Dave Braun
00:00:01
Welcome everyone, to the HireMyVA Team and Business Building Podcast, where we help you to reclaim your freedom through hiring and thriving with Virtual Assistants without breaking the bank. And that means your bank, which is the number one bank in your life. I’m Dave Braun, and I’m here with my partner, my fantastic business mentor, and coach, but more importantly, my good friend, Larry Broughton.
Larry Broughton
00:00:25
David, David, David, handsome, Dave.
Dave Braun
00:00:27
Yeah.
Larry Broughton
00:00:28
How are you?
Dave Braun
00:00:29
I’m doing well. Ready to get into another podcast here where we’re talking about some really good business topics.
Larry Broughton
00:00:37
Well, good. What’s the question this week.
Dave Braun
00:00:40
All right. So this question is, and it was inspired by a flashpoint. And I want you to talk a little bit about flashpoint, but here’s the question. What are the top three characteristics I should have and should I focus on to lead my team? All right. So let me, let me read what that flashpoint is. Ready?
Larry Broughton
00:01:03
By the way flashpoint that he is talking about is from this book called FLASHPOINTS for Achievers, inspiring messages that bring significant results. It’s a daily journal basically, that we started doing years ago. It was actually the first business project that you and I worked on together, David. You helped me get this thing across the finish line. And every day there are about 130-word writing to reflect on. And then you set your intentions for the day and many people use this as part of their morning routine and it just happens to be a best-seller. So that’s awesome.
Dave Braun
00:01:39
I do the electronic version now, if you guys wanna sign up for it, you get a daily email, it’s from Yoogozi.com/daily.
Larry Broughton
00:01:47
That’s right. All right.
Dave Braun
00:01:49
Great. All right.
Larry Broughton
00:01:50
Do we wanna share the screen on where this comes from? Or do you wanna just read it?
Dave Braun
00:01:54
I’ll just read it. So here it is. Here’s the title, the key to surrounding yourself with positive loyal, and honest people is to be one of those people. All right. So that’s the title.
Larry Broughton
00:02:05
Let that sink in folks. I remember writing this one, the key to surrounding yourself with positive, loyal, and honest people because isn’t that what we want?
Dave Braun
00:02:13
Yes.
Larry Broughton
00:02:14
You gotta be one of those. Birds of a feather, is what they say. Go ahead.
Dave Braun
00:02:19
All right. So here it is. In love and nature, we tend to believe that opposites attract. When it comes to core values and goal setting, however, like attracts like. It’s one of the principles by which many of us choose to live. If we want to be surrounded by people who are in big business, we must have that goal for ourselves and our business. So think big. To be surrounded by people who are socially responsible in business, we must look at our own business and see what changes must be made to be more socially responsible. And likewise, to attract friends and teammates who are loyal and honest, we must display those traits first. Okay, so here’s the question and we end every flashpoint with a question for your reflection. Here it is. What and whom are you attracting through your character traits? So, people that are listening to this podcast, they’re interested in building a team or they have a team and they wanna build their team up more and more. So given that, that’s the question. What are the top three characteristics I should have to lead my team well?
Larry Broughton
00:03:25
Well, yeah, I’ve gotten in a habit lately, Dave on this podcast is saying that most of these questions cannot be answered with a cut and dry, black and white, right or wrong answer because we’re dealing with people, we’re dealing with business, they’re changing dynamics constantly. I don’t think you can narrow it down to just three characteristics. I mean the thing that comes up most often is honesty, integrity, and ethics. Everybody says that when you read mission statements or core values for organizations. Most organizations, if they’re gonna take the time to do core values, they usually include those three, right? But there’s a whole lot more characteristics, right? I know that one of the things I’ve been looking for over and over again, particularly during the past year, we’re recording this in March of 2021, coming off the heels of the whole economy being closed down for a year is I’m looking for people who are cheerleaders, who have a positive, upbeat approach to life. Three years ago, I probably would’ve been great? Yeah. It would’ve been great, but it wasn’t like up near the top. So I would say that there’s probably a bunch of them, but honesty, integrity, ethics, positivity, and the willingness to sacrifice, I think are really important. What are the ones that roll off the tip of your tongue, Dave?
