast this guy, like it's a waste of time.
The only thing you have to ask yourself is,
what's the right next decision in this moment,
right where we are right now?
And then there's a time, next week or tomorrow,
when that will be the time to ask the questions of knowing
(29:56):
what we know now, what would we do differently?
So I would say that kind of vein of personal development,
whether you call it mindfulness,
whether you call it loving what is,
it can sound a little woo woo,
but I can tell you it all works perfectly in a business
environment,
(30:17):
because it requires you to take responsibility for your
role in the current situation and not waste a lot of time
and energy covering your butt, if you will,
or blaming anybody else,
Not that I've ever done any of those things.
(30:37):
Right, right.
But to really take all of the energy and all of the
resources and apply those to finding a solution in the
moment and improving the process going forward.
So, I would start with Loving What Is.
And I mean,
I can't imagine anybody who wouldn't benefit from that book
(30:59):
and from that process.
So, Colleen, it's amazing to me how when I talk to people,
you're opening like a flower with all this wisdom.
And this is another episode I would highly recommend
everybody go back and listen to this a couple of times.
We're going to put Byron Katie's the link to her work.
(31:21):
I've been through that same process as well,
highly recommend it.
We're going to put that in the meeting notes.
But again, Colleen shares some very powerful things.
We can't change the past.
And one of the things that she said,
for those of you that are listening and not watching,
and you move me, you move my heart, Colleen,
because when Colleen said, P
eople know if you're being real and genuine,
(31:43):
and if you're blaming them or not,
she put both her hands on her heart.
And again, this is what this is all about, right?
Leadership and love.
And when you put both hands on your heart,
it's where you're coming from, right?
You're humble.
And you've really shown us that you're a humble leader,
and you gave everybody else the credit.
And again, I like to not let this go by for our listeners.
(32:05):
Colleen said something really important.
And for me,
I like to use the analogy if you were sitting in a chair,
and I was to take one of your hands and pull it up.
At some point, I'm going to pull far enough,
the rest of your body's going to go.
And my point to that is, as Colleen said,
all the work that she did on being a better Colleen,
spreads into every area of her life.
(32:26):
Not only her business, but her health, her mental wellness,
her spirituality, her emotions,
her relationships with family,
friends. All those things are connected.
You can't make one part of your life better with,
what's that old saying, right?
The tide rises all the boats equally.
And so whatever part you're working on being better is
(32:46):
going to make everything rise.
And so thank you for being so transparent and sharing what
you've done on your journey, because it's huge.
It's huge.
And most people think, Oh,
it's not going to make a big difference.
It does make a big difference.
I'd like you to talk about, especially for leaders, what,
what would your advice be?
Because you didn't transform yourself.
(33:07):
And literally, that's what we do, right?
We're in the middle of transformation.
If we're working on ourselves,
what would your advice be to leaders and, and, and I,
I've come to understand we're all leaders.
I don't care who you are, what you're doing,
you're leading.
What would your advice be to Colleen, to,
to leaders so they can have that, that wisdom of patience?
(33:28):
Because what you and I have done in our lives didn't happen
overnight.
It didn't happen on a weekend.
It didn't happen in a retreat, one retreat or a seminar.
What would your advice be to them?
I don't know, Louie.
This is, you know, it's so funny.
Of all the things you can ask me about,
I think about everybody who knows me.
Would they ever use the word patient to describe me?
(33:51):
Probably not.
Or maybe a better question would be then,
what would you recommend for perseverance?
Because there's lots of times you've could have quit,
right?
You're a single mom of a couple of beautiful children.
You know, you could have quit.
You could have stayed in the corporate world.
You could have not taken that chance, right?
(34:13):
You've explained great courage and perseverance.
So what would your advice be for listeners around those two
topics, courage and perseverance?
You know,
I think I look at it like we've talked about this, too,
I think offline, which is in a crisis.
And I don't know if this is true or not.
We'd have to ask somebody who grew up on a farm that they
(34:35):
say that when the storm is coming,
that the cows panic and try to outrun the storm.
And the buffalo put their head down and walk straight
through it.
And I hope that's true,
because I've used that analogy a lot in my life.
And at some point, you know,
it doesn't even matter how slowly you're moving.
(34:56):
If you're moving in a straight line and moving in the right
direction, that's more important than the speed.
And I've told myself this many times with the house that
I'm building right now, right?
My job isn't to figure out when the deadline is.
Everyone keeps asking me, when are you going to finish?
I'm like, I don't control that.
All I can control is,
(35:17):
am I showing up and doing the next thing on the list?
And being smart about it, you know, they say measure twice,
cut once.
Sometimes I feel like it's measure 17 times, cut once.
But my goal is to not just be going in 20 different
directions and wasting time and money and lumber having to
redo it.
So in terms of perseverance, I think it's a question of,
(35:40):
you know, having that vision again,
because there are days when I wake up and I say, R
emind me again why I decided to build this house.
And then I have what I call the executive committee meeting
with myself in the mirror.
And I remind myself,
this was not something that occurred to me one day.
I planned this over several years,
(36:01):
and I have a very clear vision.
So when I get overloaded or when I get frustrated or when,
you know,
the things have to be rescheduled or the contractor flakes
on me or whatever, I go back to that original vision.
I don't allow that particular day or that particular moment
to make me think, Oh,
and be the cow and start running all over the place in the
(36:24):
storm, right?
So again, whether it's an event, a house you're building,
you know, name any big undertaking in your life,
the key to not losing the will and the interest, you know,
because sometimes we can just start something and then we
lose interest in it and just kind of put it off to the
(36:45):
side.
I would guess that when that happens,
it's because we weren't clear on the first place about what
we wanted and how badly we wanted it.
So if you get that straight at the beginning,
you can go back to that when those crises hit because
there's gonna be a moment when the backpacks over the wall
and you're like, Oh my gosh, now I gotta figure this out.
(37:09):
And I'm really not in the mood to figure this out.
You know, I want that miracle.
I want someone to like come rescue me in this situation.
Well, they're not coming, it's up to you.
So you can go back to that vision,
that vision board if you've got one,
which I highly recommend and now you can do it on
Pinterest, you can do it a million different ways.
(37:32):
But that's kind of the, you know,
the come to Jesus meeting if you wanna call it that,
whatever you call it,
that meeting in the mirror with yourself to remind yourself
why you were doing this in the first place,
instead of letting that momentary setback derail you.
That's...
that's very very powerful. And again, I
(37:53):
want our listeners to not miss this. One of the things she
said,
and she's very animated with her hands you're a great speaker,
but she's very animated with her hands,
and she kind of did a karate chop,
and she said I'm just going straightforward. And she said
something very, very, very wise,
and I don't want you to miss this either. It's the little
steps every day. Some days you might take a stride. Some
(38:16):
days you may break into a run. Some days it's going to be
tough to get up and move it all. And,
that's what she's talking about. This come...I use that
term, too, come to Jesus meeting,
and I also do a lot of stuff in front of a mirror as far
as mirror work, right? Seriously,
because it's very powerful to talk to yourself. But what
she made this karate chop and then she brought this thing
(38:38):
back around to where we were talked about earlier is the
power of that vision.
And, this is what I like don't,
please don't let this go by,
what she talked about with this straight line is every day
if you take action at the end of the day you can measure
did this get me closer to where I wanted to be,
or did it get me further away? Did it keep me in the same
(38:58):
spot, or did it take me sideways? And,
that's the power of that vision, too,
as well. Right Colleen? Because but I love what you said. Y
ou just...I love the buffalo analogy,
right? You kind of put your head down,
and you just go into it. And it's a crazy thing. A
nd I like you to talk about this, because my experience has been that when I turned and faced it and went into it, and most of the time that's fear of some sort, right? Feared whatever's gonna happen? I was gonna fail. Somebody was gonna make fun of me? I was gonna be mocked or ridiculed? Whatever it might have been. When we go into that fear, I've always found, holy cow why did I wait so long, right? What's the big dea? I spent more time and energy running from the fear that if I had been the buffalo, right? Yes, right. If I had just been the buffalo and turned into it, I could have been past this shit years ago.
(39:49):
That's exactly right. And,
you know there are very few days where you get the big win,
and you
get the, you know, the huge thing to cross off your list. I mean I have a list this long on this house for example. Very seldom do I actually cross the thing off. You know a lot of the things I do it in a spreadsheet and a lot of the things have their own list behind it. So it's like finish the framing. Well there's 20 things that have to be done before I can cross off finish the framing, right? So, you know don't get addicted and don't be seduced by the idea of like crossing off these huge things and having a big day when like huge things are accomplished because most days you know are the small gains.
