Dave Braun
00:00:00
Welcome, folks 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 without breaking your bank. I’m here with Larry Broughton. I’m Dave Braun. I’m here with Larry Broughton, my partner, my great friend, fantastic mentor coach. Oh my gosh. I’ve learned so much from you, Larry. I’m gonna learn more from you today. Again, I’m so excited to be on this podcast with you. How are you doing?
Larry Broughton
00:00:32
It’s handsome, Dave Braun. I’m awesome, Dave. How are you, buddy?
Dave Braun
00:00:36
Larry? I say you’re pretty good looking too.
Larry Broughton
00:00:38
Not like you. I’m tolerable.
Dave Braun
00:00:43
I don’t think so. All right. Well, before we get into what the question is today. Did you have an AHA since we recorded the last podcast? Do you have an AHA?
Larry Broughton
00:00:59
Yeah, I think so. And I’ll be honest with you. It kind of came from our last Victory Masterclass-AHAS. And boy, there are a bunch of them and it was just a reminder like, oh yeah, I need to remind myself of this. And we were talking about, if you wanna do great things, you gotta be a great person. And just the idea that we’ve gotta work on ourselves a lot. And somebody had said, you gotta fix the man before you can fix the plan. I know that was just a really great reminder. Because whether we’re talking about growing our business, whether talking about attracting investors or hiring new team members, or maybe we’ve got marital or love problems, too many of us are looking out at someone else and pointing the finger when we ought to be looking in the mirror and saying, is there a common denominator here? And that’s one of the things I had to do with my life several years ago. And so when you start connecting the dots, sometimes we’re the one that needs to be fixed. There’s, the exercise we do during the victory master class, “The one thing”. What’s that one thing? If I fix this one thing, that’s gonna have an impact on all eight spans of that whole health spider graph in our life. And sometimes it’s us.
Dave Braun
00:02:24
A lot of times it’s us.
Larry Broughton
00:02:27
So that was my AHA. It was more of a TFTR, Thanks For The Reminder.
Dave Braun
00:02:31
Yeah, that was excellent and I totally agree. And these days, it’s like, you gotta fix the person, right? Or you can fix the plan. Awesome. All right. Well, let’s get into our question for the day.
Larry Broughton
00:02:45
All right. What is it?
Dave Braun
00:02:46
Okay. What are your favorite books in the area of team building?
Larry Broughton
00:02:52
Oh gosh, Dave, this is a reminder. We did a guide a couple of years ago. It was our hundred, I think it was a 101—
Dave Braun
00:03:04
It is.
Larry Broughton
00:03:06
Favorite books that we shared with people. And then we broke it down to the top.
Dave Braun
00:03:10
I have it back behind me. Do you want me to get it?
Larry Broughton
00:03:13
When you grab it, yeah. And then we broke it down. I think we offered the top 8 that we fell. I think we both picked a handful. And boy, I don’t know how many of those people have downloaded, that we’ve given away. Yeah. We’ve gotta redo that because you and I have read a lot of books since then. When was it? Was that 3 years ago, 2 years ago? I don’t know. But particularly during the last year, we both—
Dave Braun
00:03:38
Larry, you are getting old because time is passing you faster than you. It was 4 years ago, my friend.
Larry Broughton
00:03:44
4 years ago. A lot of great books have come out since. Well, not just books have come out because some of the books I’ve been reading are either classic, so they’re written 10 years ago and they’re still super powerful. So we do need to finish, go back and redo that. By the way, can, can we offer that to people? That download?
Dave Braun
00:04:06
Yeah, they can.
Larry Broughton
00:04:08
Or is that one of our—or do we sell that product?
Dave Braun
00:04:10
Right now, we have it as part of a success kit that we’ve kind of taken down. We could make it available if you want. Why not?
Larry Broughton
00:04:21
If you want this, why don’t you just put it in the comment section or send us a message? We’ll give it to you.
Dave Braun
00:04:26
Yeah. Sounds good to me.
Larry Broughton
00:04:28
Let’s do it.
Dave Braun
00:04:31
So, do you want me to go with my—
Larry Broughton
00:04:33
Why don’t we go back and forth? Let’s ping pong it.
