How To Execute Dynamic Leadership: A Journey from Army Veteran to CEO with Chris DuBois

How does an Army veteran turn CEO execute dynamic leadership? Meet Chris DuBois, the man behind Lean Labs, who is reshaping the concept of leadership in modern times. Join us on a journey that navigates through his transformation from a military man to a businessman, using his unique perspective and experiences. Chris shares how situational awareness, understanding team dynamics, and keeping a keen eye on market trends can mold you into the leader your team deserves.

Venture into the second part of our conversation where Chris reveals his framework for dynamic leadership. He talks about the importance of connection, capacity, cohesion, and presence, and provides an insightful exercise called an after-action review to fine-tune his skills. Chris believes in the power of adaptability in leadership, flexing your approach to suit the needs of your organization and the people you lead.

As we wrap up our conversation, we delve into the gravity a leader's words carry and how their reputation plays a pivotal role. Chris shares his four leadership levers of capital, connection, capacity, and cohesion, all of which can be manipulated to expedite progress. He also opens up about his goal of making a difference in a million lives and how he plans to achieve it by cultivating leaders who can create a wholesome work-life balance among their team members. Embark on this enlightening journey with Chris and explore the realm of dynamic leadership.

Chapters

• 0:02 Leadership Development Through Dynamic Leadership
• 7:46 Dynamic Leadership and Simplifying Complexity
• 19:11 Awareness and Culture in Leadership
• 30:41 Building Mindset and Helping Others

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host author and leadership and executive coach, dr William Attaway.

Speaker 2: 0:17

Hey, it's William and welcome to today's episode of the Catalytic Leadership Podcast. Each week, we tackle a topic related to the field of leadership. My goal is to ensure that you have actionable steps you can take from each episode to grow in your own leadership. Growth doesn't just happen. My goal is to help you become intentional about it. Each week, we spotlight leaders from a variety of fields, organizations and locations. My goal is for you to see that leaders can be catalytic, no matter where they are or what they lead. I draw inspiration from the stories and journeys of these leaders and I hear from many of you that you do too. Let's jump into today's interview. I am thrilled today to have Chris DuBois on the podcast.

Speaker 2: 1:03

Chris swapped military marches for marketing metrics As an Army veteran turned CEO of Lean Labs. They are the mechanics under the hood of B2B tech and SaaS companies, turbocharging their websites and their marketing strategies. He has played detective with industry titans like HubSpot, atlassian and Salesforce, uncovering their secrets to success. What's he discovered? Solid foundations beat flimsy fads. Aligned goals are the secret handshake of high-performing teams, and strategic systems are the roadmaps to growth. He's also had the pleasure of working with business leaders, coaching them to increase effectiveness and efficiency within their organizations. And, chris, i'm so excited you're on the show today. Thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 3: 1:56

Thank you for having me. I get excited with that bio. It's like, all right, let's do this, let's go, let's go.

Speaker 2: 2:03

I would love for you to share some of your story with our listeners, particularly around your journey and your development as a leader.

Speaker 3: 2:10

How did you get?

Speaker 2: 2:11

started.

Speaker 3: 2:13

So obviously I got all the captain of the ski team and those fun things. But I think my real leadership journey started when I joined the Army. I had enlisted into the Army Reserves so that I could still finish college, do ROTC, and then I commissioned as an infantry officer And did all the fun training and fun and air quotes training to be able to get out and lead soldiers. And my first unit was up in Fairbanks, alaska, fort Wayne Wright, and I was a platoon leader up there And so I had you know, i'm 22 years old, i've got 36 men in my unit and I'm responsible for I think it was like $13.8 million worth of equipment And so kind of a big price tag And, you know, including like the lives of 36 guys. But it was great, like it was one of the best experiences you can have And I was with a great team. I got to learn a lot from these guys And I performed really well in that position. And so our battalion commander said you know what? I really want to pull you up to work directly with me so I can kind of keep coaching you. So I think you have some potential here that I really want to like lean into That personally was miserable, because I became his assistant, right. So I was following him around, i was doing his calendar, i was doing all the things that weren't necessarily like running around shooting things, doing the fun infantry stuff, but when I was up there I got to see kind of the bigger picture right. So rather than just seeing my platoon, i got to see you know, a lot of platoons within all of the companies and then how they interacted as a battalion.