Dave Braun
00:04:54
One of the things that occurred to me as you were talking was, given the economy and everything that’s going on. I think there’s a—Like you said, there’s a bunch of characteristics, but given the circumstances of our business or what’s going on. There are certain ones that may need to be at the forefront temporarily. You still need to have these, right? Like, for example, what you said, you’re looking for somebody who’s really, really positive because of what’s going on right now. You could be looking for somebody who is just so highly competent in a certain skill to lead your company in a certain way. But some of the ones that—I think the good way to do this is to think about some of the folks that you have been in contact with, who’ve been great leaders, or who you think have been great leaders.
Dave Braun
00:05:46
Like, I mean, one of the things you want them to be competent as a leader. And I remember, something that John Maxwell talked about is his leadership is one of the things that he ascribes to and is very competent in. He makes fun of himself in other things, but never in that. So somebody who is—they’ve gotta be confident in who they are but then humble as well. Those are some of the things that come into my mind. When you say passion, passion is multiple things. But passion, one of the things about that is the willingness to sacrifice. To love or to believe in something so much that you’re willing to sacrifice. That sacrifice could be multiple things. That’s a great characteristic, positive, enthusiasm, they are just excited about what they’re doing. Right? Excited.
Larry Broughton
00:06:48
I’m so glad that you used the word love, because I think it’s so important in business. And I’ve been doing this for a long time. I don’t know how old am I now. I’m up there in the age, I’m no young buck at this. And I remember, 25 years ago, people didn’t talk that much about love in the workplace. And I don’t mean like, I love to do this. I mean like loving your team members, loving your clients, that kind of thing. But at least much more important to me today, it’s much more important to find people who are willing to actually say that and expect that. Because I can think of a couple of really bad hires I made early in my career, where they were very super competent, but they weren’t very lovable and they weren’t very loving.
Dave Braun
00:07:39
Yeah.
Larry Broughton
00:07:40
And so, what did that do, Larry? Well, I ended up to spent more time managing the damaged relationships that they caused than I did managing their work or productivity. And that’s more damaging. The long-term effects. Anyone who’s ever been in the buzzword now is a toxic relationship, knows that it can take years to heal from that. Well, our organizations are just like organisms and there’s damage that’s done to an organization or an organism. So I think, love is a really important one as well, not just being lovable and willing to love other people, but loving the love of being a problem solver for instance. So I’m glad you mentioned that word. It triggered something for me and I just wanna make sure that we are really aware of that. So I would say that’s right near the top.
Dave Braun
00:08:44
Yeah. I agree with that. Other things come to mind when you’ve heard the phrases leaders or readers, leaders or learners? Those are always important characteristics as well. I think like you said, we come up with just a whole host of them and people can search. But now, maybe Larry, let’s bring it into how do we ourselves, and we didn’t talk about this ahead of time. How do we ourselves improve on maybe some of those characteristics that we say, you know, my organization really needs this to get to the next level. How do we ourselves, improve on those things?
Larry Broughton
00:09:25
I’m not sure where you’re going with this, but I would say one thing that kind of triggered while you’re talking there is making sure that we are surveying our team members, and doing what we call confidential work climate surveys. That’s one way that we can improve where we ask our team members, Hey, are we living up to our core values? Are you clear on what our vision and mission are? And then trying to adjust to that. When I was in special forces, we used to do peer reviews. We’ve done those from time to time in our organization where people will confidentially review their peers.
Dave Braun
01:10:05
Right.
Larry Broughton
01:10:07
Because you may think that you come across as sunshine, lollipops, and rainbow personality, but you may come across as barb wire and prickers and piles of dung. And we need to know that kind of stuff and so then, we can improve that way.
Dave Braun
01:10:24
And it could be just something very simple that you would have to adjust, to have what you feel on the inside to be perceived by others. Right?
Larry Broughton
01:10:35
Yeah. That’s right.
Dave Braun
01:10:36
Like, if you wanna be perceived as a positive person or somebody who’s engaging, you gotta make sure when you’re on video, to try to smile. Watch for the resting bitch face, right?