Dave Braun
00:04:36
Okay. So, I’ll do the first one.
Larry Broughton
00:04:39
Okay. Good
Dave Braun
00:04:40
Strengths finder 2.0. This is one of my favorites. And we talk about this in our course in community and all the training we do. How critical, how important it is to understand yourself as well as your team. One of the things that I love about it is it really helps you and shows you how important it is to work towards spending as much time working on your strengths and having your team work on their strengths. Maximum success and productivity and happiness. And one of the great things that talk about the different characteristics, but one of the things I love is for each strength, it gives you if you’re a manager, some tips if you’re working with others who have futuristic as a strength.
Larry Broughton
00:05:33
That’s right. We do not hire managers or executives or directors in our organization until they have taken the Strengths finder, now it’s called the Clifton Strengths finder, plus the Kolbe. It’s very interesting. I love that point that you just made Dave, about that, if you know that someone’s a futuristic or, you know, someone’s high in command and you’re not, it gives you tips on how to approach them with a topic. The example I oftentimes use is high in command. Because some of us are so afraid to deal with or to speak about something, have a difficult conversation with somebody, or go in and talk to somebody about, Hey, I’ve got a conflict with you. But if it’s someone who’s high in command, you cannot go in a pushy foot around with somebody like that. It drives some nuts.
Larry Broughton
00:06:22
The best thing you can do with somebody who’s high in command. And you wouldn’t know that unless you’ve read Strength finders is go in and just rip the bandaid off. Just give it to ’em straight and their feelings don’t get hurt right now. Of course, you should still be respectful, but you don’t need to tiptoe around for 15 minutes and you know him, and aha. So that’s a good one. Can I give you one of mine? So, there are a handful, but I love parables, fables, and stories. And I think part of it has to do because you know, I’m dyslexic and wasn’t diagnosed until later in my life until I was in the military actually. And so I was not an avid reader until I had to relearn how to read.
Larry Broughton
00:07:08
And I was fascinated, how were these complex subjects and topics passed down over millennia? Well, it’s through the use of fables and stories and that kind of thing. So there are books. I’m not gonna list them now because I’m gonna try to stay focused on this. But here is one of them that I really like is The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, and is by Patrick Lencioni. I dunno if it’s Lencioni or Lancioni. But it is a parable or fable about a woman CEO, and she has to turn this team around. And so the question is like, oh my gosh, is this entire organization gonna crumble if she doesn’t get this thing fixed? And I’ll give you a little bit of the punchline here. So believe it or not, there actually are five dysfunctions of this team as Lencioni shares. And what I love about this Dave, is that there are books written about each of these five dysfunctions.
Larry Broughton
00:08:10
And the main one is The Absence of Trust. Like, Stephen Covey’s son. Stephen M. Covey wrote about The Speed of Trust. So the absence of trust, fear of conflict, fear of commitment, and avoidance of accountability. And what was the last one? Inattention to results. And we address a lot of these things through our Victory Masterclass and through the HireMyVA thing. That’s why we have dashboards and these kinds of things. But I love this book, and it’s an easy read, like his other books that he’s done. But I think it’s really powerful. And I think it will help you look at the way you’re leading a team differently than reading a very academic book on team building. So that was my choice number 1.
Dave Braun
00:09:00
Okay. That’s a good one. All right.
Larry Broughton
00:09:01
What’s yours?
Dave Braun
00:09:03
My next one is…and I really have to go reread it, is by John Maxwell. The 17 indisputable laws of teamwork. And for example, one of his laws, let me turn to it. Here’s one that you’ll love Larry. He has number 8, which is The Law of a Bad Apple. Rotten attitudes ruin a team, he talks about that. The Law of the Chain, Strength of the Team Is Impacted by Its Weakest Link. The law of the Niche, all players have a place where they add the most value. And that’s what we talked about with strength finders a little bit is, finding where your team members add the most valuable.