Speaker 3: 3:54

And through that I started noticing different leadership styles that were coming out, and there were some individuals who could perform really well in one position And they would go somewhere else and then they were not doing very well, but others were just excelling. Everywhere they went They were doing something great. And what I realized was that the reason they were doing great wasn't because of just them showing up and saying, all right, these are the systems I need to put into play. It was them showing up, looking at the unit that they were working with, saying what do they need from me, And then shifting their leadership style to better match that. So I started working through this concept of dynamic leadership, right, the ability to take in everything around like multiple types of awareness. But you got to know how you show up, how your team is showing up, what do you have to work with, what assets are within your control, what's the situation look like. And once you know all of these details, you kind of shape how you're approaching the situation in order to actually be the leader that is required right now. And so I mean you can say I won't name names but, like you can see, there are CEOs who have gone, been very successful in the company, and they go somewhere else and try running it the same way and that company just can't take off. And it's because they're following the exact same playbook, but you can't because the market's different now, Even like you can't run if Apple had the same company starting right now, like you can't do it, like it's just the competition, the market's much wider, like there's just too many other things in play. And so I really just started to lean into that right, this dynamic leadership, and how can I keep finding ways to become more aware of the situation, more aware of what's going on, so that I can build some of the skills to be able to actually get the results? And I kind of carried that through a lot of my military career.

Speaker 3: 5:45

So I spent seven years active duty and when I left I was a captain who was running as an operations officer and battalion executive officer at the same time, which has shortage. So I assume both jobs. Those are usually major positions and I was ranked below doing both of them And it was actually. I mean, it was enjoyable. I liked the high stress environments, but it was I approached it with this dynamic leadership, and so it was like I showed up and said, all right, what do we need in order, you know, for me to show up for the team? and it wasn't that, hey, i have all this training. So, like I knew, i didn't have that training. So what else can I be doing right now in order to pull different assets in different team members in in order to make this work? And so that carried over. I'm still in the Army reserves. I just actually finished Battalion Command.

Speaker 3: 6:32

Now as a major, i stepped, i got, was asked to step up, fill that position, which was actually a lot of fun because you don't usually get that opportunity And it was great.

Speaker 3: 6:42

But when I was leaving the Army, i needed an actual job, and so I'd reached out to a company that I'd worked with before as a copywriter, and they said well, actually we're looking for someone higher, we'd love to have you on the team. So I started working with them and after about nine months of just learning how to market because I had really no idea I ended up stepping up to become the head of operations for the company because I had the leadership skills that we needed, did that for two and a half-ish years and then stepped up to actually be the CEO of the company, and so I've been doing that, and through this I've had a lot of people reach out and just say like, hey, can you actually help me with these problems and do this? And I'm like, oh, i can actually get into coaching. This is super enjoyable, and so I've started leaning into the coaching side as well. I have systems, i have frameworks, and now I have an opportunity to actually share them and help other leaders do the same thing.

Speaker 2: 7:38

I love that because I love the others-centric part that is woven throughout that story. You step into a new place, you step into a new responsibility and you're not saying, all right, so this is how I do it. So everybody better follow, everybody better do it the way I do it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no matter. In all through your journey, you're coming in and you're asking questions and you're observing and you're increasing your awareness, not just around what your preferences are, but what does the organization need? What does the team need? What are these people that you have been tasked to lead? What do they need? What is best for them? What's best for the organization? I love that. So why do you call this dynamic leadership?

Speaker 3: 8:18

Yeah, so it's the. It's really based on the ability to like to change your approach right. There is no perfect leadership style and so you have to be dynamic. You have to be able to show up. Yeah, and so one of the, the exercises That I do with anyone I'm coaching and like and I do this personally like anyone People can get this worksheet for free. I put it up on. If you go to, chris, do blah, dot us. I just have a notion page where I put up all my frameworks and stuff so you can just you want to use them, go ahead And for the leaders marks. This is how you use this one.

