April 9, 2025 • 64 mins
In this insightful episode, Steve Garraty, author of Grapefruit, shares how his battle with cancer reshaped his views on life, leadership, and gratitude. The conversation explores the power of empathy in navigating grief, the role of appreciation in leadership, and the contrast between managers and true leaders. Listeners gain valuable insights on building a winning culture, transforming underperforming teams, and integrating purpose into leadership. The episode concludes with key lessons on presence, personal growth, and fostering strong, community-driven leadership.
Learn more about Steve at:
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevegarratyauthor
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Website: https://stevegarraty.com/meet-author-steve-garraty/
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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@sgarraty1
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Book: https://amzn.to/3Y6vs3J
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The poem read from Steve’s book: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/969007-if-you-want-to-know-the-value-of-one-year
About Angela:
Angela Gill Nelms is a trailblazer in the creation of exceptional companies and teams. She serves as the Director of Biolocity and is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of both The AGN Group and the Recovery Advocate Network. Previously, she held the position of Chief Operations Officer at Aetos Imaging, RenovoRx, and Florence Healthcare. With a Bachelor's degree in Biomedical Engineering from Georgia Tech, Angela has a proven track record of successfully navigating the FDA, leading diverse teams, prioritizing the needs of customers and patients, and building exceptional companies.
Angela shares her lessons learned around the country in keynote speeches, coaching, and team-building workshops. Learn more about Angela at www.AngelaGillNelms.com.
About The AGN Group:
At The AGN Group, we believe every individual, team, and company can unlock their inner badass, one brave step at a time. We offer keynote and panel speaking, leadership and team-building workshops, fractional and management consulting, brand and storytelling services. Email us at hello@TheAGNGroup.com to connect. Learn more at www.TheAGNGroup.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
cancer impacted the way that I not only manage and lead people, but also the way I'veapproached being a husband of 30 years now, how I parent my children, who are both now
grown.
So yeah, there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about my experience withcancer.
What if a year of hardship became the foundation for a life of purpose and leadership?
(00:24):
Our guest today, Steve Gearty, faced that reality at just 18 when he was diagnosed withcancer.
Instead of letting it define him, he used the experience to grow stronger, lead withintention, and inspire others.
Now a regional vice president of sales and longtime pediatric cancer advocate, Steve hasbuilt winning teams, mentored future leaders, and championed resilience in both business
(00:51):
and life.
He's also the
author of Great Fruit, How Cancer Led to Living a More Fruitful Life, which I of courseloved reading and enjoyed talking about in this episode.
In this book, he shares how adversity shaped his perspective on leadership, gratitude, andsuccess.
(01:13):
Today we'll explore his journey, the power of mindset, and how to turn life's toughestmoments into opportunities for growth.
Now, if you're new to the podcast,
Welcome to our community.
We are thrilled that you've taken time out of your day to learn and grow with us So beforeyou forget, please take a moment to click that subscribe button to ensure you stay
(01:36):
connected with the badass leaders community And you help us bring more amazing leaders tothe podcast And if you leave a comment, you'll get a personal response from me So let's do
this Join me Angela Gill Nelms on today's episode of the badass leaders
podcast where I'm joined each week by industry experts for intimate and eye-openingdiscussions about the challenges and joys facing the leaders of today.
(02:04):
Listen in and get ready to scale your company, grow your brand, and unlock your fullbadass potential.
Welcome to AGM Studios.
Yes, this awesome.
This is amazing.
So I have Steve Garrity, correct?
Yes.
(02:25):
And this is a funny thing.
I love people's names.
And then when I forget to ask how to pronounce their names, I always feel quite silly.
See, we're all human.
So I have Steve here, though.
He is the author of the book Grapefruit, which is spelled great fruit.
We're going to talk about the meaning of that.
And it is his story about how cancer led to living a more fruitful life.
(02:48):
It's broken up into two parts.
The first half is kind of like your story with cancer.
The second half is all your leadership style about it.
Yeah, I love it.
But why don't we kick off by you introducing yourself and telling us why you're here.
Sure, Steve Garrity.
I grew up in the Atlanta area.
I live in Florida now, but Angela and I share a mutual friend who I think introduced us.
(03:12):
the book I wrote, which I know we'll dive into, impacted the way, cancer impacted the waythat I not only manage and lead people, but also the way I've approached being a husband
of 30 years now, how I parent my children, who are both now grown.
yeah, there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about.
my experience with cancer and it really drives kind of how I love my life.
(03:37):
Perfect.
So we will give a shout out to Nick and thank him for introducing both of us.
Now he didn't tell me that you're a UGA grad and I'm a Georgia Tech grad, but it's okay.
It's okay.
So one of the things Steve, when I was reading the book,
I first off because I've had my own tragedies and I've known so many people that have hadbig challenges in their life and have said that was the greatest thing that ever happened
(04:03):
to me.
It completely changed my life in a better way.
And I've watched so many other people think have they lost their mind?
Are they crazy?
What drugs are they doing?
That kind of stuff, right?
However, when I was reading your book, I was like this.
18 year old is gonna die in a car.
Like I was all into all of your escapades in high school and I immediately saw how thiscould have a huge positive impact on you.
(04:28):
So why don't we dig in first and talk about the, well, the reason for the name of the bookand the premise behind and then we'll dig into the leadership on the second half.
Yeah, I'll start with the premise.
Why did I write the book?
Is that a good place to start?
So I graduated from high school here in Atlanta and about a month after graduating highschool, I had a mass in the side of my neck.
(04:56):
I went in, got a biopsy and found out on July 4th.
So I had surgery on July 3rd.
On July 4th, they called my house to inform me that I had Hodgkin's, which is a form ofcancer, pretty common, not common, but it's a common cancer for 18 to 25 year olds.
And so then I had to go through a process of getting x-rays, CAT scans to figure out howmuch had it spread.
(05:21):
And I was stage three, which meant it was in my neck, chest and stomach.
But the reason for the title or how the title came about, was the surgeon who took it outsaid it was the size of a grapefruit.
And so I've been writing this book for 37 years, believe it or not, on and more often onbut it took me 37 years to write it.
(05:42):
And I had more trouble with the title than anything else.
Really could not come up with a title.
And I'm not that creative.
And so a friend of mine who lives here in Atlanta, he and I were having drinks hadn't seenhim in
25 years and I think this ties into some of the themes in my book.
I'm very passionate about building and maintaining relationships.
(06:03):
And so this guy and I worked together in our first job right out of college and have kindof stayed in touch, but I reached out to him.
We had drinks.
It was like we had never missed a beat.
And I was telling him about my book and that I was struggling with a title.
He's very creative, marketing major.
And he said, let me read it and I'll come up with a title.
So he gave me a list of like 15 and grapefruit.
(06:25):
I loved it, you know, cause cancer ended up being a blessing.
And so it was a combination of the mass in my neck.
It's how we found it, you know, with it being a blessing.
So I loved the title and rolled with it.
thought when I was reading it and you know, obviously you're like teasing into the factyou're going to have cancer, right?
Cause you're like, something's in my throat and when I drink alcohol, I feel weird in mythroat.
(06:49):
And your friend's mom who was a nurse was the one that really noticed the growth and thenhow it just pivoted your life after that.
So I found, I found just picturing that and trying to think of my own daughter goingthrough those stages and how that could be just
something that'd be very easy, especially for a very active young boy at that age to justignore.
(07:15):
don't have time to deal with this.
I'm going to live forever and keep going.
So one of the things I want to talk about, and I'm assuming the doctor's names are pseudonames, whatever you want to pin name, whatever you call it.
I saw the name and I was like, there's no way that's what's
Dr.
Blackheart.
Yeah, so I did come up with that.
(07:36):
That was creative.
But yeah, the first doctor was was not a good experience as you read about the seconddoctor.
He unfortunately passed away, but he was a doctor here at Emory.
And I did use his real name because he was amazing.
Everything about him was in the book was extremely positive.
Yep.
So a couple of the things that I wanted to kick off and talk about and one you justmentioned the value of relationships and people.
(08:03):
And so I liked when you when you talked in the book and this is actually so I didn't meanto jump this far back, but we're going to it's in the silver lining.
So we'll kick off a silver lining.
So it's on page 141 and you talk about
how you should take stock of what you invite into your life, what books you read, whatmusic you listen to, what television shows or movies you watch, and do they contribute to
(08:27):
a positive and uplifting experience?
So my question, A, I love that because I am a firm believer of being a lifelong learnerand surrounding yourself in excellence.
Can you talk though about what you surrounded yourself with before cancer, how cancer andhealing from it helped
(08:47):
shape your thoughts along this journey.
Yeah, so before cancer is kind of.
the beginning of the book, right?
And I was not a good kid at all.
I would say my last two years in high school were heavy drinking, heavy partying, and thatcontinued to spiral downward.
so, and I do believe it played a large part in me getting sick.
(09:12):
It caused a lot of friction with my family, caused friction with my parents, my siblings.
I wrecked my parents' car five times during my
last two years in high school.
And towards the end, I started doing drugs.
I was drinking liquor to the point of blacking out every single night, literally went outevery night.
(09:32):
And right after high school was going out every night, but even my senior year, I wasdrinking before school.
was just I was headed down a bad path.
And so cancer ended up being a blessing in that it was kind of my wake up call.
So I think then there were a lot of to answer your question, there was negative influencesin my life.
Once I got cancer, majority of my friends kind of disappeared.
(09:57):
In fairness, most 18 year olds don't want to hang around a cancer patient and kind of gothrough that.
But a lot of them headed off to college and I didn't see them again.
But I have a couple heroes in the book that stood by me.
So a lot of bad influences, a lot of bad intakes in high school.
Cancer, I was trying to survive.
And then post cancer, eventually I started to...
(10:20):
get into a perspective, it was due to a movie that I watched, but I started to form aperspective of the glass half full and how cancer became a blessing.
And I think over time, your point, I do think it's important, social media is a greatexample, social media, most everything you see on there is not good, right?
(10:40):
It's negative, it's division amongst, whether it's politics or whatever it is.
It's just not positive.
And so I'm not perfect.
My wife gets on me about watching the Walk...
No, well, when it comes to this, right, like I do try to really digest positive things.
(11:01):
I was gonna say my wife gets on me for watching The Walking Dead.
She's like, why do you watch this?
So there are exceptions, but yeah, I do think it's important.
I try to digest a lot of positive things and keep a positive mindset.
Well, I think that's really important for your story because as you mentioned, you felt asif the drinking and your way of life had an impact on your cancer.
(11:24):
And then based on your experience and your healing journey, the impact of gratitude andsome of these positive areas and what a healthy impact that had on you, which appears as
if you've now carried into your life.
And we're going to talk about how it's impacted your leadership style.
But you can go ahead and talk about the movie that you watched.
(11:45):
First off, I had no idea how unsuccessful that movie was when it was first released, whichI love that story.
Yeah, it was.
it was so I got through cancer.
And, it was about nine or 10 months of chemotherapy and it would have been my first year,in college.
And, I ended up changing the college I was going to go to.
(12:07):
went off to the university of Georgia.
I just wanted to be a normal kid.
wanted to hang out with everybody else and experience college.
And, so I didn't talk about cancer.
didn't share it.
I didn't want, you I had seen reactions of people from high school.
And so I didn't want to be a downer and be talking about cancer.
So I really didn't share it.
In fact, I have friends.
of 35, 37 years that this book's come out and they're like, had no idea that we hung outfor four years in college and I had no idea.
(12:37):
But it was that Christmas break, my first year at Georgia, and I was headed home for thebreak and a fraternity, a pledge brother of mine and a fraternity basically brought up
It's a Wonderful Life.
And I said, I've never watched that, heard of it.
And he was shocked and he was like, it's an awesome movie.
You got to watch it, know, at Christmas time.
(12:58):
So I went home, uh, back during the days of blockbuster.
went and rented it and I just loved it.
And the reason I loved it, uh, it's for those who, for the, listeners who don't know thatsynopsis is basically, it's about a, it's back in the thirties.
I believe there's a gentleman and he's got a, uh, basically grows up in this small town.
He hates it.
(13:19):
It's boring.
He wants to get out.
And, um,
He basically gets to a point, there's some turmoil and there's an antagonist, but he getsto the point where he's facing jail time for something he didn't do and he's despondent
and he makes a wish that he wishes he had never been born.
And so this angel grants him the wish.
And then the second half of the movie is what life and all his friends and family, whattheir life would be like had he not been born.
(13:46):
And that movie really resonated for me because I was like, my angel was cancer, likecancer.
was my wake up call and just changed the way that I view everything post cancer.
And so I just saw a lot of correlations in that.
Ever since then, it's been my favorite movie.
I watch it multiple times every Christmas.
I usually tear up every time I watch it.
(14:08):
But yeah, there were just a lot of, I think it changed his perspective.
You don't see what life's like.
