June 29, 2025 • 37 mins
Segment 1 with Richard Hagberg starts at 0:00.
Most start ups fail within 5 years. Many more are the walking dead- why do most founders build their company’s to fail and what can they change about it.
Rich Hagberg, Ph.D., often referred to as “Silicon Valley’s CEO Whisperer,” is a trained psychologist who has spent the last 40 years of his career as an executive management coach for over 6,000 executives. Since 2009 he has worked with companies like Tinder, Twitter, Dropbox, MixPanel, Zendesk, Quora, Asana, Pinterest, Salesforce, Munchery, Reddit, Gusto, Cruise, Tinder, Optimizely, Instacart, Patreon, Nerdwallet, and Super Evil Megacorp (it’s a gaming company).
His new book is called "Founders, Keepers: Why Founders Are Built to Fail, and What it Takes to Succeed".
Segment 2 with Lee Glickstein starts at 22:50.
There is the old adage that we fear speaking in front of people more than death- the joke goes that we would rather be dead that speak in front of an audience.
Lee Glickstein is a trailblazer in the field of public speaking and the creator of the globally recognized Speaking Circles method and founder of Speaking Circles International. He is an authority on leadership presence and magnetism in public speaking. Having overcome his own crippling fear of public speaking, Glickstein has spent decades helping others transform their relationship with audiences. His first book is called "Be Heard Now! End Your Fear of Public Speaking Forever".
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-small-business-radio-show--3306444/support.
Listen to all the episodes of The Small Business Radio Show at www.barrymoltz.com
Most start ups fail within 5 years. Many more are the walking dead- why do most founders build their company’s to fail and what can they change about it.
Rich Hagberg, Ph.D., often referred to as “Silicon Valley’s CEO Whisperer,” is a trained psychologist who has spent the last 40 years of his career as an executive management coach for over 6,000 executives. Since 2009 he has worked with companies like Tinder, Twitter, Dropbox, MixPanel, Zendesk, Quora, Asana, Pinterest, Salesforce, Munchery, Reddit, Gusto, Cruise, Tinder, Optimizely, Instacart, Patreon, Nerdwallet, and Super Evil Megacorp (it’s a gaming company).
His new book is called "Founders, Keepers: Why Founders Are Built to Fail, and What it Takes to Succeed".
Segment 2 with Lee Glickstein starts at 22:50.
There is the old adage that we fear speaking in front of people more than death- the joke goes that we would rather be dead that speak in front of an audience.
Lee Glickstein is a trailblazer in the field of public speaking and the creator of the globally recognized Speaking Circles method and founder of Speaking Circles International. He is an authority on leadership presence and magnetism in public speaking. Having overcome his own crippling fear of public speaking, Glickstein has spent decades helping others transform their relationship with audiences. His first book is called "Be Heard Now! End Your Fear of Public Speaking Forever".
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-small-business-radio-show--3306444/support.
Listen to all the episodes of The Small Business Radio Show at www.barrymoltz.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Get ready for all the craziness of small business. It's
exactly that craziness that makes it exciting and totally unbelievable.
Small Business Radio is now on the air with your host,
Barry Moltz.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Well, thanks for joining this week's radio show. Remember this
is the final word in small business for those keeping track.
This is now show number eight hundred and thirty six. Well,
you've all heard the statistic that most starters fail within
five years, but many more are what I call the
walking dead. Why do founders build their companies actually to
(00:39):
fail and what can they do about it? My guest
is Rich Hegberg, PhD, who's often referred to as the
Silicon Valley's CEO Whisper. He's a trained psychologist who spent
the last forty years of his career as an executive
management coach for over six thousand executives. They include folks
from Tinder, Twitter, Dropbox, Mixed Panel, zendesk Qorasana, Pinterest, Salesforce
(01:05):
and read It. He's got a new book out with
a couple other authors called Founders Keepers, Why founders are
built to fail and what it takes succeed.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Rich Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
Thank you, love.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I love the title of the book Founders Keepers, and
I'm wondering why no one else ever camped that title.
Speaker 5 (01:25):
I don't know, I have no idea. It's so appropriate
to the situation.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
So how'd you get involved in really being the CEO
whisper for all these execs in Silicon Valley?
Speaker 5 (01:40):
Well, I came to Silicon Valley in nineteen seventy nine,
and I started out doing executive assessment. Realized, you know,
that just using an interview in an IQ test, which
is what the company who I worked for did, didn't
make sense and it was really not valid, and got
(02:02):
into doing personality testing and using three sixties. Nobody had
even heard of them at the time, and as a
way of giving people feedback and giving them giving them insights.
I started off with executives in trouble and terminated executives,
and then companies.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Switched me over to their high potential people.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
And ultimately I was working with the senior leaders, including
many many CEOs, and over.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
The years.
Speaker 5 (02:33):
My practice evolved, and one particular thing that happened was
we got insights into what differentiated debt year's like people
who were rated by their colleagues as outstanding as leaders,
and so that was kind of a reference point. We
had terminated. We had executives in trouble. Now we had
best leaders.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
I grew.
Speaker 5 (02:55):
I'm a serial entrepreneur, and I grew several companies. One
I sold to Accenture in two thousand and six and
worked for them for three years. And then I decided,
you know, it was time to change my focus. And
so I decided to focus on founders.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
And I was.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
A founder, and I recognized in them some things that
were true of me, and that really drew me in.
I didn't realize it at the time, but I was,
you know, I was so much like them, and they
sensed that I was like them.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
You know.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
You know, he's saying in the subtitle of the book,
why founders are built to fail? I think that every
founder would tell you they don't start out to fail, right.
They started with a passion, with an idea, perhaps even
a way to execute it, perhaps even with the target customers.
But why do you say they're built to fail.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
Because they lacked the execution skills that get them to
the next level and help them scale. Founders are built
for you know, founders are what we call visionary evangelists.
There's visionary evangelists, a relationship builder, and a manager of execution.
Those are three different styles or skill sets. Founders are
(04:11):
really good at being the visionary evangelists. They come up
with creative ideas and insights. They have insights into the market.
They're persuasive, they're good storytellers. They come up with ideas
all the time, and that runs counter to being focused.
(04:32):
And what companies need when they start to scale and
get more complex is people to put in place the
systems and processes in the structure that's necessary in order
to make them run more efficiently. But founders view system,
process and structure as bureaucracy when it's really about efficiency.
(04:53):
And so they're good at this metaphor really picks it up.
They're good at blasting a but they're not very good
at getting in orbit. Some of them do, most are
not able to get to the moon, and almost none
of them will ever get to Mars.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
So you know, they're like a ticking time bomb.
Speaker 5 (05:16):
They have these creative skills, these divergent thinking skills, but
when it comes to discipline, management, and people skills, because
I mentioned those three pillars of leadership, they're high on vision.
But even the good ones are only medium on relationship,
but they're all bad when it comes to execution, the
(05:39):
successful ones and the unsuccessful ones. No.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
It's interesting because as founders were really good starters, right,
we always like to start something. And you know, I
was after I had a bunch of my own companies.
I was an angel investor in the early two thousands.
