Tevis Trower is the founder and CEO of Balance Integration Corporation, focused on helping build corporate cultures that allow employees to thrive. Their remarkable client list includes companies like Google, Yahoo, Disney, Viacom, AOL, Soros, Bloomberg, Morgan Stanley and more. Tevis is considered a pioneer and leader in the field of cultural transformation at work, with significant expertise in imposter syndrome, trust, innovation, emotionally sustainable leadership, and fostering an environment of resilience. She has been featured in prominent media outlets such as Forbes, Business Week, Fortune CIO, The New York Post, Yoga Journal and many more.
Early in Tevis’s business career, she recognized that there is a need for more human-focused leadership in today’s business world. Many companies say “people are their most valuable asset”, but not enough companies focus on creating powerful people-focused cultures that allow their employees to shine. Tevis believes that the key to being a stronger, more effective and empowering leader is to recognize and embrace the reality that you bring your whole self to work, both your strengths and your weaknesses.
Tevis sees imposter syndrome as a sort of “default human state” that we all experience, created by our fear of failure and our strong need for success. She believes that what pushes many high performers to succeed is not a desire to win but a drive to avoid failure and the stigma associated with it. In her work, she helps people recognize their focus on the things that create discontent rather than the things that bring them joy, and she helps them reconnect with their heart and with the things they love.
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There is a tremendous amount of pressure that every leader has to face, but the reality is that much of that pressure comes from within. From imposter syndrome to fear of failure, from being honest about our weaknesses to the constant need to bring our best selves to work every day, we often create our own obstacles that get in the way of stepping into our potential as great leaders. How can we face these challenges in an emotionally honest and authentic way?
For this episode of Absolute Advantage, I invited Tevis Trower to speak with me about these very challenges. Tevis is the founder and CEO of Balance Integration Corporation, an organization that helps top companies like Google, Yahoo, Disney, Viacom, and many others build great cultures and empower their executives to thrive. Tevis is an expert in imposter syndrome, trust, innovation, emotionally sustainable leadership, and fostering an environment of resilience. She has been featured in prominent media outlets such as Forbes, Business Week, Fortune CIO, The New York Post, Yoga Journal and many more.
During the episode, Tevis discusses the mental and emotional challenges that leaders have to deal with, and she shares some surprising statistics about the expectations employees have for their leaders. She discusses the importance of authenticity and the vital skill of allowing ourselves to admit our weaknesses, and she offers smart strategies for coping with the pressure of being a great leader. I hope you enjoy our conversation and learn much from Tevis Trower’s wisdom.
Ways to contact Tevis Trower:
Tommy Baker is a writer, speaker, author, coach, consultant, and the host of the Resist Average Academy. He is the CEO of Tommy Baker Fitness and an entrepreneur who believes in people’s endless potential and whose goal is to help them achieve their purpose and potential. After beginning his career in the financial services sector, Tommy had an awakening during the 2008 economic crash and realized that his life was on a path he didn’t want to follow.
Tommy realized that he was “in it” for the wrong reasons, and so he made major life changes, took on a new mindset, and began a journey of self-discovery and growth that led him to his current work. This clarity and willingness to listen to his own internal voice were transformational for Tommy, pushing him to create the life he truly wanted for himself and achieve his personal and professional goals.
Tommy believes that developing the right mindset is the key to making a change, especially for ambitious and driven high-performing leaders. In his work, Tommy teaches skills related to mindset, intentionality, and emotional intelligence and resilience to create transformation, strengthen leadership and help business leaders and entrepreneurs make a greater impact.
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Mindset is such an important factor for strong leadership, and having the right foundation and habits is the key to developing a powerful mindset. However, with a world full of chaos and distractions constantly pulling for our attention, it can be difficult to develop the right practices to strengthen our mindset. It can often be too easy to shrug off meditation or to say we don’t have time for journaling, yet these activities can be transformative tools if we are willing to invest in ourselves.
For this episode of Absolute Advantage, my guest is Tommy Baker. Tommy is a writer, keynote speaker, coach, and author. He is the host of the Resist Average Academy and the companion podcast of the same name, and he is the CEO of Tommy Baker Fitness. His goal is to help empower others by setting them on a more mindful, purpose-driven path. Tommy believes in limitless human potential and in the long-term transformational power of emotional intelligence and emotional resilience.
During the episode, Tommy shares how he realized that his own life was on a path he didn’t want, and he discusses the steps he took to change his mindset. He offers strategies to help you find clarity of purpose, and he explains why clarity is one of the true keys to being a more effective leader or entrepreneur. I hope you are engaged and enlightened by Tommy Baker’s wisdom and that you are able to implement his strategies into your own life.