Larry Broughton
00:09:56
Jim Collins talks about that as well about having the right people on the right seat on the bus. And the law of the attitude, I like. I remember reading that. And one of my mantras is, a good attitude won’t guarantee victory, but a bad one will guarantee defeat. Yeah. That’s a good one. But show that book again. For those who are watching this on video—now turn it to its edge to the top. You will see a note at the top. So you’ve got bookmarks and all that kind of stuff in there. Dave is one of those guys who actually doesn’t really read a book. He studies books. He does. And he takes notes and he ends up writing summaries on a lot of the books that he does. Dave, you’re a brilliant guy. Buddy, you’re my life.
Dave Braun
01:10:45
Maybe that’s why, because I like to read, I guess. Well, guess where that comes from? It’s like, I know myself enough from Strengthsfinder to know that Learner is my number one strength. And I love to learn. So I’m using it and it fuels me, so yeah.
Larry Broughton
01:11:03
Yep. That’s good. All right. So shall I tell mine?
Dave Braun
01:11:07
Yeah, absolutely.
Larry Broughton
01:11:09
All right. So my next one and I’m sorry. I listen to a lot of audiobooks. I do a good amount of reading these days, both this one and the previous one that I’ve mentioned, I did the audible version of this. And this is by Gary Chapman who wrote The Five Love Languages. But for years, people were telling him and I was saying this, I wrote him a note years ago and after I wrote, it’s like, man, I use this all the time in my business environment, you should write one of these, a version of this for the workplace. And so you finally did, not because I did it but a lot of people I’m sure were telling them this and it’s called The Five Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace. If you have read The Five Love Languages, this will sound very familiar to you. But really this book gives you the tools to improve staff morale, create a more positive workplace, increase team members, they call it employee, but increase team member engagement in the workplace. And I promise you, if you read this, if you’ve not read The Five Love Languages, it will help you in your personal love life as well. Guaranteed.
Dave Braun
01:12:21
In relationship. Yeah.
Larry Broughton
01:12:22
And any relationship. Yeah. Good.
Dave Braun
01:12:26
Awesome. Well, that was a good choice too.
Larry Broughton
01:12:28
Oh, so did I say the name? Gary Chapman is the author of that.
Dave Braun
01:12:32
That’s a great choice too. Okay. So my third one is…
Larry Broughton
01:12:37
Oh, we’re doing three? Okay.
Dave Braun
01:12:39
Let’s do three.
Larry Broughton
01:12:40
I don’t know if I’ve got a third.
Dave Braun
01:12:42
Well, you do have a third. Both of ours are the same. The third one, It’s our Flashpoints book. Right?
Larry Broughton
01:12:52
Oh, Flashpoints? How do I just happen to have one? Can you see that? I don’t have my camera on. So I can’t tell.
Dave Braun
01:13:00
So one of the things I love about that book from a team-building perspective is that’s one of the themes. So we have these short… What do you call it?
Larry Broughton
01:13:11
30 words—
Dave Braun
01:13:13
A place to journal and all that kind of stuff. But what’s really nice is one of the themes that we have on 6 or 7 is teambuilder. And just little nuggets here and there that will speak to you. And that will just help you every day. In fact, you can go to our store and get it at Store.yoogozi.com or you can actually get a free electronic version where you just use Evernote to journal on it and you get it emailed to you daily. It’s at Yoogozi.com/daily. And so you can get it that way, but it helps me a lot as well. So I love that.
Larry Broughton
01:13:48
Yeah. I love it too, Dave. And thank you for helping me get that thing wrapped up after it lingering for a couple of years. It’s interesting that we personally know of at least one fortune 50 company that uses this during their morning standups. We know an organization that’s used it, they’ve got a monthly book club. They’ve talked about it there. We know of a large nonprofit that uses it during their team member meetings that they have. So, I think the Victory book has…Which is a number one bestseller as well. You know, we sell hundreds and hundreds of those, people buy them in bulk. But I do think that the Flashpoints for Achievers daily journal has positively impacted more people than even the Victory book. Because of that, we did a podcast earlier, Dave, where we talked about the sphere of influence. And this Flashpoints book helps change people. So thank you for mentioning that. I guess that would be my number three choice too.