(40:34):
I've seen Barack Obama talk about this. When, um, I
think it was Jerry Seinfeld asked him what what sport is
most like politics,
thinking he was going to talk about basketball or
something, you know. And, he used football,
and he said because, you know,
most days you're just grinding it out. You're just trying
to get an inch here or a foot there. You know,
(40:55):
and every now and then you see daylight, and you can run,
you know,
but most of the time you're just getting those...Like the
book that's really popular, right now, Atomic Habits,
right? It's those minuscule
(41:15):
little steps in the right direction. And, again, the direction is more important than the velocity.
You're a pilot, you can talk about that.
Right. Right.
It doesn't matter how fast you're going if you're going in
the wrong direction
You're right.
That's exactly right.
That's a great point.
Yeah,
if you're doing 200 miles an hour in the wrong direction,
I don't care how fast you're going.
It's all a waste of your time and energy.
Yeah, you better slow down.
Yeah, yeah,
slow down if you're going in the wrong direction.
Yeah, and it's amazing too,
(41:36):
because I think that there's real power in that.
And I'd like to share something with you because you're one
of those people.
You know, this whole podcast thing,
that's a story for another day.
But when I thought, okay,
I'm gonna birth this thing and bring it into the world,
I started thinking about my network.
(41:58):
And I thought, Oh my God,
I have some of the most incredible people that are amazing
leaders in their life.
And you're no exception, right?
You're this amazing leader in this thing called event
producing.
And you're a rock star.
I mean, they don't bring you in,
if they're doing the Dalai Lama, if you're not a rock star,
right?
But my network and my point is,
(42:19):
I wanna emphasize for our audience,
I wanna really drill down on the point that you just made.
It's the little things.
I can tell you,
I'm gonna tap into my network for probably the next two
years before I have to go outside my network for somebody
to interview.
But I didn't build that network overnight.
I've built that network over the last 50 years, right?
(42:40):
And that's exactly, that was exactly your point.
But now I've got this incredible network.
I can reach out to people for anything under,
and I mean literally anything under the sun, right?
For personal development, spirituality,
health and wellness, sex, everything, literally anything,
I can reach out to somebody that's an expert in that field.
(43:00):
Because there's people that are experts on sex,
there's people that are experts on spirituality,
health and wellness, business, marketing,
the list goes on and on.
But that happened literally over my lifetime.
You know that, um,
one of the things that occurs to me because
I've listened to several of the episodes,
and you'll have to help me out with the woman's name,
(43:22):
but she was the expert in marketing auto body shops. Right?
Yeah. Micki Woods. Yes.
Yeah, right.
I listened to it because I was going to be on your podcast,
not because I had a burning desire to learn anything about
auto body shops, because how does that apply to my life?
Right?
But what I learned in listening to it was, Oh,
she had some great ideas for marketing auto body shops that
(43:46):
could be applied to any small business.
And beyond that was the enthusiasm and the expertise that
she brought to it.
That's contagious.
So,
what I would encourage people to do is be curious and be
enthusiastic, because, you know,
people love to talk about what they're passionate about.
(44:07):
And if you're curious about what they're passionate about,
they will share information with you.
You know, people aren't stingy with what they know.
In fact, it's the opposite.
It's like if you show genuine interest in what they know.
My mom sat next to the head of Merrill Lynch.
He was like some senior VP, you know, 20 years ago.
(44:31):
And she has this great question that she asks people,
what's the one thing I should know?
And she asked him,
what's the one thing I should know about investing?
And he said Vanguard 500.
Well,
that was a very profitable question that she asked 20 years
ago, you know/ And, he wasn't stingy.
(44:52):
He didn't say, Well, you hire me, and I'll tell you.
Right.
You know,
so just know that if someone is an expert in their field,
like whether it's auto body shop marketing or anything,
any field of endeavor you could come up with,
they have knowledge and interests and passions and
expertise that would be helpful to you and interesting to
(45:14):
you, if you would just be open to asking them about it.
So don't shut down.
I don't know anything about that, you know.
Say that again, if you would be open to...
If you would be open to learning about them and learning
about what they're passionate about and asking them
questions and be curious.
So I think one of the worst things we can do is think,
(45:34):
well,
I already know everything there is to know about that because
I guarantee you there's plenty about event production that
I don't know.
Right.
It's changing every day, right?
And I have to be humble and know that somebody out there,
and it could be somebody with a lot less experience than
what I have,
but they have a different life experience that they may
have learned something that isn't technically event
production that would help me and that helps them be a good
(45:58):
producer.
So be humble and be curious about what other people know.
And you can learn a lot just in conversations sitting next
to someone in an airplane in the case of my mom with the
gentleman from Merrill Lynch.
And again, she's dropped a big golden nugget.
I can tell you that asking people is powerful because
(46:22):
they're gonna share it with you because to your point,
Colleen, it's what they're passionate about,
and they love to talk about it.
And I mentor high school kids,
and I learn from them all the time.
And I like to reframe that question.
This is how I use that question.
So Colleen, and I'm gonna use it on you.
Okay, so this is how I form that question.
(46:44):
Colleen, you've got 24 hours to live.
You're gonna die at this time tomorrow.
What's the one thing,
what's the most important thing that you'd like to share
with all the humanity for eternity about being an event
producer?
Wow.
Okay.
Let's see one thing.
I'm only allowed to say one thing?
Well, cause just like your mom, right?
(47:05):
I want, I want, cause, and for our audience,
because if you get the, if you, if I get this,
the best thing out of Colleen,
and now that doesn't mean I couldn't get more out of her,
right?
People have come to me to be mentored,
and I'll mentor them for free as long as they continue to
do the work and take action with it, right?
Yeah.
This doesn't mean I couldn't go back to the well and ask
for Colleen more stuff,
(47:26):
but to your point on that chance meeting,
your mom asked the one question. She got off that plane and
never saw that guy ever again.
She didn't get a phone number, his email address.
They weren't going to be pen pals, right?
That just, that was a one-time hit.
And that's why...
that's the power of this cause your brain...
it might take you a while because you've got all this
information about being an event producer,
(47:47):
but at some point you're going to go,
ding and that's going to be the one thing.
So, so I'll put you back under the hot seat.
So,
thanks for buying me a little time while my brain was calculating.
Truly, though, it gave me a moment to think about it.
But if there's one thing,
I would say that if you think of event producing,
(48:11):
you think of the bell curve, right?
You've got the ramp up,
and then you've got the big part of the event here where
it's actually happening.
And then you have words, it's done, right?
So you think of the bell curve.
Most people focus all of their energy here in the middle.
And so they skip over the part,
(48:31):
like we talked about at the beginning,
where they get clear, crystal clear,
on exactly what they're doing and why.
So every hour that you spend on that early stage saves you
time and money in this middle part.
And it makes sure that you're, to use the flying analogy,
that you're headed in the right direction. You're going the
right speed. You're asking all the questions up front that
(48:55):
will save you the missed opportunities in the middle.
So there's that part of the bell curve.
And then over here,
any person who's involved in any kind of sport can tell you
how important the follow through is, right?
When you hit a ball or kick a ball,
you don't just hit the baseball and then put the bat down.
You've got to follow through.
And people drop the ball, not to mix my metaphors there,
(49:18):
but they drop the ball on the follow through.
So they have this big collapse as soon as the event is
over.
And they think, oh, that was fun, or that was this,
or that was that, and now we're done.
You are not done.
You have 20% of the job left due in doing the post-mortem,
asking all the questions.
What could have gone better?
What opportunities did we miss?
(49:40):
And you do this as soon as possible after the event,
because you will forget.
Down to the minutia of we should have had a garbage can
next to this table.
I mean, I'm talking that tiny,
because if you do this event next year,
or if you do any similar event ever,
why have to learn that twice?
And another big part of the follow through is what I
(50:03):
recommend, which is a gratitude committee,
or a gratitude chair,
or some person or group of people who are responsible for
thanking the donors, thanking the sponsors,
thanking the volunteers, and not just at the end,
but all the way through this process.
Somebody shows up to volunteer for two hours,
(50:24):
they get a thank you note,
a handwritten note with the event logo on it.
I feel like that's a huge missed opportunity.
So it might not be the sexy part of it at the beginning and
the end,
but it's the part that's so important and usually goes
underutilized.
So that's my nugget for you on what people are missing,
(50:47):
I think, in planning, executing,
and benefiting from the events that they're producing.
So thank you for sharing that.
There's a couple of things I want to touch on.
And you mentioned earlier, personal responsibility.
I want our listeners to know, let's be a great leader, y
ou have to take responsibility for yourself and what you're
doing.
(51:07):
The next thing is, and this, I love your heart.
I love your heart because I'm about gratitude too, right?
If you thank people, it goes a long way.
It goes a long way because to your point earlier,
not only are they part of that bigger cause,
but everybody wants to be seen.
Everybody wants to know that they matter and they're making
a difference.
(51:28):
And there's no,
I don't think there's a better way to do that than
gratitude.
The other thing,
I'd like you to share the story with our listeners.