He's given his life back and I always imagine like what would a part, know, a,
a sequel to that look like.
And he would live his life totally different.
I you can see it at the end of the movie.
So yeah, that movie started to form a glass half full perspective in the way that I lookedat cancer.
(14:32):
Like for four years in college, for the most part, I didn't want to think about cancer.
didn't want to spend time thinking about it.
But that movie started me down a path of trying to look at the blessings or the benefitsthat came out of my experience.
I love that.
And when I was reading that in your book, I was just, you can't help but pause for amoment and think, what would this world be like if I'd never been born?
(14:56):
Right?
And I'm a big believer of like the butterfly effect and just trying to have a positiveimpact in everywhere that you can go because you never know where that's going to have a
huge impact on somebody else's life and what that cascade effect will be.
And I think first off, know, reading your book,
cancer absolutely saved your life.
(15:16):
There's no way you're going to live after all of
I was either gonna die or go to prison.
Right.
was like on pins and needles.
was like, someone's going to get car accident, someone's going to die.
This is really tough.
I like one thing that really spoke to me.
And so this is in the earlier part of the book on page 41, where you talk about how peoplehandle tragedy and grief differently.
(15:43):
And I want to talk about that because I think it also ties into, and maybe we can tie itas well into leadership, how people handle obstacles differently.
So in the book you say, that moment of diagnosis and subsequent gatherings with my familywas my first exposure to the diverse ways people handle tragedy, life's challenges and
conflict.
And here you were talking about the way that your sister dealt with it versus how someother people dealt with it.
(16:09):
And I know my own personal life, my first child was stillborn and the way that I handledthat loss versus the way that my ex-husband handled the loss really impacted the rest of
our lives.
And I've always been
a glass half full kind of person, I'm very much an optimist.
And so I think that really has had a big impact.
And so when I think about this, can you talk a little bit about how you experienced thatwith your cancer?
(16:32):
And then also I know that you are known as one of these people that comes in and helpsorganizations really be able to handle challenging times.
So how does that also fit into it from a leadership perspective?
Yeah, so Everybody in my family.
have three.
Sorry.
I have two siblings I'm the oldest of three and and then my parents parents have beenmarried for 50 something years But at that time we all gathered around the dining room
(16:58):
table after I was diagnosed and each person had a different
Reaction, my reaction, just to give you an idea of what a bad spot I was in, I wasdevastated because the surgeon had said no drinking for a year and maybe never again.
And my mind was swirling the entire time.
That's what I was fixated on.
I also noticed the reactions of everybody in my family.
(17:18):
And you mentioned my sister, Angela, she was stone cold, no reaction.
I knew she loved me.
knew that, you we always had a, I had a better relationship with her than I did with mybrother.
We always fought.
We were closer in age.
My brother is bawling like a baby, like my mom.
And, uh, she was just, she didn't show any reaction and she later became a doctor.
(17:42):
She's a pediatrician.
She's had to tell parents that they lost a child.
And, uh, I always look back on that.
I think that was probably an indicator that she was going down the right career path.
Um,
But that really hit me, I think.
I was never empathetic prior to cancer.
I was selfish.
I just cared about myself.
I cared about partying.
I cared about my social life.
(18:04):
Didn't really think about the impact that all my behaviors were having on my parents orother loved ones.
And so that really hit me, other than in addition to not being able to drink, it hit methat they all had such diverse reactions.
I left and went and drove around for a few hours around North Georgia, you know, basicallyin my own thoughts, trying to process having cancer.
(18:29):
But I thought a lot about how my family reacted.
you know, in business over time, I've managed a lot of people and have been responsiblefor large, you know, sales organizations and we all experience loss.
It's not a loss and hardship and tragedy and sickness.
There's things that are going to happen in our life.
It's not a question of if, but.
(18:50):
But when, I would say over my, I didn't realize this early on in my leadership career, butover time I learned that people handle it differently, just really differently.
some are healthy, some are unhealthy.
I had somebody recently tell me that they've been dealing with some things and they'vedealt with it by diving into work more and that's not healthy.
(19:12):
And I think they realized that.
Um, so yeah, it's everybody handles that in different ways.
And I think as a leader, I didn't do this my first year or two, but I eventually learnedto be more empathetic and understand that.
Um, I think one of the big mistake kind of leading in the leadership, I think one of thebig mistakes new managers make is trying to manage everybody, how you would want somebody
(19:34):
managing you.
Yes.
And I did that.
I mean, um, I read a book called, I think it was 22 mistakes.
First year managers, Meg, I made every single mistake.
I've read so many weird stuff.
I may not be 22.
I'm pretty sure it was 22, but I made literally every single mistake.
um, but that was one of them is that, you know, managing people and treating people theway that you would want to be treated and everybody's different.
(20:00):
And so I think over time, I learned to listen more, be empathetic, more, try to be moreunderstanding when somebody, and you have to balance that with the responsibilities of,
know, I've always worked for a company.
I've never owned my own business.
So I have responsibilities and I've got.
obligations to the employer I'm working for, but I try to balance that with understandingthat everybody's going to handle a loss or grief or whatever the challenge is that they're
(20:27):
facing in a different way.
Well, the thing that I love about remembering that is that I'm really big about trying toget to know humans as humans.
you know, when you go back to the first conversation with your sister, one could think,she doesn't love me that much.
She's not even crying.
She doesn't even look like she care.
Like if you want to judge just on like the face of something.
(20:50):
And I think that when we instead, A, realize humans are humans and that
someone's reaction to something probably has a lot more depth, not probably, absolutelyhas a lot more depth than what's on the surface.
And so sometimes I think in a business perspective for a leader, it's that if you observesomething that perhaps feels a little uncharacteristic with you, it's an opportunity to
(21:17):
ask questions, to tell me more, to try and dig in and understand more about the heart ofwhat the situation is.
Yeah, definitely without question.
mean, that's being observant, that's using intuition, that's empathy, and it's also askingquestions.
Yeah, tell me more.
All the things you just mentioned, all those are important.
(21:39):
And I got into my first leadership role when I was 27, 26, 27.
was still pretty immature.
those things, you know, I had to focus on developing those and getting good at those.
Especially like in chaotic stressful situations, it's hard to slow down and do that, butthose are so important.
(22:00):
So I'm dying to read this quote and I've been sitting here thinking how far into theinterview I'll wait to read this quote.
This is my favorite quote in the book and it's no offense.
It's the poem you put in here.
So you didn't write it.
But but I was actually just sharing this at church recently because it's the it's towardsthe end of the book and page one forty five where you talk about the value of time and
(22:22):
where you know it starts with imagine there's a bank which credits your account eachmorning with eighty six thousand four hundred dollars.
and carries over no balance from day to day and every evening cancels whatever part of theamount you had failed during the day.
So it goes through like, what would you do with it?
But the thing I loved about it is the focus on the value of time and where it says torealize the value of one year, ask a student who failed a grade, which I think for you,
(22:51):
the value of a year, you lost a year while you were dealing with cancer.
You were a year behind in your college education.
Plus you had to your hair back.
Yeah.
Correct.
To realize the value of one month, ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.
To realize the value of one week, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.
(23:13):
To realize the value of one hour, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.
To realize the value of one minute, ask a person who missed the train.
To realize the value of one second, ask a person who just avoided an accident.
To realize the value of one millisecond, ask the person who won the silver medal in theOlympics.
So treasure every moment you have and treasure it more because you shared it with someonespecial, special enough to spend your time.
(23:35):
So first I want to thank you for spending some of your time here.
Cause everything you say yes to means you're saying no to something else.
So thank you for.
But can you tell me, mean, I can only imagine that if you're on the brink of, I've gotstage three cancer, you're hearing the quotes that were for stage three, was 50%.
It was 85.
(23:56):
Okay, 85 % survival rate.
You're also risking potentially not having children.
And then you really, I think you were more than gifted so much more time after because youwould have never had that much time had you continued on your path.
So can you talk a little bit about how you value your time now?
(24:17):
Yeah.
So I would say a more important statistic than the ones you read is my oncologist told meprior to 1970, this was 1986.
So it's only 16, basically 16 years ago, this would have been a death sentence.
And, like I'll never forget.
I remember him saying that.
I remember how I was sitting.
Like that was, that hit me hard.
(24:39):
and so when that quote you just read are, I worked for a large company and I was a firstline leader at the time and our head of sales.
He actually sent that out on a corporate voicemail and a lot of people liked it.
I loved it because it, resonated with me.
I thought back about that quote that every day that I'm living right now, post cancer is agift because 16 years prior and I wouldn't still be here.
(25:08):
but as far as like, you know, I think as it relates to today and how I lead, I
Our time is so important and it's part of that's prioritizing your time, but it's alsodoing what you're passionate about, right?
Like life is short.
so for me, I've always liked helping people.
like leading people.
(25:29):
and probably what I like specifically about it is helping somebody get from where they arewhen I hire them or where they are when I'm responsible for managing them to where they
leave me, right?
To where hopefully they get promoted or they.
move on to something better.
so I think that poem you just wrote is life is short, right?
(25:53):
That's probably a big picture.
But then it's also using your time wisely.
Absolutely.
Using it how in leadership, how you can impact people and change people's lives.
So for me, that's the value of time and where I try to invest my
I love that.
love that.
And you're really big in gratitude, which I am as well.
I write my gratitude journal every day.
And one of the things that I loved as an example, I'm going to so steal this, is that yourthank you slide that you put in your presentations.
(26:20):
Can you tell us about that, about how you, one, integrate gratitude into your work andalso how you feed it through to your customers as well?
Yeah, so I've always and the slide thing is something the company I work for does a lot,but I've always tried to express gratitude.
And again, I think a lot of this ties back to cancer.
I was very grateful for the people that stood by me and helped me get through it.
(26:43):
But I always try to make sure people know I appreciate their efforts.
Right.
It's you know, at the end of the day in sales, you're usually judged by the number thatyou close the business, the revenue.
We call it recurring revenue, subscription revenue and software.
But you're always judged by that.
But I try to make sure that I recognize the small things.
(27:06):
There's so many inputs that go into what a salesperson has to do from activity togenerating opportunities.
We call that pipeline, progressing that pipeline.
There's so many things they've got to do along the way to eventually close that sale.
And I think it's just important to recognize those steps, to recognize progress, recognizesmall things they do.
(27:29):
If I'm coaching somebody in a certain area where maybe they're struggling and they startto show even little baby steps, I just think it's important to express that and let them
know that I appreciate that.
I appreciate the hard work they're putting in.
So I mean, there's a million examples I could give you, but I just think it's important.
People want to feel appreciated.
(27:50):
absolutely.
You know, I think maybe 50, 60 years ago, there was a mentality and management leadershipthat, you know, people were motivated by a paycheck.
And I don't think that's true.
I think most people leave jobs because of a bad manager.
so making people feel appreciated and respected and that their efforts are recognized andseen are so important.
(28:14):
So research does show that people do leave managers and they don't leave jobs and thesalary doesn't matter as much as we thought that it mattered.
So I think actually when I was reading this in your book, I thought I'm just going tostart doing a collage of all my guests and their definitions of managers versus leaders.
So you see where I'm going to go here.
So 165 you talk about managers versus leaders and you talk about an early in your careerwhere you failed to tap into your empathy for others.
(28:41):
And during those formative years, you're more of a manager rather than a true leader.
And your definition that you placed here, and then I want to hear what your definition isas well, is managers plan, measure, monitor, coordinate, solve, direct, hire, fire, and
perform many other actions.
In nutshell, managers manage things.
(29:02):
Conversely, authentic leaders inspire and guide people toward growth and success, andempathy is required to do so effectively.
Tell us more about your thoughts on this.
Yeah, I think.
I had a great mentor.
I worked for her for 16 years and there were a lot of things I learned from her, but I'dsay one of the big ones was that your resume, your resume is determined by the number of
(29:27):
people you help achieve success and achieve what they want to accomplish.
This morning, so I brought my team together for a quarterly business review.
We do this every three months.
Brought my team together today and we have like a larger extended team that we work with,but I
pulled just my direct reports in for an hour before the big meeting.
(29:50):
And, we had a conversation on what do you want to accomplish this year and why, why isthat important to you?
And, everybody thanked me at the end of the day that they thought that was the best partof the day.
Cause the rest of the day was talking about our pipeline, our opportunities, what we'regoing to do this quarter next quarter.
And that's the first part of the management.
(30:10):
Yeah.
the measurements, which are important.
Yes, they're not everything.
me do those.
But that exercise we had this morning, and I opened up a lot, I shared a lot on why I dowhat I do and what's important to me.
And I told them at the end of kind of when I spoke, I said, I hope none of you are workingfor me next year, because they all went around and talked about their goals.
(30:35):
And they all want to either move up market, which is, know, is a pay increase and moreresponsibility, or they want to go into management.
And I said, I hope none of you are.
working for me next year.
If that's the case, then I've done an incredible job.