People always come to me say, Barry, I've got a
great idea. What do you think, And I'm like, well,
it's not about the idea, it's about the execution of
that idea.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Does this whole idea of execution?
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Is that why some of the more successful founders have
an execution partner, you know, kind of like yes, you
know Bill Gates head Steve Balmer or something.
Speaker 5 (06:13):
Like that, exactly exactly. I think you can do it
in a couple of different ways. I think first of all,
you've got to recognize that you need help and that
you have limitations, and you have to recognize what your
what your skills are, and what they are not and
then bring in somebody who makes the trains run on time,
(06:36):
who is good at what you're not good at, and
that might be in the beginning it might simply be
an executive assistant, and then it might be a chief
operating officer, or it could be function heads who are
better at the execution side, whether they be in marketing
(06:58):
or whether they be in sales, or whether they be
in product or whatever. But I think a lot of
founders try to do it all and their control freaks.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
For sure, we don't we have to be yeah, we
are well.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
Well, they say that to a point in the beginning.
It's important, But if you're going to gain leverage and
you're going to attract and retain top talent, they're going
to expect to be given a certain level of independence
and autonomy. And often founders don't do that.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
And that's why it's so hard a lot of time
for founders to delegate, right, And you can't get any
scale unless you're going to delegate because they keep thinking, well,
I can do it better myself. How did you get
founders to realize that they actually had limitations, that they
couldn't do it all.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
Well, this is interesting. In early on in my coaching career,
I realized that the people I were coaching was coaching
are were very analytical people, and they believed data and
I mean, I was trained as a therapist, but I
(08:10):
realized that things like a three sixty or a personality
test could get their attention.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
What there was an Israeli.
Speaker 5 (08:23):
I think he was a chief software architect from a
big company, and he said to me, Richie says, will
you this shrink tell me I'm insensitive.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
I can say, what the hell do you know? You're
a shrink? But when when.
Speaker 5 (08:38):
Your test predicts that I'm going to be insensitive? And today,
by the way, we use machine learning to predict the
three sixty, so we can tell you what your autopilot
is before you get any feedback from your colleagues. But
he said, when you when you predicted, I see what
you've done with your statistics, and you get my attention.
(08:59):
But in twenty four of my peers superior subordinates tell
me I'm insensitive and write a page and a half
single space of comments.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
I listen.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
That's that's interesting. You know.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
One of the things you talk about in the book
is that we still fall for this idea, of this
myth of glorifying the genius jerk.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
And when I think of the.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Genius jerk, I think of Elon Musk. I think of
Steve Jobs. I know a lot of people that work
for Steve Jobs and just how insensitive are actually?
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Downright?
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Mean?
Speaker 3 (09:30):
You know, he really could be. Why do we fall
for that?
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Do you do we let financial success or someone being
a genius say it's okay. If it's okay if you
are a jerk because you're a genius or you made
a lot of money.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
I think what I think we look at the whole
package and say, oh, I've got to emulate all of
the things that they're doing.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
And that's like.
Speaker 5 (09:57):
Saying, if if three successful people all own porsches, that
means I need to own one. Right, it's correlated, but
it's not causation. Correlation is not causation. I mean, if
you take a look at those people, you take a
look at Jobs, Gates, Bezos, Musk, all of those people
(10:23):
were visionaries and they were creative.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
That helped them.
Speaker 5 (10:29):
They all were really good storytellers, particularly Jobs. They were
all really really smart. They were relentless in their pursuit
of excellence. They, particularly Gates, Bezos and Musk, were very
long term in their thinking, so they had product intuition.
(10:55):
But their aggressiveness, their abusiveness was not one of those
things that made them successful, and in fact it got
in the way. And we proved that in our study
where we compared successful founders and these are financially successful founders.
(11:16):
We looked at multiples of invested capital for one hundred
and twenty two founders, and we looked at those founders
who got a ten x return and compared it to
those who got zero. And the differentiators would suggest they
were adaptable. They weren't stubborn. The unsuccessful ones were stubborn
(11:36):
and they didn't adapt to listen to feedback.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
They were not open to input.
Speaker 5 (11:40):
They didn't handle resistance. The successful ones learned to work
through others, build teams, delegate. They were effective at scaling operationally,
they were not great. The successful ones again were around
the mean on building systemssses to get rid of inefficiency,
(12:02):
but the unsuccessful ones waited for things to break. There
was also a level of self awareness in the successful founders.
They were more reflective, and there's a wonderful item on
the personality test that differentiated the successful from the unsuccessful,
and that item was, I frequently reflect upon my past
(12:25):
successes and failures. The successful ones said strongly agree. The
unsuccessful ones said strongly disagree, So they had the unsuccessful
ones had blind spots. The other thing, and this is
where some of the bad behavior of the genius jerks
(12:49):
was really contradicted. The successful ones were way better at
handling stress, and startups are stressful, and they were more
emotionally stable and less reactive. So they're all founders are
impatient and demanding and in a hurry. But the unsuccessful
(13:12):
ones were reactive and impulsive. They scored significantly high on impulsivity.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Rich are you saying that that perhaps you know, uh,
people like Steve Jobs was successful excuse me despite their
outrageous personal behavior. I remember one of my friends said, well,
I worked for Steve Jobs twice and I quit the
second time he threw a coffee pot at.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
My head, right right?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
But was he successful despite those kinds of things?
Speaker 5 (13:40):
To me?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Because I remember when.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Steve Jobs died, people created these you know, these memory places,
you know, you know, they put flowers and all these
memorials because I think people felt connected to him because
of his products.
Speaker 5 (13:53):
But he was a jerk, Well, he was a jerk more.
He was more of a jerk in the early early
days before he was fired from Apple, he had a
volatile temper.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
You know, he would publicly be right people. He was abusive,
he didn't.
Speaker 5 (14:10):
Delegate, He alienated his colleagues, and he lacked empathy of
any sort. But what happened after he came back is
that he'd matured a bit. He'd been exposed to the
people at Pixar, and there was a transformational moment because
at Pixar, one of the co founders really taught him
(14:32):
about empathy, and so later on he was better able
to delegate. He brought in Cook an Ivy, and he
tried to create a different culture. The same kind of
transformation happened with Gates in nineteen seventies to the nineteen nineties.
He was aggressive and confrontational and lots of public criticism
(14:56):
and ultra competitive, and he created that kind of environment
in Microsoft, and he dominated conversations. But later, especially you know,
when he started the Bill and Mulinda Gates Foundation, he
was way more collaborative, empathetic, emotionally aware that kind of stuff.
He delegated more. So he changed. And the same thing
(15:17):
happened with Bezos because and for Bezos, the transformation came
with COVID and with reports that people were burning out
and when when somebody wrote a book about him and
pointed out.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
The toxicity of the culture.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
So these transformational events really taught them about the limits
of their controlling behavior and that they needed to create
functional not dysfunctional teams and that and and they got
feedback and that developed self awareness. So it was a
personal crisis that did it.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
It's interesting to me because it seems like each of
these companies lasted long enough or had enough enough success
so that the founder could evolve. I wouldn't say the mature,
but could evolve. And it seems to me a lot
of small business owners don't get that chance, right. They
don't have enough financial success, and so it falls into
(16:13):
the weight of, you know, their lack of skills.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
I think.