And if you need some prompting,
I'll be happy to help you because I don't want to send you
out on this skinny little branch,
but I'd like you to share the story about your tactic in
working with the volunteers where you would block their
time.
(51:50):
Right.
Well, in a nutshell, it's under promise and over deliver.
So my volunteers tend to think,
I'm the best organizer ever and here's why,
because I schedule them for two hours and when they show
up, there's food, there's some kind of snack,
there's beverages, there's music,
there's an energetic feeling when they show up,
(52:13):
and they get a job description of exactly what they're
doing and all the tools they need to do it.
But most importantly,
I send them home after an hour and a half.
Say that again.
So I want you to catch this.
Say that again.
You told them how long they're going to be there and you
send them home when?
I send them home a half an hour early.
I tell them, you know what, if you guys want to stay,
we've always got more work and more shifts,
(52:35):
but you've accomplished what you signed up to do.
So it's in a way a little bit of a sandbag,
but the truth is you over promise,
you under promise and you over deliver.
So if you show up for a two hour shift to volunteer,
because let's face it, let's say it's a Saturday,
and you're gonna go volunteer for two hours.
You already have in your mind the things that you're gonna
(52:57):
do after that, t
he other things that you have to do on that day. Whether
you're taking a long lunch hour to volunteer at an
organization or it's a weekend, whatever it is,
you have other things to do.
And the worst thing you can do for a volunteer is to come
up to them 15 minutes before they're supposed to leave and
say, Do you think you could stay another hour?
(53:19):
They will never volunteer for you again,
and they shouldn't because you don't have it
together. Right?
So you want them to feel like, oh my God,
this was so much fun.
We had music, we had snacks.
I mean,
grownups are no less impressed by a good snack selection
than toddlers.
Let me just tell you.
And then I got my job done.
(53:41):
I got a good feeling.
I got credit for showing up today.
I got to meet some new people,
and we worked on something together.
And then I got a half an hour to go do whatever I wanna do.
I mean,
if there's a secret to success of managing volunteers,
that's it.
So I'd like, man,
I'm going to say this because you and I could go on for the
(54:03):
rest of the day.
She just said something else that was brilliant.
Some of the best connections,
some of the best business connections I have ever made that
exponentially helped me grow my business,
I met those people volunteering.
I used to slop beer at the Wauconda Rodeo standing next to
a bunch of other business owners, right?
(54:23):
And so, and what she just said was when you volunteer,
you meet a bunch of people that you never would have
crossed paths with.
So if you're not out there volunteering at someone....
and pick something that's near and dear to your heart,
right?
A charity or an organization is doing something good and
positive in the world.
But that's very powerful because again,
you can meet some really amazing and influential people at
(54:46):
a volunteer event or volunteering at an event.
Colleen, I normally like to end with two questions,
but you and the overachiever that you are,
you've already answered both of them.
I usually ask if you could recommend one book to our
listeners, what would it be?
But yours is Byron Katie, Loving What Is.
And you told us why you love your work as an event
(55:08):
producer.
So I'd like to just give you the opportunity.
Is there anything else that you'd like to share with our
listeners before we go?
Well, I guess we all, if you're a carpenter,
maybe you see life as a bookcase.
I don't know.
I mean,
we all approach our life from a certain perspective.
(55:29):
And I guess after being an event producer all these years,
I kind of approach my life like that,
like whether I'm building a house or I'm cooking dinner for
my family.
I mean, really, it's all some version of an event.
And I would just encourage people to kind of take whatever
it is that they love about what they do for a living and
(55:51):
see how that applies to other areas.
So we're not really setting our life up in boxes, right?
Everything, it's kind of like the ball of wire.
Everything touches everything else.
So there are skills that we've developed in our personal
life that are applicable in our family life,
whether we're volunteering, our creative life.
(56:12):
You know, the idea that we have this, you know,
we could be a creative person in some area of our life,
but we're not creative at work, you know,
that we're an accountant.
And so, there's no need for creativity.
I mean,
whatever skills we have that we've developed in one area of
our life, we can apply,
and we can holistically use all of those skills in all the
(56:36):
different areas.
So I would just encourage people to kind of get creative
and think outside that job box or that life box a little
bit, and, you know,
let those skills kind of overflow into their other areas.
Cool, wise advice.
So Colleen, before we go,
how can our listeners get in touch with you if they'd like
(56:58):
to talk to you about, you know,
you producing one of their events or some of the other
wisdom that you have.
What's the best way for our listeners to get a hold of you?
Well, I think you're going to link my website,
orchestrate.biz.
And LinkedIn profile, which is also LinkedIn orchestrate.
So I would love for them to reach out and, you know,
I might talk them out of an event,
(57:19):
if they decide they really want to have one and they're
clear on why, then I would love to help them produce that.
Perfect.
Again, Colleen, I really appreciate your time, your wisdom.
Thank you for being who you are in the world of being a
bright light, and I appreciate everything you do.
Thanks again for taking your time out of your,
I know you're busy building a little house, but I'm really,
(57:41):
truly grateful.
So thank you very much.
My pleasure, Louie.
Congratulations on the podcast.
Thank you very much.
I always like you to go away with something.
Today, there's gonna be a number of them,
but one of the things I'd like you to go away with,
how are you, if at all, investing in your team,
in your employees, in your vendors, in your family?
(58:01):
How are you investing in them on a regular basis?
And then I'm gonna ramp that bad boy up one more time and
I'm gonna ask you, what are you doing to invest in you?
How much have you budgeted this year to spend on you to
make you wiser, smarter, healthier, whatever that may be?
Thanks again for joining us and listening to this episode
of Leadership and Love.
(58:23):
I would like to challenge you to ask yourself,
what's one thing that you heard today that you can
implement immediately to improve your leadership and
accelerate your growth?
If you've gotten value out of this episode or learned
something that you can implement today,
we'd ask that you please share it with those that you care
about.
(58:43):
Our goal is to create more leaders who are leading with
love.
What I learned in the early days of my event production is,
(00:03):
if you don't talk about all of these things at the very
beginning, you have what I call the V8 moment,
and that's not a good thing. Where you gotta smack your
head and say, Oh you know what, we should have done... And,
at the end of the event,
the question is how will we know if it worked?
As a leader and especially in this particular case,
leading people that one don't work for you and people that
(00:26):
have a myriad of personalities.
What would your advice be to our listeners on how to lead a
diverse team?
People are more alike than they're different.
And everybody wants to feel like they're part of something
bigger than themselves.
Help people feel and understand where they fit in the
larger capacity, if you will.
(00:47):
One of the things she said is communication.
You always want to make sure that you've got communication
flowing constantly.
She couldn't run an event for the Dalai Lama and plan it
for months without consistently communicating with people.
The other thing she said is the ability to pivot, right?
You've got to be flexible enough to know nothing in life is
permanent is all going to change.
What's one of the things that you do with a process,
(01:10):
once something goes sideways,
can you explain to our listeners how you take advantage of
that?
The most important thing to remember for myself and to
communicate to the team, when something goes sideways,
that's a breakdown of process.
That's not a person problem.
What would your advice be, Colleen,
to leaders so that they can have that wisdom of patience?
(01:35):
The key to not losing the will and the interest to go back
to that vision. If there's a secret to success of managing
volunteers,
I think one of the worst things we can do is think, well,
I already know everything there is to know about that.
Colleen, you've got 24 hours to live.
You're gonna die at this time tomorrow.
What's the one thing?
(01:55):
What's the most important thing that you'd like to share
with all the humanity for eternity about being an event
producer?
Welcome to the Leadership in Love podcast.
We will cover leadership, mindset, personal development,
and sales and marketing.
You will experience thought provoking conversations with
(02:16):
both nationally and internationally recognized leaders.
Our goal is to inspire you and deliver actionable items
that you can implement that will help you accelerate your
growth.
Get ready to discover the magic and the power when you lead
with love.
So welcome back everybody to another episode of
(02:36):
Leadership and Love.
I am really,
really excited today because I've got a very special guest,
a dear friend of mine, Colleen, and she's just amazing.
Not only does she have a degree in marketing,
but she owns her own company called Orchestrate.
And it's really cool branding because it ends with an eight
Orchestrate.
And she's a event producer specialist at that.
(02:57):
She actually did a huge,
huge event when the Dalai Lama came and visited.
And I'll let her talk about that a little bit more.
But the other thing that I think is so fascinating is there
are very few people I cross paths within life that are so
well-rounded and so well-versed.
And Colleen is one of those people.
She can talk about a myriad of topics with great
intelligence, and she's funny.
(03:19):
And one of the things that I thought was so cool when we
first met, she knew what a Stratocaster was.
For those of you that are not musicians or guitar players,
a Stratocaster is a Fender Stratocaster,
one of Leo Fender's genius pieces of works that he built in
the fifties and designed,
and they haven't been able to improve since.