Speaker 3: 8:49

I recommend everyone do a daily a are right after action review, sit down Just what went well today, what didn't go well, how can I show up better tomorrow? Hmm, love it. And through this right, i basically identified four different like categories. So you got like connection, capacity, cohesion and presence. Within those, there are different skills, kind of areas that you can focus on to know how you're showing up in a certain situation. And so Under connection right, there's communication. So should I be transmitting right now or receiving more? and And it's all things right. Under capacity, like the level of risk assumption, should we be more cautious or should we be aggressive? and there's no like perfect answer. It's gonna change depending on that situation And so, like you know, with this one, if we have tons of time to make a decision here, i'm gonna lean towards being more cautious. I don't need to rush into a decision, but if, like, if I have to make something right now, yeah, we're gonna make that decision I'm gonna accept a higher level of risk because we need to, like, i can't, i can't hesitate on that, and so, through this, that worksheet has all of these lined up, and what I do it when I'm coaching someone is we'll pick a certain situation that it happened during the day And we say, alright, what was our target outcome?

Speaker 3: 10:05

Right, and now, how did you show up in reality? like, i should be honest with yourself, how did you perform here? And we put an X, like somewhere on this spectrum, for all of the answers and I would say, okay, how did that actually work? was a good, was it bad? right, and like, and we decided did we get the result that we were actually aiming for? And more often than not, we didn't. Unless we have some experience from from before, we just don't. And so here We can now say, okay, let me take it like a different color marker and put an X where I believe I should be. And So the next time a situation similar to this pops up, i now know, okay, last time I did this, right, i was transmitting a lot when I should have been receiving, or I should have been listening to my team, and I thought maybe I didn't have enough time.

Speaker 3: 10:48

I thought they were more inexperienced, and so I felt I should push more of my knowledge on them, or really I should be pulling from them, because they actually have more knowledge than I do. And so Having that knowledge, that awareness of your team, of you, of the situation, it's just more front of mind. And so when you go into this next situation, you're able to, you know, lean on that and it you're not guessing, as you go in, you're saying, hey, i have proof, i had a hypothesis right, it didn't work. Let me run another test to see if this works, and you try it again.

Speaker 3: 11:17

You do another after-action review at the end of that one. You try it again until you you get the feeling and this becomes so It like it's, it becomes intuitive, right where now I have these ingrained in my head. So before I go into a situation, you know, i can say How much discipline do I need for here? Can I, can I be, do I need to be really strict or can I be more lenient with my team? And like, and I can? just it pops in my head and I actually asked myself that question, you know, because that feels like something I need to hone in on. And now I'm just I'm Generally getting better results than I was before because I'm following this dynamic leadership approach.

Speaker 2: 11:53

I love doing the. They are the hot wash afterwards, right and saying what we're right, what we're wrong. How would I do it different next time? I think that third question is key because I think that's when you you translate experience into learning. Hmm, that's gonna carry forward. You know, people think experience makes you better. I don't buy that. I don't think experience makes you any better at all. I think, yeah, i'll you waited, experience makes you better. I'm reading. Third question is the evaluation, like what would I do different in the situation in the future So that the next time you are in a similar thing right, that's gonna. You're gonna carry that because you processed, you took the time to do that. Yeah, if you don't, you're just gonna keep circling the same drain. You're never gonna take that learning for because you've never processed it. I love that model, i love the dynamic nature of that.

Speaker 3: 12:40

So that's actually. I use a lot of formulas in my leadership, like math formulas, which I have never liked. Math, it's not something I it's not something I've been good at, but I find it very easy to take something complex and make it simple so that I can get across an idea. And When it comes to growth, right, the formula I use is knowledge, times, execution, and it becomes very easy because, like, you get a lot of people who they will read a Lot of books, right, they might go, actually, they might get there all of their college experiences around leadership, yeah, but then they don't put it to play, right, they don't go test it out, and so, like you, all you have is knowledge, yep, and you can't actually evaluate that, and so That's yeah, it's an easy way. There's a couple other good like it that system, right, just using the formulas. Oh, what is a So like overwhelm?

Speaker 3: 13:29

this is my favorite one. I get a lot of team members like I'm feeling overwhelmed right now. It's okay, and so I can kind of pull them aside, be like alright, let's focus for a second. There's two things that cause overwhelm, right, it's high demands and A lack of clarity. So let's first, let's look at high demands, right? Is there stuff I can take off your plate right now To make it easier? so you have more time, you have more mental capacity to be able to execute this, and If they, we can solve it with that awesome or we move over to lack of clarity, do you just not know what?

