“There’s one common denominator in every company – the owner.” Megan Johnson Huber
About Our Guest
Client Retention and Group Program Leadership Specialist Megan Huber transforms coaches, consultants, experts and their teams into world class group program facilitators who design and deliver unforgettable experiences so that their clients remain satisfied, get incredible results, and keep coming back for more.
Megan combines her years of service in public education, athletic coaching, group program leadership, entrepreneurship and her ability to create sustainability and scalability through the right structure and leverage as a way to empower business owners to remove themselves from the day-to-day of delivering their group programs while clients still implement and get great results.
In addition to spending four years as the Director of Programs and Client Success inside a coaching company with group enrollment as large as 300 clients, she has run over 30 iterations of her own group programs and has led nearly 20 in person and virtual retreats.
Hosting the Built To Last Podcast and leading the Tribe of Legends Facebook Group are two of her favorite ways to connect with high performance entrepreneurs who choose to become her standout clients and transformational leaders inside their own best in class group programs.
Episode Summary
This episode is powered by the Move to Millions Book
I will always be the first to tell anyone who’ll listen that being a true CEO isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. In fact, I would go so far to say that deciding to show up as the CEO of your own company will challenge you in ways that you can’t imagine. Even still, the day that you become the CEO that you have been focused on, it often boils down to two powerful things being effectively installed in you and your company – Leverage & Leadership. Hands down, the most important skillset and attribute you need to scale and sustain a company to and beyond the million-dollar mark is leadership. My guest in this episode, Megan J Huber, says that leadership skills are the ultimate leverage. For when you know how to lead, you can shift the trajectory of every facet of your company. I agree; the move from low to mid six figures to seven is a leadership play. When it comes to leadership, it’s not just the part you realize, it’s the part that is seldom spoken about, that can make or break the decisions you make to move your company and team forward. If you are ready to add a few leadership tools to your CEO toolkit, grab your pen and Move to Millions Podcast notebook and listen in now to discover:
- Why leadership is a muscle you’ve been building (or not) since you were a child
- How to shift the way you see yourself, your company and your leadership skills
- How to set boundaries that actually move your company forward
- The Top 3 ways to lead so that your whole team feels like your company is theirs
- And so much more
Important Links:
- Move to Millions Live
- Incredible One Enterprises
- Dr Darnyelle’s personal brand website
- Move to Millions Planner
- Move to Millions Book
Powerful Quotes from the Episode
- “You yourself, as the leader, have to know what those
boundaries are in the first place.” - “So I learned how to lead a very dynamic group of people
who had all different sorts of cognitive abilities and personalities.” - “I learned how to read people, how to read energy and how
to read the gifts, the talents and the strengths of everyone who entered my classroom.” - “I grew up in the schoolhouse, like I was in the womb, in the classroom.”
- “Most of the time I’m not getting facts, I’m getting feelings
because they don’t have anybody to express to.”
How to Connect with Megan J Huber
Website: www.meganjohnsonhuber.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meganjhuber
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/megan-huber-88001418/
Books Megan Recommends: Traction by Gina Wickman, Atomic Habits by James Clear
Favorite Quote: Anything from the book of Isaiah in the Bible
Tool Megan Swears By Own Her Move to Millions: Slack for team communication and Asana for Project Management
Incredible One Enterprises, LLC is not responsible for the content and information delivered during the podcast interview by any guest. As always, we suggest that you conduct your own due diligence regarding any proclamations by podcast guests. Incredible One Enterprises, LLC is providing the podcast for informational purposes only.
Want more of Darnyelle?
Social Media Links:
- http://www.instagram.com/darnyellejerveyharmon
- http://www.facebook.com/darnyellejerveyharmon
- http://www.twitter.com/darnyellejervey
- http://www.linkedin.com/in/darnyellejerveyharmon
Subscribe to the Move to Millions Business Podcast:
Listen on iTunes
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher
Listen on iHeartRadio
Listen on Pandora
Leave us a review
Are you subscribed to my podcast? If you’re not, I want to encourage you to do that today. I don’t want you to miss an episode. I’m adding a bunch of bonus episodes to the mix and if you’re not subscribed there’s a good chance, you’ll miss out on those.
Now if you’re feeling extra loving, I would be really grateful if you left me a review over on iTunes, too. Those reviews help other people find my podcast and they’re also fun for me to go in and read. Just click here to review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” and let me know what your favorite part of the podcast is. Thank you!
=====
FULL TRANSCRIPT
ou yourself, as the leader, have to know what those boundaries are in the first place. So you’ve got to set them first for yourself. You have to know what they are and you have to be really clear on that. And then those boundaries have to be communicated to the team members and that is something that I also see when I go into businesses. Oftentimes there are no boundaries. So that has to happen first and it has to be communicated and those boundaries have to constantly be reiterated.