Anyways, I'm not gonna go down the guitar rabbit hole.
But Colleen, thanks for being with us today.
(03:40):
Thank you, Louie.
You know, I have to say,
who among us hasn't thought to themselves,
I should do a podcast.
Everybody has an idea of that looks like fun,
and I should really do it, but you are doing it.
And Oprah says, love is in the details,
and you are definitely pouring love into this undertaking.
(04:01):
And your intentions are to share Leadership and Love with
all of us, and I predict great things.
So I'm thrilled to be here.
Well, thank you.
I appreciate your kind words.
I'm humbled, especially like, yeah, like I said,
we are one of the most well-rounded people I've ever
crossed paths with.
And I'd like to add to that,
she's right now in the middle for,
just so listeners have an idea of how skilled and talented
(04:23):
she is, she's in the middle of building, literally,
she's the GC, the general contractor,
and the laborer. She's building a tiny house in her yard in
Kentucky, outside her other house,
and she's nailing. She's pounding. She's painting. She's
measuring. She's hanging pocket doors. She's doing all that
stuff.
So Colleen, I'd like to start really in your sweet spot,
(04:45):
event producing.
So even though you've got a degree in marketing,
you've morphed into event producing.
What was it that made you make that transition?
You know, I feel like in some ways,
maybe I found it later in life,
but my actual calling and the skill set that I developed in
(05:05):
marketing, I found the best execution of it, which is,
you know,
event production kind of brings together so many different
skill sets.
And with the logo for my business,
the eight in the orchestrate is like the conductor of an
orchestra.
And I feel like that's what an event producer does.
So like a conductor might know how to play the violin,
(05:28):
but he's not the best violinist in the world.
He needs to know a little bit about every instrument.
And I feel like that's what an event producer does.
I have to understand the technical part,
the food and beverage, the venue, the lighting, you know,
all of these different disciplines and skill sets.
I don't need to be the master of any of those,
but I need to understand enough about what each discipline
(05:51):
does and how they interact with all the other disciplines.
You mentioned the tiny house.
It's a very similar skill set to a general contractor
actually.
And so I feel like, you know,
my ability to kind of look out ahead and look at the vision
of what the big picture is and then get down into the nitty
gritty and do everything in between and be the center of
(06:14):
that wheel that involves all the disciplines.
So I feel like that's the skill,
if there is a master skill of being an event producer that
I bring to that party.
And once I discovered that, that just kind of lit me up.
And I thought, you know, I really love this.
I love the left brain, right brain part of it,
the creative part of it, the spreadsheets.
(06:35):
I mean,
there's really nothing about event production that I don't
love.
So I just kind of gravitated more and more in that
direction.
That's awesome.
So again, for your listeners,
I want you to catch what she she loves what she does.
And she loves that she's having to work both sides of her
brain, the creative part and the analytical part of it,
which is really fascinating because through our
(06:55):
conversations, Colleen,
you're very good at both of those. You're very creative,
and you have that attention to detail.
Well, the next question I'd like to ask you is,
who are events for?
Well,
that's up to the person or organization throwing the event.
There's an event for anybody out there.
(07:17):
But I think that's one of the really important questions
that I challenge people to do early on when we...
Stephen Covey says, you begin with the end in mind.
I'm probably the only event producer in the world who will
try my best to talk people out of having an event.
Because what I find is that a lot of times they see the
event as the strategy when it's really a tactic.
(07:40):
So the...
Oh, oh...I'm sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt.
Please repeat that for our audience.
That, that's gold my friend.
Please repeat that for our audience.
Right.
Well,
the way it works in the perfect world is you have your
vision and then you have your objectives and those are
smart objectives.
And I won't go into that too deep,
but you can Google that smart objectives.
(08:01):
Right.
And then you have your strategies and then you have your
tactics.
And the tactics are we're going to do this kind of event in
this venue, and we're going to invite these people.
Those are all tactics.
And in my experience, people want to skip to that stage.
They think let's have an event or let's have a party or,
you know. Umm, and what I usually say is, OK,
(08:21):
let's let's reel it way back.
Let's go back to the beginning and say, what's the vision?
So are we here to raise money?
Are we here to educate?
Are we here to have fun?
Well, what is why are we doing this?
Why are we even thinking of having an event?
And if you get clear on that,
a lot of the questions and the decisions that you have to
(08:43):
make later on in the process become really easy because you
just go back to why are we doing this?
And that will help you decide.
Should we be spending money on this or that, for example?
Should we be offering three entrees at this dinner?
Well, why...
why are we having this dinner?
If it's to raise money?
(09:05):
Maybe one entree is plenty, you know,
so it just really simplifies a lot of the decision making.
So,
for those of you that are listening and for those of you
that are watching,
the reason why I pumped both my fist in the air and got so
excited was,
I just did my first solo episode for the podcast and it
dropped today.
And the three things I talked about were core values,
(09:26):
mission statement, and vision statement.
And Colleen had no knowledge of that,
but she just lined it up perfectly because to have a great
event, you're absolutely right.
You have to have that vision of what's it going to do,
right?
What do we want to...
not only what do we want it to look like,
but what's it going to accomplish?
And is that in alignment with getting us to where we want
(09:46):
to go?
What's one of the things that you do when somebody comes to
you and they say, Hey, Colleen,
I want to produce this event.
What's some of the first steps that you do for them to help
make that successful?
Well, I would go back to the beginning, and I would say,
okay, so why are you thinking of doing an event?
And what is your goal?
What is your vision?
(10:07):
And, you know,
assuming we get past that stage and we really decide, no,
this is what we want to do, we do want to have an event,
then, you know, you go,
I have actually an eight step questionnaire.
Eight is kind of the key number there.
And we walk through such detail, you would not believe,
and some of it is really not applicable in any given
(10:28):
scenario.
But what I've done is I've gathered this all in one place.
So by the time we go through this questionnaire,
and each of the eight parts has many sub, sub, sub parts,
we really get clear on, you know,
who our target market is? What kind of entertainment we
want to have? What kind of technical, you know,
(10:48):
how high tech is it going to be?
Are we going to have PowerPoints?
Are we going to have videos?
You know, down to, you know,
are we having an online registration?
How are we ticketing?
I mean, really discuss all of that upfront,
because what I learned in the early days of my event
production is,
if you don't talk about all of these things at the very
(11:09):
beginning, you have what I call the V8 moment,
and that's not a good thing,
where you've got to smack your head and say, Oh,
you know what we should have done?
And that is the worst feeling because it's a missed
opportunity.
And usually in a situation like this,
it also means you've spent money on something that you
shouldn't have.
You've wasted resources because you weren't heading in the
(11:32):
right direction.
So we try to avoid that,
and we try to make sure that we're clear from the very
beginning where we're headed.
And at the end of the event, the question is,
how will we know if it worked?
And if we haven't been clear setting our objectives
upfront, then it's all loosey goosey, and we can say, Well,
that was great, but was it really?
Do we know that we accomplished what we set out to do?
(11:52):
We're kind of holding our own feet to the fire.
Yeah, I love that.
So Colleen's touched on a couple of things,
and I don't want you guys to miss it.
One of the things,
and I highly recommend you go check out her website,
if for no other reason to check out her logo.
Her logo is nothing short of brilliant.
And she's tied it to her messaging today.
(12:13):
So it's the figure eight, the number eight.
And it does look like an orchestrator with the little baton
in their hand as the figure eight.
And everything she's saying lines up to that,
that she's the director of this orchestra, the food,
the entertainment, the tickets, the lighting, the tables,
the table,
all those details that most people don't ever think about
(12:35):
when you walk into event.
So I want you to check out her logo because it's nothing
short of brilliant,
especially the way she just ties it to her marketing and
her message on how she runs an event.
Colleen,
I don't want to pass this opportunity up to ask you as a
leader, and especially in this particular case,
leading people that one don't work for you,
(12:57):
in some way you do, they're subcontractors,
you're hiring them,
but people that really don't work for you,
and people that have a myriad of personalities,
which is pretty much a business owner today anyway, right?
You've got young people, old people,
all kinds of races and religions and political beliefs and
piercings and hair colors, the list goes on and on.
(13:18):
What would your advice be to our listeners on how to lead a
diverse team?
You know, it's
really interesting because I guess the best example I can
come up with of something that I did lead a very diverse
group of people was the Dalai Lama event because we had
several audiences different.
(13:39):
We had lots of religious people.
We had 20 mayors from different cities in the US.
So we had everything from, you know,
CEOs to volunteers to people that had come from other
states to come to this event.
We had people, we had American Sign Language.
So we had people that were hearing impaired.
(14:00):
Every possible audience that you could imagine that all
came together for this event.
And, you know,
I think it comes back to something that I know you talk a
lot about in this podcast and just part of the Louie Sharp
brand, if you will, which is,
people are more alike than they're different.