Speaker 5 (16:18):
I think founders have to realize that there's good reason
why so many founders fail and why you know, to
only twenty five percent of the founders who get funding
to actually make it to an IPO. And so I think,
I think there's some things you can do, but I
think you have to recognize what are where where do
(16:41):
you add the most value? What's the best and highest
use of your time? And if that's being the visionary
evangelists and the spokesperson and bring in somebody. I had
three coos over the years. The last one i'm I'm
high on visionary evangelists, Medium on relationship, and law on execution.
The last one was BDM vision high relationship, really off
(17:08):
the charts execution, And so she could cover for the
things that I was not naturally good at and focus
me on the things I was good at.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
And that's one of the things you really have to
look at when you're bringing a team is how are
they complementary to you, not how they're like you or
just do whatever you want exactly.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
And that's a sign of growth when when a founder
realizes that he or she has limitations and has to
learn and grow, that's really the first step. And one
of the signs is a willingness to delegate and empower
other people. The other one is, you know, one of
(17:52):
the big differentiators between successful and unsuccessful is that the
successful or more adaptable and that and that expresses itself
in their openness to input and their willingness to listen,
and their willingness to listen to resistance and not just
bulldoze to try to understand it, and particularly when the
(18:14):
people you brought have brought in are more experienced. When
you finally have a brand and can attract a players,
they're going to expect to be given independence and empowered.
And so I think founders if they're going to get
if they're going to no matter how big or small
the company is, they have to get feedback to recognize
(18:37):
what they're good at and what they're not good at,
and have and be willing and adaptable to change and
learn to work through others. Working through others, which is
investing in teams and creating.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
Buy in and delegation and empowerment.
Speaker 5 (18:54):
These are all things that show that you've learned how
to work through others, that you're not trying to make
all all the decisions because that will burn you out.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
It will burn you out, it will.
Speaker 5 (19:04):
Be dysfunctional, it will demoralized a team, but it will
burn you out.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
You know, as a trained psychologist, I'm sure you don't
get this question that often, but I really think there's
a role that luck and timing plays in the founder's success.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
What do you think.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
I think it's there's an old definition of luck, which
is luck is preparation meeting opportunity, and I think founders
are really good. They're highly creative, they're externally focused. We
know that that's on the three sixty. They're externally focused,
(19:44):
and they develop insights and they're willing to take risks,
and that that fuels the engine.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
And need engine, and we all need fuel for engine.
The last question I want to ask you is if
there was one insight rich that that people could take
away from this book and the founder could start practicing immediately,
what would that be.
Speaker 5 (20:14):
I think it's for most founders. It's that you need
to recognize your limitations, and you need to particularly delegate.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
And trust and empower people. And if I have.
Speaker 5 (20:30):
To give one more, it would be that you need
to grow as a leader. For the company to grow,
You're not going to be able to just operate in
founder mode endlessly because it ultimately will come back to
bite you. You need to learn to grow as a
(20:51):
leader and become better and that requires mentoring, coaching, feedback,
but a willingness, a willingness to really take it in,
you know, rather than treating feedback as something you have
to defend yourself from.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Well, Rich, I appreciate you. In the show the Telebion
is called Founders keeper is why founders are built to
fail and what.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
It takes succeed.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Name your two other co authors because I want to
give them credit as well.
Speaker 5 (21:18):
My co author is teens Zoo and teen Zoo is
the CEO of a company called Zoora Zu and it
was a public company until early this year and they
went to public. It was valued at one point seven
billion dollars. And he's been my client for almost fifteen
(21:42):
years and I took him through the journey of getting
him feedback. He got three sixty, he got the personality.
He also did a culture assessment and it was it
was an awakening experience for him, as he would describe it.
And the other is Gabe Research and Gabe is.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
Is a writer who works for KEEM.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
I want to give those people credit as well. Where
can people catch up with your rich.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
Well at Hagberg Consulting, Dot column and if they go
on the internet, y'see, all kinds of things that point
to where I am rich.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Thanks for joining us this small business radio show. We'll
be right back.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Thinking of starting your own business.
Speaker 6 (22:28):
Get on board for a crazy ride, be the first
person to tweet Berry at Barry Moltz and get a
free copy of his book You Need to Be a
Little Crazy, The Truth about starting and growing your own business.
You will need the company.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Stick around to get your small business unstuck. More of
Small Business Radio with Barry molts Well.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
There's an old adage that we fear speaking in front
of people more than death. The joke goes that we
would rather be dead than speak in front of an audience.
My next guest is Lee Glickstein, who is a trailblazer
in the field of public speaking and the creator of
the globally recognized Speaking Circles method and founder of Speaking
(23:13):
Circles International. He's an authority on leadership, presence, and magnetism
in public speaking. Having overcome his own crippling fear of
public speaking, Lee has spent decades helping others transform their
relationship with the audience. His FoST book is called be
Heard Now and Your Fear of Public Speaking Forever. Lee,
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 7 (23:35):
Thank you, Barry, appreciate being here.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
So first tell us about your fear of public speaking
and why you think most people are like that.
Speaker 7 (23:44):
Well, I remember at my bar mitzvah.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
There we go.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
We got to go way back here.
Speaker 7 (23:49):
Yeah. Being a Jewish boy and being bar mitshad in
the first line of my bar Mitzvah speech, the traditional
line today I am a man. When I said, it
came out because puberty was just a rumor to me.
Then it came out today I am a man. And
there was a laughter in the synagogue, and it was
(24:11):
at me, not with me. And that's one of my
first exam I my first traumatic experiences with public speaking,
and it went that way until my late forties before
I realized that my problem speaking wasn't the block that
that I had to crash through and break through. The
(24:31):
block wasn't a block in speaking, It was a block
in receiving the available listening. And that's what in my
late wardies I began to do speaking circles, and that
was the principle that it was the listening that you
needed to tune into, rather than being this great emotor,
(24:53):
this great speaker.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
You know, it's interesting because we already think of that
bar Mitzvah quote. It's like today I'm a man. I
go back to the seventh grade, right.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Or you know today have a fountain pen.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
You know, the the idea of listening is an interesting
one for me because having been a business speaker for
the better part of thirty years, for me, the hardest
part was not speaking, but listening to the audience's reaction
and what they were telling you by when you looked
at the audience.
Speaker 7 (25:25):
Yes, yes. And what I want speakers to do is
to when they're speaking, to speak to one person at
a time instead of the whole room, one person at
a time, and see that person so they feel seen
and they actually feel listened to. As you're saying, you're
you're you're plugging into their capacity to listen by being
(25:49):
available to them.
Speaker 5 (25:50):
And this.
Speaker 7 (25:52):
For business, this really works well.
Speaker 5 (25:55):
I uh.
Speaker 7 (25:59):
The the thing I suggest business people do is to open,
to make it really easy, is to open a talk
with a turning point story.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
What would be a turning point story?