You’re listening to the Move to Millions podcast with Dr. Darnell J. Harmon. If you’re ready for high level conversations that position and prepare you to move your company cash flow and connection to and beyond the million dollar mark, let’s get this party started. This episode is powered by Move to Millions, the proven framework to become a million dollar CEO with grace and ease instead of hustle and grind. If you are one of the few who haven’t yet ordered your copy, stop what you’re doing and go to Movetomillionsbook.com to order your book and join our book squad for exclusive bonuses only available to those who preorder before the book is released on November the 7th of this year. I am so excited for you because my guest in today’s episode is going to get you straight as it pertains to the L word. Yeah, I’m talking about leadership. One of the biggest changes I had to make to become a million dollar CEO was to look at my leadership skills and to be willing to invest in my development as a leader. And my guest today is going to help you begin to do the same. Even if you’re not even effectively on the Move to Millions yet. I believe that you need to start thinking about being the leader. You need to be to run, scale and sustain a million dollar company long before you’re actually making millions. It’s one of the biggest mistakes I actually see entrepreneurs and small business owners make. Megan J. Huber is a client Retention and Group Program Leadership Specialist that transforms coaches, consultants, experts and their teams into world class group program facilitators who design and deliver unforgettable experiences so that their clients remain satisfied, get incredible results, and keep coming back for more. Megan combines her years in public education, athletic coaching, group program leadership, entrepreneurship, and her ability to create sustainability and scalability through the right structure and leverage as a way to empower business owners to remove themselves from the day to day of delivering their group programs while clients still implement and get great results. In addition to spending four years as the Director of Programs and client success Inside, a coaching company with group enrollment as large as 300 clients, she has run over 30 iterations of her own group programs and has led nearly 20 in person and virtual retreats. Hosting the Built to Last podcast and leading the Tribe of Legends Facebook group are two of her favorite ways to connect with high performance entrepreneurs who choose to become her standout clients and transformational leaders inside their own best in class group programs. Listen, y’all, I had an absolute blast having a conversation with Megan. I took so many notes it’s not even funny. So many amazing gems came out of the conversation. I’m going to share just one with you now and I’ll come back after our conversation to share some of my other favorites. When she talked about the fact that her mother was her mentor, that hit me so hard because I honestly cannot stay the same. And when it comes to leading, our first and early leadership skills come from what we see and emulate as we are being raised. And so that touched me really deeply. I’m not going to steal the thunder of the conversation. You already know how I get down. But I’ll be back after my conversation with Megan J. Huber. So grab your Move to Millions podcast, notebook and your ink pen and let’s jump into a really powerful conversation.
Megan J. Huber, I am so excited to welcome you to the Move to Millions podcast. How are you today?
I am great and I’m equally as excited to be here with you.
Now, some of you won’t get to see how beautiful Megan is because you’ll be listening to the audio of this interview. So go check her out. Homegirl is straight, gorgeous, like just picturesque statuesque, just beauty. Every time I look at one of her pictures online, I’m just like, man, beautiful.
Thank you. Thank you.
Well, I got to say that welcome.
Yeah, I love it so much. I think it is absolutely gorgeous. So before we jump in and get started and we’ve already had you guys a little prequel just so that we can kind of get into the flow, but before we get started, I would love it if you would just take a moment and tell everybody who you are in your own words.
Yeah. So like you said, my name is Megan Huber and I’m going to give people a little bit of context because I know that they’re going to hear like a professional, like, this is what I do in the world. You guys already heard that when you got on the episode today. But my background is in public education and I like to tell people that because and I was a high school teacher, I was a high school business education teacher and I was in my twenty s. I started teaching when I was 22. I only taught for five years, but I was two, three, four years older than a lot of my students. And I was known in the school building for my classroom management because I had every grade level in every class and every group of people. And this will make a lot of sense when we start talking about team and groups of clients. Right? That’s why I love to connect the dots. You have to figure out every single one of your classrooms is different. They have a different communication style, they have their own personality, but every group is so different. And as a teacher, I had to learn very fast how to read people, how to read energy, how to figure out each person’s skill set, gifts, talents, weaknesses, strengths in the classroom. Because when you’re a teacher in a classroom, there is only you, and you’ve got 20 kids or 25 kids or 30 or even 35 kids. And I had a computer lab, so I had all these distraction things that my kids could be distracted. They had chairs with wheels on them, they could roll around in the class, the chairs could spin, and they had a computer. So I share that because I really learned how to lead people by leading teenagers, honestly. And I was the high school tennis coach. I was a football athletic trainer. So I learned how to lead a very dynamic group of people who had all different sorts of cognitive abilities and personalities, but it was all mixed in one place. And I’m going to be really honest, it’s not really that different to lead adults. I actually think it’s harder to lead adults because adults have so many other responsibilities that kids don’t have. So that’s my background. I have a master’s degree in education, started as a teacher. I also taught online for North Carolina Virtual Public Schools. So I did both in the classroom and virtually. And then we had our daughter. She’s now twelve and a half, going on 13. She’s our only my husband is Sean. We’ve been together almost 14 years, or married almost 14 years, together 16 years. And I left the classroom, started my own coaching business. When Sean encouraged me to get a coaching certification, I found it to be very similar to teaching and facilitating a classroom. There was a lot of overlap for me. And in between my businesses, I actually worked as the second in command for a very large scale coaching company. I was second in command to the founder and CEO of that company, where I basically was running the show behind the scenes. And I did a lot of content creation. I created all the curriculum for our programs, ran our programs, and then basically ran the ship behind the scenes with all the operations, and then left that in 2016, rebooted my own coaching business and did a really similar thing to a lot of coaches. I did one on one. But I only did it for a couple of months. I immediately went into group, started my group, started my masterminds, did the whole thing for six more years. And now I actually spent a lot of time behind the scenes consulting seven multi, seven figure, high growth companies on operations, team, leadership and communication. I know that was a long intro, but it was.
