Follow Your Different
035 The Legendary Ken Blanchard
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Why does great service come from the heart? On today’s episode, Christopher sits with his hero Ken Blanchard. One of the greatest authors of all time shares why legendary customer service matters, the power that true servant leadership holds, and so much more.
Exemplifying Simple Truths
Christopher has personally looked up to Ken since reading the life-changing book, The One-Minute Manager. When he dropped out of school and had to seek other ways of learning, Christopher turned to the book that he has given to many others in return.
Simplicity marks everything that Ken writes and teaches. The living legend has written over 60 books, with a new one inspired by the story of Johnny the Bagger, The Simple Truths of Service.
“My mission statement is to be a loving teacher and example of simple truths.” – Ken Blanchard
Great, Simple Service
Everyone can make a difference in customer service without having to do anything complicated and by simply reaching out to customers and making them feel important. Great service that makes a difference comes from the heart. However, the human ego often sends people off track of being servant leaders.
Ego gets in the way of service in two ways. One is through false pride or the “more than” philosophy, where you act like you’re better than everyone else. And then there is fear or self-doubt, where you have a “less than” philosophy.
“A lot of people say, ‘That’s an ego problem?’ Sure, you focus on yourself.” – Ken Blanchard on self-doubt
Writing for People
Growing up, Ken’s parents instilled in him the value of staying grounded. When he became president back in junior high, his father reminded him that great leaders are great because people respect and trust them. His mother also taught him to neither think himself beyond others nor let others think they’re above him.
He has had a lot of valuable learnings in life. And all these motivate him to continue writing books.
“I just love learning for people.” – Ken Blanchard
To hear more about service and being yourself from Ken himself, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
A prominent, sought-after author, speaker, and business consultant, Dr. Ken Blanchard’s friends, colleagues, and clients characterize him as one of the most insightful, powerful, and compassionate individuals in business today. Ken is one of the most influential leadership experts in the world and is respected for his years of groundbreaking work in the fields of leadership and management.
He is also the co-founder and Chief Spiritual Officer of The Ken Blanchard Companies, an international management training and consulting firm that he and his wife, Margie Blanchard, began in 1979 in San Diego, California.
Ken received a master’s degree from Colgate University and a bachelor’s and Ph.D. from Cornell University. Ken spends time as a visiting lecturer at his alma mater where he is a trustee emeritus of the Board of Trustees. He also teaches students in the Master of Science in Executive Leadership Program at the University of San Diego.
He has received many awards and honors for his contributions in the fields of management, leadership, and speaking. The National Speakers Association awarded him its highest honor, the “Council of Peers Award of Excellence.” He was inducted into the HRD Hall of Fame by Training magazine and Lakewood Conferences, and he received the Golden Gavel Award from Toastmasters International.
Ken also received The Thought Leadership Award for continued support of work-related learning and performance by ISA—The Association of Learning Providers. Ken has been inducted into Amazon’s Hall of Fame as one of the top 25 best-selling authors of all time. The business school at Grand Canyon University bears his name.
An avid golfer, Ken belongs to the Loch Lomond Golf Club in Scotland.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed Ken Blanchard on this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
034 Mindfulness and Music: Julianna Raye
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Why does being present mean losing oneself? On today’s episode, mindfulness guru Julianna Raye shares an insightful conversation with Christopher. Learn how you can apply your attention in ways to truly make your life effective.
Mindfulness and Being Present
Mindfulness practice entails knowing how to apply your attention through optimal ways. Understanding where to focus one’s attention alleviates even a simple headache. Opening up to the experience as it is happening will help release the pain, even if not always.
It turns out, there are two ways by which you can handle pain. One is to turn towards the pain and directly work with it or to anchor away from it. And it matters to be present in the situation in order to find a way to deal with it.
“I like to define what it means to be present in a way where people can actually understand how to do it—if they wanna do something.” – Julianna Raye on being present
Three Skill States
There are three skill states to consider to achieve mindfulness: concentration, sensory clarity, and equanimity. Julianna says that these are naturally-occurring. And they come up in life all the time, associated with the most fulfilling moments.
“The key is a lot of people don’t know that those heightened states—those skills—you can develop them and then they’re transferrable.” – Julianna Raye
On Concentration
When you achieve concentration, you get to spend more time focusing on what matters to you and less time being pulled into distractions. Nobody succeeds without figuring out how concentration works.