And everybody wants to feel like they're part of something
(14:21):
bigger than themselves.
Okay, stock cash.
Can you interrupt?
I'm sorry, can I interrupt you?
Can you please repeat that?
If you're leading a team, an organization, a company,
please pay really close attention to what Colleen just said
and is gonna repeat.
Go ahead and repeat that, please.
Just remember that people are more alike than they're
different.
And one of the I think the core desires that everybody has
(14:43):
is that they want to be some part of something bigger than
themselves.
So, you know, I...
with the Dalai Lama event in particular,
we had 200 volunteers.
I mean, that's crazy, you know,
to have 200 people volunteer,
and I'm not talking about showing up for an hour or two.
I'm talking about weeks and months of work on this event
(15:03):
for no pay.
Well, why would somebody do that?
Because, and they're not all Buddhist, by the way,
but it was part of a community effort.
Louisville positioned itself as the most compassionate city
in America.
People wanted to be part of that vision, right?
So whether it's something like that,
or maybe it's a for-profit event. But...
(15:26):
and I'm hiring a lighting designer.
I'm hiring a caterer.
I think it's really important to explain to them,
here's why we're doing this event.
Get them to buy into the vision and the mission that we
have for this event.
So they're not just, you know, selling food.
I mean, that's what they do, right?
That's what their business is.
But I hope to have them feel like they're part of our
(15:48):
mission as an organization,
that they understand here's how they fit into the larger
scheme of this event.
So they're not just showing up to do their job.
But I'm introducing them, first of all,
to other people in the community who are business people
who they may work with.
Again,
they might hire each other for different events or refer
each other for different events.
(16:10):
So it's not just you show up, you do your work,
you get paid.
But, you know,
I like to feel that when people work with me on an event,
they feel like they're part of a larger undertaking.
They get, you know, invited to, whether it's the pre-event,
the post-event, they're part of that community,
along with volunteers and sponsors.
(16:32):
And, you know, Louisville is,
I think about two million people.
It's not a small town.
But it can feel like a small town if you choose to involve
yourself with organizations and groups that share your
values.
So, you know, I look at it that way.
And whether it's the Dalai Lama event or a corporate event
(16:53):
or an educational event,
help people feel and understand where they fit in the
larger tapestry, if you will,
of this event and this undertaking.
That's awesome, thank you.
What would your recommendation be for leaders?
So that's powerful that you bring them in and tie them to
the vision.
(17:13):
Like I love that word tapestry, right?
Because every little piece makes the beautiful picture.
I love that word, that's a great word.
What would your recommendation or your advice and counsel
be for people to deal with the specific,
like for example, I play in some bands.
Entertainers can be really pretty difficult to work with,
right?
Whereas the people hauling the trash out of the event may
(17:36):
be so laid back that they're completely opposite of the
entertainer who's got that big ego and all that stuff.
What would your advice be to leaders on how to handle those
different personalities?
Well,
I guess the most important thing is to kind of check your
own ego.
If I'm the event producer and I show up like I'm the diva,
(18:00):
or I think that I'm the important person in the room,
then I'm kind of encouraging that in other people.
I guess the way I try to encourage people to behave is
we're all subservient to the vision of this event.
We're all here to serve the vision and the mission of this
organization, right?
(18:21):
And that includes me, that includes the talent.
I always love that word.
It's like, we call some people the talent,
like the rest of us don't have any talent, right?
Or the guy that's hauling out the trash.
I mean, even the volunteers, on some level,
they're the bottom of the totem pole,
(18:42):
but I elevate them to the top, right?
And I say, if you're here and you're not getting paid,
well, you really are a rock star.
You know, so
I think we have to set that example and really encourage
good communication.
And again,
if we all understand and we're all communicating of how
(19:04):
this all fits together, then it kind of, again,
begin with the end in mind.
We set the stage for the behavior and the culture that we
want to cultivate.
So if people understand from the beginning, Oh,
here's what we're doing here.
Here's how this is gonna go down.
And if something goes wrong, that is a great opportunity.
(19:27):
Rahm Emanuel,
who was the Chief of Staff under Barack Obama said, N
ever let a good crisis go to waste.
I love that because when something goes wrong,
it's kind of like when your kid falls on the playground,
I mean, look at you, like, How are we doing?
Should I be crying right now?
(19:47):
Everyone looks at the producer like, Oh my God,
what does this mean?
And it's my job to be calm and not be the stereotypical,
you know,
everyone thinks the event producer is the crazy person with
the clipboard.
That's not at all what my job is.
My job is to inspire confidence and to have a plan for when
this happens because inevitably something will go wrong.
(20:10):
And so the last thing I would ever do is point a finger or
throw somebody under the bus.
If everybody knows that when things go wrong,
that's just an opportunity for us to learn something and us
to like demonstrate our pivoting skills.
That's the most important skill as an event producer is to
be able to pivot on the fly and make it look like that was
(20:31):
your plan all along.
So Colleen, you just dropped a goldmine.
You blew by golden nuggets. You just dropped the goldmine. So I wanna make sure the audience catches it. First, and Colleen and I have had this conversation as a side conversation before we got on the call and just in conversation. We didn't know that we was gonna lead to this podcast, but she said something critical. When something goes sideways, it's the perfect opportunity to show one the world who you are as a leader. You remain calm. Two, it gives you an opportunity, especially if you screw up with a client. It's the perfect opportunity to cement that client to your business, your organization permanently, the way you handle that. Again, I want the audience to catch, you just laid a plethora of intelligence there.
(21:20):
One of the things she said is communication.
You always wanna make sure that you've got communication
flowing constantly.
She couldn't run an event for the Dalai Lama and plan it
for months without consistently communicating with people.
The other thing she said is the ability to pivot, right?
You've gotta be flexible enough to know that nothing in
life is permanent, it's all gonna change.
One of the things I'd like you to talk about now is how and
(21:43):
what do you do as a leader and as this event producer of,
and it was a big deal, right?
Everybody...
there was a lot hanging on you with the Dalai Lama coming
to the United States and ended up in Kentucky,
and you're the one planning the whole shebang.
What's one of the things that you do with a process once
something goes sideways?
Can you explain to our listeners how you take advantage of
(22:06):
that?
Well, let me back up just for one second,
because as I've already said, we had 200 volunteers.
And that's not even counting the 20 people that were on the
steering committee who were all volunteering to be on the
steering committee,
who kind of put their lives on hold for six months to a
year.
So I don't want it to ever seem like I think I produced
(22:28):
that event in a vacuum.
I mean, me and 220 of my best friends.
So that's really important.
And I think in terms of if something goes sideways,
as we say,
the most important thing to remember for myself and to
communicate to the team is that that is a breakdown of
(22:51):
process.
When something goes sideways,
that's a breakdown of process.
That's not a person problem.
So if nobody wakes up in the morning and says,
I'm really going to screw something up today,
I'm going to drop the ball, I'm going to miscommunicate.
I'm going to be AWOL and something, whatever.
(23:13):
So if something quote "goes wrong", it's either it rained,
and we weren't prepared for it.
That's a process problem.
That's a planning problem.
I mean,
you can go into 100 different examples of things that can
go wrong.
And I've got plenty of don't ever think that nothing ever
(23:33):
goes wrong in one of my events.
And it's always, it was a process.
It was a scenario that we didn't anticipate. You know, i
t was, I mean, you name it.
I can't think of one example where somebody just screwed up
as a person and dropped the ball.
There was always a missed opportunity,
(23:54):
either on my behalf or somebody's behalf,
to anticipate a situation and have a possible
solution, you know, in the back pocket.
And I don't know if your listeners might be familiar with
Marcus Lemonis from the show, The Profit.
He talks about this and he says, We focus on people,
processes, and products.
(24:16):
And so you invest in your people.
And the way you do that is you make sure that you have the
right processes in place.
And so when something goes wrong,
and I've had situations where somebody comes to me and oh,
I'm so sorry, this is. And I always say,
let's look at this and see where the breakdown occurred.
Let's look at this as a learning opportunity.
(24:38):
And you have to really believe that because people can feel
if you're speaking the truth,
if you really mean that from your heart that you don't
blame them.
And you really wanna use this as a learning opportunity
because that's what's great about doing what you do for how
many decades have you been in your business, right?
(25:00):
It's like, we've had the opportunity to see these mistakes.
And now, like I said, I've got this 10-page thing,
a lot of which is, I learned this the hard way. You know,
I mean,
Amen, sister.
Shame on us if we don't use that opportunity to make that
(25:21):
list even longer that we're going to go through before the
next event.
So I think people can tell when you're genuine and you
really do not hold them responsible for something that went
wrong.
And very rarely is it something earth shattering.
It's usually something that the client doesn't even know
happened.
Unless you have a meltdown, then they'll know.
(25:44):
Right, yeah, that's very why.