Speaker 3: 13:57

the next thing you should be working on is, what? you know What the priority is right now, and usually just by solving those two, it's like they're not, the overwhelm goes away, they just it becomes much easier and I've literally had team members leave conversations and say like, thank you, that made complete sense. I feel so much better. It's like boom, now They can go actually do their job. And it just took, you know the super complex, like it's hard to package overwhelm and, yeah, work through those feelings. But if you can just throw it in a little formula like this and say You know well, is it this or that, and then they, they work through it and so Yeah, I love that formula for overwhelm.

Speaker 2: 14:34

I think that's so helpful, mm-hmm. It is about taking the complex and making it simple Right, and I think that's what great communicators do. I think that's what great coaches do. Like, yeah, take something that people look at and they're like, oh, they're just over there, overwhelmed by it. We're like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, let's break it down. Yes, make it bite-sized pieces that you can process. And then, all of a sudden, it's like, oh, yeah, oh, of course, i love that. I love both of those formulas. Now I got to go to crystalbladus.

Speaker 3: 15:04

Now I got them up there too. Right whole list of them.

Speaker 2: 15:10

You. You work with a lot of leaders and from your own experience and from your your own coaching now and Acting as a CEO and leading an organization, you see a lot of the good, the bad, the ugly. You see a lot of people who get it right. You see a lot of things people do. They're fantastic, and you see things that are well, not so, not so great, right Out of your purview. That, looking at that whole broad thing, what are, what are some mistakes that you think leaders get wrong?

Speaker 3: 15:40

some of the I won't say worse, some of the least effective leaders that I have ever worked with have been very closed off to really to awareness. That's the big one. I use the act framework for everything awareness, communication and trust. If you can nail those three things, most of your other leadership challenges go away. I had one. Here's an Army story. This one's fun.

Speaker 3: 16:09

I had one of the best company commanders I could ever work with. I was his executive officer, his right hand man. He and I jived It was awesome. Then he went to his next unit and we got another guy in Who was the opposite. This guy had been earlier in his career, had been enlisted, he was a staff sergeant. At one point He was trying to run our company like he was a staff sergeant. Generally, at that level you have a lot more control where, when you get up to the company level, you need more command where it's like, hey, let me give guidance and you guys take that discipline initiative to run with it. This guy did the craziest things where he was trying to be so tightly constrained because for him that worked before. He didn't have the awareness to know it wasn't working, to the point like one day we woke up three in the morning, we threw on our Rucksacks, we walked, i think, six miles out to the land navigation site and we trained all day. We did three iterations and then we did a night iteration. This came out to walking in the woods looking for random signs to make sure you can plot on a map and find them. We had probably 20 miles on our feet and then we walked back.

Speaker 3: 17:19

We get back to the company, probably two in the morning. We have a formation, we get ready to take off, go home so everybody can go to sleep. He steps out and says, hey, we're doing a year analysis. Line up. Everyone's like shocked because it takes hours to get 150 people through the bathroom to be in a cup. I'm like okay, well, i'm his right-hand man. I better go tell him this is probably a bad decision. I walked in his office and I said hey, sir, are you sure this is what we want to do? Why don't we let him go to sleep When they come back to work? in the morning, we do the year analysis. He said this is my company, i make the rules. I'm like Roger that I turned around. I walked back into our open bay and everyone was staring at me like, did you save us? I was like, let's go, guys, hurry up Everybody. It was a fastest year analysis probably the army has ever had. But we went off. They finished that and then he came back out and said okay, thank you, be back for PT training at 6.30. It was like four in the morning. We now have people drive it, not being safe obviously, driving home after being awake for 24 hours, just sleep for an hour, come back Basically they're going to shave and then come back to work.

Speaker 3: 18:35

It was just like he had no awareness that any of that was either good or bad. He didn't see the morale within the company and the culture started to suffer. We had DUIs from our soldiers and they were going out getting a lot more fights over the weekends because they didn't have that cohesion and they didn't get excited going to work and like to enjoy that type of stuff. I would say that's just one story, obviously more on the corporate side. I haven't had anyone do something like that yet for one of my co-cheese. But awareness is huge If you can just sit back and say what am I doing right now? How can I better show up Half the time? that question solves everything and you can now perform better.