“Concentration is the ability to focus on what you choose.” – Julianna Raye
Christopher says that it’s interesting how you lose yourself in concentration. This means that the more present we are for us, the less alive we are. And the less present that we are, the more alive we are.
“It’s this amazing dichotomy to me that when we lose ourselves the most is when we’re alive the most.” – Christopher Lochhead
To hear more about the other skill states that affect mindfulness from Julianna herself, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Julianna is devoted to deepening people’s understanding of research-supported mindfulness and empowering anyone to guide others in its practice. She has been training individuals and groups in the Unified Mindfulness system for nearly two decades.
Julianna is also a founding member of Brightmind Meditation, LLC—the developer of the Brightmind mindfulness app. She also consults and offers private coaching, onsite and online mindfulness training.
She has had more than 100 weeks of immersive silent retreat training in both the mindfulness and Zen traditions. Through these, she has completed over 12,000 hours of formal practice.
Along the way, she has participated in research including a UCLA study comparing long-term meditator’s brains with those of non-meditators.
She also designed and led the training for a workplace research study carried out under David Creswell, Ph.D. And that study showed positive outcomes with regards to improved employee well being and lower stress.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed Julianna Raye on this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
033 Startup Traction Gap w/ Bruce Cleveland
Why do most startups fail? Today, Bruce Cleveland joins us for a master class in building a massively successful B2B and why market engineering is a skill every executive needs. Listen in to learn how you can build your company and category to scale.
“Venture capital is a fairly interesting term or phrase. Because what I found is that there’s not a lot of venture in venture capital.” – Bruce Cleveland
Basic Patterns to Engineer Success
CEOs demonstrate basic patterns in engineering their success. But a lot of startups are not executing these patterns. Over the course of a decade in his prior firm, Bruce began to see which teams would have an actual chance for success.
He decided to explore these patterns, and he discovered three phases that every startup goes through. Even a new product offering in a large company will have to go through these same phases.
Go-to-Product and Go-to-Scale Phases
The first phase is the go-to-product phase. It begins with an idea, one that is hopefully informed by research. In this phase, you will have a prototype that you put in the market for some customers to get and provide feedback for in order to reach a more polished version called minimum viable product.
Skipping to the third phase, which is the go-to-scale phase, is where you finally get some customers and things are really working. Now, you have converted from being a PowerPoint company to a spreadsheet company. And you can finally show how good your product actually is.
Investors Look for Traction
Beyond reaching profitability, what most firms want to see is this thing called traction. They want to see demonstrable evidence that there’s a market and that people will purchase your product. And most of all, it needs to be enough evidence.
“That go-to-scale phase, there’s a lot of companies that will finance that. And there’s a lot of great brands that are out there that wait until you get to that point before they will invest in you.” – Bruce Cleveland
To learn more about the traction gap from Bruce, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Bruce Cleveland is a Founding Partner at Wildcat where he focuses on investments in artificial intelligence (AI) marketing, EdTech, enterprise software as a service (SaaS) and the Internet of Things (IoT). He’s also the author of Traversing the Traction Gap.
His specific areas of interest include enterprise automation, education and training, and general business applications. Bruce likes working with early-stage companies that use technology and data to increase revenue and decrease costs.
An avid adventurer and sailor, Bruce enjoys the challenge of creating new companies and navigating new markets.
Bruce began his venture capital career at InterWest Partners, where he was the first investor and a former board member of Marketo, which held an IPO in 2013 and was acquired by Vista Equity Partners in 2016 for $1.8 billion.
Links:
Wildcat Venture Partners – Traction Gap
We hope you enjoyed Bruce Cleveland on this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
032 Experiences w/ Joe Pine
Are you a company people spend time with or save time with? On today’s episode, business thought leader Joe Pine joins us for a riveting conversation on why experiences remain important in the business sphere.
Progression of Economic Value
Joe and his partner opened their legendary book, The Experience Economy, with an anecdote on coffee beans. Coffee is a commodity that can be grown on the ground and a cup can cost 2 to 3 cents. But when you package coffee beans and sell them in stores, their value increases to 5 or 10 cents.
Even more, when you buy coffee from someone who brewed it for you, the cost increases to half a dollar. Finally, having coffee in an ambient environment like most coffee shops will have you paying up to $4 for a cup. This perfectly exemplifies the progression of economic value.“
When Companies Fail
Apple and Starbucks have succeeded in making experience part of their products through their retail stores. This is something that a lot of companies fall short in. Take for example Toys R Us, which went bankrupt recently.