So again,
I want to touch on a couple things she just mentioned. And
one of the things I love about everybody that I've had on
my podcast, and you're no exception,
Colleen is living what she's talking about.
So did you notice how she instantly went to humility and
gave credit to the team?
(26:05):
She said,
I didn't pull off this Dalai Lama thing by myself.
And she said there were 200 volunteers and 20 people that
were on the steering committee,
and she gave credit to all those people.
She could have easily been an egotistical leader and said, Y
eah, I pulled this bad boy off and then not giving credit,
right, not giving credit to anybody else.
Colleen,
I'd like you to talk for just a minute because I know
(26:26):
you're a big reader and you're, like I said,
at the outset of this, you are so well-versed.
You and I have talked about a myriad of topics,
conversations, you know,
and you can hold a conversation on all of them.
What have you done through your life to be so educated and
some of it's the experience,
(26:46):
right? Like building the little house,
some of it's life experience,
some of it's you intentionally going and finding wisdom or
knowledge.
What's been your path and how would you recommend leaders
do that to improve themselves?
Wow, that's a big question.
I guess I look at it from two different angles.
(27:07):
One is back in the day when I was a corporate person,
and I was reading the corporate leadership books like,
Who Moved My Cheese and all that kind of stuff.
And to me,
those always felt more like putting on a suit or acting in
a role, like, Oh, this is how you play the corporate game,
(27:30):
and I can do that.
I mean, I did it.
I did it pretty well for a while.
But it never felt authentic to me.
And I think now, what I focus on,
and I have for probably 20 years, is, quote unquote,
personal development, which, of course,
it's for your personal life.
(27:50):
But I think it also, all of it for me,
applies also in the business world.
And I have to say,
my favorite personal development book of all time,
because I think it's the grand, when you say granddaddy,
I would say grandmommy since that's Byron Katie as the
author, Loving What Is.
Because listen, if we can get that,
(28:13):
if we can find ourselves and come back to an event,
and something goes wrong, and our first inclination,
our natural reaction is to say,
this shouldn't be happening.
This isn't how this is supposed to go.
And that's what gives us the stress,
because we're seeing a situation,
and we're thinking it should be different from what it is.
(28:34):
When in reality, it's exactly as it should be,
because this was the natural conclusion of how this
situation developed.
So she does a process called The Work,
and you can go to thework.org and download a,
it's called the Judge Your Neighbor Worksheet,
I've recommended this to so many people.
(28:55):
And you basically question that stressful thought.
You question the thought of whether this shouldn't be
happening, and you turn it around, and you say, no,
this should be happening, and here's why.
And you get to the point in your life where you're able to
do this process almost automatically. It's kind of running
in the background like an app on your phone.
And instead of having the meltdown,
(29:15):
you go right to the place of, Oh, this should be happening,
this is what's going on.
Why is this happening?
How did this situation end up the way it is?
And what do I wanna do in this moment?
Because your only power is in this moment,
to go back and say, we shoulda woulda coulda,
(29:35):
or next Monday when I'm doing the recap of this event,
I'm really gonna blast this guy, like it's a waste of time.
The only thing you have to ask yourself is,
what's the right next decision in this moment,
right where we are right now?
And then there's a time, next week or tomorrow,
when that will be the time to ask the questions of knowing
(29:56):
what we know now, what would we do differently?
So I would say that kind of vein of personal development,
whether you call it mindfulness,
whether you call it loving what is,
it can sound a little woo woo,
but I can tell you it all works perfectly in a business
environment,
(30:17):
because it requires you to take responsibility for your
role in the current situation and not waste a lot of time
and energy covering your butt, if you will,
or blaming anybody else,
Not that I've ever done any of those things.
(30:37):
Right, right.
But to really take all of the energy and all of the
resources and apply those to finding a solution in the
moment and improving the process going forward.
So, I would start with Loving What Is.
And I mean,
I can't imagine anybody who wouldn't benefit from that book
(30:59):
and from that process.
So, Colleen, it's amazing to me how when I talk to people,
you're opening like a flower with all this wisdom.
And this is another episode I would highly recommend
everybody go back and listen to this a couple of times.
We're going to put Byron Katie's the link to her work.
(31:21):
I've been through that same process as well,
highly recommend it.
We're going to put that in the meeting notes.
But again, Colleen shares some very powerful things.
We can't change the past.
And one of the things that she said,
for those of you that are listening and not watching,
and you move me, you move my heart, Colleen,
because when Colleen said, P
eople know if you're being real and genuine,
(31:43):
and if you're blaming them or not,
she put both her hands on her heart.
And again, this is what this is all about, right?
Leadership and love.
And when you put both hands on your heart,
it's where you're coming from, right?
You're humble.
And you've really shown us that you're a humble leader,
and you gave everybody else the credit.
And again, I like to not let this go by for our listeners.
(32:05):
Colleen said something really important.
And for me,
I like to use the analogy if you were sitting in a chair,
and I was to take one of your hands and pull it up.
At some point, I'm going to pull far enough,
the rest of your body's going to go.
And my point to that is, as Colleen said,
all the work that she did on being a better Colleen,
spreads into every area of her life.
(32:26):
Not only her business, but her health, her mental wellness,
her spirituality, her emotions,
her relationships with family,
friends. All those things are connected.
You can't make one part of your life better with,
what's that old saying, right?
The tide rises all the boats equally.
And so whatever part you're working on being better is
(32:46):
going to make everything rise.
And so thank you for being so transparent and sharing what
you've done on your journey, because it's huge.
It's huge.
And most people think, Oh,
it's not going to make a big difference.
It does make a big difference.
I'd like you to talk about, especially for leaders, what,
what would your advice be?
Because you didn't transform yourself.
(33:07):
And literally, that's what we do, right?
We're in the middle of transformation.
If we're working on ourselves,
what would your advice be to leaders and, and, and I,
I've come to understand we're all leaders.
I don't care who you are, what you're doing,
you're leading.
What would your advice be to Colleen, to,
to leaders so they can have that, that wisdom of patience?
(33:28):
Because what you and I have done in our lives didn't happen
overnight.
It didn't happen on a weekend.
It didn't happen in a retreat, one retreat or a seminar.
What would your advice be to them?
I don't know, Louie.
This is, you know, it's so funny.
Of all the things you can ask me about,
I think about everybody who knows me.
Would they ever use the word patient to describe me?
(33:51):
Probably not.
Or maybe a better question would be then,
what would you recommend for perseverance?
Because there's lots of times you've could have quit,
right?
You're a single mom of a couple of beautiful children.
You know, you could have quit.
You could have stayed in the corporate world.
You could have not taken that chance, right?
(34:13):
You've explained great courage and perseverance.
So what would your advice be for listeners around those two
topics, courage and perseverance?
You know,
I think I look at it like we've talked about this, too,
I think offline, which is in a crisis.
And I don't know if this is true or not.
We'd have to ask somebody who grew up on a farm that they
(34:35):
say that when the storm is coming,
that the cows panic and try to outrun the storm.
And the buffalo put their head down and walk straight
through it.
And I hope that's true,
because I've used that analogy a lot in my life.
And at some point, you know,
it doesn't even matter how slowly you're moving.
(34:56):
If you're moving in a straight line and moving in the right
direction, that's more important than the speed.
And I've told myself this many times with the house that
I'm building right now, right?
My job isn't to figure out when the deadline is.
Everyone keeps asking me, when are you going to finish?
I'm like, I don't control that.
All I can control is,
(35:17):
am I showing up and doing the next thing on the list?
And being smart about it, you know, they say measure twice,
cut once.
Sometimes I feel like it's measure 17 times, cut once.
But my goal is to not just be going in 20 different
directions and wasting time and money and lumber having to
redo it.
So in terms of perseverance, I think it's a question of,
(35:40):
you know, having that vision again,
because there are days when I wake up and I say, R
emind me again why I decided to build this house.
And then I have what I call the executive committee meeting
with myself in the mirror.
And I remind myself,
this was not something that occurred to me one day.
I planned this over several years,
(36:01):
and I have a very clear vision.
So when I get overloaded or when I get frustrated or when,
you know,
the things have to be rescheduled or the contractor flakes
on me or whatever, I go back to that original vision.
I don't allow that particular day or that particular moment
to make me think, Oh,
and be the cow and start running all over the place in the
(36:24):
storm, right?
So again, whether it's an event, a house you're building,
you know, name any big undertaking in your life,
the key to not losing the will and the interest, you know,
because sometimes we can just start something and then we
lose interest in it and just kind of put it off to the
(36:45):
side.
I would guess that when that happens,
it's because we weren't clear on the first place about what
we wanted and how badly we wanted it.
So if you get that straight at the beginning,
you can go back to that when those crises hit because
there's gonna be a moment when the backpacks over the wall
and you're like, Oh my gosh, now I gotta figure this out.
(37:09):
And I'm really not in the mood to figure this out.