Speaker 7 (26:14):
Well, forty years ago I was at a networking meeting
and the CPA had a ten minute talk and he
opened with this sentence. He said, when I was a boy,
every night my parents would fight bitterly in the next room,
and the walls were paper thin, and he said, I
couldn't sleep. So I counted sheep with numbers on their backs,
(26:36):
and the number sometimes went into the thousands before I'd
be able to fall asleep. And he said that this
nightly practice made him relaxed around big numbers. And he said,
I eventually became an accountant, and now it gives me
great pleasure to relax you around your numbers. And I
immediately knew I wanted to work with him. He became
(26:56):
my accountant for ten years and he moved into portfolio manager.
Wish continued to get my business all because he told
this little turning point personal story.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
You know, it's funny because during my speaking career I
always started every speech also exactly the same way, and
it went like this. I've had three businesses over the
last twenty years. The first business went out of business,
the second business I was kicked out two weeks before
my first son was born, and the third business I
started two weeks after my first son was born. Fortunately,
(27:30):
in nineteen ninety nine, I was able to sell that
business payback the bank the one point three million dollars,
and my wife tells me I got her back just
about the same time. So once I told that story,
and of course I told it in slower fashion and
more dramatic fashion. But you know, once I got that
out and the audience then laughed. Everyone could relax. You know,
(27:52):
there was a certain amount of humility. I'm like you,
I got an initial reaction from the audience, so I
wasn't nervous anymore. And I think that makes sense to
start with something you're comfort with. You know that's going
to land from your experience.
Speaker 7 (28:06):
Yeah, there's this wonderful you're probably familiar with, this wonderful
ted talk by Simon Sinek, the marketing.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Guru went to.
Speaker 7 (28:16):
And he says, the idea give your audience a strong
sense of where you're coming from and why you do
what you do, what gets you up in the morning.
He says, people don't buy what you do, they buy
why you do it. And if that's the first thing,
you let them know why you do it. And it
doesn't have to be that down and out. You know.
There was a portfolio financial manager I work with, and
(28:41):
he opened his talk with when he was a child,
the father would pack the car up every few months
and put the whole family in the car and drive
to a new town to stay ahead of the bill collectors.
And he bowed that he would when he had a family.
That would never happened. And he studied finance, and he
(29:03):
became a financial manager and that's what gets him up
in the morning. He loves working with people that way.
So you don't have to have that kind of a
dramatic storage. But anything that gives a hint as to
why you love what you do is more important than
it's more important sometimes in your qualifications. But if you're
(29:26):
qualified and you can have that kind of a story, again,
you don't have to be this great eloquent speaker, just
be a human being having a conversation with a friend
across the table about why you do what you do.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
And one of my best openings I heard was my
father was a priest, my mother was a nun, which
I thought, which actually really was happening to this kid.
They met the priest and nun met and they left
and they had children. But I thought that was a
great opening because like.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Oh, there you go.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
I also love the idea of connecting with one person.
When I used to speak in audience, audience is that
maybe were smaller, maybe a few hundred people, and if
it made sense before.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
My it was mind turn on stage.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
I used to try to go out and meet people
in the audience so I could get comfort with them
and connect with some of the people I was up
on stage.
Speaker 7 (30:16):
Yes, that's a wonderful idea. Is just a few minutes
with a few people, and then you can sometimes get
enough little piece of information from them to fold it
into your talk.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
One of the things that I've always found that a
lot of people don't prepare enough to speak in front
of people. Either they say, well, I'll just wing it,
or they say, well, I'll just memorize it. And I
thought either one is a really bad strategy. What I
tried to do was really learn what I was going
to present in front of people.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Yes, what's your thoughts on that?
Speaker 7 (30:57):
Yeah, well, right, both the memorizing it and it comes
out to script it. It comes out not authentic on
the one side, and the other side, as you say,
not at all preparing and just thinking you can wing it. Yeah.
What you're talking about is the middle ground of knowing
(31:18):
the information and being able to recreate it from knowing
it rather than from figuring it out in the moment.
Speaker 4 (31:27):
You know.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
I always I'm always amazed that you know, people watch
you know, late night talk show hosts and they watch
them interviewing you know, an actor or whatever. It is,
and they ask them questions and the actor comes up
with all these witty kinds of things, seemingly.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
In the moment.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
And when I used to get interviewed on stage or
in whatever, people would ask me a question. I was
asked almost every single question many times. So I always
had a thirty second or one minute equip that seemed
like it was spontaneous, but I'd been practiced over and
over and over again. And I guess that's really what
you're going for, right, is that it seems like a's
spontaneou is, but actually you've You've planned it out.
Speaker 7 (32:03):
And that's That's an example. That's Robin Williams as a comedian.
It looked like he was it looks like he was
saying it on the spot, but he said it many
times and he just knew how to fit it into
the right part of the of the of the act.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
So why is why is this importantly for even for
business people that even don't speak in front of audiences.
But I guess we're always speaking in front of people
no matter what.
Speaker 7 (32:28):
Well you as a as a business person, you promote
your product and your service. You can have educational talks,
you can be out there educating the public about your
field and not having to sell so much, but but
just being being the expert in the field. And that
(32:49):
just takes you knowing what you know. Uh so you
it's it's the best promotion in the world is to
be able to speak. And people think that in order
to do that you have to learn how to speak,
You have to go to toast Masters for ten years,
you have to become a No, you just have to know.
You just have to be with people in the audience
(33:11):
the way you are with them as a client, as
a customer, and having that care for them, being able
to look them straight in the eye, and when they
ask a question, for instance, that you don't have a
quick answer for, to be able to say, I don't know,
I'll find out and get back to you. That kind
of that kind of presence with groups, and then you
(33:36):
start to become good at these kind of talks and
you get asked to go to different you know, you've
got a rotary clubs and other business groups and eventually
you might get paid, but you will get more business
by being able to be an expert in your field.
(33:56):
And you are an expert in your field if you're
having a successful business in any way, you are an
expert in your field, you can speak like what humbly please.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
It's funny because I just a couple of months ago,
my younger son just got engaged and there was an
engagement party at my futures in law home, and of
course the father of the bride gets up and gives
a toast, right, and then he says, Okay, now we're
going to have a real professional speaker get up and
give a toast, right, So questions und people know that
(34:28):
I'm a professional speaker. So whenever I give toasts, there's
an incredible amount of expectation what that toast is going
to be?
Speaker 3 (34:35):
Right?
Speaker 2 (34:36):
And I can never I can never use notes like
ordinary people right. So what I'm forced to do is
I'm forced to actually practice that toast like fifty times,
so it comes out like it's really professional, and so
there's there's a really there's a much much higher bar.
The last question I wanted to ask you is how
does speaking in front of people relate to speaking on
(34:58):
a virtual call on zoom or in a virtual seminar
things like that. I find it very different because I
don't necessarily have an audience.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
I can connect with.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
Well, I do a lot of I do.
Speaker 7 (35:10):
Since the pandemic or the pandemic, I've had to do
most of my work on zoom and found ways to
use the camera to sometimes look into the camera in
a way that you know you're connecting with people. So
I work with people on doing their expertise through zoom.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
So what's the best way to sell?