“When you combine the great products that Apple has with the great experience they have in their stores, that’s when magic can happen.” – Joe Pine
Toys are the most experiential products in the world, even more than smartphones. But Toys R Us failed to see that putting them in a warehouse where kids couldn’t really play with them put their business in jeopardy.
Two Experience Strategies
As a company, you can choose between two strategies to make the customer experience better: the time well-saved strategy or the time well-spent strategy.
For the first one, you can divide the best possible service at the lowest possible price at the greatest possible experience for your customers. Meanwhile, there is also the second strategy where people actually value the time they spend with you.
“You gotta get people to value the time that they spend with you. Give them a reason to come into the store. Give them a reason to interact with you.” – Joe Pine
To hear about the four types of experiences and the value of being authentic from Joe, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Joe Pine is a legitimate business thought leader and among the founders of the experience economy. He and his partner James H. Gilmore wrote The Experience Economy: Work is a Theatre & Every Business a Stage in 1999, which demonstrates how goods and services are no longer enough. What companies must offer are experiences that engage each customer in an inherently personal way.
He helps clients to design strategies to leverage these new economic opportunities and create experiences that drive revenue.
Links:
Harvard Business Review – Welcome to the Experience Economy
We hope you enjoyed Joe Pine on this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
031 Men’s Athleisure w/ Vuori Founder Joe Kudla
How do you bootstrap your way to success? On this episode, Joe Kudla joins us for a conversation on taking action based on insight. How do you design a new athletic clothing niche for men and be known in a category so large?
“I’ll be totally candid. I had no idea what it took to run a successful apparel business.“ – Joe Kudla
A Very Personal Brand
Athletic apparel has been around pretty much since the creation of the fig leaf. So why did Joe think of building a brand in this particular niche? It started out of a personal need.
Joe was an athlete who would beat himself up playing football his whole life. About ten years ago, he began dealing with a lot of back pain. That was when one of his friends suggested that he do yoga.
Beyond the Mass Produced
He was taking yoga classes daily when he looked around and realized that he never got to know what dudes are supposed to wear to yoga. It was this question, this puzzle, that set him and his associates to this whole path.
Massive brands flood the athletic apparel market. Some have buckled up the channel with better material and construction and more tailored, modern fit. But Joe wanted more than apparel exclusive for the gym.
“We’re the anti-gym guys. We’re going to the gym but we just didn’t connect with that culture around it.” – Joe Kudla
Creating Diverse and Versatile Athleisure
Joe looked at the space and came across the stats of people practicing yoga versus those who go surfing and gained valuable insight.
“When I really looked at the brand that we were gonna create, it was inspired by much more than yoga. It extended to this diverse, versatile active life.” – Joe Kudla
No one can deny the appeal of premium active apparel that performs better. But even better are clothes you can sweat in and wear to the beach or when you meet a friend for some beer. And so he built a brand that is casual and can be carried around throughout the day.
To hear more about the inception of Vuori and the story of finding love in poop from Joe, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Joe is the founder/CEO of Vuori is an active lifestyle apparel brand that draws inspiration from the aspirational coastal California lifestyle, an integration of yoga, surf, sport, art, and a strong visionary spirit.
Vuori makes products that stand the test of time and hopes to inspire others to be healthy, vibrant and live their dreams.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed Joe Kudla on this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
030 Outer Order, Inner Calm w/ Gretchen Rubin
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How do you become happier in life? On today’s episode, four-time New York Times bestselling author Gretchen Rubin joins us for a fun, insightful conversation. How do you turn feeling envy and lying into tools for our own growth?
Relationships for Happiness
There are two ways to achieve happiness, depending on the mental framework that you use. One of which is that to be happy, we need to have enduring, intimate bonds.
“Ancient philosophers and contemporary scientists would agree that relationship is key to happiness.” – Gretchen Rubin
We have to feel like we belong, be able to confide a secret, get support, and give support. Anything that broadens or deepens our relationships is something that would make us happier. When we look at people who say they’re happier, they tend to have more relationships.
Self-knowledge is also Key
From a different vantage point, you can also say that the key to happiness is self-knowledge. We can build a happy life on the foundation of our own nature, interests, values, and temperament.