So to me, that's more leadership, is how do I help them get what they want, get to wherethey want to go, all that other stuff, I have to do it.
(30:58):
And it's a majority of my day each day, but that one hour we spent this morning topped therest of the day.
Which I think that's a critical thing to mention is that I think for managers and forcompanies and organizations, it's really easy to focus on.
to just focus on the metrics.
Now, if you don't measure things and you don't have metrics and you don't have goals thatalign with those, and I'm lecturing tomorrow at Georgia Tech project management class, and
(31:23):
I'm gonna talk a lot about setting smart goals and that kind of stuff.
So if you don't do those things, you're not going to have success.
But the point being is that I think a lot of managers and organizations don't understandthat the time and resources spent on the second part is
just as valuable, if not more valuable in the first part, because when people feelempowered, they feel listened to, they feel respected, they feel valued, then they're more
(31:53):
eager to actually work and be creative together to accomplish the goals.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
But I think understanding what's important to people and why they do what they do too.
Then you can tie a lot of those metrics and activities and what you're asking them to doback to what's important to them.
had, I think when I, when things started to click for me as a manager, a long time ago,after a couple of years of making so many mistakes at a lady who worked for me.
(32:19):
we, got into this conversation about like, she wanted to hit her quota and I was askingher why does she do what she does?
And she basically said, I want to make, I'm the breadwinner.
I want to make as much.
money as I can.
I have three kids and I want to spend as much time with them as possible so I don't havetime for things that are like I want to be as efficient with my time so I always anytime I
(32:42):
was trying to get her to do something even if it was coaching I always tried to tie itback to let's reduce the amount of time you're near at work let's reduce the amount of
time it takes to get your quota hitting your quota you're gonna make more money so Ialways tried to tie it back to her her number one goal was providing for children.
and spending more time.
which I am thinking of if you're a project manager, you're say who are the stakeholders inthis situation?
(33:07):
And actually the children and family were stakeholders that you needed to consider in theevaluation helping her be as successful as possible.
Yeah, so that's pretty cool.
Okay, so I know that you emphasize the importance of creating a winning culture.
What key leadership principles do you follow to foster success in your teams in additionto what we just mentioned, of course?
(33:30):
You know, I think it's, all starts with hiring when you're building a team and so hiringgood people.
So I like to look at, you know, past success track record.
Um, and that doesn't have to mean like in the industry or, or it doesn't even have to meanthey've had sales jobs, but where, where they achieved success and how did they do it?
Um, with my, I'm a little biased on this, but having been through cancer, I like to knowwhat's the toughest thing you've ever been through.
(33:55):
How'd you deal with it personally or professionally?
And I give them that option.
Cause you know, I don't want to.
asked personally in an interview, but if they want to share that, but I always want tounderstand that you mentioned grit earlier, like getting to that grit.
And, I want to know that I'm going to be hiring somebody that is you go through ups andups and downs in sales, probably more than a lot of careers, right?
(34:16):
Like you'll have awful days and you lose deals and things like that.
A lot of things outside your control too.
so it starts with hiring the right person, but then, you know, I mentioned this earlier,recognizing the small things.
I think are reinforcing behaviors that are going to get people successful.
A big one is, I want people that work for me to trust me and have a relationship wherethey're comfortable with me.
(34:41):
And I think that exercise I did this morning, hopefully made, you know, made help solidifythat, that they know I've got their back.
They know that I'm trying to whatever it is that's most important to them.
I'm trying to help them get that.
And then that gives me a lot more lead way to manage and do all those metrics.
(35:01):
But I would say I'm big on celebrating success.
Whether it's, and again, I go back to it's not just the person that hit their number orclosed the big deal, which is the ultimate prize in sales, it's, it's recognizing people
for lots of behaviors, you know, and somebody could have a great meeting.
(35:23):
And that's not putting any money in the company's pocket.
It's not putting any money in my pocket or the rep's pocket, but recognizing that they hadthis great meeting or it was the first time they did something in the role.
And I think that constant focus on what they're doing, right.
Catching somebody doing something, right.
And you know, this is so cliche, but it's also praise in public, catch somebody doingsomething, right.
(35:47):
Recognize them in front of all their peers.
And if it's something that needs to be corrected or given coaching on, do that one-on-one,never do it in front of people.
So it's a lot of things like that.
think that build a winning culture.
Um, but over time, you know, I I've worked for people that don't want you to get promoted.
They don't want you to move on and leave.
(36:08):
They're so amazing at your current job.
No one else could do it better.
We want to just keep you here.
Yeah, and so I you know, think I've built over my career I think I've built a reputationof that I'm gonna help you get to where you want to go and It's easy to say that but I
think I've got a track record and once I'm in a in a role I've been with my currentcompany over six years I've done that a number of times and so people see that and then
(36:32):
they know like this person wants to help me be successful They want to help me get to thetip.
So that's how I try to that's probably my biggest secret to building a winning culture
So yeah, I don't know if that.
Absolutely.
I love that.
And I am a very strong believer in focusing on helping to grow everyone on your team.
(36:52):
And my philosophy when I was helping to build Florence Healthcare, I would say to lot ofthe team members, like, I really hope that you'll stay here at Florence for three years.
then when you go somewhere else, I want you to have grown so much during that period oftime that whatever job you interview at, you will be the top candidate.
(37:13):
And first it's going to make you so you're so successful.
And then people also say, wow, this person came from Florence.
They must have a great company.
And it's a win-win across the board.
And I think that, and so I started a five resume bullet point program that I do with allof my team members at every company I've had since then.
And it's really trying to focus on what are the five things that you want to improve.
(37:36):
And it could be work related.
Like some have taken project management courses, some have done toastmasters.
It could be just personally related, like you mentioned.
Sometimes I've had team members that wanted to have a little bit more balance, so theywanted to focus their time so they could do yoga or do a health retreat or something like
that.
And then we could work milestones around some achievements that would lead towards that.
(37:58):
But I think that the idea that that work like you can create work as an environment wherepeople are thriving and growing and passionate about what they're doing is
going to pay off for the company.
I think to all of the managers, because leaders do not do this, to all of the managersthat want to hold team members back, they really have no idea what they're missing out on.
(38:19):
Yeah, and so many people do that.
A lot too.
I've worked for people that do that.
Yeah.
I think building a winning culture when people know you care about them and they know thatyou are trying to help them get to where they want to go over time, you're going to build
a reputation as a leader that that does that.
And I think then people want to win for you.
(38:40):
want to.
Yes.
Yeah, they want to work hard and they want to achieve the team goal.
That exercise I did this morning.
I've done it one on one with people.
I thought it was really powerful that we all shared in that.
And I found that they were asking their peers questions about like, well,
You know, why do you, why this or why that, or why do you want to take this trip?
Or, and, and so they were all kind of getting involved and getting engaged with eachother.
(39:03):
Yeah.
And so I, it was a good group exercise.
And again, I think that helps build a winning.
So I've heard that you're also known as the turnaround specialist.
tell us a little bit more about that.
What skills do you use when you're trying to turn a team, a culture, or an organizationaround?
That's a great question.
(39:25):
you know, depends on the scenario, Angela, you know, I would say when I've taken overteams that are underperforming, I try to come in, operate with kind of an analytical and
empathy and try to evaluate the situation.
There's a great book called the first 90 days.
Yeah.
And it's all about like, try not to make any decisions.
(39:46):
If you have to in the first 90 days.
So I think when I take over a new team or a new role, that's what I've read that bookseveral times.
and I always try to practice that, have come in and evaluate.
And there are times where you make that assessment that there may be some people on theteam that need to go.
They need to transition to another opportunity that's not on your team.
(40:07):
Yeah.
And I think a long time ago, I probably did, you know, in the beginning, I didn't, didn'talways handle that great.
Yeah.
I would say now I really try to do it with empathy and I try to help them understand whythey're struggling and maybe they're in the wrong role that they could be happier.
Yes.
In another role.
And I've helped people in that situation, connect them with recruiters and things thatreally aren't part of my job or maybe even my company wouldn't want me doing.
(40:34):
But I try to help them again, get to where they want to go, even if they're not.
performing and they need to go somewhere else, you know, I'm going to try to help them getto where they need to go.
so yeah, starting with evaluating the talent and the people I have, I want to make sure Iget the right people on the bus.
and, then it's about, again, it's, I keep going back to that, but it's understandingwhat's important to each of them and where they want to go.
(40:57):
And then I try to coach and develop those people and help them get better at theirday-to-day job so that they can reach where they want to go and have that success.
I know that sounds very simplistic,
That's no it's I agree a thousand percent you know when one of the big things at Florenceone of the reasons our culture was so great when I was there
(41:18):
was that we had some team members who were in, we had a couple who were in roles that itwasn't the great fit.
The role wasn't the right role for them.
And I was able to move them to different departments and they just exploded and theythrived and they did great.
And these are people that other people in the leadership thought should no longer be atthe company.
And now they're a huge asset in a role that's appropriate for them.
(41:41):
We some other people that tried to coach and they just were not a good fit.
And we did the exact same thing.
them find their next opportunity and I think to be able to do that and participate to thatto me as a leader it's like the greatest gift I could have because I do like strongly I
realize these people have families and they have bills and they have livelihood and it canreally hit your self-esteem and confidence and all of that when you're transitioned out of
(42:11):
a company so to have someone who is saying okay you're not
the best fit for this organization.
However, you have great skills.
Let's find what you're great at.
I think that's just a gift to give back to humanity.
amazing.
Yeah, without question.
One other thing I would add Angela is that when I do start, um, ironically, biggestturnaround I ever was put in was my first management job.
(42:33):
was a dumpster fire.
Um, I was working for a national publicly traded company, um, about 130 offices around,around the country.
And, uh, we were bottom 5%.
Might've been bottom two or three percent.
It was, was bad.
And so it was, it was my first two years.
I didn't hit my number.
Um, I worked for that late.
(42:54):
that I mentioned earlier, I had worked for as a as an individual contributor.
And so luckily, she she was patient with me, she coached me, she taught me a lot.
But one of the things I learned in that role is I always like to look at activity andattitude.
If somebody doesn't have those two things, like I'm one, I'm not going to care more thanyou do.
(43:14):
And two, I'm not going to, you know, if you're not trying and you're not putting in theeffort.
And so as an example, I came in and I wanted to start to change the culture there.
And this company always put out monthly rankings of all the sales, thousand salespeople.
Oh, wow.
In the entire, you get the entire rankings.
And so I handed these out and I was, because we had done this, I had come from the Atlantaoffice.
(43:40):
I had moved to Tampa, taken over the Tampa office.
The Atlanta office was always successful.
The Tampa office was not.
And so the first page was like 50 people.
And so was the top 5%.
And I would, over time I would end up highlighting people on that first page that were onmy team and give kudos and recognize them, creating that, that culture of success or
(44:01):
winning a culture.
But first month, second month taking over this team, a gentleman sitting in there said, wewill never, this is Tampa.
We will never have anybody on the first page.
of the rankings.
And so I probably didn't handle that as best as I could.
But I did make up my mind that that is not somebody like he doesn't have the rightattitude, right?
(44:22):
Right.
And I sat down and talked to him.
And he was like, nobody's ever been on the first page.
And I'm like, well, yeah, if you don't, yeah, you don't, yeah, eventually, we dominatedthe first page.
But yeah, I think that activity and attitude.
I mean, those are two things you can't really coach, you know, somebody's got a really badattitude, or they're not putting forth the effort, I can't coach.
Right.
one of the first things I evaluate when I take a
(44:45):
Well, and the thing that I think is so important about that example is that I love thephrase, drop of vinegar spoils the milk.
And if you have someone like that and they're feeding that into the rest of the team, theneveryone's confidence is dropping and everyone starts to believe that that's the case
versus if you have someone on the team that says, we're not on the first page yet.
(45:10):
but we want to get there.
How can you help us get there?
That's the kind of attitude that I want on a team.
Definitely, definitely.
I had just hired two people in that role and I was very protective of them and I pulledthem aside I think later that day and I said, hey, that comment this morning really didn't
sit well with me and I said, I have hired you two to help change the culture here and Iknow that you're brand new but you two will be on the front page and if people think like
(45:37):
that, they're not gonna be on the, and sure enough both of those two people ended up beingtwo of my top performers.
Yeah, that's amazing.
Okay, let's talk about adversity.
So in Great Fruit, you talk about reframing adversity.
So how do you apply this mindset in business when facing setbacks or uncertainty?
Easy, always anytime I'm having a bad day.
(45:59):
I love
you said adversity I'll handle it and it's easy.
It's, mean, the way I approach it is easy.
It doesn't always go easily, but, it, I always think about, like I said, there's not a daythat goes by.
don't think about cancer.
So if I'm having a bad day, I always compare it to the worst day that the best day I hadgoing through cancer does not compare to the worst day I've had since, especially in
(46:23):
business.
mean, I've had bad days.