ut you know what, Megan? There are so many things you said in there that’ll preach, so let’s just pull on some of them. I love the parallel of being a teacher and being known as a teacher for your classroom management. I love that you said, I learned how to read people, how to read energy and how to read the gifts, the talents and the strengths of everyone who entered my classroom. Girl, we’re going to come back to all of it. I’m just pulling on what you just said that I was like, oh, that was good. All of this stuff is good. And then you said, I learned how to lead people by leading teenagers. And I agree with you that leading adults is more challenging than leading teenagers because adults have trauma and adults have backstory and adults have excuses and reasons as to why they can’t open themselves up to the possibility to learn and to allow to seep in what they need to go to their next level. So I love all of that. I want to pull a little bit on all of it, but I want to start with something that I also caught just listening to your background and who you are, who you’ve been and how you’ve shown up in the world. This ability to understand operations, to understand facilitation, to understand back in versus out front because operations happens on both sides, and really understanding the intricacies of all of that, being able to do that successfully for another brand and then now being able to help so many other companies be able to do the same thing. I imagine that it was just ingrained in you. I don’t know what day and that’s what I want to explore. Where did this thinking, reasoning, positioning from an operational and management infrastructure come from? Because if you’re 20 couple of years old and you’re already leading and managing, that came from somewhere else. So where did you learn that?
That’s a good question. I think part of it is my natural god gifts and my natural wiring. I think that is part of it. I think that my brain, at least I feel like it is. And I don’t like to put like labels on myself or labels on other people. Like, oh, you are this way and this is the only thing you’re good at and you can’t be better at anything else. But I do think I have a natural wiring to be that way. My personality, I also have a personality that is very calm. I have a very calm confidence about me. It takes a lot to overwhelm me and to rattle me and frazzle me, so other people can be rattled and frazzles and chaotic around me. And I bring a level of stability and trust and calmness. And you really have to have that when you’re behind the scenes running operations, because in a lot of companies, it’s just like in a high school classroom, we all were students before. You could walk down the halls. Like, just walk down the hall when class is in session, and you can tell who has control of their classroom and who doesn’t. And it was the calmer, more stable teachers who acted as coach, leader, friend, facilitator. And you’ve got to be able to play all those roles behind the scenes inside of a company. And not every CEO has that same personality. So I think that’s part of it. I think a lot of it also comes from what was demonstrated to me as a child, specifically from my mother. My mother was a career educator. She taught high school. In fact, when I was a teacher, her classroom was beside mine, and my mother was my mentor in the classroom. My first year of teaching. I wouldn’t say she told me what to do, but my mom was she was also a principal, so she did both. She was a teacher and she was a principal. Not at the same time, but I grew up in a classroom. I grew up in a schoolhouse. I was in the womb when my mom was still teaching. My first grade teacher, her daughter, was my best friend. So between the two of us, we were either in my mom’s classroom or my best friend’s mom’s classroom, and we observed how they operated. And they both were teachers who got Teacher of the Year awards all the time. They were always getting that award. And I think I observed that, and it was demonstrated to me, and then I was mentor by that. And then I just had this ability to observe what’s going on and then translate that into a way that’s going to work really well for me and Then make it even better observation to operation. .
Yeah, because for me, I also have a background that is very methodical, but it’s not who I am, naturally. So mine was really taught because of some of the roles that I had very early in corporate America. One of my jobs was in corporate compliance, and so it saved me because I’m a nine. Quick start, if you know Kolbe, I think we talked about that when I did the interview for your podcast. Right. And so that means I’m loosey goosey everywhere all the time, except for a good checklist.
Yeah.
And so I learned it’s not my natural flow and evolution to be operationally sound, although it’s one of the things people know me for. They know me for my systems. But I learned systems and I taught them because that was how I was able to get the result, by creating the mechanisms that allowed me to have repeatable success.
Yes.
So I could transfer that to other people. But it sounds like just hearing your story and I love when you said I grew up in the schoolhouse, like I was in the womb, in the classroom. But as children, especially, who we are until we learn for ourselves is what we are taught and what we have caught. And so a lot of what is parlaying into your best gifts. Of course, God knew it before you were formed in your mother’s womb. He approved you knowing that you would be an operational savant. He knew that, right? And so, yeah, that’s the natural wiring and the gifting. But I think also what you were able to see is the honing, which makes you such an amazing asset for the people that you support and have supported in the past to become operationally sound. Because most entrepreneurs do not wake up with an operational infrastructure, understanding, knowledge and the ability to execute like it’s not natural. We are big picture visionary doing all the things. That’s why we end up in hustle and grind culture. I don’t think that entrepreneurs want to hustle and grind now. There are some that that’s what they learned, right? All they know is work, work, work. And then the messages that we’re constantly being fed through the media, shark tank. I mean, all of that says hustle. Yes, but it’s easy for an entrepreneur that is big picture visionary to hustle because that’s the way our minds move anyway. We’re always doing way too much. Yes. And so it’s so easy. So to have that skill set, to be able to observe and then operate, it is so genius. And part of the reason why I wanted to, as I told you before we started, where I wanted to go, kind of in our conversation through the natural ebb and flow, was to kind of get into your mind. Because I know that you are going to liberate a lot of our listeners and not necessarily that they themselves need to develop the skill sets, but they need to know what to look for, who they need to bring on their team to support them so that they can continue to be big picture visionary. I feel like every time I have to show up in my operational energy, I stifle myself. I remember when I took Kolbe B. I am Kolbe certified. So Kolbe A is the index that tells us how you’re going to respond if you’re free to be yourself. Kolbe B is the index that tells us how the situations and circumstances that you’re in force you to show up. So often your core strengths are stifled. So I am a 5491 being my visionary energy when I’m forced to show up and I’m putting my fingers in the air, quote, to a certain extent operationally because it’s learned, not innate. I become a 6741. I lose five marks of my visionary energy because I’m trying to stick to the plan. And so I fear that a lot of entrepreneurs will go through the same thing, which is why they don’t ever operationalize and they get to seven figures and they are a hot mess.