Larry Broughton
01:10:51
Thanks for the reminder. You’re absolutely right. You know, there are three things that, these are not characteristics necessarily where I would, like it’s, end-all-be-all. But it is one of the things that we talk about very often in all of our mentoring programs and in all of our teachings. And that’s the M-I-C, some say, Mike, some say, Mick. And that is this, we’ve gotta find people who are highly motivated. And so during the interview process, I try to find ideas or hints or clues that this is somebody who is highly motivated. And one way you do that is like, is this somebody who says, when they wake up in the morning, Ugh, I have to go to work, I have to go and do this, or is this someone who says, I get to do this, I get to go to work.
Larry Broughton
01:11:39
Someone who’s highly motivated tends to have a lot of energy and they tend to have a more positive outlook and they tend to be a more loving person. So motivation is number one. Number two is integrity. That checks the box of the honesty, the consistency, those things, that they meet deadlines, that if they give you the word, they’re gonna keep it. So motivation and integrity. Integrity is very important, Dave, to make sure that there are a lot of motivated people out there who will do all kinds of stuff and like that person I was telling you about earlier, where I ended up having to manage the damaged relationships. They were highly motivated, but they lacked integrity. So motivation without integrity is I oftentimes say, dangerous. So motivation, integrity, and then capacity. So what’s capacity? The ability to grow with you.
Larry Broughton
01:12:39
Because if you have to find somebody who’s like, at the top of their learning curve, they’re on the downhill side of their professional life, and I’m not talking about age. I know people that are in their late twenties and are on the downhill side of their professional life where they’re just phoning in their performance. Those people aren’t good for your organization. Most people are in business. Most people are here in this program, so they wanna expand their horizons, not contract. And so you wanna hire people who have the capacity to grow with you. So motivation, integrity, and capacity are three things to really look for during the hiring process. Does that make sense, Dave?
Dave Braun
01:13:20
Yeah. It totally makes sense. And that’s a good way to look at yourself too. Do I have a high level of motivation and capacity? Because you can almost, maybe not quite, put so many of the things that we talked about into those three buckets.
Larry Broughton
01:13:32
Yeah. That’s absolutely right.
Dave Braun
01:13:35
Okay. Well, anything else you wanna mention on that?
Larry Broughton
01:13:39
Not on that.
Dave Braun
01:13:41
Yeah. Okay. Well—
Larry Broughton
01:13:42
I would say, that if we didn’t hit it, then in the comment section of wherever it is you’re listening to this or watching, give us a comment. That helps the algorithm so that more people can see this and it triggers us to come back and maybe I just brushed over something or Dave was too focused on something. Give us some feedback as well. We’d love to hear from you. But I would say this Dave, that community and involving yourself in the conversation and anything in life is a really important part. And that helps you learn. It keeps the team engaged. So I would encourage people to do that.
Dave Braun
01:14:20
And it’s a great way for you to become a better leader.
Larry Broughton
01:14:22
Absolutely.
Dave Braun
01:14:25
All right. Well, thank you everybody for joining us today. Thank you for your time. It’s been fun. But remember, building a team is the way to reclaim your freedom and we’re here to help you do just that. So three things we’d love for you to do right now. We’d really appreciate it. Number one, subscribe to this podcast if you haven’t already done so, or into this YouTube channel, just click the buttons on how to subscribe and you’ll get notifications of when we have new episodes. Number two, give us a rating, preferably five stars, of course. And then number three, go to Hiremyva.com for more information on our course and our community. Because remember, even without experience, you’ll learn how to prepare for hire and thrive with Virtual Assistants. Larry and I are helping people as we speak. We want to help even more. So we’d love to help you too, just join in on the fun with us. To do that, just go to Hiremyva.com for more information.
Larry Broughton
01:15:18
Hey, I would encourage you to do yourself a favor. Do the world a favor, go do something absolutely significant today. So, God bless you. God keep you. God hold you. All right, my friends, go get them. See you later.
Dave Braun
01:15:31
Bye. Everybody.