The last day of my fiscal recently was awful.
We
dealing with a client and a renewal.
And there were like a lot of things that went south and it was, it was stressful.
I was not happy.
And there were several times during that day where I reminded myself, you're not onchemotherapy.
You're not like all the things that I went through.
(46:43):
So a lot of times for me, it's, it's grounding myself in you've been through a lot worse.
You got through it.
And I just, have to remind myself of that a lot, because if not, you become a victim andyou think about why me and why is this happening to me?
I've been through a lot.
Right.
And I think a lot of people have.
you think about the worst thing you've ever been through and you remind yourself of thatwhen you think you're having a bad day, you might be having a bad day but it doesn't
(47:08):
compare to what you've been through in the past.
Right, right, right.
I like what I do now is I, if I start getting really stressed or anxious, yeah, I'm in anew job right now and I have a lot of work to do at this new role.
And I think, I recall back the times when I was younger and I used to think, my gosh, if Idon't do this perfect now, the world's gonna come to end.
(47:33):
Or we're gonna, you I'm gonna get fired for, like all these doomsdayer things that I wouldthink.
And,
things always worked out.
Like I always figured out a solution or if it wasn't perfect, like things still went onand I still had other opportunities.
was never all the worrying I did back then.
It was never worth it.
(47:54):
Like it never added a single moment of time going back to that.
Those milliseconds and never added any of that to my life versus now that I've masteredlike breathing and
sitting back and thinking, okay, is there a different angle or different perspective atsomebody I can pull in who knows this area a lot more than what I do that I can ask advice
(48:18):
for?
Why don't I just sit in that moment versus sitting in agony and pain that is reallyself-created?
Probably a lot of that's come with maturity.
Yeah, so all the young listeners here just know you're going to eventually feel this way.
You'll start to figure it out.
Yeah, you'll eventually figure it out.
So let's talk about paying it forward.
(48:40):
So how do you encourage leaders to integrate purpose and social impact into theirprofessional careers?
You know, I think a lot of people get into leadership because they like helping peoplethey like, and that's, that's what that is, right?
Giving back, paying it forward is, is helping people.
And I think the longer you usually most leaders probably have done an individualcontributor role or they've worked their way up into that.
(49:04):
And when you think about it, there were a lot of people that probably played a role inyour progression and your career track and that got you to where you needed to be.
And so I think for me, it's paying it back as there's, there's people.
need.
For me, I have a personal passion for an organization based in Tampa.
(49:25):
They do national fundraising for pediatric cancer.
So for me, that's a no-brainer.
But I think, you know, what I would tell leaders and I share is find something you'repassionate about, where you can give back and you can contribute financially, but
contribute your time.
And I've worked for some companies, I currently work for one that do a really good job atencouraging
(49:47):
giving us the time to take off to do things like that.
But I try to organize a quarterly team event where we pick a fundraiser, we pick aphilanthropy organization, and then we try to raise money for it.
And it's a good team building exercise.
It feels good.
So there's a lot of benefits to it.
Have there been any surprising outcomes from it that maybe you didn't expect and maybesomeone interacted differently after spending a day volunteering than that individual
(50:19):
interacted beforehand or had a different perspective that you thought then showed up inthe workforce?
don't know about that.
I've seen people get emotional.
I've seen people open up more.
You learn things about people sometimes when that happens, but I've seen that on a numberof occasions.
Maybe somebody that never shows any emotion and they open up a lot.
(50:41):
no matter how many, maybe one-on-ones or field rides I had done with that person, I neverwould have gotten to that point.
But sometimes seeing something moving or, you know, depending on what philanthropy or whatorganization it is,
that maybe has been kind of a surprise or maybe a weird benefit in helping me with therelationship and getting to know that person better.
(51:04):
Yeah, no, I love that.
can think of, you know, I love doing charity work with colleagues because one, at Florencespecifically, we would pick a different one per quarter and we would allow the employees
to suggest different ones.
We did like, we did Trees for Atlanta several times, know, Books for Africa.
(51:28):
Ooh, we did...
Brushes of Hope, which is Habitat for Humanity, where they paint the outdoors of thehouse.
And what was hysterical is we were repainting out of this house.
And we finished, and I'm looking at the colors, and they just happened to also be ourcompany colors.
It like, we're covered with these shades of blue that almost identically match.
And none of us had even picked that up, probably because it was 30 degrees outside, and wewere painting, and it was freezing.
(51:52):
That's awesome.
But yeah, is those moments.
Because I find that when you're
When you're in a spirit of giving back to the world, the individuals just seem to be moreopen and you have casual conversations about things and you just once again get to see
humans as humans.
Yeah, there's no question.
I mean, it ties into what I said I did this morning.
(52:14):
We uncovered a lot as far as what motivates people and why they do what they do.
And a lot of us, it's family, it's our children, it's friendships, it's things like that.
But giving back is also an incredible feeling and it's a responsibility we have.
And I think the more you get to know your employees on that level, too, is a wholedifferent aspect.
And, yeah, we've rallied around a lot of different causes and you see what differentpeople on the
(52:40):
get passionate about, it's great.
I think it's a great exercise.
Yeah, I love it.
love it.
Okay, let's talk about the year of hell methodology thought.
well, and you know, there have been several seasons in the past five years that havereally had huge impact on society.
(53:01):
And so I think given that, what advice would you give to professionals who are facingtheir own year of hell?
You know, I would say whether personal or professional, they're going through something, alow point in their life.
you know, I would say first and foremost is, lean into family and friends.
(53:23):
a lot of times your, your circle or you, you, you see a much smaller circle of people thatare going to do that.
That's okay.
There's a lot of friends and I kind of look at a lot of times my relationships and
different circles of trust, meet the fuckers, maybe.
Yeah.
Different circles of trust.
Right.
But I had a small core group that helped me get through cancer.
And so, yeah, I would say leaning into your family and friends that are going to stand byyou and help you get through that.
(53:49):
Maybe if it's more in the professional space, do you have mentors?
Do you have, maybe it could be an old manager who left and went somewhere else, butleaning into the people that can help you get through that, I think is, is really
important.
You know, too, if maybe if it's
Well, I guess if it's personal or professional, depending on your faith, what I wentthrough really brought me a lot closer to God and I've had a much closer relationship with
(54:14):
him since what I went through.
Those would be a couple of big ones.
And I guess the other one is it's hard to do it in the moment.
I didn't think about it during cancer, but no matter what you go through, you can grow andlearn and become a better person and transform from it.
I do believe that regardless of what it is.
But you have to be open to that.
(54:34):
And a lot of people can get bitter or angry, but I would say, try to, try to think aboutlike, how can I exit out of whatever this is?
How can I learn from it?
And it'll make me better.
Right.
maybe you got let go from a job.
How can I learn from this and become better?
Right.
Maybe it's, I'm going to build my network better.
(54:56):
I'm going to maintain relationships better because.
I don't have people I can reach out to, but how do I learn from this experience so thatI'm better in the future and I'm better equipped when I hit other types of adversity or
this again?
Yeah, I love the relationships and the community building piece of it.
You know, the surgeon general, when he was leaving transitioning out this year, he wrotelike his manifesto for America.
(55:23):
And the focus was on the importance and the documented health importance of community andfriendships and deep relationships.
And so it's really been my focus in 2025 is
messaging the friends that I care about, even if it's just to say I'm thinking about youright now.
You know, some of those things for those people who I really know I want to spend qualitytime with, they are once again, choosing the things that you surround yourself with.
(55:54):
So I also have not connected as much with some of the negative people.
You know, the people when they start talking, you know everything's going to be negative.
You're you're breaking me down.
intake yeah you asked me about either yeah yeah
Yeah, absolutely.
But I think that is beautiful.
And I know you talked in the book about just the impact that you saw for some other familymembers who got cancer and the ones and really the mindset or the health impact of a
(56:20):
positive mindset and a positive environment.
mean, that's one of the reasons hospitals will try and have bright rooms or, you know,some kind of window to the outside or something like that, because studies have shown that
they heal much faster and they leave the hospital faster.
Yeah, yeah, definitely something you head on to.
think men are not as good as women at that building.
(56:41):
I've heard that.
Maintaining especially I think there's a lot of statistics out there that men in their 40sand 50s.
they can count on one hand, maybe one or two fingers, how many close friends they have.
And I think men struggle more with issues like suicide and things like that.
There's a lot of statistics out there.
I'm actually thinking about writing my second book about that because again, through myexperience with cancer, I've got multiple friend groups and I think I do a really good job
(57:08):
of that.
And I think more people need to do that.
I think more men need to do that because we...
You know, as you're when your kids leave, like my kids are now out of the house, yourwhole world changes.
it's so easy to get caught up.
And you should make your children your focus.
But at that next stage in life, your friends and your network and the people, people likethat is so important.
(57:34):
And so it's something I've done a really good job at.
And I think it's because of my experience with cancer and and seeing the people that stoodby me, I've realized that I can't have
too many of those types of friends.
Right, right.
Well, and I experienced, know, unfortunately, my, grew up in a very abusive household.
My father was very abusive and I observed him as he was dying.
(57:57):
He didn't take the time to have any friends or any hobbies or anything like that.
It was a very sad end of his life.
And when I saw that, it was also a reminder that, you you kind of also have a little bitof a choice about how you want to have a perspective on this life and these days and
choosing.
to see with positivity and gratitude and the optimism and sharing that with other peopleallows you to attract those same types of people as well, which I think is really
(58:29):
valuable.
Yeah, no question.
okay, let's see.
So looking ahead, what's next?
So you've already said one thing about an FYI, Simon Sinek is writing a book right now onfriendship.
can't write.
I love Simon Sinek and I have to.
Well, I mentioned his name on the podcast just in hopes of one day he'll be on the podcastas well.
(58:50):
think he's a great leader, but he is writing one.
So he's doing a lot of interviews and stuff on, on friendship, which I love.
But okay.
So books speaking engagements, other leadership initiatives, what's next for you?
Speaking, actually way before this book was even halfway finished, I finished number onewith a company I was at, I had to get on stage in front of about 1500 people.
(59:12):
basically gave a speech that was about a 16 minute version of my book.
So I want to do more of that.
Have you heard a Kickstarter?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So I did kind an early release through Kickstarter.
And there were some levels in that of speaking engagements.
And I think I've got three now that I'll be doing where I'll be speaking to a company.
(59:33):
But I want to do more of that.
I've got, as I mentioned, an idea for a book.
And I'd like this to lead to more coaching opportunities outside of my, you my day job.
Yeah, I can see where you would add a lot of value to both an end of it, especiallysomeone who's potentially struggling in a situation and maybe think, especially if you tie
to.
the high risk of suicide, especially in men when they struggle in their career orsomething.
(59:58):
I can think with a lot of changes right now, you might have a lot of individuals who arestruggling and maybe need to pivot or something like that.
And having a great coach like yourself would be amazing.
Okay, so if there was one leadership lesson that you wanted to leave the listeners withtoday, what would it be?
You know, it would be, it's not about you.
(01:00:19):
So when you become a leader, it's not about you anymore.
It's about the people you're responsible for developing.
And I would say, I hit on this earlier, but I would say help them get to where they wantto go.
Right.
And, if you do that successfully over time, people will want to work for you.
They will fight for you to be as possible.
(01:00:41):
I would say start there.
And I would say that's,
And then the other thing is be present.
I do believe that our smartphones, social media, Slack, text, email, I mean, it comes atyou.
I find it's harder and harder to be present with somebody and give them your fullattention.
And I try to be really cognizant of that.
(01:01:03):
And so it's hard to build that following and let people know that you're trying to helpthem get to where they want to go.
if you're on your phone and multitasking.
So be in the moment too and make it all about them.
Love it, love it.
So help grow the people around you and be in the moment.
And as you started off with, it's not about you.
(01:01:26):
Okay.
So how can listeners find you and your book?
So my book's on Amazon, Grapefruit, G-R-E-A-T-F-R-U-I-T.
I can hold it up right now.
And then also my website, SteveGaradie.com.
Awesome.
And the final requirement of this podcast is that you have to share your favoritemotivational quote.
(01:01:49):
So what is your favorite motivational quote?
Maybe you're going to throw it.
Yeah.
Uh, one I had in the book and it's a Charles Wendell and it's, um, it, it sums up my book.
think it's, uh, life is 10 % what happens to us and it's 90 % how you respond.
And, um, like I said, bad things are going to, it's not a question of if it's a questionof when.
(01:02:12):
What we do control is how we respond and, um, you can learn from it and grow from it, oryou can be angry and bitter.
And so I think being open to.
That quote is great as it relates to being glass half full and perspective.
The second one probably not, you know, the most probably a controversial figure, LanceArmstrong said that pain is temporary, but quitting is forever.
(01:02:38):
And I love that quote.
I just always stuck with me.
And there's a lot of times I want to quit something.