Speaker 2: 19:26

My goodness, that's remarkable, but I think it illustrates something that everybody listening, whether you're an entrepreneur, whether you're a solopreneur or a C-suite leader awareness matters. You've got to be aware of not only what's going on around you, but what you are bringing Your words. I love how Andy Stanley says this your words, as the leader, weigh 10,000 pounds, whether you want them to or not.

Speaker 2: 19:56

I just want to be one of the guys in the break. I just want to be whatever. You're the leader, your words weigh 10,000 pounds. If you're aware of that, then you're going to be mindful and you're going to be very cautious with the words that you use and the people that you're going to use them with. Too many leaders, i think, are like the guy you were talking about I'm in charge, i'm the boss. That's what it says on the door. Do what I say.

Speaker 3: 20:22

What makes it worse for individuals like that? his reputation followed him. People talk and it's the same in corporate America. It's the same in the sports world. People know how you showed up and how you made them feel He is now never going to be successful in his other positions because he's not shown up with on a great note. It's just you, as a leader, want to avoid that. Don't go there in the first place. It's pretty easy, oh good.

Speaker 2: 20:50

So good, man, You let back over your journey. Get back to when you were that 22-year-old version of Chris. If you could have a conversation with yourself. what is one thing you wish you had known then that you know now?

Speaker 3: 21:11

There's a lot. I think I'm actually very glad that my journey has gone the way it has. I feel like every step I have learned what I needed to learn in that moment and it was I could not have planned it better for myself Like the hard times. I needed to be in that hard time to get that lesson. I would not have listened to it, you know, unless I was there. But I would say if I needed one thing that would have made my life easier, it would have been just more quickly, being comfortable with being uncomfortable, right. So I think Victor Frankel says that it's only suffering if you don't apply meaning to it.

Speaker 3: 21:56

And in a lot of our military training too, like, yeah, we're going to go do a 20-mile, you know a rock march with 50 pounds on our back, like you're going to be miserable, it's uncomfortable, but you're not suffering. As long as you tell yourself I'm doing this so that when I show up on the battlefield, i'm showing up on the battlefield, that's right, there's meaning behind this. And so now I'm just uncomfortable, it's not that bad. But there's so many other situations I hate it.

Speaker 3: 22:20

Public speaking, i was terrified of it And I realized as I was starting to move up in ranks, i had to talk in front of people a lot more, and so I started putting myself in the situations where I was definitely uncomfortable doing these things. But I got way better at it. I got, you know. I started to almost crave that feeling of like stepping towards the fear and jumping in and knowing I was going to grow from this because I had the knowledge of my past experiences. Right, the execution, it was growth And yeah, so I think understanding that that to be uncomfortable with being uncomfortable, that would have made probably increase my growth rate Everything, That's so good.

Speaker 2: 23:05

I mean, we know that and with the clients that we work with, with the leaders that we talk to, like growth does not happen in your comfort zone, like we know that, we know that, intellectually, we teach that, we write that, we know that. But then we have to go through a time when we're uncomfortable And we're like ah, with the condition soon, like when it's growth.

Speaker 3: 23:28

Yeah, and how often do you seek uncomfortability? Yeah, like a lot of times we'll get to a point where it's like, oh, this is uncomfortable, i have to work through it. But how often do we actually push that boundary to say, no, i am going to grow through this, like, let's go find something that I can grow with?

Speaker 2: 23:45

That's so good. So you've seen leaders come and go and you have come and gone into different organizations, different levels. I mean going from a copywriter to director of ops, now to CEO. Those are very different. Those are very different levels, different responsibilities. Somebody who's listening, you know, and people who are listening are agency owners, they're entrepreneurs, they're leaders in so many different areas of life, and some of them are young leaders, some of them are new and emerging leaders. Like, what would you recommend for a young or emerging leader, or for a leader who's stepping into a new organization? Maybe, as they're coming in, what's something that you would say hey, keep this in mind.

Speaker 3: 24:28

I have a concept I call the leadership levers, where there are four ways that a leader can actually use leverage because of their position in order to make things happen faster. And so you have capital. I can actually throw money at a problem because generally a leader has a budget, that's true. To be able to do it, you have your connection, which is your network, and you can lean on that. Like, as a leader, you're going to generally have a lot more people and you can use the fact that you're in a leadership position to give something back to others so that you can leverage that.