You know, I want that miracle.
I want someone to like come rescue me in this situation.
Well, they're not coming, it's up to you.
So you can go back to that vision,
that vision board if you've got one,
which I highly recommend and now you can do it on
Pinterest, you can do it a million different ways.
(37:32):
But that's kind of the, you know,
the come to Jesus meeting if you wanna call it that,
whatever you call it,
that meeting in the mirror with yourself to remind yourself
why you were doing this in the first place,
instead of letting that momentary setback derail you.
That's...
that's very very powerful. And again, I
(37:53):
want our listeners to not miss this. One of the things she
said,
and she's very animated with her hands you're a great speaker,
but she's very animated with her hands,
and she kind of did a karate chop,
and she said I'm just going straightforward. And she said
something very, very, very wise,
and I don't want you to miss this either. It's the little
steps every day. Some days you might take a stride. Some
(38:16):
days you may break into a run. Some days it's going to be
tough to get up and move it all. And,
that's what she's talking about. This come...I use that
term, too, come to Jesus meeting,
and I also do a lot of stuff in front of a mirror as far
as mirror work, right? Seriously,
because it's very powerful to talk to yourself. But what
she made this karate chop and then she brought this thing
(38:38):
back around to where we were talked about earlier is the
power of that vision.
And, this is what I like don't,
please don't let this go by,
what she talked about with this straight line is every day
if you take action at the end of the day you can measure
did this get me closer to where I wanted to be,
or did it get me further away? Did it keep me in the same
(38:58):
spot, or did it take me sideways? And,
that's the power of that vision, too,
as well. Right Colleen? Because but I love what you said. Y
ou just...I love the buffalo analogy,
right? You kind of put your head down,
and you just go into it. And it's a crazy thing. A
nd I like you to talk about this, because my experience has been that when I turned and faced it and went into it, and most of the time that's fear of some sort, right? Feared whatever's gonna happen? I was gonna fail. Somebody was gonna make fun of me? I was gonna be mocked or ridiculed? Whatever it might have been. When we go into that fear, I've always found, holy cow why did I wait so long, right? What's the big dea? I spent more time and energy running from the fear that if I had been the buffalo, right? Yes, right. If I had just been the buffalo and turned into it, I could have been past this shit years ago.
(39:49):
That's exactly right. And,
you know there are very few days where you get the big win,
and you
get the, you know, the huge thing to cross off your list. I mean I have a list this long on this house for example. Very seldom do I actually cross the thing off. You know a lot of the things I do it in a spreadsheet and a lot of the things have their own list behind it. So it's like finish the framing. Well there's 20 things that have to be done before I can cross off finish the framing, right? So, you know don't get addicted and don't be seduced by the idea of like crossing off these huge things and having a big day when like huge things are accomplished because most days you know are the small gains.
(40:34):
I've seen Barack Obama talk about this. When, um, I
think it was Jerry Seinfeld asked him what what sport is
most like politics,
thinking he was going to talk about basketball or
something, you know. And, he used football,
and he said because, you know,
most days you're just grinding it out. You're just trying
to get an inch here or a foot there. You know,
(40:55):
and every now and then you see daylight, and you can run,
you know,
but most of the time you're just getting those...Like the
book that's really popular, right now, Atomic Habits,
right? It's those minuscule
(41:15):
little steps in the right direction. And, again, the direction is more important than the velocity.
You're a pilot, you can talk about that.
Right. Right.
It doesn't matter how fast you're going if you're going in
the wrong direction
You're right.
That's exactly right.
That's a great point.
Yeah,
if you're doing 200 miles an hour in the wrong direction,
I don't care how fast you're going.
It's all a waste of your time and energy.
Yeah, you better slow down.
Yeah, yeah,
slow down if you're going in the wrong direction.
Yeah, and it's amazing too,
(41:36):
because I think that there's real power in that.
And I'd like to share something with you because you're one
of those people.
You know, this whole podcast thing,
that's a story for another day.
But when I thought, okay,
I'm gonna birth this thing and bring it into the world,
I started thinking about my network.
(41:58):
And I thought, Oh my God,
I have some of the most incredible people that are amazing
leaders in their life.
And you're no exception, right?
You're this amazing leader in this thing called event
producing.
And you're a rock star.
I mean, they don't bring you in,
if they're doing the Dalai Lama, if you're not a rock star,
right?
But my network and my point is,
(42:19):
I wanna emphasize for our audience,
I wanna really drill down on the point that you just made.
It's the little things.
I can tell you,
I'm gonna tap into my network for probably the next two
years before I have to go outside my network for somebody
to interview.
But I didn't build that network overnight.
I've built that network over the last 50 years, right?
(42:40):
And that's exactly, that was exactly your point.
But now I've got this incredible network.
I can reach out to people for anything under,
and I mean literally anything under the sun, right?
For personal development, spirituality,
health and wellness, sex, everything, literally anything,
I can reach out to somebody that's an expert in that field.
(43:00):
Because there's people that are experts on sex,
there's people that are experts on spirituality,
health and wellness, business, marketing,
the list goes on and on.
But that happened literally over my lifetime.
You know that, um,
one of the things that occurs to me because
I've listened to several of the episodes,
and you'll have to help me out with the woman's name,
(43:22):
but she was the expert in marketing auto body shops. Right?
Yeah. Micki Woods. Yes.
Yeah, right.
I listened to it because I was going to be on your podcast,
not because I had a burning desire to learn anything about
auto body shops, because how does that apply to my life?
Right?
But what I learned in listening to it was, Oh,
she had some great ideas for marketing auto body shops that
(43:46):
could be applied to any small business.
And beyond that was the enthusiasm and the expertise that
she brought to it.
That's contagious.
So,
what I would encourage people to do is be curious and be
enthusiastic, because, you know,
people love to talk about what they're passionate about.
(44:07):
And if you're curious about what they're passionate about,
they will share information with you.
You know, people aren't stingy with what they know.
In fact, it's the opposite.
It's like if you show genuine interest in what they know.
My mom sat next to the head of Merrill Lynch.
He was like some senior VP, you know, 20 years ago.
(44:31):
And she has this great question that she asks people,
what's the one thing I should know?
And she asked him,
what's the one thing I should know about investing?
And he said Vanguard 500.
Well,
that was a very profitable question that she asked 20 years
ago, you know/ And, he wasn't stingy.
(44:52):
He didn't say, Well, you hire me, and I'll tell you.
Right.
You know,
so just know that if someone is an expert in their field,
like whether it's auto body shop marketing or anything,
any field of endeavor you could come up with,
they have knowledge and interests and passions and
expertise that would be helpful to you and interesting to
(45:14):
you, if you would just be open to asking them about it.
So don't shut down.
I don't know anything about that, you know.
Say that again, if you would be open to...
If you would be open to learning about them and learning
about what they're passionate about and asking them
questions and be curious.
So I think one of the worst things we can do is think,
(45:34):
well,
I already know everything there is to know about that because
I guarantee you there's plenty about event production that
I don't know.
Right.
It's changing every day, right?
And I have to be humble and know that somebody out there,
and it could be somebody with a lot less experience than
what I have,
but they have a different life experience that they may
have learned something that isn't technically event
production that would help me and that helps them be a good
(45:58):
producer.
So be humble and be curious about what other people know.
And you can learn a lot just in conversations sitting next
to someone in an airplane in the case of my mom with the
gentleman from Merrill Lynch.
And again, she's dropped a big golden nugget.
I can tell you that asking people is powerful because
(46:22):
they're gonna share it with you because to your point,
Colleen, it's what they're passionate about,
and they love to talk about it.
And I mentor high school kids,
and I learn from them all the time.
And I like to reframe that question.
This is how I use that question.
So Colleen, and I'm gonna use it on you.
Okay, so this is how I form that question.
(46:44):
Colleen, you've got 24 hours to live.
You're gonna die at this time tomorrow.
What's the one thing,
what's the most important thing that you'd like to share
with all the humanity for eternity about being an event
producer?
Wow.
Okay.
Let's see one thing.
I'm only allowed to say one thing?
Well, cause just like your mom, right?
(47:05):
I want, I want, cause, and for our audience,
because if you get the, if you, if I get this,
the best thing out of Colleen,
and now that doesn't mean I couldn't get more out of her,
right?
People have come to me to be mentored,
and I'll mentor them for free as long as they continue to
do the work and take action with it, right?
Yeah.
This doesn't mean I couldn't go back to the well and ask
for Colleen more stuff,
(47:26):
but to your point on that chance meeting,
your mom asked the one question. She got off that plane and
never saw that guy ever again.
She didn't get a phone number, his email address.
They weren't going to be pen pals, right?
That just, that was a one-time hit.
And that's why...
that's the power of this cause your brain...
it might take you a while because you've got all this
information about being an event producer,
(47:47):
but at some point you're going to go,
ding and that's going to be the one thing.