Dave Braun
01:15:02
There was one other thing that I wanted to say is that—and I was thinking about this as we were preparing a little bit, is that while these books are good in everything and they’re important, I would say learning how to build a team, manage, I think it’s a lot heavier in the doing versus the learning. And part of that doing is learning from others, experiencing it over the course of time. Cause it really isn’t, in certain ways, it’s kind of like a bike. You can read about how to ride and learn how to do it. So, you get on and you’re not riding a bike.
Larry Broughton
01:15:47
Right.
Dave Braun
01:15:48
So, I think this is one of those subjects where you’ve got to be having mentors and really studying it and experiencing it because it’s hard to get the lessons inside of you unless you’re doing that. That’s my thought.
Larry Broughton
01:16:02
Yeah. And it’s funny how many people get paralyzed in their business because they have a fear of leading other people. I mean, I can think of at least one that comes to mind, a coaching client that you and I have had who once that first team member and then second and third team member were hired. This person didn’t feel like they were actually even in running their own business until that happened. So, it’s absolutely transformational once you start building your team. You know, we do this, both in our Victory Masterclass and the HireMyVA Program to help people get more freedom back into their life. And you will always be limited by your own capacity if you don’t have a team.
Dave Braun
01:16:54
Correct. Absolutely.
Larry Broughton
01:16:56
There’s always gonna be a ceiling about how much impact you can have on the world, how much revenue you can make. You just can’t do it by yourself. Contrary to what some of these snake oil people are trying to sell you out there. You need help. Even if it’s not somebody who’s on your payroll, you need a team. They might be outsourced people, like VAs. They might be outsourced people, like printers. But if you’re not leading them and inspiring them towards your vision of greatness you’re gonna be limited. And a lot of it comes down to communication and courage.
Dave Braun
01:17:29
Yeah. Absolutely.
Larry Broughton
01:17:31
Sorry, I was pontificating there for a minute, Dave.
Dave Braun
01:17:35
No, we love your pontifications.
Larry Broughton
01:17:38
Really?
Dave Braun
01:17:39
I had a pontification once I went to the doctor and it had it taken out.
Larry Broughton
01:17:45
That’s a Polyps, Dave.
Dave Braun
01:17:46
Oh, my golly. I gotta start reading some other books. I’m not reading enough. All right. Anything else?
Larry Broughton
01:17:51
No. Well, I guess, yes there is. One of the most powerful sections of this program is the community. And a way that you can start out if you’re not part of the HireMyVA family yet, and even if you are, put a comment down here, start a conversation, wherever it is that you were listening to or watching this podcast. Give us a thumbs up if you think it was a good podcast topic. Give us a thumbs down if you thought it was a bad pod podcast topic. We don’t mind either one. We learn that way. But put a comment in there, ask questions, and we get in there, we’ll respond to you. Start having a conversation with somebody else that’s in there because we’re trying to get the word out. We wanna spread the word about what we’re doing here and we can’t do it alone.
Dave Braun
01:18:37
Yep, absolutely. We need a team also.
Larry Broughton
01:18:41
Yeah, that’s right.
Dave Braun
01:18:42
All right. Well, thanks everybody for being with us today. And remember, as Larry said, building a team is the way to reclaim your freedom. We are here to help you. So three things we’d love for you to do, and we’d really appreciate it. Number one, subscribe to this podcast if you haven’t already done so. And then number two, give us a rating. And as Larry said, leave a comment below any kind of a comment, a question, etcetera, because it will help to get the word out. And then number three, go to Hiremyva.com for more information on our course and community. Because without experience, you’ll learn how to prepare for hire and thrive with Virtual assistants using our course and community. Larry and I have helped a lot of folks and we’re helping people now. We wanna help you as well. So just go to Hiremyva.com for more information.
Larry Broughton
01:19:29
\nd my friends, stop chasing success. Get out of that hamster wheel of just chasing success for the sake of success. But instead, do yourself a favor. Do the world of favor and do something significant each and every day. And you will see your life and community transformed. I promise you that. So, God bless you. God keep you. God hold you. All right, my friends. Go get them.
Dave Braun
01:19:54
All right. Bye, everybody.