Speaker 3: 25:02

Your character is a big one. People are going to want to follow you if you're the type of person worth following, and so that's big. But the one that I think I would focus on here as well, those kind of take some time to really build up. But the culture is the last lever. If you have a good culture, people are going to want to be in your organization, they're going to want to work with you. Culture is the one thing that a leader truly owns. Everything else can be delegated. You can put other people in charge, but when it comes to your culture, that is completely on the leader, because you are the one who holds the standard, and so one you have your culture, and then you have the climate. Where are we currently at in relation to what we want as the ideal culture? The difference is that culture gap. You want that as small as possible. So you know you're showing up the way you need to.

Speaker 3: 25:57

The way that gap increases is by not holding people accountable to the standard you have set, and so are you hiring people who fit in with that culture? Are you promoting the people who also meet that culture? Are you getting rid of the people who should not be there? Because when people come in and they deliver work or they finish some task somewhere, is it at our standard? And it's the leader's responsibility to say, hey, it's not. And sometimes those are the uncomfortable conversations where you say, hey, i know you're doing the work And you're like this is our standard.

Speaker 3: 26:31

People like us do things like this. That's how Seth Godin defines your culture, and if you start viewing it like that, people like us do things like this. Our group, our company performs at this level And we need all of us to perform here. This is the standard. I need everybody showing up like that, and so I think if you as a junior leader someone just up and coming making a name for yourself show up knowing that that that is your responsibility, and if you can truly own it and, like you know, take that on, you are going to have way better results. I think like everything is going to flow easier for you If you can nail that now. Actually add that to advice that I should have told my previous self.

Speaker 2: 27:16

That's good man, that's really good. Cultury is something that I think a lot of leaders don't spend a lot of time thinking about, but you're spot on. That's the one thing that you really control and that you really own, and I think that's something we need to spend more time as leaders, whether we lead one person or whether we lead a thousand, thinking about what is the culture I want to intentionally design, what is the cultural environment I want to create, and then to do so with that type of purpose, that type of intentionality. If we do that, you're spot on. People are going to be like hey, how can I be a part of this In the openings?

Speaker 3: 27:52

Yeah, Well, that's exactly it. And it's important to, when you first go into an organization, say what is the current culture? And then now, all right, what is the culture I want? How do I bridge that gap? And it's a lot of people are thinking this way. I need to get them thinking this way. What are the things I can say, What are the actions I need to take and where to get them there.

Speaker 3: 28:12

And so when I took over for company command, it was at an infantry basic training set up And my battalion commander pulled me aside at the start and he's like, hey, this is the weakest company that we have in the battalion. I really need you to do something. So I sat back for a bit. I watched what they were doing and I realized these guys were awesome And I will like to this day, I will, if they call me, text me. I'm on it because you, you are an awesome person who is worth like jumping, you know, hoops for and whatever. But their previous leader was not the culture was. He would say, hey, we're doing this for training, And it would be like at a miserable hour, at a you know, we're doing miserable training, It's raining, but we're going to go out and do this anyways right on your off day, And then that he would not show up, Oh right, And so my one of my first days with them, they were doing a PT test, right?

Speaker 3: 29:09

So just, it's two minutes to push ups, two minutes to set ups on a two mile run, and that was. It's super simple, right? But everyone in the army has to do this test, and so they were taking it. So I showed up to take it with them. No, hey, sir, what are you doing? I'm like, what do you mean? What am I doing? Like you're taking a PT test, so I'm here with you taking a PT test. So like, yeah, but we've never had a like an officer take the PT test with us. I'm like, well, that changed right now.

Speaker 3: 29:31

And and I did it with them, and that when we started changing that culture, but by the end of my time, so when I had my evaluation with my brigade commander right, so battalion commander had six companies, brigade commander has like 30 something. And when I had, when I met with him, he said, hey, you have created one of the strongest companies within this battalion or, sorry, within this brigade, and but I had soldiers who would actually come up to me and say, hey, what do I need to do to get into your, your company? And it's like, and that's not really how the army works, right, but they were just like I, just we see you're letting people actually do their job and you're treating them with respect And like they get to go home and see their families at the end of the day, and it's like, yeah, because that's a reward for us showing up and working hard and just doing all the things together, and so, yeah, that was a another fun story.