Yes.
Because they just hustled their way to seven figures and didn’t think about the infrastructure that would make it easier for them to operate. And so being able to hear how you naturally think and reason and that translates into how you are able to support others, that’s fascinating to me because I didn’t get mine honest, I got mine through hard work ingrained in me that this is what I had to do.
Yeah. And I’ll share two other things as well, just to kind of give you how my mind operates. I am an information gatherer. So for example, when I go into a company I’m usually brought in, they’re already making seven, multiple seven figures. But it is crazy, it is chaotic, and the CEO is burned out, exhausted, on the brink of adrenal fatigue. If not, they may already have it and they feel so squelched creatively. And I will hear things like, this is not what I signed up for. It was so much easier when it was just me and one other person, or me and two other people. How could we do all of that? And now I have eight or ten or twelve people on my team and it’s like a clown show back here. It’s like a circus. And to your point, what has happened for a lot of them is they are still trying to control everything and they are dipping into every single day. They’re dipping into the operational side of the business. They’re dipping into the details and the weeds of the business. But when I talk to the CEO and I just listen to what the CEO says to me, number one, they’re not actually giving me the facts. Most of the time I’m not getting facts, I’m getting feelings because they don’t have anybody to express to. And so they’re just expressing. And it’s a lot of expressing, talking about the past over and over and over again. And then the second thing that I learned is I’m getting like a fraction of the information that I need because one of the big issues seems to be with the team. So what I like to do, like this is the teacher in me and this is the fact finder information finder in me. I want to go have conversations with every single person on the team. And I don’t just want to talk to them about tell me what your roles and responsibilities are, tell me what your tasks are. Tell me what you do here every day, because that actually doesn’t matter. I want to find out how they’re thinking and how they’re feeling. Because if I can learn how someone’s thinking and feeling, that tells me why they’re behaving and operating the way that they’re operating. Now. Not every CEO likes to hear what I have to say after I compile my observations and my assessment and what’s really going on. Because there is one common denominator in a company, and it is the company owner. And there’s something else that I want to share too, about part of why I think I am the way I am too. I really learned how to do that even before I was a teacher, because I was the type of student when I was a child that was always labeled as responsible, dependable, hard worker. I could go read all the assessments on my report. The teachers always wrote something in your report card. I always saw a hard worker, responsible, dependable. In fact, I have a box in my garage with every single one of them, and all of them say that trustworthy. I was a student where they could ask me to go run an errand to the office and I wouldn’t skip school or leave or do something I wasn’t supposed to do. I was always that child. And I think there was a part of me that was afraid of the negative consequences, so I just acted like really good. But I also was super trustworthy as well. But then when I was a teacher again, when you’re running a classroom of high school students, I mean high school kids, and they all have different emotions and different personalities and different cognitive abilities, and they’re coming from different households. Some of them didn’t eat breakfast. Some of them live with a 75 year old grandmother. Some of them are living with a 25 year old girlfriend in another county. Some of them are couch hopping. Some of them are the smartest kid in the whole freaking school. Some of them stay up till 03:00 A.m. In the morning, like you’re dealing with all of that. And so I had to find out really quickly from my students and build rapport with them so that they would tell me how they’re thinking or what they’re thinking and how they’re feeling. Because then I could better guide that person in my classroom so that they could be whatever version of successful they could be, which I was not trying to make sure everybody got an A in the class because not everybody’s going to get an A in the class. But hear me when I say this. Everyone listening. If you’re the founder and CEO of your company, you have to figure that out with your team members. Think of your team and your team members just like a high school classroom. If you were running it, you can’t lead every student in your class in the exact same way you can’t lead every single one of your team members in the exact same way. You can’t communicate with them in the exact same way.
It’s here. It’s here. You’ve heard me share about my new book, move to Millions a gazillion times. Well, now you can preorder your very own copy. The book officially releases November 7, 2023. And if you preorder your copy now, you’ll help us make history. Move to Millions the proven framework to become a million dollar CEO with grace and ease instead of Hustling Grind is already an Amazon bestseller. Grab your copy and our bonuses today at www.movetomillionsbook.com.