It could be anything you're learning for the first time.
But that is that is so true that quitting will stick.
you'll always have that regret of quitting something and pain is temporary.
Yeah.
No matter how bad it is.
Yep.
Yep.
(01:02:58):
Well, thank you for being a guest on the podcast.
Thank you for bringing the badass to this podcast.
I'm really grateful.
Absolutely.
Thanks for joining me for today's episode of the Badass Leaders podcast.
To hear more interviews with industry experts and learn how to grow your career andleadership potential, be sure to like, subscribe, and turn on notifications to ensure you
(01:03:23):
do not miss future episodes.
This podcast is a production of the AGN Group.
To learn more about the AGN Group, visit our website at theagngroup.com.
There you can discover
more about our services which include hosting workshops, management consulting, brandstrategy, keynote speaking, and more.
(01:03:45):
Follow us on all social media channels shown on the screen and displayed in the shownotes.
And until next week, be brave and be badass.
cancer impacted the way that I not only manage and lead people, but also the way I'veapproached being a husband of 30 years now, how I parent my children, who are both now
grown.
So yeah, there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about my experience withcancer.
What if a year of hardship became the foundation for a life of purpose and leadership?
(00:24):
Our guest today, Steve Gearty, faced that reality at just 18 when he was diagnosed withcancer.
Instead of letting it define him, he used the experience to grow stronger, lead withintention, and inspire others.
Now a regional vice president of sales and longtime pediatric cancer advocate, Steve hasbuilt winning teams, mentored future leaders, and championed resilience in both business
(00:51):
and life.
He's also the
author of Great Fruit, How Cancer Led to Living a More Fruitful Life, which I of courseloved reading and enjoyed talking about in this episode.
In this book, he shares how adversity shaped his perspective on leadership, gratitude, andsuccess.
(01:13):
Today we'll explore his journey, the power of mindset, and how to turn life's toughestmoments into opportunities for growth.
Now, if you're new to the podcast,
Welcome to our community.
We are thrilled that you've taken time out of your day to learn and grow with us So beforeyou forget, please take a moment to click that subscribe button to ensure you stay
(01:36):
connected with the badass leaders community And you help us bring more amazing leaders tothe podcast And if you leave a comment, you'll get a personal response from me So let's do
this Join me Angela Gill Nelms on today's episode of the badass leaders
podcast where I'm joined each week by industry experts for intimate and eye-openingdiscussions about the challenges and joys facing the leaders of today.
(02:04):
Listen in and get ready to scale your company, grow your brand, and unlock your fullbadass potential.
Welcome to AGM Studios.
Yes, this awesome.
This is amazing.
So I have Steve Garrity, correct?
Yes.
(02:25):
And this is a funny thing.
I love people's names.
And then when I forget to ask how to pronounce their names, I always feel quite silly.
See, we're all human.
So I have Steve here, though.
He is the author of the book Grapefruit, which is spelled great fruit.
We're going to talk about the meaning of that.
And it is his story about how cancer led to living a more fruitful life.
(02:48):
It's broken up into two parts.
The first half is kind of like your story with cancer.
The second half is all your leadership style about it.
Yeah, I love it.
But why don't we kick off by you introducing yourself and telling us why you're here.
Sure, Steve Garrity.
I grew up in the Atlanta area.
I live in Florida now, but Angela and I share a mutual friend who I think introduced us.
(03:12):
the book I wrote, which I know we'll dive into, impacted the way, cancer impacted the waythat I not only manage and lead people, but also the way I've approached being a husband
of 30 years now, how I parent my children, who are both now grown.
yeah, there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about.
my experience with cancer and it really drives kind of how I love my life.
(03:37):
Perfect.
So we will give a shout out to Nick and thank him for introducing both of us.
Now he didn't tell me that you're a UGA grad and I'm a Georgia Tech grad, but it's okay.
It's okay.
So one of the things Steve, when I was reading the book,
I first off because I've had my own tragedies and I've known so many people that have hadbig challenges in their life and have said that was the greatest thing that ever happened
(04:03):
to me.
It completely changed my life in a better way.
And I've watched so many other people think have they lost their mind?
Are they crazy?
What drugs are they doing?
That kind of stuff, right?
However, when I was reading your book, I was like this.
18 year old is gonna die in a car.
Like I was all into all of your escapades in high school and I immediately saw how thiscould have a huge positive impact on you.
(04:28):
So why don't we dig in first and talk about the, well, the reason for the name of the bookand the premise behind and then we'll dig into the leadership on the second half.
Yeah, I'll start with the premise.
Why did I write the book?
Is that a good place to start?
So I graduated from high school here in Atlanta and about a month after graduating highschool, I had a mass in the side of my neck.
(04:56):
I went in, got a biopsy and found out on July 4th.
So I had surgery on July 3rd.
On July 4th, they called my house to inform me that I had Hodgkin's, which is a form ofcancer, pretty common, not common, but it's a common cancer for 18 to 25 year olds.
And so then I had to go through a process of getting x-rays, CAT scans to figure out howmuch had it spread.
(05:21):
And I was stage three, which meant it was in my neck, chest and stomach.
But the reason for the title or how the title came about, was the surgeon who took it outsaid it was the size of a grapefruit.
And so I've been writing this book for 37 years, believe it or not, on and more often onbut it took me 37 years to write it.
(05:42):
And I had more trouble with the title than anything else.
Really could not come up with a title.
And I'm not that creative.
And so a friend of mine who lives here in Atlanta, he and I were having drinks hadn't seenhim in
25 years and I think this ties into some of the themes in my book.
I'm very passionate about building and maintaining relationships.
(06:03):
And so this guy and I worked together in our first job right out of college and have kindof stayed in touch, but I reached out to him.
We had drinks.
It was like we had never missed a beat.
And I was telling him about my book and that I was struggling with a title.
He's very creative, marketing major.
And he said, let me read it and I'll come up with a title.
So he gave me a list of like 15 and grapefruit.
(06:25):
I loved it, you know, cause cancer ended up being a blessing.
And so it was a combination of the mass in my neck.
It's how we found it, you know, with it being a blessing.
So I loved the title and rolled with it.
thought when I was reading it and you know, obviously you're like teasing into the factyou're going to have cancer, right?
Cause you're like, something's in my throat and when I drink alcohol, I feel weird in mythroat.
(06:49):
And your friend's mom who was a nurse was the one that really noticed the growth and thenhow it just pivoted your life after that.
So I found, I found just picturing that and trying to think of my own daughter goingthrough those stages and how that could be just
something that'd be very easy, especially for a very active young boy at that age to justignore.
(07:15):
don't have time to deal with this.
I'm going to live forever and keep going.
So one of the things I want to talk about, and I'm assuming the doctor's names are pseudonames, whatever you want to pin name, whatever you call it.
I saw the name and I was like, there's no way that's what's
Dr.
Blackheart.
Yeah, so I did come up with that.
(07:36):
That was creative.
But yeah, the first doctor was was not a good experience as you read about the seconddoctor.
He unfortunately passed away, but he was a doctor here at Emory.
And I did use his real name because he was amazing.
Everything about him was in the book was extremely positive.
Yep.
So a couple of the things that I wanted to kick off and talk about and one you justmentioned the value of relationships and people.
(08:03):
And so I liked when you when you talked in the book and this is actually so I didn't meanto jump this far back, but we're going to it's in the silver lining.
So we'll kick off a silver lining.
So it's on page 141 and you talk about
how you should take stock of what you invite into your life, what books you read, whatmusic you listen to, what television shows or movies you watch, and do they contribute to
(08:27):
a positive and uplifting experience?
So my question, A, I love that because I am a firm believer of being a lifelong learnerand surrounding yourself in excellence.
Can you talk though about what you surrounded yourself with before cancer, how cancer andhealing from it helped
(08:47):
shape your thoughts along this journey.
Yeah, so before cancer is kind of.
the beginning of the book, right?
And I was not a good kid at all.
I would say my last two years in high school were heavy drinking, heavy partying, and thatcontinued to spiral downward.
so, and I do believe it played a large part in me getting sick.
(09:12):
It caused a lot of friction with my family, caused friction with my parents, my siblings.
I wrecked my parents' car five times during my
last two years in high school.
And towards the end, I started doing drugs.
I was drinking liquor to the point of blacking out every single night, literally went outevery night.
(09:32):
And right after high school was going out every night, but even my senior year, I wasdrinking before school.
was just I was headed down a bad path.
And so cancer ended up being a blessing in that it was kind of my wake up call.
So I think then there were a lot of to answer your question, there was negative influencesin my life.
Once I got cancer, majority of my friends kind of disappeared.
(09:57):
In fairness, most 18 year olds don't want to hang around a cancer patient and kind of gothrough that.
But a lot of them headed off to college and I didn't see them again.
But I have a couple heroes in the book that stood by me.
So a lot of bad influences, a lot of bad intakes in high school.
Cancer, I was trying to survive.
And then post cancer, eventually I started to...
(10:20):
get into a perspective, it was due to a movie that I watched, but I started to form aperspective of the glass half full and how cancer became a blessing.
And I think over time, your point, I do think it's important, social media is a greatexample, social media, most everything you see on there is not good, right?
(10:40):
It's negative, it's division amongst, whether it's politics or whatever it is.
It's just not positive.
And so I'm not perfect.
My wife gets on me about watching the Walk...
No, well, when it comes to this, right, like I do try to really digest positive things.
(11:01):
I was gonna say my wife gets on me for watching The Walking Dead.
She's like, why do you watch this?
So there are exceptions, but yeah, I do think it's important.
I try to digest a lot of positive things and keep a positive mindset.
Well, I think that's really important for your story because as you mentioned, you felt asif the drinking and your way of life had an impact on your cancer.
(11:24):
And then based on your experience and your healing journey, the impact of gratitude andsome of these positive areas and what a healthy impact that had on you, which appears as
if you've now carried into your life.
And we're going to talk about how it's impacted your leadership style.
But you can go ahead and talk about the movie that you watched.
(11:45):
First off, I had no idea how unsuccessful that movie was when it was first released, whichI love that story.
Yeah, it was.
it was so I got through cancer.
And, it was about nine or 10 months of chemotherapy and it would have been my first year,in college.
And, I ended up changing the college I was going to go to.
(12:07):
went off to the university of Georgia.
I just wanted to be a normal kid.
wanted to hang out with everybody else and experience college.
And, so I didn't talk about cancer.
didn't share it.
I didn't want, you I had seen reactions of people from high school.
And so I didn't want to be a downer and be talking about cancer.
So I really didn't share it.
In fact, I have friends.
of 35, 37 years that this book's come out and they're like, had no idea that we hung outfor four years in college and I had no idea.
(12:37):
But it was that Christmas break, my first year at Georgia, and I was headed home for thebreak and a fraternity, a pledge brother of mine and a fraternity basically brought up
It's a Wonderful Life.
And I said, I've never watched that, heard of it.
And he was shocked and he was like, it's an awesome movie.
You got to watch it, know, at Christmas time.
(12:58):
So I went home, uh, back during the days of blockbuster.
went and rented it and I just loved it.
And the reason I loved it, uh, it's for those who, for the, listeners who don't know thatsynopsis is basically, it's about a, it's back in the thirties.
I believe there's a gentleman and he's got a, uh, basically grows up in this small town.
He hates it.
(13:19):
It's boring.
He wants to get out.
And, um,
He basically gets to a point, there's some turmoil and there's an antagonist, but he getsto the point where he's facing jail time for something he didn't do and he's despondent
and he makes a wish that he wishes he had never been born.
And so this angel grants him the wish.
And then the second half of the movie is what life and all his friends and family, whattheir life would be like had he not been born.
(13:46):
And that movie really resonated for me because I was like, my angel was cancer, likecancer.
was my wake up call and just changed the way that I view everything post cancer.
And so I just saw a lot of correlations in that.
Ever since then, it's been my favorite movie.
I watch it multiple times every Christmas.
I usually tear up every time I watch it.
(14:08):
But yeah, there were just a lot of, I think it changed his perspective.
You don't see what life's like.
He's given his life back and I always imagine like what would a part, know, a,
a sequel to that look like.
And he would live his life totally different.
I you can see it at the end of the movie.
So yeah, that movie started to form a glass half full perspective in the way that I lookedat cancer.
(14:32):
Like for four years in college, for the most part, I didn't want to think about cancer.
didn't want to spend time thinking about it.
But that movie started me down a path of trying to look at the blessings or the benefitsthat came out of my experience.
I love that.
And when I was reading that in your book, I was just, you can't help but pause for amoment and think, what would this world be like if I'd never been born?
(14:56):
Right?
And I'm a big believer of like the butterfly effect and just trying to have a positiveimpact in everywhere that you can go because you never know where that's going to have a
huge impact on somebody else's life and what that cascade effect will be.
And I think first off, know, reading your book,
cancer absolutely saved your life.