Speaker 2: 30:21

I mean, you know, i'm not that. You illustrated something. I've heard John Maxwell say this a hundred times. You know leaders lead from the front. You know I mean you don't. You don't lead from the rear Right. That's not wise, yeah, and I think what you illustrated there is. You know, i'm going to change the culture, but I'm going to do so from the very front. We think about culture.

Speaker 2: 30:41

I was having a conversation with a client, actually a couple hours ago, about this, about building a different mindset that they needed. They needed to shift their mindset around something, and I said mindset is a lot like culture. You do not build it in 10 minutes. You can't get there. Yeah, it takes time. It's like and I think about it like building something out of LEGOs, out of small LEGOs. right, it's one brick at a time, really, and eventually you can build the Millennium Falcon, but you're not going to do that in 10 minutes. It's going to take some time to get there. Your mindset is like that. Organizational culture is like that. Team culture is like that.

Speaker 2: 31:20

You decide, though, as the leader, what you're going to build. You have the picture in your mind and say OK, this is where we are. How do we get from here to there, and I love the intentionality that you did that. That's so, so good, man, that's so good. Let's shift for a minute to talk about your coaching, because you're stepping into this new place, right? What is it that you want to see happen in this? You see in your mind what you want this to become, What?

Speaker 3: 31:47

do you see? Yeah, so I have the very lofty goal of helping a million people recognize and realize their life goal, and so that's really hard to put down a paper. I'm not going to go through an individual and be like check one.

Speaker 1: 32:02

All right good.

Speaker 3: 32:05

And so, because I'm not willing to do that what I realize is that, yeah, i can go help individuals and I can talk to people, but if I help a leader, i can now exponentially help everyone they're working with.

Speaker 3: 32:16

Yes, because, if you can help, just imagine even for yourself being just that happy team member. You love showing up at work because you're excited, you're being used, you're doing the things you love, people treat you well, everything's great, you're going home and you're not stressed about work. You're leaving work there because you're in a great mood. You're going to show up, you're going to spend time with your family, you're going to be playing with your kids, volunteering in your community, doing all of these things that contribute back to society. And it starts with the leaders just being able to set people up so that they actually enjoy their lives by doing their best work with you and being able to get excited about everything that they're doing. And so I really, like with coaching, it's really a passion to just help more people be able to follow their passions and stuff through leaders.

Speaker 2: 33:07

What do you think would be different In your life, in your world, if you did that, if you saw a million people, because of your influence, change their lives?

Speaker 3: 33:18

And it's a good question, because I think personally, i would just now up the goal to 2 million And so wouldn't change much. I'm just like let's go bigger. We knocked that one out, but I feel awesome. And here's the thing I feel awesome helping one person I had.

Speaker 3: 33:37

This was just a friend who I was helping. He started at a company and wanted to move into a leadership position, and so I just given him some simple coaching, just like, yeah, try this. This. It was very casual. I wasn't like it wasn't paying me or anything, but as he got that on track, he also he shot me a message a couple months later really. But hey, i got that promotion. They're looking at me for another promotion.

Speaker 3: 34:03

And then started adding I've started dating again. He was divorced. He's an older guy, so I started dating again. I'm loving, actually like living right now. My doctor just took me off all my medication because I started taking care of my health again And it was just, and he had a couple other smaller things, but it was like that text. I was just like hi for the day. I was just like I felt good And it was just like man, this is what I need to be doing. I need you to be helping people And so if I can find a way to get that leverage right And exponentially help more people like I'm going to take that opportunity and follow that passion.

Speaker 2: 34:37

So I love that. I think that is a high calling for what we do in pouring into and investing and helping leaders to grow and thrive, not just survive, not just make it through another day. Oh, i made it. Okay, made it to Friday. Okay, exactly. And then you get the Sunday night blues because Monday's coming. There's something better, there's a better, better way to do life. I love that. So so many people who are listening like they can. They can do that. They can enumerate what their goals are. They can say, yeah, it's this, this is, this is where I want to go, this is what I want most And this is what would be different. But here's the question that's often the showstopper What's stopping you?