I’m coming into companies as a consultant. And look, I’ve had my own companies. I’ve had my own teams. Let’s be clear about that. I’ve run my own teams. When I was second in command at a company I was hiring, I was firing, I was running my own team. I was developing my own team and all that jazz. And now I’m being brought into companies that already exist, and I am being brought into a chaotic mess almost every single company I’m coming into. It’s pretty messy back there. And I’ll share with you the biggest thing that I’m seeing. Let’s start here. The biggest thing that I’m seeing is that the company owner is hiring people to just come in and do a job. But there was no period of time, whether it’s the first 30, 60, or 90 days, where that team member was set up for success, but the company owner didn’t stop long enough to help the team member be set up for success. So they didn’t stop to have conversations about, who are you? Like, who are you? Who are you outside of this job? And I’ll give an example. I was talking to a team member this week and somebody else’s team, and I found out she’s 26 years old. 26, that’s young. She just got married in January or February. So she’s a newlywed. Her husband is a mentor league baseball player. She lives in California. His baseball team is based out of Florida. They are newlyweds. My brother was a professional baseball player. My brother got married when he was 22, got a divorce four and a half years later. I understand that world. I grew up with a brother that was groomed to play professional baseball, and I saw what happened inside of that relationship. Because if you’re married to a professional athlete, you might as well be a military wife, because it’s the exact same thing. It’s the exact same thing. And so just to know what she’s probably going through personally in her own body and in her own mind, I need to know that information as a leader, as a consultant. And the CEO needs to understand that because part of the tone of voice that person has on a meeting or if something’s falling through the cracks, if they’re starting to make a lot of mistakes they didn’t make before. Or if they’re short with you or they’re not getting back to you, or all of a sudden they seem to be really overwhelmed. It’s not because they’re not good at their job. It’s not because they don’t have a skill that your company needs. It’s that homegirl is literally alone, and she’s not even getting to build a solid relationship with her new husband because he’s off trying to build a career on the other side of the country, and they don’t even get to see each other. I want to know that because that is giving me such valuable information about how I need to now approach that person. Or now I can just check in and say like, hey, when’s your next trip to go see whatever his name is? It’s just valuable piece of information that I need to know. That’s really important. The other thing that’s really important is allowing your team members to verbally share with you. What are you a genius at? I asked this person, I was like, what are you a genius at? What is your zone of genius? What are you so passionate about? What do you love doing? What are your strengths? Oftentimes it is slightly different than what they’re being asked to do in the company. But here’s the thing. I want everybody to know about your team. Your team wants to please you. So anytime the leader asks the team member to do something for them, hey, I want you to do this. Hey, why have you not done this? Hey, go do this. And literally, it’s like rapid fire every single day, even if it’s not in their zone of genius or their job description or their roles and responsibilities, guess what? Most of them are not going to give you pushback, and they’re going to go try to do it, and they’re going to try to do it as best they can. But now they’re slightly out of their strength zone. So now slowly, over time, they start to get overwhelmed. They’re starting to freak out. They won’t tell you that because they want to please you. They want to make you happy. They want to do a really good job for you. But now you as the leader, though, you’re noticing mistakes are being made, things are falling through the cracks. Everything is slow, it’s not up to par, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Because it was never set up right to begin with. But now you’ve got a team of eight people or ten people, but it feels like everybody’s functioning that way. And that’s typically what I walk into. That is what’s happened, because that communication isn’t happening because it’s almost and I’m not saying the leader doesn’t think it’s important, but they want to move so fast and go so fast that they feel like, well, if I do that, I’m slowing down and I don’t have time to do that. They just need to come in and do what they’re supposed to do. But go back to me being a teacher, you really think I could have let my kids just walk. In the classroom and know what to do. No, it doesn’t work that way. We’re all human here. We don’t work that like it doesn’t work that way.
So here’s a question I have for you. I appreciate all of that. So the getting to know the employees and specifically with the example that you shared, it makes me think of one of my darnell isms which you can’t have a booming business or in this case, you can’t have a booming career when you have a busted life. And there’s bust in her life because of all the things right. And life and business are congruent. Where is the line drawn inside of the professional role and having that private and personal information? Because I’ve personally experienced where relationships become too personal and it affects the way that the employees show up in their role because now they think they’re working with their friends. So what is that balance that as a leader, understanding how your team members are thinking and feeling and how that impacts the way that they’re operating in their role, even when you offer them role creep. Because it happens especially inside of a small business, right. Depending upon where you are, you just don’t have budget to have one person who does every task that needs to be done. So there is some multitasking and crossover that happens just naturally. So how does that all parlay into it so that you can care about the well being of your employees but your relationship hasn’t shift such that now I think we’re buddy buddy and I can be more entitled in my role if my question makes sense.
I think as a leader you have to communicate what the boundaries are and you yourself as the leader have to know what those boundaries are in the first place. So you’ve got to set them first for yourself. You have to know what they are and you have to be really clear on that. And then those boundaries have to be communicated to the team members. And that is something that I also see when I go into businesses. There are none. Oftentimes there are no boundaries and the leader is crossing their own boundaries. Even if they thought they had them, there were boundaries. If there even were they’re being crossed, there were no boundaries that were really set or communicated to team. So that has to happen first and it has to be communicated and those boundaries have to constantly be reiterated. And as the leader, you’re the one who’s setting the tone. And I’m not saying that I sat there and asked her to tell me all of her deep dark secrets. I think I asked her where she lived and I had heard somebody else say in another meeting that she had recently gotten married. So that’s the other thing you want to do. You’re listening? I listen. I’m also a very quiet leader, so I don’t have an extroverted personality. I don’t have an animated personality. I’m much more analytical and I will sit back and I’ll listen and I’ll observe, right? This is part of how I gather information. So I’m not just asking questions to gather information, I’m watching. I’m watching how people are functioning with each other. And I’m listening to things that I’m hearing that people are saying in like a millisecond, but I caught it and I’m like, OOH, I need to know that piece of information. So I asked her, I think, where she lived, and then she volunteered the information about I just got married and I think I must have said something. And she was like, oh, my husband plays professional baseball and I know that world. And I was like, oh, where’s spring training? Because I also live in Florida where it’s like spring training. So I just found that out. I didn’t keep talking to her about it, though. It’s like noted. I know if she’s acting weird, it might be about that, but I’m not necessarily going to go ask her like, what kind of argument are you having with your husband? You’re not doing that. You’re just taking notes. And that’s informing you on how to approach that person. So we’re not going to cross a line. And here’s the other thing, too. As a leader, whether it’s you as the founder or you have leaders on your team, I am very much of the school of thought that as the leader, I am here to do whatever I need to do to support the team.