(15:16):
There's no way you're going to live after all of
I was either gonna die or go to prison.
Right.
was like on pins and needles.
was like, someone's going to get car accident, someone's going to die.
This is really tough.
I like one thing that really spoke to me.
And so this is in the earlier part of the book on page 41, where you talk about how peoplehandle tragedy and grief differently.
(15:43):
And I want to talk about that because I think it also ties into, and maybe we can tie itas well into leadership, how people handle obstacles differently.
So in the book you say, that moment of diagnosis and subsequent gatherings with my familywas my first exposure to the diverse ways people handle tragedy, life's challenges and
conflict.
And here you were talking about the way that your sister dealt with it versus how someother people dealt with it.
(16:09):
And I know my own personal life, my first child was stillborn and the way that I handledthat loss versus the way that my ex-husband handled the loss really impacted the rest of
our lives.
And I've always been
a glass half full kind of person, I'm very much an optimist.
And so I think that really has had a big impact.
And so when I think about this, can you talk a little bit about how you experienced thatwith your cancer?
(16:32):
And then also I know that you are known as one of these people that comes in and helpsorganizations really be able to handle challenging times.
So how does that also fit into it from a leadership perspective?
Yeah, so Everybody in my family.
have three.
Sorry.
I have two siblings I'm the oldest of three and and then my parents parents have beenmarried for 50 something years But at that time we all gathered around the dining room
(16:58):
table after I was diagnosed and each person had a different
Reaction, my reaction, just to give you an idea of what a bad spot I was in, I wasdevastated because the surgeon had said no drinking for a year and maybe never again.
And my mind was swirling the entire time.
That's what I was fixated on.
I also noticed the reactions of everybody in my family.
(17:18):
And you mentioned my sister, Angela, she was stone cold, no reaction.
I knew she loved me.
knew that, you we always had a, I had a better relationship with her than I did with mybrother.
We always fought.
We were closer in age.
My brother is bawling like a baby, like my mom.
And, uh, she was just, she didn't show any reaction and she later became a doctor.
(17:42):
She's a pediatrician.
She's had to tell parents that they lost a child.
And, uh, I always look back on that.
I think that was probably an indicator that she was going down the right career path.
Um,
But that really hit me, I think.
I was never empathetic prior to cancer.
I was selfish.
I just cared about myself.
I cared about partying.
I cared about my social life.
(18:04):
Didn't really think about the impact that all my behaviors were having on my parents orother loved ones.
And so that really hit me, other than in addition to not being able to drink, it hit methat they all had such diverse reactions.
I left and went and drove around for a few hours around North Georgia, you know, basicallyin my own thoughts, trying to process having cancer.
(18:29):
But I thought a lot about how my family reacted.
you know, in business over time, I've managed a lot of people and have been responsiblefor large, you know, sales organizations and we all experience loss.
It's not a loss and hardship and tragedy and sickness.
There's things that are going to happen in our life.
It's not a question of if, but.
(18:50):
But when, I would say over my, I didn't realize this early on in my leadership career, butover time I learned that people handle it differently, just really differently.
some are healthy, some are unhealthy.
I had somebody recently tell me that they've been dealing with some things and they'vedealt with it by diving into work more and that's not healthy.
(19:12):
And I think they realized that.
Um, so yeah, it's everybody handles that in different ways.
And I think as a leader, I didn't do this my first year or two, but I eventually learnedto be more empathetic and understand that.
Um, I think one of the big mistake kind of leading in the leadership, I think one of thebig mistakes new managers make is trying to manage everybody, how you would want somebody
(19:34):
managing you.
Yes.
And I did that.
I mean, um, I read a book called, I think it was 22 mistakes.
First year managers, Meg, I made every single mistake.
I've read so many weird stuff.
I may not be 22.
I'm pretty sure it was 22, but I made literally every single mistake.
um, but that was one of them is that, you know, managing people and treating people theway that you would want to be treated and everybody's different.
(20:00):
And so I think over time, I learned to listen more, be empathetic, more, try to be moreunderstanding when somebody, and you have to balance that with the responsibilities of,
know, I've always worked for a company.
I've never owned my own business.
So I have responsibilities and I've got.
obligations to the employer I'm working for, but I try to balance that with understandingthat everybody's going to handle a loss or grief or whatever the challenge is that they're
(20:27):
facing in a different way.
Well, the thing that I love about remembering that is that I'm really big about trying toget to know humans as humans.
you know, when you go back to the first conversation with your sister, one could think,she doesn't love me that much.
She's not even crying.
She doesn't even look like she care.
Like if you want to judge just on like the face of something.
(20:50):
And I think that when we instead, A, realize humans are humans and that
someone's reaction to something probably has a lot more depth, not probably, absolutelyhas a lot more depth than what's on the surface.
And so sometimes I think in a business perspective for a leader, it's that if you observesomething that perhaps feels a little uncharacteristic with you, it's an opportunity to
(21:17):
ask questions, to tell me more, to try and dig in and understand more about the heart ofwhat the situation is.
Yeah, definitely without question.
mean, that's being observant, that's using intuition, that's empathy, and it's also askingquestions.
Yeah, tell me more.
All the things you just mentioned, all those are important.
(21:39):
And I got into my first leadership role when I was 27, 26, 27.
was still pretty immature.
those things, you know, I had to focus on developing those and getting good at those.
Especially like in chaotic stressful situations, it's hard to slow down and do that, butthose are so important.
(22:00):
So I'm dying to read this quote and I've been sitting here thinking how far into theinterview I'll wait to read this quote.
This is my favorite quote in the book and it's no offense.
It's the poem you put in here.
So you didn't write it.
But but I was actually just sharing this at church recently because it's the it's towardsthe end of the book and page one forty five where you talk about the value of time and
(22:22):
where you know it starts with imagine there's a bank which credits your account eachmorning with eighty six thousand four hundred dollars.
and carries over no balance from day to day and every evening cancels whatever part of theamount you had failed during the day.
So it goes through like, what would you do with it?
But the thing I loved about it is the focus on the value of time and where it says torealize the value of one year, ask a student who failed a grade, which I think for you,
(22:51):
the value of a year, you lost a year while you were dealing with cancer.
You were a year behind in your college education.
Plus you had to your hair back.
Yeah.
Correct.
To realize the value of one month, ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.
To realize the value of one week, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.
(23:13):
To realize the value of one hour, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.
To realize the value of one minute, ask a person who missed the train.
To realize the value of one second, ask a person who just avoided an accident.
To realize the value of one millisecond, ask the person who won the silver medal in theOlympics.
So treasure every moment you have and treasure it more because you shared it with someonespecial, special enough to spend your time.
(23:35):
So first I want to thank you for spending some of your time here.
Cause everything you say yes to means you're saying no to something else.
So thank you for.
But can you tell me, mean, I can only imagine that if you're on the brink of, I've gotstage three cancer, you're hearing the quotes that were for stage three, was 50%.
It was 85.
(23:56):
Okay, 85 % survival rate.
You're also risking potentially not having children.
And then you really, I think you were more than gifted so much more time after because youwould have never had that much time had you continued on your path.
So can you talk a little bit about how you value your time now?
(24:17):
Yeah.
So I would say a more important statistic than the ones you read is my oncologist told meprior to 1970, this was 1986.
So it's only 16, basically 16 years ago, this would have been a death sentence.
And, like I'll never forget.
I remember him saying that.
I remember how I was sitting.
Like that was, that hit me hard.
(24:39):
and so when that quote you just read are, I worked for a large company and I was a firstline leader at the time and our head of sales.
He actually sent that out on a corporate voicemail and a lot of people liked it.
I loved it because it, resonated with me.
I thought back about that quote that every day that I'm living right now, post cancer is agift because 16 years prior and I wouldn't still be here.
(25:08):
but as far as like, you know, I think as it relates to today and how I lead, I
Our time is so important and it's part of that's prioritizing your time, but it's alsodoing what you're passionate about, right?
Like life is short.
so for me, I've always liked helping people.
like leading people.
(25:29):
and probably what I like specifically about it is helping somebody get from where they arewhen I hire them or where they are when I'm responsible for managing them to where they
leave me, right?
To where hopefully they get promoted or they.
move on to something better.
so I think that poem you just wrote is life is short, right?
(25:53):
That's probably a big picture.
But then it's also using your time wisely.
Absolutely.
Using it how in leadership, how you can impact people and change people's lives.
So for me, that's the value of time and where I try to invest my
I love that.
love that.
And you're really big in gratitude, which I am as well.
I write my gratitude journal every day.
And one of the things that I loved as an example, I'm going to so steal this, is that yourthank you slide that you put in your presentations.
(26:20):
Can you tell us about that, about how you, one, integrate gratitude into your work andalso how you feed it through to your customers as well?
Yeah, so I've always and the slide thing is something the company I work for does a lot,but I've always tried to express gratitude.
And again, I think a lot of this ties back to cancer.
I was very grateful for the people that stood by me and helped me get through it.
(26:43):
But I always try to make sure people know I appreciate their efforts.
Right.
It's you know, at the end of the day in sales, you're usually judged by the number thatyou close the business, the revenue.
We call it recurring revenue, subscription revenue and software.
But you're always judged by that.
But I try to make sure that I recognize the small things.
(27:06):
There's so many inputs that go into what a salesperson has to do from activity togenerating opportunities.
We call that pipeline, progressing that pipeline.
There's so many things they've got to do along the way to eventually close that sale.
And I think it's just important to recognize those steps, to recognize progress, recognizesmall things they do.
(27:29):
If I'm coaching somebody in a certain area where maybe they're struggling and they startto show even little baby steps, I just think it's important to express that and let them
know that I appreciate that.
I appreciate the hard work they're putting in.
So I mean, there's a million examples I could give you, but I just think it's important.
People want to feel appreciated.
(27:50):
absolutely.
You know, I think maybe 50, 60 years ago, there was a mentality and management leadershipthat, you know, people were motivated by a paycheck.
And I don't think that's true.
I think most people leave jobs because of a bad manager.
so making people feel appreciated and respected and that their efforts are recognized andseen are so important.
(28:14):
So research does show that people do leave managers and they don't leave jobs and thesalary doesn't matter as much as we thought that it mattered.
So I think actually when I was reading this in your book, I thought I'm just going tostart doing a collage of all my guests and their definitions of managers versus leaders.
So you see where I'm going to go here.
So 165 you talk about managers versus leaders and you talk about an early in your careerwhere you failed to tap into your empathy for others.
(28:41):
And during those formative years, you're more of a manager rather than a true leader.
And your definition that you placed here, and then I want to hear what your definition isas well, is managers plan, measure, monitor, coordinate, solve, direct, hire, fire, and
perform many other actions.
In nutshell, managers manage things.
(29:02):
Conversely, authentic leaders inspire and guide people toward growth and success, andempathy is required to do so effectively.
Tell us more about your thoughts on this.
Yeah, I think.
I had a great mentor.
I worked for her for 16 years and there were a lot of things I learned from her, but I'dsay one of the big ones was that your resume, your resume is determined by the number of
(29:27):
people you help achieve success and achieve what they want to accomplish.
This morning, so I brought my team together for a quarterly business review.
We do this every three months.
Brought my team together today and we have like a larger extended team that we work with,but I
pulled just my direct reports in for an hour before the big meeting.
(29:50):
And, we had a conversation on what do you want to accomplish this year and why, why isthat important to you?
And, everybody thanked me at the end of the day that they thought that was the best partof the day.
Cause the rest of the day was talking about our pipeline, our opportunities, what we'regoing to do this quarter next quarter.
And that's the first part of the management.
(30:10):
Yeah.
the measurements, which are important.
Yes, they're not everything.
me do those.
But that exercise we had this morning, and I opened up a lot, I shared a lot on why I dowhat I do and what's important to me.
And I told them at the end of kind of when I spoke, I said, I hope none of you are workingfor me next year, because they all went around and talked about their goals.
(30:35):
And they all want to either move up market, which is, know, is a pay increase and moreresponsibility, or they want to go into management.
And I said, I hope none of you are.
working for me next year.
If that's the case, then I've done an incredible job.
So to me, that's more leadership, is how do I help them get what they want, get to wherethey want to go, all that other stuff, I have to do it.
(30:58):
And it's a majority of my day each day, but that one hour we spent this morning topped therest of the day.
Which I think that's a critical thing to mention is that I think for managers and forcompanies and organizations, it's really easy to focus on.
to just focus on the metrics.
Now, if you don't measure things and you don't have metrics and you don't have goals thatalign with those, and I'm lecturing tomorrow at Georgia Tech project management class, and
(31:23):
I'm gonna talk a lot about setting smart goals and that kind of stuff.
So if you don't do those things, you're not going to have success.
But the point being is that I think a lot of managers and organizations don't understandthat the time and resources spent on the second part is
just as valuable, if not more valuable in the first part, because when people feelempowered, they feel listened to, they feel respected, they feel valued, then they're more
(31:53):
eager to actually work and be creative together to accomplish the goals.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
But I think understanding what's important to people and why they do what they do too.