Speaker 2 (35:33):
And so make love to the camera because some people
are really great at and others, I would say, like myself,
really aren't.
Speaker 7 (35:41):
I like the idea making love to the camera. You're
looking in the camera, but you're kind of diffusing your
gaze and sensing your speaking to human beings. And if
you practice that enough and they get the feed and
you get feedback from them that they feel you're right
with them, you get better and better at it. Speaking
(36:02):
speaking into that camera, it's not speaking into a camera,
it's speaking through the camera.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
That's a new way point. Well, Lee, I appreciate you
be on the show.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Where can people catch up with you and learn about
Speaking Circles?
Speaker 7 (36:16):
Well, my favorite way of being connected contacted is through email.
I love to have email conversations at Lee l Ee
at Speaking Circles dot com. And my website is Speaking
Circles International dot com. We have circles all over the
(36:40):
world for people to get comfortable speaking to groups.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Well, ate Lee, I appreciate you being the show, and
I want to thank everyone else for joining this week's
radio show. I got to thank our incredible staff, Sarah
schafferan our sound editor Ethan Moltz. If you're serious about
to be more successful in twenty twenty five, give me
a call ifs of a private line seven seven three
eight three seven eight two five zero, or email me
at Barry at Molts dot com. Remember, love everyone, trust
(37:05):
the view.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Impel your own canoe. Have a profitable and passionate week.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
You can find Barrymoltz on the web at Barymolts dot
com or more episodes of Small Business Radio at small
Business Radio Show dot com.
Get ready for all the craziness of small business. It's
exactly that craziness that makes it exciting and totally unbelievable.
Small Business Radio is now on the air with your host,
Barry Moltz.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Well, thanks for joining this week's radio show. Remember this
is the final word in small business for those keeping track.
This is now show number eight hundred and thirty six. Well,
you've all heard the statistic that most starters fail within
five years, but many more are what I call the
walking dead. Why do founders build their companies actually to
(00:39):
fail and what can they do about it? My guest
is Rich Hegberg, PhD, who's often referred to as the
Silicon Valley's CEO Whisper. He's a trained psychologist who spent
the last forty years of his career as an executive
management coach for over six thousand executives. They include folks
from Tinder, Twitter, Dropbox, Mixed Panel, zendesk Qorasana, Pinterest, Salesforce
(01:05):
and read It. He's got a new book out with
a couple other authors called Founders Keepers, Why founders are
built to fail and what it takes succeed.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Rich Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
Thank you, love.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I love the title of the book Founders Keepers, and
I'm wondering why no one else ever camped that title.
Speaker 5 (01:25):
I don't know, I have no idea. It's so appropriate
to the situation.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
So how'd you get involved in really being the CEO
whisper for all these execs in Silicon Valley?
Speaker 5 (01:40):
Well, I came to Silicon Valley in nineteen seventy nine,
and I started out doing executive assessment. Realized, you know,
that just using an interview in an IQ test, which
is what the company who I worked for did, didn't
make sense and it was really not valid, and got
(02:02):
into doing personality testing and using three sixties. Nobody had
even heard of them at the time, and as a
way of giving people feedback and giving them giving them insights.
I started off with executives in trouble and terminated executives,
and then companies.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Switched me over to their high potential people.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
And ultimately I was working with the senior leaders, including
many many CEOs, and over.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
The years.
Speaker 5 (02:33):
My practice evolved, and one particular thing that happened was
we got insights into what differentiated debt year's like people
who were rated by their colleagues as outstanding as leaders,
and so that was kind of a reference point. We
had terminated. We had executives in trouble. Now we had
best leaders.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
I grew.
Speaker 5 (02:55):
I'm a serial entrepreneur, and I grew several companies. One
I sold to Accenture in two thousand and six and
worked for them for three years. And then I decided,
you know, it was time to change my focus. And
so I decided to focus on founders.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
And I was.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
A founder, and I recognized in them some things that
were true of me, and that really drew me in.
I didn't realize it at the time, but I was,
you know, I was so much like them, and they
sensed that I was like them.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
You know.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
You know, he's saying in the subtitle of the book,
why founders are built to fail? I think that every
founder would tell you they don't start out to fail, right.
They started with a passion, with an idea, perhaps even
a way to execute it, perhaps even with the target customers.
But why do you say they're built to fail.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
Because they lacked the execution skills that get them to
the next level and help them scale. Founders are built
for you know, founders are what we call visionary evangelists.
There's visionary evangelists, a relationship builder, and a manager of execution.
Those are three different styles or skill sets. Founders are
(04:11):
really good at being the visionary evangelists. They come up
with creative ideas and insights. They have insights into the market.
They're persuasive, they're good storytellers. They come up with ideas
all the time, and that runs counter to being focused.
(04:32):
And what companies need when they start to scale and
get more complex is people to put in place the
systems and processes in the structure that's necessary in order
to make them run more efficiently. But founders view system,
process and structure as bureaucracy when it's really about efficiency.
(04:53):
And so they're good at this metaphor really picks it up.
They're good at blasting a but they're not very good
at getting in orbit. Some of them do, most are
not able to get to the moon, and almost none
of them will ever get to Mars.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
So you know, they're like a ticking time bomb.
Speaker 5 (05:16):
They have these creative skills, these divergent thinking skills, but
when it comes to discipline, management, and people skills, because
I mentioned those three pillars of leadership, they're high on vision.
But even the good ones are only medium on relationship,
but they're all bad when it comes to execution, the
(05:39):
successful ones and the unsuccessful ones. No.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
It's interesting because as founders were really good starters, right,
we always like to start something. And you know, I
was after I had a bunch of my own companies.
I was an angel investor in the early two thousands.
People always come to me say, Barry, I've got a
great idea. What do you think, And I'm like, well,
it's not about the idea, it's about the execution of
that idea.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Does this whole idea of execution?
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Is that why some of the more successful founders have
an execution partner, you know, kind of like yes, you
know Bill Gates head Steve Balmer or something.
Speaker 5 (06:13):
Like that, exactly exactly. I think you can do it
in a couple of different ways. I think first of all,
you've got to recognize that you need help and that
you have limitations, and you have to recognize what your
what your skills are, and what they are not and
then bring in somebody who makes the trains run on time,
(06:36):
who is good at what you're not good at, and
that might be in the beginning it might simply be
an executive assistant, and then it might be a chief
operating officer, or it could be function heads who are
better at the execution side, whether they be in marketing
(06:58):
or whether they be in sales, or whether they be
in product or whatever. But I think a lot of
founders try to do it all and their control freaks.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
For sure, we don't we have to be yeah, we
are well.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
Well, they say that to a point in the beginning.
It's important, But if you're going to gain leverage and
you're going to attract and retain top talent, they're going
to expect to be given a certain level of independence
and autonomy. And often founders don't do that.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
And that's why it's so hard a lot of time
for founders to delegate, right, And you can't get any
scale unless you're going to delegate because they keep thinking, well,
I can do it better myself. How did you get
founders to realize that they actually had limitations, that they
couldn't do it all.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
Well, this is interesting. In early on in my coaching career,
I realized that the people I were coaching was coaching
are were very analytical people, and they believed data and
I mean, I was trained as a therapist, but I
(08:10):
realized that things like a three sixty or a personality
test could get their attention.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
What there was an Israeli.