Right?
I like to flip the organizational chart upside down. And this is something that CameronHarold. And I’ll tell you who Cameron Harold is. Cameron Harold was the COO of 1800, Got Junk and took the company from 6 million to 100 million. And he’s been the COO of a few companies. He’s written about six books. One of his books is Vivid Vision and he talks about when you come into a company, you have to flip the organizational chart upside down so that the employees are at the top and the CEO is at the bottom because you’re actually here. And then your next level leaders, they’re here to support the team. And so a question that I always ask the team members when I come in is, where do you need to be supported? And I’m going to hear what they say. So I’m not crossing the line of being friends, but I want them to feel seen and heard because when I come into businesses, most employees tell me they do not feel seen and heard and they literally use those words. I feel like nobody wants to hear what I have to say because nobody’s asking me. And when I just ask the question, what do you need to be fully supported? What do you need to be an A player on this team? I ask them that question, what do you need to be an A player on this team team. It will shock you. What people say. It will shock you. You just have to give your team time, whether it’s 20 minutes a week, 30 minutes every two weeks, and have a one on one conversation with them and ask them these questions. I’m not going to ask them like, hey, how’s it going with your husband? I’m going to ask other things that that may come up. I may hear something that it’s like, oh, noted. I need to know that. But ask them how they need to be supported. That’s the way I’ve always approached be friendly without being friends. And then part of it is tone of voice. You can hear it in my voice right now as I’m talking about this. You can tell I’m not getting into, like, this, oh, we’re best buddies. So it’s that kind of authoritative tone of voice and a confidence about you and a clarity on this is how it’s going to be. If you feel like you’re not being fully supported, I want you to know my door is always open. I want you to be able to come to me with anything and let me know that information, and then we’ll work together to find a solution. It’s that type of tone and that type of type of directive that you want to have with them.
I think that’s really important. The reason why I wanted to talk it through, because I’ve experienced it personally, as I stated already, and then I’ve had team members where I’ve given them very similar advice and direction on things that they need to do and not do, because things have kind of gone astray. And I think that you hit it really well when you said that most leaders don’t communicate the boundaries because they haven’t set them. And so I love that, and I feel like knowing the boundaries of team is a discussion you need to have with yourself before you even start bringing on team. And whether we’re talking about the very part time virtual assistant or actual full time employees, whether they work remotely or physically with you, we have both on our team really being clear about that. Which leads me down the path of I talk a lot, Megan, about operating from your vision point and not your vantage point, because we’ll always be in trouble if we’re looking at things from where we are. It’s too late. Yes. Our vantage point is always skewed. Yes. But if we instead think about where we’re going, where we desire to be, like, even this, who do you need us as leaders asking ourselves, what does an A player in this role look like? And then asking the people we’ve hired, what do you need to be an A player on this team? And making sure they match from our vision point, not where we are right now. Right. One of my directives and the way that I try to leader and interact with my team is from eight figures, which is where we’re going. I’m not talking to them about where we are right day other than to reflect the State of the Union, right. So that they understand the very real this is where we are, but also understanding where we go. I talked to you prior to recording about that one post that I saw on Facebook when you asked those questions about a three year vision and are you operating, leading and managing from that three year vision so that it becomes ingrained in the people that you’re supporting so that they’re operating also from the vision point and not the vantage point? I think that that’s one of the ways that you get the best out of your people. I think know. It’s the title of President Obama’s book, the Audacity to Hope. Like, when we think about our most innate needs, when we think about Maslow’s hierarchy, we want to feel safe. We want to feel seen. We want to feel heard. We want to know that we matter. And the way that that happens is everything that you just described right? Having those conversations and being an active listener, I love the concept of flipping your chart. I love the visual of it first, but I further love what it means is happening if you’re able to do that. And I fear that most CEOs that are in between that mid six to mid seven don’t have the space and capacity to think like that. Yes, because they waited too long to hire. They haven’t crafted a vision. They haven’t set boundaries. They haven’t done any of the things that supports the infrastructure that’s going to get them where they are in my book. And thank you for buying a copy. It has arrived. It is here in the background. I talk a lot about that because it is important. We have a whole chapter on what I call the Leadership and Legacy Suite and how you need to think and how you need to show up and being proactive versus reactive. And I feel like because we come and are ingrained in this hustle now culture, we are very reactive as leaders and not proactive. And everything that you’ve been speaking about since we started is very proactive leadership.