Then you can tie a lot of those metrics and activities and what you're asking them to doback to what's important to them.
had, I think when I, when things started to click for me as a manager, a long time ago,after a couple of years of making so many mistakes at a lady who worked for me.
(32:19):
we, got into this conversation about like, she wanted to hit her quota and I was askingher why does she do what she does?
And she basically said, I want to make, I'm the breadwinner.
I want to make as much.
money as I can.
I have three kids and I want to spend as much time with them as possible so I don't havetime for things that are like I want to be as efficient with my time so I always anytime I
(32:42):
was trying to get her to do something even if it was coaching I always tried to tie itback to let's reduce the amount of time you're near at work let's reduce the amount of
time it takes to get your quota hitting your quota you're gonna make more money so Ialways tried to tie it back to her her number one goal was providing for children.
and spending more time.
which I am thinking of if you're a project manager, you're say who are the stakeholders inthis situation?
(33:07):
And actually the children and family were stakeholders that you needed to consider in theevaluation helping her be as successful as possible.
Yeah, so that's pretty cool.
Okay, so I know that you emphasize the importance of creating a winning culture.
What key leadership principles do you follow to foster success in your teams in additionto what we just mentioned, of course?
(33:30):
You know, I think it's, all starts with hiring when you're building a team and so hiringgood people.
So I like to look at, you know, past success track record.
Um, and that doesn't have to mean like in the industry or, or it doesn't even have to meanthey've had sales jobs, but where, where they achieved success and how did they do it?
Um, with my, I'm a little biased on this, but having been through cancer, I like to knowwhat's the toughest thing you've ever been through.
(33:55):
How'd you deal with it personally or professionally?
And I give them that option.
Cause you know, I don't want to.
asked personally in an interview, but if they want to share that, but I always want tounderstand that you mentioned grit earlier, like getting to that grit.
And, I want to know that I'm going to be hiring somebody that is you go through ups andups and downs in sales, probably more than a lot of careers, right?
(34:16):
Like you'll have awful days and you lose deals and things like that.
A lot of things outside your control too.
so it starts with hiring the right person, but then, you know, I mentioned this earlier,recognizing the small things.
I think are reinforcing behaviors that are going to get people successful.
A big one is, I want people that work for me to trust me and have a relationship wherethey're comfortable with me.
(34:41):
And I think that exercise I did this morning, hopefully made, you know, made help solidifythat, that they know I've got their back.
They know that I'm trying to whatever it is that's most important to them.
I'm trying to help them get that.
And then that gives me a lot more lead way to manage and do all those metrics.
(35:01):
But I would say I'm big on celebrating success.
Whether it's, and again, I go back to it's not just the person that hit their number orclosed the big deal, which is the ultimate prize in sales, it's, it's recognizing people
for lots of behaviors, you know, and somebody could have a great meeting.
(35:23):
And that's not putting any money in the company's pocket.
It's not putting any money in my pocket or the rep's pocket, but recognizing that they hadthis great meeting or it was the first time they did something in the role.
And I think that constant focus on what they're doing, right.
Catching somebody doing something, right.
And you know, this is so cliche, but it's also praise in public, catch somebody doingsomething, right.
(35:47):
Recognize them in front of all their peers.
And if it's something that needs to be corrected or given coaching on, do that one-on-one,never do it in front of people.
So it's a lot of things like that.
think that build a winning culture.
Um, but over time, you know, I I've worked for people that don't want you to get promoted.
They don't want you to move on and leave.
(36:08):
They're so amazing at your current job.
No one else could do it better.
We want to just keep you here.
Yeah, and so I you know, think I've built over my career I think I've built a reputationof that I'm gonna help you get to where you want to go and It's easy to say that but I
think I've got a track record and once I'm in a in a role I've been with my currentcompany over six years I've done that a number of times and so people see that and then
(36:32):
they know like this person wants to help me be successful They want to help me get to thetip.
So that's how I try to that's probably my biggest secret to building a winning culture
So yeah, I don't know if that.
Absolutely.
I love that.
And I am a very strong believer in focusing on helping to grow everyone on your team.
(36:52):
And my philosophy when I was helping to build Florence Healthcare, I would say to lot ofthe team members, like, I really hope that you'll stay here at Florence for three years.
then when you go somewhere else, I want you to have grown so much during that period oftime that whatever job you interview at, you will be the top candidate.
(37:13):
And first it's going to make you so you're so successful.
And then people also say, wow, this person came from Florence.
They must have a great company.
And it's a win-win across the board.
And I think that, and so I started a five resume bullet point program that I do with allof my team members at every company I've had since then.
And it's really trying to focus on what are the five things that you want to improve.
(37:36):
And it could be work related.
Like some have taken project management courses, some have done toastmasters.
It could be just personally related, like you mentioned.
Sometimes I've had team members that wanted to have a little bit more balance, so theywanted to focus their time so they could do yoga or do a health retreat or something like
that.
And then we could work milestones around some achievements that would lead towards that.
(37:58):
But I think that the idea that that work like you can create work as an environment wherepeople are thriving and growing and passionate about what they're doing is
going to pay off for the company.
I think to all of the managers, because leaders do not do this, to all of the managersthat want to hold team members back, they really have no idea what they're missing out on.
(38:19):
Yeah, and so many people do that.
A lot too.
I've worked for people that do that.
Yeah.
I think building a winning culture when people know you care about them and they know thatyou are trying to help them get to where they want to go over time, you're going to build
a reputation as a leader that that does that.
And I think then people want to win for you.
(38:40):
want to.
Yes.
Yeah, they want to work hard and they want to achieve the team goal.
That exercise I did this morning.
I've done it one on one with people.
I thought it was really powerful that we all shared in that.
And I found that they were asking their peers questions about like, well,
You know, why do you, why this or why that, or why do you want to take this trip?
Or, and, and so they were all kind of getting involved and getting engaged with eachother.
(39:03):
Yeah.
And so I, it was a good group exercise.
And again, I think that helps build a winning.
So I've heard that you're also known as the turnaround specialist.
tell us a little bit more about that.
What skills do you use when you're trying to turn a team, a culture, or an organizationaround?
That's a great question.
(39:25):
you know, depends on the scenario, Angela, you know, I would say when I've taken overteams that are underperforming, I try to come in, operate with kind of an analytical and
empathy and try to evaluate the situation.
There's a great book called the first 90 days.
Yeah.
And it's all about like, try not to make any decisions.
(39:46):
If you have to in the first 90 days.
So I think when I take over a new team or a new role, that's what I've read that bookseveral times.
and I always try to practice that, have come in and evaluate.
And there are times where you make that assessment that there may be some people on theteam that need to go.
They need to transition to another opportunity that's not on your team.
(40:07):
Yeah.
And I think a long time ago, I probably did, you know, in the beginning, I didn't, didn'talways handle that great.
Yeah.
I would say now I really try to do it with empathy and I try to help them understand whythey're struggling and maybe they're in the wrong role that they could be happier.
Yes.
In another role.
And I've helped people in that situation, connect them with recruiters and things thatreally aren't part of my job or maybe even my company wouldn't want me doing.
(40:34):
But I try to help them again, get to where they want to go, even if they're not.
performing and they need to go somewhere else, you know, I'm going to try to help them getto where they need to go.
so yeah, starting with evaluating the talent and the people I have, I want to make sure Iget the right people on the bus.
and, then it's about, again, it's, I keep going back to that, but it's understandingwhat's important to each of them and where they want to go.
(40:57):
And then I try to coach and develop those people and help them get better at theirday-to-day job so that they can reach where they want to go and have that success.
I know that sounds very simplistic,
That's no it's I agree a thousand percent you know when one of the big things at Florenceone of the reasons our culture was so great when I was there
(41:18):
was that we had some team members who were in, we had a couple who were in roles that itwasn't the great fit.
The role wasn't the right role for them.
And I was able to move them to different departments and they just exploded and theythrived and they did great.
And these are people that other people in the leadership thought should no longer be atthe company.
And now they're a huge asset in a role that's appropriate for them.
(41:41):
We some other people that tried to coach and they just were not a good fit.
And we did the exact same thing.
them find their next opportunity and I think to be able to do that and participate to thatto me as a leader it's like the greatest gift I could have because I do like strongly I
realize these people have families and they have bills and they have livelihood and it canreally hit your self-esteem and confidence and all of that when you're transitioned out of
(42:11):
a company so to have someone who is saying okay you're not
the best fit for this organization.
However, you have great skills.
Let's find what you're great at.
I think that's just a gift to give back to humanity.
amazing.
Yeah, without question.
One other thing I would add Angela is that when I do start, um, ironically, biggestturnaround I ever was put in was my first management job.
(42:33):
was a dumpster fire.
Um, I was working for a national publicly traded company, um, about 130 offices around,around the country.
And, uh, we were bottom 5%.
Might've been bottom two or three percent.
It was, was bad.
And so it was, it was my first two years.
I didn't hit my number.
Um, I worked for that late.
(42:54):
that I mentioned earlier, I had worked for as a as an individual contributor.
And so luckily, she she was patient with me, she coached me, she taught me a lot.
But one of the things I learned in that role is I always like to look at activity andattitude.
If somebody doesn't have those two things, like I'm one, I'm not going to care more thanyou do.
(43:14):
And two, I'm not going to, you know, if you're not trying and you're not putting in theeffort.
And so as an example, I came in and I wanted to start to change the culture there.
And this company always put out monthly rankings of all the sales, thousand salespeople.
Oh, wow.
In the entire, you get the entire rankings.
And so I handed these out and I was, because we had done this, I had come from the Atlantaoffice.
(43:40):
I had moved to Tampa, taken over the Tampa office.
The Atlanta office was always successful.
The Tampa office was not.
And so the first page was like 50 people.
And so was the top 5%.
And I would, over time I would end up highlighting people on that first page that were onmy team and give kudos and recognize them, creating that, that culture of success or
(44:01):
winning a culture.
But first month, second month taking over this team, a gentleman sitting in there said, wewill never, this is Tampa.
We will never have anybody on the first page.
of the rankings.
And so I probably didn't handle that as best as I could.
But I did make up my mind that that is not somebody like he doesn't have the rightattitude, right?
(44:22):
Right.
And I sat down and talked to him.
And he was like, nobody's ever been on the first page.
And I'm like, well, yeah, if you don't, yeah, you don't, yeah, eventually, we dominatedthe first page.
But yeah, I think that activity and attitude.
I mean, those are two things you can't really coach, you know, somebody's got a really badattitude, or they're not putting forth the effort, I can't coach.
Right.
one of the first things I evaluate when I take a
(44:45):
Well, and the thing that I think is so important about that example is that I love thephrase, drop of vinegar spoils the milk.
And if you have someone like that and they're feeding that into the rest of the team, theneveryone's confidence is dropping and everyone starts to believe that that's the case
versus if you have someone on the team that says, we're not on the first page yet.
(45:10):
but we want to get there.
How can you help us get there?
That's the kind of attitude that I want on a team.
Definitely, definitely.
I had just hired two people in that role and I was very protective of them and I pulledthem aside I think later that day and I said, hey, that comment this morning really didn't
sit well with me and I said, I have hired you two to help change the culture here and Iknow that you're brand new but you two will be on the front page and if people think like
(45:37):
that, they're not gonna be on the, and sure enough both of those two people ended up beingtwo of my top performers.
Yeah, that's amazing.
Okay, let's talk about adversity.
So in Great Fruit, you talk about reframing adversity.
So how do you apply this mindset in business when facing setbacks or uncertainty?
Easy, always anytime I'm having a bad day.
(45:59):
I love
you said adversity I'll handle it and it's easy.
It's, mean, the way I approach it is easy.
It doesn't always go easily, but, it, I always think about, like I said, there's not a daythat goes by.
don't think about cancer.
So if I'm having a bad day, I always compare it to the worst day that the best day I hadgoing through cancer does not compare to the worst day I've had since, especially in
(46:23):
business.
mean, I've had bad days.
The last day of my fiscal recently was awful.
We
dealing with a client and a renewal.
And there were like a lot of things that went south and it was, it was stressful.
I was not happy.
And there were several times during that day where I reminded myself, you're not onchemotherapy.
You're not like all the things that I went through.
(46:43):
So a lot of times for me, it's, it's grounding myself in you've been through a lot worse.
You got through it.
And I just, have to remind myself of that a lot, because if not, you become a victim andyou think about why me and why is this happening to me?
I've been through a lot.
Right.
And I think a lot of people have.
you think about the worst thing you've ever been through and you remind yourself of thatwhen you think you're having a bad day, you might be having a bad day but it doesn't
(47:08):
compare to what you've been through in the past.
Right, right, right.
I like what I do now is I, if I start getting really stressed or anxious, yeah, I'm in anew job right now and I have a lot of work to do at this new role.