Speaker 5 (08:23):
I think he was a chief software architect from a
big company, and he said to me, Richie says, will
you this shrink tell me I'm insensitive.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
I can say, what the hell do you know? You're
a shrink? But when when.
Speaker 5 (08:38):
Your test predicts that I'm going to be insensitive? And today,
by the way, we use machine learning to predict the
three sixty, so we can tell you what your autopilot
is before you get any feedback from your colleagues. But
he said, when you when you predicted, I see what
you've done with your statistics, and you get my attention.
(08:59):
But in twenty four of my peers superior subordinates tell
me I'm insensitive and write a page and a half
single space of comments.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
I listen.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
That's that's interesting. You know.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
One of the things you talk about in the book
is that we still fall for this idea, of this
myth of glorifying the genius jerk.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
And when I think of the.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Genius jerk, I think of Elon Musk. I think of
Steve Jobs. I know a lot of people that work
for Steve Jobs and just how insensitive are actually?
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Downright?
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Mean?
Speaker 3 (09:30):
You know, he really could be. Why do we fall
for that?
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Do you do we let financial success or someone being
a genius say it's okay. If it's okay if you
are a jerk because you're a genius or you made
a lot of money.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
I think what I think we look at the whole
package and say, oh, I've got to emulate all of
the things that they're doing.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
And that's like.
Speaker 5 (09:57):
Saying, if if three successful people all own porsches, that
means I need to own one. Right, it's correlated, but
it's not causation. Correlation is not causation. I mean, if
you take a look at those people, you take a
look at Jobs, Gates, Bezos, Musk, all of those people
(10:23):
were visionaries and they were creative.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
That helped them.
Speaker 5 (10:29):
They all were really good storytellers, particularly Jobs. They were
all really really smart. They were relentless in their pursuit
of excellence. They, particularly Gates, Bezos and Musk, were very
long term in their thinking, so they had product intuition.
(10:55):
But their aggressiveness, their abusiveness was not one of those
things that made them successful, and in fact it got
in the way. And we proved that in our study
where we compared successful founders and these are financially successful founders.
(11:16):
We looked at multiples of invested capital for one hundred
and twenty two founders, and we looked at those founders
who got a ten x return and compared it to
those who got zero. And the differentiators would suggest they
were adaptable. They weren't stubborn. The unsuccessful ones were stubborn
(11:36):
and they didn't adapt to listen to feedback.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
They were not open to input.
Speaker 5 (11:40):
They didn't handle resistance. The successful ones learned to work
through others, build teams, delegate. They were effective at scaling operationally,
they were not great. The successful ones again were around
the mean on building systemssses to get rid of inefficiency,
(12:02):
but the unsuccessful ones waited for things to break. There
was also a level of self awareness in the successful founders.
They were more reflective, and there's a wonderful item on
the personality test that differentiated the successful from the unsuccessful,
and that item was, I frequently reflect upon my past
(12:25):
successes and failures. The successful ones said strongly agree. The
unsuccessful ones said strongly disagree, So they had the unsuccessful
ones had blind spots. The other thing, and this is
where some of the bad behavior of the genius jerks
(12:49):
was really contradicted. The successful ones were way better at
handling stress, and startups are stressful, and they were more
emotionally stable and less reactive. So they're all founders are
impatient and demanding and in a hurry. But the unsuccessful
(13:12):
ones were reactive and impulsive. They scored significantly high on impulsivity.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Rich are you saying that that perhaps you know, uh,
people like Steve Jobs was successful excuse me despite their
outrageous personal behavior. I remember one of my friends said, well,
I worked for Steve Jobs twice and I quit the
second time he threw a coffee pot at.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
My head, right right?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
But was he successful despite those kinds of things?
Speaker 5 (13:40):
To me?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Because I remember when.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Steve Jobs died, people created these you know, these memory places,
you know, you know, they put flowers and all these
memorials because I think people felt connected to him because
of his products.
Speaker 5 (13:53):
But he was a jerk, Well, he was a jerk more.
He was more of a jerk in the early early
days before he was fired from Apple, he had a
volatile temper.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
You know, he would publicly be right people. He was abusive,
he didn't.
Speaker 5 (14:10):
Delegate, He alienated his colleagues, and he lacked empathy of
any sort. But what happened after he came back is
that he'd matured a bit. He'd been exposed to the
people at Pixar, and there was a transformational moment because
at Pixar, one of the co founders really taught him
(14:32):
about empathy, and so later on he was better able
to delegate. He brought in Cook an Ivy, and he
tried to create a different culture. The same kind of
transformation happened with Gates in nineteen seventies to the nineteen nineties.
He was aggressive and confrontational and lots of public criticism
(14:56):
and ultra competitive, and he created that kind of environment
in Microsoft, and he dominated conversations. But later, especially you know,
when he started the Bill and Mulinda Gates Foundation, he
was way more collaborative, empathetic, emotionally aware that kind of stuff.
He delegated more. So he changed. And the same thing
(15:17):
happened with Bezos because and for Bezos, the transformation came
with COVID and with reports that people were burning out
and when when somebody wrote a book about him and
pointed out.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
The toxicity of the culture.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
So these transformational events really taught them about the limits
of their controlling behavior and that they needed to create
functional not dysfunctional teams and that and and they got
feedback and that developed self awareness. So it was a
personal crisis that did it.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
It's interesting to me because it seems like each of
these companies lasted long enough or had enough enough success
so that the founder could evolve. I wouldn't say the mature,
but could evolve. And it seems to me a lot
of small business owners don't get that chance, right. They
don't have enough financial success, and so it falls into
(16:13):
the weight of, you know, their lack of skills.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
I think.
Speaker 5 (16:18):
I think founders have to realize that there's good reason
why so many founders fail and why you know, to
only twenty five percent of the founders who get funding
to actually make it to an IPO. And so I think,
I think there's some things you can do, but I
think you have to recognize what are where where do
(16:41):
you add the most value? What's the best and highest
use of your time? And if that's being the visionary
evangelists and the spokesperson and bring in somebody. I had
three coos over the years. The last one i'm I'm
high on visionary evangelists, Medium on relationship, and law on execution.
The last one was BDM vision high relationship, really off
(17:08):
the charts execution, And so she could cover for the
things that I was not naturally good at and focus
me on the things I was good at.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
And that's one of the things you really have to
look at when you're bringing a team is how are
they complementary to you, not how they're like you or
just do whatever you want exactly.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
And that's a sign of growth when when a founder
realizes that he or she has limitations and has to
learn and grow, that's really the first step. And one
of the signs is a willingness to delegate and empower
other people. The other one is, you know, one of
(17:52):
the big differentiators between successful and unsuccessful is that the
successful or more adaptable and that and that expresses itself
in their openness to input and their willingness to listen,
and their willingness to listen to resistance and not just
bulldoze to try to understand it, and particularly when the
(18:14):
people you brought have brought in are more experienced. When
you finally have a brand and can attract a players,
they're going to expect to be given independence and empowered.