I just heard those words when I interview team members when I come in initially and get the lay of the land because talking to the team members, it shows you what the real truth is. What I typically hear from every team member is everything every day is reactive. Nothing is proactive. And that’s an environment. Just again, think about it from a child’s perspective and everybody will get this. Did you grow up in a home where you constantly felt like everything was reactive? Or did you grow up in a home where everything was proactive? When you’re a child and you grow up in that, children get very overwhelmed emotionally, very fast, and you usually go into freeze, like fight or flight or freeze. The same thing happens to us as adults. So if you’re creating that reactive environment in your company and with your team, the exact same thing is happening inside of their body that would have happened to any of us as a child. In a household like that, they get very overwhelmed, and we can’t make the statement, oh, well, they’re just adults. This shouldn’t be happening.
And especially because who we are as adults is who we were as children. Yes, that first seven years is what I call it. Again, I talk about it in the book. Your inner seven year old, from birth to the age of seven, who you be, is formed based on what you are taught and what is caught. And so if you caught, reactivity. That’s who you are. You don’t know how not to be it until someone comes along and first disrupts the pattern and then gives you tools to radically dismantle it. That’s the only way it changes. And so for those of you CEOs out there that are feeling convicted right now, as you’re listening, you’re like, oh, my gosh, Megan’s talking about me. First of all, you got it. Honest. It’s what you were taught. But now that you are keenly aware of it, you want to begin to seek out resources to shift from that so that you can create a productive environment for yourself. But more importantly, a productive environment for the people that support you personally and professionally. Because how you show up for them is how they will continue to or have to deal with in their own lives beyond the scope. I think that we are foolish if we believe that when a person gets off work, their thoughts around our company and our culture, stop. That is a lie. Stop telling yourself that lie. And so you now know, as Dr. Maya Angelo says, once you know better, you do better. So now, you know, seek out the tools and resources. Megan could potentially be one of those to support you around how to get your business into a proactive leadership style instead of consistently being reactive to what is governing the way you run your company. And it could also be why you see a tremendous amount of turnover amongst your team as well, and why you’re not actually seeing the results that you’re putting down on paper, because you’re operating from a reactive style and not a proactive style.
Even if you bring in this major a player who is just like the best in the world at what they do, even that person is still entering into this environment of reactivity. So you’re not even setting that person up for success. I mean, sometimes I have to really manage myself when I am brought into a company that’s messy and chaotic and reactive, because if I’m not careful and really conscious, I could very easily get sucked right into that and get just as exhausted and just as reactive and just as all of these things. And yeah, that’s the thing. Again, I’m going to go back to what I said earlier. There’s one common denominator in every company, and it’s the owner, right? So if there’s a whole lot of turnover and you are constantly really upset because these people you’re bringing in who said they could bring the goods and then they don’t, and that’s happening repeatedly, I’m sorry, they’re not the common denominator. You are the common denominator. And it’s not that you are bad or wrong. It’s just that the environment that has been created and the habits that have been created, they’re just not working, which means you can create good habits, you can create a good working environment. You have to be willing and I’ll stop with this, you have to be willing to take full responsibility as the company owner that it ultimately is on you. And the minute you allow yourself to take full responsibility for all the things you’re upset about from the past and things are going to move forward in a better way going forward in the future, you have to take full responsibility for that and stop blaming everything and everybody else from the past about why it’s not where it should be. When you make that decision and then you’re willing to make some changes, everything will change from that moment forward in every good way possible.
Absolutely. I agree 250%. This was amazing. You are amazing. And I just love I love this conversation. I loved well, I can tell. And what I love is that it is actionable. Like, we’re not talking over their heads. We’re talking at a level where first they can identify that this is a challenge, and now, because they are aware that it exists, they can start to seek out the tools that they need to be able to get the support that is going to shift everything for them. And I think that that is so important, especially because we’re always going to be in a middle, Megan, like always. But the middle does not have to be messy.
Correct.
And we only learn how to not make the messy middle by learning how to become proactive and not reactive as we go through this has been phenomenal. Before I let you go, I have to ask you our three closing questions just to give us a little bit more insight into Megan, but also to help our listeners build that professional library that I think is so important. So my first question for you is what is one quote that whenever you’re having a millions, messy, middle kind of day, it supports you, it edifies you, it brings you right back to your big reason why and allows you to shift your energy to get back on track towards your goal?
Oh, gosh. Okay, I’m not a quote person, so I don’t actually have a quote, but I am a God person and I am a Bible person.
Listen, you can quote the Bible.
I will go to the Bible and honestly, it’s not like, oh, there’s one particular scripture I will just go like, visit the Bible and I will flip to. I’ll tell you my favorite chapter in the Bible when I feel like it’s messy or I feel like I’m in the wilderness or I feel like I’m getting exhausted, I love Isaiah because it’s all about being in the wilderness. So we’ll leave it at that. I know that’s not a quote.
Yeah, just say anything in Isaiah you could quote at any particular point in time. I love that. And then what’s a book that has been instrumental on your own journey. Now, you did mention the book Vivid Vision. Is there another book that has been essential for yourself and your own development as you’ve been building your business to and beyond millions?