And I think, I recall back the times when I was younger and I used to think, my gosh, if Idon't do this perfect now, the world's gonna come to end.
(47:33):
Or we're gonna, you I'm gonna get fired for, like all these doomsdayer things that I wouldthink.
And,
things always worked out.
Like I always figured out a solution or if it wasn't perfect, like things still went onand I still had other opportunities.
was never all the worrying I did back then.
It was never worth it.
(47:54):
Like it never added a single moment of time going back to that.
Those milliseconds and never added any of that to my life versus now that I've masteredlike breathing and
sitting back and thinking, okay, is there a different angle or different perspective atsomebody I can pull in who knows this area a lot more than what I do that I can ask advice
(48:18):
for?
Why don't I just sit in that moment versus sitting in agony and pain that is reallyself-created?
Probably a lot of that's come with maturity.
Yeah, so all the young listeners here just know you're going to eventually feel this way.
You'll start to figure it out.
Yeah, you'll eventually figure it out.
So let's talk about paying it forward.
(48:40):
So how do you encourage leaders to integrate purpose and social impact into theirprofessional careers?
You know, I think a lot of people get into leadership because they like helping peoplethey like, and that's, that's what that is, right?
Giving back, paying it forward is, is helping people.
And I think the longer you usually most leaders probably have done an individualcontributor role or they've worked their way up into that.
(49:04):
And when you think about it, there were a lot of people that probably played a role inyour progression and your career track and that got you to where you needed to be.
And so I think for me, it's paying it back as there's, there's people.
need.
For me, I have a personal passion for an organization based in Tampa.
(49:25):
They do national fundraising for pediatric cancer.
So for me, that's a no-brainer.
But I think, you know, what I would tell leaders and I share is find something you'repassionate about, where you can give back and you can contribute financially, but
contribute your time.
And I've worked for some companies, I currently work for one that do a really good job atencouraging
(49:47):
giving us the time to take off to do things like that.
But I try to organize a quarterly team event where we pick a fundraiser, we pick aphilanthropy organization, and then we try to raise money for it.
And it's a good team building exercise.
It feels good.
So there's a lot of benefits to it.
Have there been any surprising outcomes from it that maybe you didn't expect and maybesomeone interacted differently after spending a day volunteering than that individual
(50:19):
interacted beforehand or had a different perspective that you thought then showed up inthe workforce?
don't know about that.
I've seen people get emotional.
I've seen people open up more.
You learn things about people sometimes when that happens, but I've seen that on a numberof occasions.
Maybe somebody that never shows any emotion and they open up a lot.
(50:41):
no matter how many, maybe one-on-ones or field rides I had done with that person, I neverwould have gotten to that point.
But sometimes seeing something moving or, you know, depending on what philanthropy or whatorganization it is,
that maybe has been kind of a surprise or maybe a weird benefit in helping me with therelationship and getting to know that person better.
(51:04):
Yeah, no, I love that.
can think of, you know, I love doing charity work with colleagues because one, at Florencespecifically, we would pick a different one per quarter and we would allow the employees
to suggest different ones.
We did like, we did Trees for Atlanta several times, know, Books for Africa.
(51:28):
Ooh, we did...
Brushes of Hope, which is Habitat for Humanity, where they paint the outdoors of thehouse.
And what was hysterical is we were repainting out of this house.
And we finished, and I'm looking at the colors, and they just happened to also be ourcompany colors.
It like, we're covered with these shades of blue that almost identically match.
And none of us had even picked that up, probably because it was 30 degrees outside, and wewere painting, and it was freezing.
(51:52):
That's awesome.
But yeah, is those moments.
Because I find that when you're
When you're in a spirit of giving back to the world, the individuals just seem to be moreopen and you have casual conversations about things and you just once again get to see
humans as humans.
Yeah, there's no question.
I mean, it ties into what I said I did this morning.
(52:14):
We uncovered a lot as far as what motivates people and why they do what they do.
And a lot of us, it's family, it's our children, it's friendships, it's things like that.
But giving back is also an incredible feeling and it's a responsibility we have.
And I think the more you get to know your employees on that level, too, is a wholedifferent aspect.
And, yeah, we've rallied around a lot of different causes and you see what differentpeople on the
(52:40):
get passionate about, it's great.
I think it's a great exercise.
Yeah, I love it.
love it.
Okay, let's talk about the year of hell methodology thought.
well, and you know, there have been several seasons in the past five years that havereally had huge impact on society.
(53:01):
And so I think given that, what advice would you give to professionals who are facingtheir own year of hell?
You know, I would say whether personal or professional, they're going through something, alow point in their life.
you know, I would say first and foremost is, lean into family and friends.
(53:23):
a lot of times your, your circle or you, you, you see a much smaller circle of people thatare going to do that.
That's okay.
There's a lot of friends and I kind of look at a lot of times my relationships and
different circles of trust, meet the fuckers, maybe.
Yeah.
Different circles of trust.
Right.
But I had a small core group that helped me get through cancer.
And so, yeah, I would say leaning into your family and friends that are going to stand byyou and help you get through that.
(53:49):
Maybe if it's more in the professional space, do you have mentors?
Do you have, maybe it could be an old manager who left and went somewhere else, butleaning into the people that can help you get through that, I think is, is really
important.
You know, too, if maybe if it's
Well, I guess if it's personal or professional, depending on your faith, what I wentthrough really brought me a lot closer to God and I've had a much closer relationship with
(54:14):
him since what I went through.
Those would be a couple of big ones.
And I guess the other one is it's hard to do it in the moment.
I didn't think about it during cancer, but no matter what you go through, you can grow andlearn and become a better person and transform from it.
I do believe that regardless of what it is.
But you have to be open to that.
(54:34):
And a lot of people can get bitter or angry, but I would say, try to, try to think aboutlike, how can I exit out of whatever this is?
How can I learn from it?
And it'll make me better.
Right.
maybe you got let go from a job.
How can I learn from this and become better?
Right.
Maybe it's, I'm going to build my network better.
(54:56):
I'm going to maintain relationships better because.
I don't have people I can reach out to, but how do I learn from this experience so thatI'm better in the future and I'm better equipped when I hit other types of adversity or
this again?
Yeah, I love the relationships and the community building piece of it.
You know, the surgeon general, when he was leaving transitioning out this year, he wrotelike his manifesto for America.
(55:23):
And the focus was on the importance and the documented health importance of community andfriendships and deep relationships.
And so it's really been my focus in 2025 is
messaging the friends that I care about, even if it's just to say I'm thinking about youright now.
You know, some of those things for those people who I really know I want to spend qualitytime with, they are once again, choosing the things that you surround yourself with.
(55:54):
So I also have not connected as much with some of the negative people.
You know, the people when they start talking, you know everything's going to be negative.
You're you're breaking me down.
intake yeah you asked me about either yeah yeah
Yeah, absolutely.
But I think that is beautiful.
And I know you talked in the book about just the impact that you saw for some other familymembers who got cancer and the ones and really the mindset or the health impact of a
(56:20):
positive mindset and a positive environment.
mean, that's one of the reasons hospitals will try and have bright rooms or, you know,some kind of window to the outside or something like that, because studies have shown that
they heal much faster and they leave the hospital faster.
Yeah, yeah, definitely something you head on to.
think men are not as good as women at that building.
(56:41):
I've heard that.
Maintaining especially I think there's a lot of statistics out there that men in their 40sand 50s.
they can count on one hand, maybe one or two fingers, how many close friends they have.
And I think men struggle more with issues like suicide and things like that.
There's a lot of statistics out there.
I'm actually thinking about writing my second book about that because again, through myexperience with cancer, I've got multiple friend groups and I think I do a really good job
(57:08):
of that.
And I think more people need to do that.
I think more men need to do that because we...
You know, as you're when your kids leave, like my kids are now out of the house, yourwhole world changes.
it's so easy to get caught up.
And you should make your children your focus.
But at that next stage in life, your friends and your network and the people, people likethat is so important.
(57:34):
And so it's something I've done a really good job at.
And I think it's because of my experience with cancer and and seeing the people that stoodby me, I've realized that I can't have
too many of those types of friends.
Right, right.
Well, and I experienced, know, unfortunately, my, grew up in a very abusive household.
My father was very abusive and I observed him as he was dying.
(57:57):
He didn't take the time to have any friends or any hobbies or anything like that.
It was a very sad end of his life.
And when I saw that, it was also a reminder that, you you kind of also have a little bitof a choice about how you want to have a perspective on this life and these days and
choosing.
to see with positivity and gratitude and the optimism and sharing that with other peopleallows you to attract those same types of people as well, which I think is really
(58:29):
valuable.
Yeah, no question.
okay, let's see.
So looking ahead, what's next?
So you've already said one thing about an FYI, Simon Sinek is writing a book right now onfriendship.
can't write.
I love Simon Sinek and I have to.
Well, I mentioned his name on the podcast just in hopes of one day he'll be on the podcastas well.
(58:50):
think he's a great leader, but he is writing one.
So he's doing a lot of interviews and stuff on, on friendship, which I love.
But okay.
So books speaking engagements, other leadership initiatives, what's next for you?
Speaking, actually way before this book was even halfway finished, I finished number onewith a company I was at, I had to get on stage in front of about 1500 people.
(59:12):
basically gave a speech that was about a 16 minute version of my book.
So I want to do more of that.
Have you heard a Kickstarter?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So I did kind an early release through Kickstarter.
And there were some levels in that of speaking engagements.
And I think I've got three now that I'll be doing where I'll be speaking to a company.
(59:33):
But I want to do more of that.
I've got, as I mentioned, an idea for a book.
And I'd like this to lead to more coaching opportunities outside of my, you my day job.
Yeah, I can see where you would add a lot of value to both an end of it, especiallysomeone who's potentially struggling in a situation and maybe think, especially if you tie
to.
the high risk of suicide, especially in men when they struggle in their career orsomething.
(59:58):
I can think with a lot of changes right now, you might have a lot of individuals who arestruggling and maybe need to pivot or something like that.
And having a great coach like yourself would be amazing.
Okay, so if there was one leadership lesson that you wanted to leave the listeners withtoday, what would it be?
You know, it would be, it's not about you.
(01:00:19):
So when you become a leader, it's not about you anymore.
It's about the people you're responsible for developing.
And I would say, I hit on this earlier, but I would say help them get to where they wantto go.
Right.
And, if you do that successfully over time, people will want to work for you.
They will fight for you to be as possible.
(01:00:41):
I would say start there.
And I would say that's,
And then the other thing is be present.
I do believe that our smartphones, social media, Slack, text, email, I mean, it comes atyou.
I find it's harder and harder to be present with somebody and give them your fullattention.
And I try to be really cognizant of that.
(01:01:03):
And so it's hard to build that following and let people know that you're trying to helpthem get to where they want to go.
if you're on your phone and multitasking.
So be in the moment too and make it all about them.
Love it, love it.
So help grow the people around you and be in the moment.
And as you started off with, it's not about you.
(01:01:26):
Okay.
So how can listeners find you and your book?
So my book's on Amazon, Grapefruit, G-R-E-A-T-F-R-U-I-T.
I can hold it up right now.
And then also my website, SteveGaradie.com.
Awesome.
And the final requirement of this podcast is that you have to share your favoritemotivational quote.
(01:01:49):
So what is your favorite motivational quote?
Maybe you're going to throw it.
Yeah.
Uh, one I had in the book and it's a Charles Wendell and it's, um, it, it sums up my book.
think it's, uh, life is 10 % what happens to us and it's 90 % how you respond.
And, um, like I said, bad things are going to, it's not a question of if it's a questionof when.
(01:02:12):
What we do control is how we respond and, um, you can learn from it and grow from it, oryou can be angry and bitter.
And so I think being open to.
That quote is great as it relates to being glass half full and perspective.
The second one probably not, you know, the most probably a controversial figure, LanceArmstrong said that pain is temporary, but quitting is forever.
(01:02:38):
And I love that quote.
I just always stuck with me.
And there's a lot of times I want to quit something.
It could be anything you're learning for the first time.
But that is that is so true that quitting will stick.
you'll always have that regret of quitting something and pain is temporary.
Yeah.
No matter how bad it is.
Yep.
Yep.
(01:02:58):
Well, thank you for being a guest on the podcast.
Thank you for bringing the badass to this podcast.
I'm really grateful.
Absolutely.
Thanks for joining me for today's episode of the Badass Leaders podcast.
To hear more interviews with industry experts and learn how to grow your career andleadership potential, be sure to like, subscribe, and turn on notifications to ensure you
(01:03:23):
do not miss future episodes.
This podcast is a production of the AGN Group.
To learn more about the AGN Group, visit our website at theagngroup.com.
There you can discover
more about our services which include hosting workshops, management consulting, brandstrategy, keynote speaking, and more.
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And until next week, be brave and be badass.
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