And so I think founders if they're going to get
if they're going to no matter how big or small
the company is, they have to get feedback to recognize
(18:37):
what they're good at and what they're not good at,
and have and be willing and adaptable to change and
learn to work through others. Working through others, which is
investing in teams and creating.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
Buy in and delegation and empowerment.
Speaker 5 (18:54):
These are all things that show that you've learned how
to work through others, that you're not trying to make
all all the decisions because that will burn you out.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
It will burn you out, it will.
Speaker 5 (19:04):
Be dysfunctional, it will demoralized a team, but it will
burn you out.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
You know, as a trained psychologist, I'm sure you don't
get this question that often, but I really think there's
a role that luck and timing plays in the founder's success.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
What do you think.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
I think it's there's an old definition of luck, which
is luck is preparation meeting opportunity, and I think founders
are really good. They're highly creative, they're externally focused. We
know that that's on the three sixty. They're externally focused,
(19:44):
and they develop insights and they're willing to take risks,
and that that fuels the engine.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
And need engine, and we all need fuel for engine.
The last question I want to ask you is if
there was one insight rich that that people could take
away from this book and the founder could start practicing immediately,
what would that be.
Speaker 5 (20:14):
I think it's for most founders. It's that you need
to recognize your limitations, and you need to particularly delegate.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
And trust and empower people. And if I have.
Speaker 5 (20:30):
To give one more, it would be that you need
to grow as a leader. For the company to grow,
You're not going to be able to just operate in
founder mode endlessly because it ultimately will come back to
bite you. You need to learn to grow as a
(20:51):
leader and become better and that requires mentoring, coaching, feedback,
but a willingness, a willingness to really take it in,
you know, rather than treating feedback as something you have
to defend yourself from.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Well, Rich, I appreciate you. In the show the Telebion
is called Founders keeper is why founders are built to
fail and what.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
It takes succeed.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Name your two other co authors because I want to
give them credit as well.
Speaker 5 (21:18):
My co author is teens Zoo and teen Zoo is
the CEO of a company called Zoora Zu and it
was a public company until early this year and they
went to public. It was valued at one point seven
billion dollars. And he's been my client for almost fifteen
(21:42):
years and I took him through the journey of getting
him feedback. He got three sixty, he got the personality.
He also did a culture assessment and it was it
was an awakening experience for him, as he would describe it.
And the other is Gabe Research and Gabe is.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
Is a writer who works for KEEM.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
I want to give those people credit as well. Where
can people catch up with your rich.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
Well at Hagberg Consulting, Dot column and if they go
on the internet, y'see, all kinds of things that point
to where I am rich.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Thanks for joining us this small business radio show. We'll
be right back.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Thinking of starting your own business.
Speaker 6 (22:28):
Get on board for a crazy ride, be the first
person to tweet Berry at Barry Moltz and get a
free copy of his book You Need to Be a
Little Crazy, The Truth about starting and growing your own business.
You will need the company.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Stick around to get your small business unstuck. More of
Small Business Radio with Barry molts Well.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
There's an old adage that we fear speaking in front
of people more than death. The joke goes that we
would rather be dead than speak in front of an audience.
My next guest is Lee Glickstein, who is a trailblazer
in the field of public speaking and the creator of
the globally recognized Speaking Circles method and founder of Speaking
(23:13):
Circles International. He's an authority on leadership, presence, and magnetism
in public speaking. Having overcome his own crippling fear of
public speaking, Lee has spent decades helping others transform their
relationship with the audience. His FoST book is called be
Heard Now and Your Fear of Public Speaking Forever. Lee,
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 7 (23:35):
Thank you, Barry, appreciate being here.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
So first tell us about your fear of public speaking
and why you think most people are like that.
Speaker 7 (23:44):
Well, I remember at my bar mitzvah.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
There we go.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
We got to go way back here.
Speaker 7 (23:49):
Yeah. Being a Jewish boy and being bar mitshad in
the first line of my bar Mitzvah speech, the traditional
line today I am a man. When I said, it
came out because puberty was just a rumor to me.
Then it came out today I am a man. And
there was a laughter in the synagogue, and it was
(24:11):
at me, not with me. And that's one of my
first exam I my first traumatic experiences with public speaking,
and it went that way until my late forties before
I realized that my problem speaking wasn't the block that
that I had to crash through and break through. The
(24:31):
block wasn't a block in speaking, It was a block
in receiving the available listening. And that's what in my
late wardies I began to do speaking circles, and that
was the principle that it was the listening that you
needed to tune into, rather than being this great emotor,
(24:53):
this great speaker.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
You know, it's interesting because we already think of that
bar Mitzvah quote. It's like today I'm a man. I
go back to the seventh grade, right.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Or you know today have a fountain pen.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
You know, the the idea of listening is an interesting
one for me because having been a business speaker for
the better part of thirty years, for me, the hardest
part was not speaking, but listening to the audience's reaction
and what they were telling you by when you looked
at the audience.
Speaker 7 (25:25):
Yes, yes. And what I want speakers to do is
to when they're speaking, to speak to one person at
a time instead of the whole room, one person at
a time, and see that person so they feel seen
and they actually feel listened to. As you're saying, you're
you're you're plugging into their capacity to listen by being
(25:49):
available to them.
Speaker 5 (25:50):
And this.
Speaker 7 (25:52):
For business, this really works well.
Speaker 5 (25:55):
I uh.
Speaker 7 (25:59):
The the thing I suggest business people do is to open,
to make it really easy, is to open a talk
with a turning point story.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
What would be a turning point story?
Speaker 7 (26:14):
Well, forty years ago I was at a networking meeting
and the CPA had a ten minute talk and he
opened with this sentence. He said, when I was a boy,
every night my parents would fight bitterly in the next room,
and the walls were paper thin, and he said, I
couldn't sleep. So I counted sheep with numbers on their backs,
(26:36):
and the number sometimes went into the thousands before I'd
be able to fall asleep. And he said that this
nightly practice made him relaxed around big numbers. And he said,
I eventually became an accountant, and now it gives me
great pleasure to relax you around your numbers. And I
immediately knew I wanted to work with him. He became
(26:56):
my accountant for ten years and he moved into portfolio manager.
Wish continued to get my business all because he told
this little turning point personal story.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
You know, it's funny because during my speaking career I
always started every speech also exactly the same way, and
it went like this. I've had three businesses over the
last twenty years. The first business went out of business,
the second business I was kicked out two weeks before
my first son was born, and the third business I
started two weeks after my first son was born. Fortunately,
(27:30):
in nineteen ninety nine, I was able to sell that
business payback the bank the one point three million dollars,
and my wife tells me I got her back just
about the same time. So once I told that story,
and of course I told it in slower fashion and
more dramatic fashion. But you know, once I got that
out and the audience then laughed. Everyone could relax. You know,
(27:52):
there was a certain amount of humility. I'm like you,
I got an initial reaction from the audience, so I
wasn't nervous anymore. And I think that makes sense to
start with something you're comfort with. You know that's going
to land from your experience.