Yeah, I am a very avid reader. I read probably three or four books a week and I’m a very fast reader, so I’ve read a lot. I very much gravitate towards books like Traction. I love that book. Atomic habits is another one I have read all of Cameron Harold’s books, which are all about being second in command, meetings, suck, that kind of thing. But I love that world’s traction and anything related to that good to great. I love that type of stuff.
Okay, awesome. And then last one tool that has made an extreme difference for you as you’ve been building your own teams and company that we can share with our listeners that they could potentially go and research to see if it might add value for them.
Okay, great. I’m going to give two, but one is you must have a tool for your team to always be in communication with one another. So there needs to be a dedicated communication tool. No, it cannot be text message. No, it cannot be boxer, no, it cannot be telegram, no, it cannot be those things. I love slack for a lot of different reasons. So slack for communication and then the other one that is a have to have, you have to have a project management, task management system which is different from a communication system. They have to be two different things. My preference is Asana because I like it, I like the way it looks. I know how to function inside of it. There are plenty of others, but those are the two I love.
Awesome. I appreciate all of that. This has been phenomenal.
Yeah.
I know that our listeners are going to come back and listen to this conversation over and over and over again so that they can really hone how to show up more effectively as a proactive leader. So I just want to thank you again for being here. We’ll put all of your details in the show notes so that they’ll know how to connect with you in all of the various ways that you have available for them to do. So awesome.
Thanks for having me.
I told you it was going to be good. I know you guys know that I’m right every time I say it. I love seeing your comments and your reactions on social and the reviews you’re leaving on the podcast after every single powerful guest interview that we actually do. This conversation was one for the books, y’all. Megan knows her stuff. When it comes to leverage and leadership together, yo, you can’t compete with what she brings to the table. So many important gems. So she said she learned how to lead and how to offer leverage through classroom management, which I thought was pretty cool. I know so many teachers. We have so many clients who used to be in the education sector before becoming entrepreneurs, so I know that they can benefit that. She said she learned how to lead people by leading teenagers. I mean, yeah, you all know if you have a teenager, you know what it’s like. I loved when she talked about how to have and exude calm confidence and how that keeps her from overwhelm and really allows her to show up fully and confidently. Just like I talk all the time about the fact that confidence is what we transfer in a sales conversation to close the sale, confidence is what we transfer in order to truly and impactfully lead other people. I love that her mom was her mentor, as I shared with you just before you guys listened to our conversation together. And I love all of the nuggets that she got from watching her mom lead and how she’s emulated them in the various facets of her career. I love that she talked a lot about the significance of as you lead, making sure that you communicate the boundaries that you have for yourself as well as those that are important for those that you’re going to be leading through the process. She said leaders must listen and the leader’s job is to actually support the team by flipping the chart. So many powerful gems. I hope you have pages of notes just like I have, and you are already beginning to work on your leadership plan of how you are going to become a more impactful leader as you continue to build out your company. I remember not even that long ago, if I’m being honest and transparent with you, when I was starting to think again about actually building out a team. Now, if you’re an OG listener, you’ve heard me tell the story before about how I crossed the million dollar mark. Felt like overnight I hired all of these people. It was the biggest nightmare ever because of some of the stories I was telling myself. And so I shut down and moved away from having a lot of clients so that I wouldn’t have to hire a lot of team. Well, after I got hit on the head five arbitrary times from different people who didn’t know me, from a can of paint telling me that I was playing small and understated and that God wanted me to do more and go bigger, I realized that it was time for me to lead again. And as a result of deciding to come back into leadership, the one thing I did differently was decide to get some support to become a stronger leader. I’m not going to lie to you, I had trauma from my corporate leadership experience and being thrust into managing the efforts of others despite me going kicking and screaming and not really wanting to do it. And what I loved about this conversation with Megan is many of the success clues that she offered to you that are going to help you to avoid some of the mistakes that I made. And as you build out your team, because your team is going to be absolutely essential if you want to make move and leave millions and you want to do it without having to be everything in your company. Right. You’re going to be coming up to that critical juncture when you cannot be the only service provider, when you cannot be every department.
Sure.
When you are just starting your business and just crossing the six figure mark. I am an advocate for doing almost everything in your company so that you can determine how you want your company to run, set up policies and procedures, standard operating procedures, work flows, processes, et cetera. But the time will come when you will need to lead. And what’s exciting about this conversation that I have with Megan is that there are some powerful gems in here for you when you do. So do me a favor.
If you got something that will shift the way you lead, take just a moment and take a picture for a story on Instagram or Facebook and tag me with the screenshot of you listening to this episode on whichever device or platform you listen on. I’d love to see you in my stories because you listen to this episode and you got something really powerful that’s going to help you to be a better leader. And of course, if you haven’t already left us a rating and review, please take a moment to do so. When you do, you help to expand our reach so that more people know about the power we pack. If you have a desire to have a million dollar company, I love you guys so much and I will see you again real soon. Thank you for joining me for the Move to Millions podcast. If this episode has impacted you in any way, would you please take a moment and rate and review? Doing so helps us to deepen our impact and expand our reach around the world. And if you are ready to start your very own Move to Millions I highly recommend that you order your very own copy of my brand new bestselling book, move to Millions the Proven Framework to Become a Million Dollar CEO with Grace and Ease. Instead of hustle and grind, you can get your copy and our bonuses today at www.movetomillionsbook.com. Until next time, remember, millions are your birthright and to access them, you need only move. I’ll see you next time.
