Info

Absolute Advantage Podcast

The Absolute Advantage is about learning from some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs, leaders, and achievers at the top of their game. When chasing your dreams, a lot of times there isn’t a need to reinvent the wheel. Instead, shorten your path to success by learning from the stories, strategies and concepts shared by our guests. Then shorten it even further by learning about amazing resources (books, webinars, tools, software, events, coaching, etc.) that should be on your radar. You are not alone in the challenges you face! It's my mission to help you walk away with at least one idea you can apply each episode and to offer content that inspires, encourages and helps you grow and progress QUICKLY both professionally and personally.
RSS Feed
Absolute Advantage Podcast
2021
May


2020
March
February
January


2019
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2018
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2017
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2016
December
November
October
September
August


All Episodes
Archives
Now displaying: April, 2018
Apr 25, 2018

Paula Brown Stafford and Lisa T. Grimes are two award-winning, c-suite executives who together have accumulated 60 plus years of work experience at the highest levels, 60 years of marriage, and raised four successful children. Collectively, they have managed more than 25,000 employees globally. Paula recently retired as President, Clinical Development at QuintilesIMS and Lisa has served as President & CEO of PurThread Technologies. Although Paula and Lisa were fierce competitors 20 years ago, they eventually formed a friendship and now, as a team, speak to corporations and women’s groups on a number of topics, including Complementing Not Competing, Packing Your Potential, and The Juggling Act.

Together, Paula and Lisa wrote the book, Remember Who You Are: Achieve Success. Create Balance. Experience Fulfillment.

Finding balance in the midst of a successful career is a challenge – and women face unique challenges as they rise up the ranks in business. Paula Brown Stafford and Lisa Grimes know that first hand, so their stories and advice are truly priceless.

In business, you will inevitably face competition – but there is more to advancing and excelling in your career. Mentorship is a huge factor in building on your skills and experience. Learning from someone who went down this path before you can open doors and open your mind to seeing a path more clearly.

Paula Brown Stafford and Lisa Grimes are my guests on Absolute Advantage today, and we had a wonderfully animated conversation. From competing for multi-million dollar contracts 20 years ago, to literally finishing each other’s sentences – the respect Lisa and Paula have for each other really shows through.

What sticks with me is the way they are giving back – offering guidance not just to women in (or on their way to) positions of power, but men too as we all interact together. Respect is the key that provides a way forward for everyone. The book they co-wrote even includes – cleverly I thought – a “Her Perspective” forward and and “His Perspective” forward.

We talked — among many topics — about networking and cultivating your personal brand. These are important elements of building a trifecta of success, balance and fulfillment.

Lisa and Paula also worked with this great juggling metaphor: in life you juggle so much. You have crystal balls, glass balls, rubber balls, plastic balls and lead balls – you’ll just have to listen to find out more! What these two share on this subject is really powerful.

The c-suite and life experience both Lisa and Paula have had brings unique and powerful insights we can all learn from. So if you like the idea of success, balance and fulfillment, our conversation is a great one to get in on.

Thank you for listening today! I appreciate your time so very much.

Ways to contact Paula and Lisa:

Apr 18, 2018

Rob is President and Co-Founder of imageOne, a Document Lifecycle Management company. Rob’s journey began in ninth grade when he and his current business partner, Joel Pearlman, launched their first business selling blow pop candy out of their school lockers. Rob and his partner realized early on that their passion for delivering an extraordinary customer experience would be key to their success. It is this passion that has become the driving force behind imageOnes success. Rob has completed 14 marathons and is an avid meditator and loves spending time in Northern Michigan with his family and friends.

My guest today has some surprising ways to tap into his creativity and increase his success.

Today, I’m with Rob Dube and talking to him about his thoughts regarding working smarter and not harder.

What he has to say is not exactly what you might think the owner of a company that Forbes named one of the “Best Small Companies” would say though.

According to Rob — and he has the backing of researching and the fact that leaders all over the world embrace this strategy — that slowing down is the key to unlocking both your creativity and your leadership potential.

Putting away your technology opens up the mind and relieves stress. This is because silence enables the mind to clear away chaotic thoughts and clarity emerges.

Successful business CEOs and all branches of the military practice some form of meditation. If you’re going to become a leader, you have to give your company your full energy and your employees your full presence. If you don’t those that rely on you can feel the disconnect.