Speaker 7 (28:06):
Yeah, there's this wonderful you're probably familiar with, this wonderful
ted talk by Simon Sinek, the marketing.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Guru went to.
Speaker 7 (28:16):
And he says, the idea give your audience a strong
sense of where you're coming from and why you do
what you do, what gets you up in the morning.
He says, people don't buy what you do, they buy
why you do it. And if that's the first thing,
you let them know why you do it. And it
doesn't have to be that down and out. You know.
There was a portfolio financial manager I work with, and
(28:41):
he opened his talk with when he was a child,
the father would pack the car up every few months
and put the whole family in the car and drive
to a new town to stay ahead of the bill collectors.
And he bowed that he would when he had a family.
That would never happened. And he studied finance, and he
(29:03):
became a financial manager and that's what gets him up
in the morning. He loves working with people that way.
So you don't have to have that kind of a
dramatic storage. But anything that gives a hint as to
why you love what you do is more important than
it's more important sometimes in your qualifications. But if you're
(29:26):
qualified and you can have that kind of a story, again,
you don't have to be this great eloquent speaker, just
be a human being having a conversation with a friend
across the table about why you do what you do.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
And one of my best openings I heard was my
father was a priest, my mother was a nun, which
I thought, which actually really was happening to this kid.
They met the priest and nun met and they left
and they had children. But I thought that was a
great opening because like.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Oh, there you go.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
I also love the idea of connecting with one person.
When I used to speak in audience, audience is that
maybe were smaller, maybe a few hundred people, and if
it made sense before.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
My it was mind turn on stage.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
I used to try to go out and meet people
in the audience so I could get comfort with them
and connect with some of the people I was up
on stage.
Speaker 7 (30:16):
Yes, that's a wonderful idea. Is just a few minutes
with a few people, and then you can sometimes get
enough little piece of information from them to fold it
into your talk.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
One of the things that I've always found that a
lot of people don't prepare enough to speak in front
of people. Either they say, well, I'll just wing it,
or they say, well, I'll just memorize it. And I
thought either one is a really bad strategy. What I
tried to do was really learn what I was going
to present in front of people.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Yes, what's your thoughts on that?
Speaker 7 (30:57):
Yeah, well, right, both the memorizing it and it comes
out to script it. It comes out not authentic on
the one side, and the other side, as you say,
not at all preparing and just thinking you can wing it. Yeah.
What you're talking about is the middle ground of knowing
(31:18):
the information and being able to recreate it from knowing
it rather than from figuring it out in the moment.
Speaker 4 (31:27):
You know.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
I always I'm always amazed that you know, people watch
you know, late night talk show hosts and they watch
them interviewing you know, an actor or whatever. It is,
and they ask them questions and the actor comes up
with all these witty kinds of things, seemingly.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
In the moment.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
And when I used to get interviewed on stage or
in whatever, people would ask me a question. I was
asked almost every single question many times. So I always
had a thirty second or one minute equip that seemed
like it was spontaneous, but I'd been practiced over and
over and over again. And I guess that's really what
you're going for, right, is that it seems like a's
spontaneou is, but actually you've You've planned it out.
Speaker 7 (32:03):
And that's That's an example. That's Robin Williams as a comedian.
It looked like he was it looks like he was
saying it on the spot, but he said it many
times and he just knew how to fit it into
the right part of the of the of the act.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
So why is why is this importantly for even for
business people that even don't speak in front of audiences.
But I guess we're always speaking in front of people
no matter what.
Speaker 7 (32:28):
Well you as a as a business person, you promote
your product and your service. You can have educational talks,
you can be out there educating the public about your
field and not having to sell so much, but but
just being being the expert in the field. And that
(32:49):
just takes you knowing what you know. Uh so you
it's it's the best promotion in the world is to
be able to speak. And people think that in order
to do that you have to learn how to speak,
You have to go to toast Masters for ten years,
you have to become a No, you just have to know.
You just have to be with people in the audience
(33:11):
the way you are with them as a client, as
a customer, and having that care for them, being able
to look them straight in the eye, and when they
ask a question, for instance, that you don't have a
quick answer for, to be able to say, I don't know,
I'll find out and get back to you. That kind
of that kind of presence with groups, and then you
(33:36):
start to become good at these kind of talks and
you get asked to go to different you know, you've
got a rotary clubs and other business groups and eventually
you might get paid, but you will get more business
by being able to be an expert in your field.
(33:56):
And you are an expert in your field if you're
having a successful business in any way, you are an
expert in your field, you can speak like what humbly please.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
It's funny because I just a couple of months ago,
my younger son just got engaged and there was an
engagement party at my futures in law home, and of
course the father of the bride gets up and gives
a toast, right, and then he says, Okay, now we're
going to have a real professional speaker get up and
give a toast, right, So questions und people know that
(34:28):
I'm a professional speaker. So whenever I give toasts, there's
an incredible amount of expectation what that toast is going
to be?
Speaker 3 (34:35):
Right?
Speaker 2 (34:36):
And I can never I can never use notes like
ordinary people right. So what I'm forced to do is
I'm forced to actually practice that toast like fifty times,
so it comes out like it's really professional, and so
there's there's a really there's a much much higher bar.
The last question I wanted to ask you is how
does speaking in front of people relate to speaking on
(34:58):
a virtual call on zoom or in a virtual seminar
things like that. I find it very different because I
don't necessarily have an audience.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
I can connect with.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
Well, I do a lot of I do.
Speaker 7 (35:10):
Since the pandemic or the pandemic, I've had to do
most of my work on zoom and found ways to
use the camera to sometimes look into the camera in
a way that you know you're connecting with people. So
I work with people on doing their expertise through zoom.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
So what's the best way to sell?
Speaker 2 (35:33):
And so make love to the camera because some people
are really great at and others, I would say, like myself,
really aren't.
Speaker 7 (35:41):
I like the idea making love to the camera. You're
looking in the camera, but you're kind of diffusing your
gaze and sensing your speaking to human beings. And if
you practice that enough and they get the feed and
you get feedback from them that they feel you're right
with them, you get better and better at it. Speaking
(36:02):
speaking into that camera, it's not speaking into a camera,
it's speaking through the camera.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
That's a new way point. Well, Lee, I appreciate you
be on the show.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Where can people catch up with you and learn about
Speaking Circles?
Speaker 7 (36:16):
Well, my favorite way of being connected contacted is through email.
I love to have email conversations at Lee l Ee
at Speaking Circles dot com. And my website is Speaking
Circles International dot com. We have circles all over the
(36:40):
world for people to get comfortable speaking to groups.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Well, ate Lee, I appreciate you being the show, and
I want to thank everyone else for joining this week's
radio show. I got to thank our incredible staff, Sarah
schafferan our sound editor Ethan Moltz. If you're serious about
to be more successful in twenty twenty five, give me
a call ifs of a private line seven seven three
eight three seven eight two five zero, or email me
at Barry at Molts dot com. Remember, love everyone, trust
(37:05):
the view.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Impel your own canoe. Have a profitable and passionate week.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
You can find Barrymoltz on the web at Barymolts dot
com or more episodes of Small Business Radio at small
Business Radio Show dot com.
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