“It’s really by knowing ourselves that with this knowledge we can shape our lives to better reflect what is true for us.” – Gretchen Rubin
It should be fairly easy to know oneself when you hang out with yourself all day long, right? But the truth is that it’s not very easy at all. This stems from how we sometimes wish that we were different from who are or from how we are different from what other people expect or want us to be.
Envy and Lies are Helpful
Gretchen is keen on finding questions or indirect ways to help us understand ourselves better. For instance, whom do we envy? People don’t want to admit they feel it, but envy is actually helpful because it shows us what we wish we had.
Another question we must ask ourselves is, what do we lie about? Oftentimes when we lie, what we do doesn’t match up with what our value is and this is really important information to reflect on.
“The fact that you’re not being truthful about it means that somehow, you’re not comfortable with what your real answer is and that’s a sign—hey, maybe I need to get my actions and values into better harmony.” – Gretchen Rubin
To hear more about how we can achieve inner calm and peace from Gretchen, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Gretchen Rubin is a writer who relentlessly explores human nature to understand how we can make our lives better.
She believes there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for becoming happier, healthier, more productive, or more creative; when we know ourselves and what works for us, we can change our habits and our lives.
She’s the author of the bestselling books (The Happiness Project, Happier at Home, Better Than Before, The Four Tendencies),
And she hosts the award-winning podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin,
The New York Times calls her “the queen of the self-help memoir.”
Links:
We hope you enjoyed Gretchen Rubin on this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
029 Legendary Marketing Lightning Strike Dave Gerhardt Drift
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In this follow-up to Episode 20 with David Cancel (DC) the founder and CEO of Drift, Christopher talks with Dave Gerhardt (DG), the head of marketing for Drift and fellow podcaster.
They are co-authors a of brand new, number one best-selling book called Conversational Marketing: How The World’s Fastest Growing Companies use Chatbots to Generate Leads.
In this episode, we unpack how Drift is designing a new category and we go deep into the strategies and tactics Drift is using and how they executed this most legendary lightning strike centered around the new book.
If you’re into marketing, there’s a ton of gold in this episode.
- You’ll get insight into how to get a massive amount of attention for your category, brand and point of view.
- How to execute an approach called the Multiplier Effect so that each component of your marketing mix multiplies the value of the other components.
- How to make your company and your category undeniable.
- And, how to do my favorite kind of marketing which causes your competition to have emergency board meetings.
“Whether the (category) name is sexy, good or not, you have to name it.” – Dave Gerhardt
Almost two years ago, Dave was introduced to Christopher through his book after Sequoia invested in Drift, Pat Grady sent him five copies of his book Play Bigger and said he needed to read it. Dave was blown away that how much was in the book was what they were doing without really talking about it. Play Bigger clarified what they were working on.
Hurdles to Overcome
The team at Drift knew they were building a category but didn’t’ really know about category design. During their efforts to write the book and get a publisher, Dave and David discovered that thing, that category that they were building meant nothing until they named it.
“In order for us to win, we need to elevate the category of Conversational Marketing.” – Dave Gerhardt
They had a little traction but not enough. They needed a following, big investors, and the social proof. Fast forward to early 2018. They spent the year writing the book and published on January 30, 2019. After a month, it’s a top 20 business book in the US and in the top 1.5% of all books being sold on Amazon.
Why Competition is Good
In order for the book to succeed, Dave wants competitors and people in the conversational marketing space. They don’t want people to just think of Drift when they think of conversational marketing.
Dave compares it to a part of Play Bigger. Apple didn’t invent the tablet but they created a category that elevated it. That’s Drift’s goal; to elevate the category of conversational marketing.
To hear more about Dave’s legendary marketing strike, download and listen to the episode.
Dave Gerhardt Bio:
Dave Gerhardt is a B2B marketing leader, brand builder, and copywriter.
As VP of Marketing of Drift, he’s helped grow Drift from $0 to over eight-figures in revenue in just two years, and his work has been featured in 100+ news sites and publications, including Forbes, Fortune, Inc., Entrepreneur, TechCrunch, and Harvard Business Review.
He also co-hosts the popular Seeking Wisdom podcast with Drift CEO David Cancel, and he’s the co-author of the definitive book on Conversational Marketing.
Links:
Linkedin
Drift.com
Podcast: Seeking Wisdom
iTunes Seeking Wisdom
We hope you enjoyed Dave Gerhardt on this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
028 Dorie Clark Reinvent You
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What exactly does reinventing yourself entail? Expert Dorie Clark joins us today for a conversation about designing one’s new identity, why social proof matters, and a lot more.