So, so I'll put you back under the hot seat.
So,
thanks for buying me a little time while my brain was calculating.
Truly, though, it gave me a moment to think about it.
But if there's one thing,
I would say that if you think of event producing,
(48:11):
you think of the bell curve, right?
You've got the ramp up,
and then you've got the big part of the event here where
it's actually happening.
And then you have words, it's done, right?
So you think of the bell curve.
Most people focus all of their energy here in the middle.
And so they skip over the part,
(48:31):
like we talked about at the beginning,
where they get clear, crystal clear,
on exactly what they're doing and why.
So every hour that you spend on that early stage saves you
time and money in this middle part.
And it makes sure that you're, to use the flying analogy,
that you're headed in the right direction. You're going the
right speed. You're asking all the questions up front that
(48:55):
will save you the missed opportunities in the middle.
So there's that part of the bell curve.
And then over here,
any person who's involved in any kind of sport can tell you
how important the follow through is, right?
When you hit a ball or kick a ball,
you don't just hit the baseball and then put the bat down.
You've got to follow through.
And people drop the ball, not to mix my metaphors there,
(49:18):
but they drop the ball on the follow through.
So they have this big collapse as soon as the event is
over.
And they think, oh, that was fun, or that was this,
or that was that, and now we're done.
You are not done.
You have 20% of the job left due in doing the post-mortem,
asking all the questions.
What could have gone better?
What opportunities did we miss?
(49:40):
And you do this as soon as possible after the event,
because you will forget.
Down to the minutia of we should have had a garbage can
next to this table.
I mean, I'm talking that tiny,
because if you do this event next year,
or if you do any similar event ever,
why have to learn that twice?
And another big part of the follow through is what I
(50:03):
recommend, which is a gratitude committee,
or a gratitude chair,
or some person or group of people who are responsible for
thanking the donors, thanking the sponsors,
thanking the volunteers, and not just at the end,
but all the way through this process.
Somebody shows up to volunteer for two hours,
(50:24):
they get a thank you note,
a handwritten note with the event logo on it.
I feel like that's a huge missed opportunity.
So it might not be the sexy part of it at the beginning and
the end,
but it's the part that's so important and usually goes
underutilized.
So that's my nugget for you on what people are missing,
(50:47):
I think, in planning, executing,
and benefiting from the events that they're producing.
So thank you for sharing that.
There's a couple of things I want to touch on.
And you mentioned earlier, personal responsibility.
I want our listeners to know, let's be a great leader, y
ou have to take responsibility for yourself and what you're
doing.
(51:07):
The next thing is, and this, I love your heart.
I love your heart because I'm about gratitude too, right?
If you thank people, it goes a long way.
It goes a long way because to your point earlier,
not only are they part of that bigger cause,
but everybody wants to be seen.
Everybody wants to know that they matter and they're making
a difference.
(51:28):
And there's no,
I don't think there's a better way to do that than
gratitude.
The other thing,
I'd like you to share the story with our listeners.
And if you need some prompting,
I'll be happy to help you because I don't want to send you
out on this skinny little branch,
but I'd like you to share the story about your tactic in
working with the volunteers where you would block their
time.
(51:50):
Right.
Well, in a nutshell, it's under promise and over deliver.
So my volunteers tend to think,
I'm the best organizer ever and here's why,
because I schedule them for two hours and when they show
up, there's food, there's some kind of snack,
there's beverages, there's music,
there's an energetic feeling when they show up,
(52:13):
and they get a job description of exactly what they're
doing and all the tools they need to do it.
But most importantly,
I send them home after an hour and a half.
Say that again.
So I want you to catch this.
Say that again.
You told them how long they're going to be there and you
send them home when?
I send them home a half an hour early.
I tell them, you know what, if you guys want to stay,
we've always got more work and more shifts,
(52:35):
but you've accomplished what you signed up to do.
So it's in a way a little bit of a sandbag,
but the truth is you over promise,
you under promise and you over deliver.
So if you show up for a two hour shift to volunteer,
because let's face it, let's say it's a Saturday,
and you're gonna go volunteer for two hours.
You already have in your mind the things that you're gonna
(52:57):
do after that, t
he other things that you have to do on that day. Whether
you're taking a long lunch hour to volunteer at an
organization or it's a weekend, whatever it is,
you have other things to do.
And the worst thing you can do for a volunteer is to come
up to them 15 minutes before they're supposed to leave and
say, Do you think you could stay another hour?
(53:19):
They will never volunteer for you again,
and they shouldn't because you don't have it
together. Right?
So you want them to feel like, oh my God,
this was so much fun.
We had music, we had snacks.
I mean,
grownups are no less impressed by a good snack selection
than toddlers.
Let me just tell you.
And then I got my job done.
(53:41):
I got a good feeling.
I got credit for showing up today.
I got to meet some new people,
and we worked on something together.
And then I got a half an hour to go do whatever I wanna do.
I mean,
if there's a secret to success of managing volunteers,
that's it.
So I'd like, man,
I'm going to say this because you and I could go on for the
(54:03):
rest of the day.
She just said something else that was brilliant.
Some of the best connections,
some of the best business connections I have ever made that
exponentially helped me grow my business,
I met those people volunteering.
I used to slop beer at the Wauconda Rodeo standing next to
a bunch of other business owners, right?
(54:23):
And so, and what she just said was when you volunteer,
you meet a bunch of people that you never would have
crossed paths with.
So if you're not out there volunteering at someone....
and pick something that's near and dear to your heart,
right?
A charity or an organization is doing something good and
positive in the world.
But that's very powerful because again,
you can meet some really amazing and influential people at
(54:46):
a volunteer event or volunteering at an event.
Colleen, I normally like to end with two questions,
but you and the overachiever that you are,
you've already answered both of them.
I usually ask if you could recommend one book to our
listeners, what would it be?
But yours is Byron Katie, Loving What Is.
And you told us why you love your work as an event
(55:08):
producer.
So I'd like to just give you the opportunity.
Is there anything else that you'd like to share with our
listeners before we go?
Well, I guess we all, if you're a carpenter,
maybe you see life as a bookcase.
I don't know.
I mean,
we all approach our life from a certain perspective.
(55:29):
And I guess after being an event producer all these years,
I kind of approach my life like that,
like whether I'm building a house or I'm cooking dinner for
my family.
I mean, really, it's all some version of an event.
And I would just encourage people to kind of take whatever
it is that they love about what they do for a living and
(55:51):
see how that applies to other areas.
So we're not really setting our life up in boxes, right?
Everything, it's kind of like the ball of wire.
Everything touches everything else.
So there are skills that we've developed in our personal
life that are applicable in our family life,
whether we're volunteering, our creative life.
(56:12):
You know, the idea that we have this, you know,
we could be a creative person in some area of our life,
but we're not creative at work, you know,
that we're an accountant.
And so, there's no need for creativity.
I mean,
whatever skills we have that we've developed in one area of
our life, we can apply,
and we can holistically use all of those skills in all the
(56:36):
different areas.
So I would just encourage people to kind of get creative
and think outside that job box or that life box a little
bit, and, you know,
let those skills kind of overflow into their other areas.
Cool, wise advice.
So Colleen, before we go,
how can our listeners get in touch with you if they'd like
(56:58):
to talk to you about, you know,
you producing one of their events or some of the other
wisdom that you have.
What's the best way for our listeners to get a hold of you?
Well, I think you're going to link my website,
orchestrate.biz.
And LinkedIn profile, which is also LinkedIn orchestrate.
So I would love for them to reach out and, you know,
I might talk them out of an event,
(57:19):
if they decide they really want to have one and they're
clear on why, then I would love to help them produce that.
Perfect.
Again, Colleen, I really appreciate your time, your wisdom.
Thank you for being who you are in the world of being a
bright light, and I appreciate everything you do.
Thanks again for taking your time out of your,
I know you're busy building a little house, but I'm really,
(57:41):
truly grateful.
So thank you very much.
My pleasure, Louie.
Congratulations on the podcast.
Thank you very much.
I always like you to go away with something.
Today, there's gonna be a number of them,
but one of the things I'd like you to go away with,
how are you, if at all, investing in your team,
in your employees, in your vendors, in your family?
(58:01):
How are you investing in them on a regular basis?
And then I'm gonna ramp that bad boy up one more time and
I'm gonna ask you, what are you doing to invest in you?
How much have you budgeted this year to spend on you to
make you wiser, smarter, healthier, whatever that may be?
Thanks again for joining us and listening to this episode
of Leadership and Love.
(58:23):
I would like to challenge you to ask yourself,
what's one thing that you heard today that you can
implement immediately to improve your leadership and
accelerate your growth?
If you've gotten value out of this episode or learned
something that you can implement today,
we'd ask that you please share it with those that you care
about.
(58:43):
Our goal is to create more leaders who are leading with
love.
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