How does Rob suggest that you do this in order to be successful? Attend a silent retreat.
Listen to more about Rob’s experiences with silent retreats and how this lead to his newest book “Do Nothing.”

Ways to contact Rob:

Apr 11, 2018

Dr. Rick Brinkman is a leadership and communications expert who teaches Conscious Communication® for leadership, teamwork, customer service and effective meetings. Since 1987 he’s performed more than 4,000 programs in 17 countries, sharing his insights on human behavior and strategies for practical communication. He is known for Educating through Entertainment, using humor and storytelling to make the learning memorable.

A popular keynote speaker, his clients range from the Astronaut Corps at NASA and the FBI to Merck, Adobe, the Federal Reserve, and IBM. His newest book is Dealing With Meetings You Can’t Stand: Meet Less and Do More (McGraw Hill, 2017).

Are you able to lead effective meetings? Dr. Rick Brinkman is a communications expert who teaches conscious communication for leadership, teamwork, and customer service applications.

As a medical naturopath, Dr. Rick Brinkman discovered that the mental and physical health of his patients were entwined. He brings this knowledge to business communication, creating a holistic approach to information dissemination.

In this episode, we discussed now negativity surrounding meetings can serve as a barrier, preventing the proper retention of information. If your employees resent the meetings they’ve brought into, why should they pay attention?

Yet if you empower people to change the ways in which they meet, you can get better results — sometimes increasing output by up to 25 percent without any additional cost to you. Dr. Brinkman explains that in terms of structure, meetings are divided into four important categories: preparation, processing, people, and time. Mastering all of these leads to effective meetings and effective leadership.

Running bad meetings will eventually lead to a lack of confidence in your leadership, as your employees may doubt your decision-making abilities. Bad meetings waste your time, your employee’s time, and ultimately your company’s time.

Dr. Rick Brinkman offers numerous incredible tips on how to improve your meetings and offers a document — called a “cage rattling document” — for convincing higher level executives.

Are you interested in hearing more? Listen to the full episode now!

Thank you for listening today! I appreciate your time so very much.

Ways to contact Rick:

Apr 4, 2018

Kelly Riggs is an author, speaker and business performance coach for executives and companies throughout the U.S. and Canada. Kelly is a former sales executive and two-time national Salesperson of the Year with well over two decades of executive management and training experience. His new book with his son, Robby Riggs, Counter Mentor Leadership: How to Unlock the Potential of the 4-Generation Workplace (Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2018), offers practical, actionable advice that improves workplace culture and enables organizations to bridge the generational divide.

Getting team members from different generations to work well together has always been a challenge businesses have had to face, but it’s never been as pressing of an issue as it is today. Four generations make up today’s workforce — and the divide between Boomers and Millennials is a larger gap than we’ve ever seen.

Millennials are the first generation to bring skills to the table when they enter the workforce that other generations don’t have, and that has completely disrupted the traditional company structure where, in most cases, the people with the most knowledge are the ones who have been in the industry the longest.

That’s just not true anymore, and something has to be done to bring these generations together.

You’ve probably heard of the idea of reverse mentoring before, even if you aren’t familiar with it by that name. Reverse mentoring is the idea of taking an older employee and a younger employee, pairing them up, and having them teach each other what they know.

Kelly Riggs is my guest on this week’s episode of Absolute Advantage, and he believes there’s more to it than that, which is why he and his Millennial son wrote the book Counter Mentor Leadership: How to Unlock the Potential of the 4-Generation Workplace.

The book is built on their idea of counter mentoring, a seven-step process for assimilating all generations into a singular team that can be highly effective. All of the seven steps make up the acronym COUNTER.

The first of those steps is communication, and in our interview, Kelly stresses how critical communication is for employee engagement.

“Every leader should care dramatically about employee engagement or disengagement because it impacts the bottom line. It has everything to do with the amount of money you make, how much productivity you get, how safe your people are, how much turnover you have. All of those things are contingent upon communication. Communication is where you build trust, and trust is what creates leadership.”

Kelly has a great system for improving your communication. To learn all about that system as well as the other six steps that make up the acronym COUNTER, please listen to the full interview with Kelly.

Thank you for listening today! I appreciate your time so very much.

Ways to contact Kelly:

1