Winning Over the Team
To reinvent oneself means giving in to the want to go toward a certain direction. Once you figure this out, you also need to realize that a lot of the process is about winning over the internal team. Who you surround yourself with as you begin reinventing yourself matters a lot.
“Ironically in the reinvention journey, the people closest to you are gonna be the least supportive initially.” – Dorie Clark
People you’ve built relationships with are more tied to who you’ve been than you are. They come from a good place, not to mention that they have the most at stake in this reinvention. You need to develop a strategy to help them understand your intentions and see your determination.
The Power of Dormant Ties
Since reinvention involves established relationships with people, you must also grasp the concept of ties. These include strong, weak, and dormant ties. Dormant ties come from strong bonds shared with people who have gone off in directions completely separate to yours.
Dormant ties can be particularly powerful when rekindled, especially with the positive connection and thoughts that come with them. That you have some form of contribution to each other’s success makes it a lot easier when you reunite. With ties like so, you will find people to root for you in your process of reinvention.
Creation of Content
The other key component is proof that you can muster to support your new identity. People are skeptical, and you have to hammer it home that you are serious about them. This is where content creation around your new subject area comes into play.
“It’s a way of simultaneously demonstrating your expertise. It enables you to have a networking vehicle. It allows you to create these sustained reminders.” – Dorie Clark
To hear more about Dorie’s expert advice on reinvention, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Dorie Clark is “an expert at self-reinvention and helping others make changes in their lives,” says The New York Times. She’s an adjunct professor at Duke University and a bestselling author.
Her book, Stand Out, was named the #1 Leadership Book of 2015 by Inc. Magazine. She’s also a regular contributor to HBR.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed Dorie Clark on this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
027 David Osborn Wealth Can’t Wait
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How do you overcome a compounded fear of failure to become legendary? On today’s episode, author, entrepreneur, and real estate investor David Osborn joins us in a conversation about making money, building capital, and so much more.
“You go to work for capital so your capital can eventually go to work for you.” – David Osborn
Thinking Big, Not Delusional
David started out as a realtor, working under his mom’s team for three years. Over time, he realized he no longer wanted to sell so he ventured out into setting up franchises. With the right company, time and work ethic as well as a dash of mistakes and failures, he and his team have sold billions.
When you focus on the delta of where you are and where you want to be, it becomes clear that making the first million is way too hard. But it’s just as important to think massively big, and not delusional, to get started. It takes so much longer and harder than people can imagine and be willing to admit, after all.
“People always look at the credit and the money that an entrepreneur makes and they way underestimate the amount of risk and amount of failure.” – David Osborn
An Idiot Prior to Success
David first opened up a franchise in 1996, and it took ten long years before he could make money. It was a sweet two years, until the massive crash of 2008. Luckily enough, he had a great company to support him through it. But not all entrepreneurs are on equal footing.
An entrepreneur that has to scramble all the way up will look like an idiot for ten years before they get rewarded. And sometimes, the rewards could be more than they probably should get.
“The reason is you spent those ten years where every day there’s a chance you could have nothing the next day.” – David Osborn
Overcoming Fear Through Crazy
It takes experiencing hurt and failure for fear to manifest. We find punishment, pain, and psychological difficulty so aversive that we steer clear of ladders going up.
Even the most successful entrepreneurs get afraid. But it’s finding the crazy force to drive you through the journey that spells all the difference.
To hear more about David’s views on free will and capital building, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
After sticking out his thumb and traveling the world, David returned home to Austin, Texas broke and unemployed, at the age of 26. Though his travels may not have yielded wealth, they instilled the key motivation that he brings to every part of his life to create it — freedom.
Because to have everything you ever wanted takes the opportunity to design your life and believe it can happen.
Through this intention, David began to test his entrepreneurial merits alongside his business-partner mom in the world of real estate. The results were nothing short of remarkable. In less than 10 years, David would go on to build one of the top real estate brokerages in the world, founding over 50 companies.
Yet, more than anything else, the inherent freedom derived from his success awards him the time to focus on the importance on what matters most: being a proud father of two beloved daughters, a son, and husband to the wonderful and talented Traci Osborn.
Today, still rooted in his boundless sense of adventure, David continues to travel the world not only to be enlightened by new experiences but to share his insight and expertise with others so they, too, can truly be free.
Links:
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow – Amazon
We hope you enjoyed David Osborn on this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