Speaker 3: 35:23

Right now, embarrassingly, it's getting my my name out there more And I say it embarrassingly because I am running a marketing company. But it's really just now folks like re shifting kind of some of my focus to say how do I just get my name out there so that people can find me as a leadership coach, to know that I am someone who can help them, and so yeah, I love that, And this is one way I hope that our listeners are going to say, oh hey, I need to check this guy out.

Speaker 2: 35:49

Christie Blodus will have that in the show notes, of course.

Speaker 3: 35:53

Yeah, so that's just for. I have a bunch of like frameworks, different, different tools you can just pull has like I was using as like a resume page, which is a lot of fun. You can copy it if you guys want. I love that. But but I got a website up. It's leading for effectcom effects Excellent. You check that out. I also launched a podcast this week, which was just a fun little passion project. I just said, hey, i got all these ideas on leadership. Why don't I start talking into a microphone and putting them into the the internet And so you can. You can find that now wherever you listen to podcasts and unbound with Christie Blod And hopefully you enjoy it and leave some ratings and reviews. I will read them because I like torturing myself by reading all of reviews whenever I have them. I love that.

Speaker 2: 36:40

Well, and we know in podcast world that's how people find new shows Right It's by the ratings and reviews. So I'm going to challenge everybody listening to go to unbound with Christie Blod and listen to at least one episode and leave a rating and review. All right And selfishly. If you haven't done that for the catalytic podcast, please leave a rating and review, because true it does make a difference in helping people find new shows.

Speaker 2: 37:03

It does, And I'm excited to see what all is going on here. One question I ask everybody is we move toward the close. What is a book that has really impacted you on your journey that you would recommend that every leader listening? if you could put one book on your to read list, this is the book.

Speaker 3: 37:21

I read a lot of books I would, so this has been my most gifted book for a couple of years now Essentialism with Greg by Greg McCown Such a great book, it's just a lot. I think a lot of people struggle with being able to get to like what is that actual essential element that I need to be focused on here? They have trouble saying no, you know they're. It's just, if you can, if you can nail that, if you understand how to prioritize, you're going to be way more productive, way more effective and you can run your team a lot better.

Speaker 2: 37:53

All right. Last question If people walk away with one thing from this episode, Chris, what's the one thing you wanted to walk away with?

Speaker 3: 38:03

Prioritize awareness Just in all facets, whether it's personal, interpersonal, situational, right, or just your team, your overall team like build that awareness. get used to get comfortable with pushing yourself on just becoming more aware. If you can do that, I can guarantee you a majority of your problems, especially as a leader, are going to go away.

Speaker 2: 38:30

I know folks listening are going to want to stay connected with you and continue learning from you. We've talked about your podcast. We've talked about a couple of sites, but I'm going to let you share those one more time and we're going to have all these in the show notes as well.

Speaker 3: 38:41

Sure, yeah. So to have your go through your heart's desire for all of these different worksheets and other tools and assets, you can go to chrisduboisus. Those are just up there. You can just grab whatever you want, no email required or anything, it's all just open on a Notion page. Leadingforeffectcom is where I've got everything that I'm willing to do on the leadership side and you can ask me whatever you want there. And then Unbound with Chris Dubois new podcast. Feel free to check it out, leave a rating and review all the fun stuff, and yeah, and you can connect with me on LinkedIn, christopher Dubois, perfect.

Speaker 2: 39:18

I'm going to encourage everybody to do this and specifically to go to your podcast, because that's been exciting for you, man, excited for you starting this brand new journey, brand new part of your journey. This has been a great conversation man, I appreciate your generosity today and sharing so freely. You've been so open and so generous. Thank you for that.

Speaker 3: 39:39

Yeah, i appreciate you having me. This is, conversations with you have been some of the highlights of my weeks here, which is very enjoyable.

Speaker 2: 39:49

So Thank you for that. Thank you so much. My goal is to put this into the hands of as many leaders as possible. This book captures principles that I've learned in 20 plus years of coaching leaders in the entrepreneurial space, in business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. If you're ready to take a next step with a coach to help you intentionally grow and thrive as a leader, i'd be honored to help you. Just go to catalyticleadershipnet to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, leaders choose to be catalytic.

Speaker 1: 41:10

Thanks for listening to Catalytic Leadership with Dr William Attaway. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode. Want more? Go to catalyticleadershipnet.