Ways to contact Tommy Baker:
Juliana Stancampiano is the CEO of Oxygen, business leader, and strategist whose work involves helping business leaders and their teams modernize workplace education. With more than 15 years of experience, Juliana has helped leaders translate their company’s sales and business strategy into tangible achievements for people in sales, service and delivery, and retail channels. Juliana is the author of Radical Outcomes: How to Create Extraordinary Teams that Get Tangible Results.
In her role as CEO, she and her teams partner with clients in large companies including Fortune 500 companies like Microsoft, Sony, Big Fish Games, Starbucks, Expedia, Western Digital, and many more. As a business development and strategy expert, Juliana believes in helping unburden themselves of distractions and challenges so that they can better focus, excel in their jobs, and create success for themselves and their organizations.
Juliana believes that building and supporting great teams and giving them the resources and support they need to thrive is the key to business success. Part of her work involves helping organizations find ways to maximize the potential of their teams while making the workplace be an enjoyable experience rather than a grind.
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Many companies say “our people are our greatest resource”, but the sad fact is that too few companies behave that way. Strong, cohesive, effective teams can accomplish incredible things, but many companies don’t give enough thought to how to best support their employees and structure their teams to maximize their success.
For this episode of Absolute Advantage, I was joined by Juliana Stancampiano. Juliana is the CEO of Oxygen, a consultancy that helps Fortune 500 businesses strategize, modernize, and enable their employees for success. Juliana is also the author of Radical Outcomes: How to Create Extraordinary Teams that Get Tangible Results, where she offers readers a blueprint for a new way of collaborative, fast-paced and highly effective working using modern tools and strategies.
On this episode of Absolute Advantage, Juliana shares why the modern workplace has changed and collaborative team efforts will be the key to business success and innovation going forward. She shares why the “old” way of doing things can’t keep up with today’s highly stressful, distracted, competitive environment, and she offers strategies for creating camaraderie and a supportive environment where teams can flourish. I hope you find tremendous value from Juliana’s knowledge that you can implement into your own teams.
Arthur Joseph is the founder and chairman of the Vocal Awareness Institute, and he is widely considered to be one of the world’s foremost communication strategists and authorities on the human voice. Arthur’s stated mission is to “Change the World Through Voice”. His trademarked, proprietary voice and leadership training program, Vocal Awareness,™ is a program to teach a mastery of communication skills to enhance a student’s leadership and personal presence. Arthur’s Vocal Awareness uses body language techniques, vocal warm-ups, and storytelling.
Arthur’s clients are leaders in politics, business, entertainment and broadcasting, hospitality, athletes, motivational speakers, life coaches, actors, and singers including globally recognized talents such as Angelina Jolie, Sean Connery, Tony Robbins, Stephen Covey, Jerry Rice, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and more. Prior to founding the Vocal Awareness Institute, Arthur served as faculty at the University of Southern California School of Theatre, a visiting professor at the New York University Graduate Extension program, and a visiting artist at Yale and George Washington Universities.
At a young age, Arthur recognized that he had a talent for hearing and interpreting tonal and non-verbal cues in the spoken word, and he also recognized the power of speaking with awareness of these cues. Arthur was able to cultivate this talent and teach others to be more aware of their speech. Much of leadership is convincing others to see things the way you see them, and a clear, confident and powerful voice can be an incredible tool that any leader can take advantage of.
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Most of us speak automatically, using our words to convey our intent. Few of us give much consideration to how we deliver those words. Or worse, we confuse having a powerful voice with having a loud one. The truth is that how we deliver our message is just as important to our leadership as what the message contains.
For this episode of Absolute Advantage, I was delighted to be joined by Arthur Joseph. Arthur is the founder and chairman of the Vocal Awareness Institute, and he is widely considered to be one of the world’s foremost communication strategists and authorities on the human voice. Arthur works to teach others how to deliver powerful and effective messages by being more aware of the way they speak. Through his Vocal Awareness program, he helps leaders and influencers from all walks of life become more effective communicators.
On this episode of Absolute Advantage, Arthur demonstrated some of the powerful exercises he teaches, and he shows how speaking with awareness and intentionality can amplify the message in the words you speak. He explains how altering the way you speak can help empower you and give you a tremendous sense of confidence. And he explains how speech plays a profound role in effective leadership. I hope you are as surprised and enlightened by Arthur Joseph’s wisdom as I was during our conversation.
Ways to contact Arthur Joseph:
Steve Gordon became CEO of an engineering consulting firm at age 28, and he grew the firm's revenue by ten times in just twelve years. He's invested the last twenty years in the study and application of selling high-ticket services. He is the editor of four business newsletters read by thousands of CEOs, professional practitioners, entrepreneurs and sales pros around the world. Steve consults with businesses in thirty different industries, all selling high-ticket products and services in high-trust selling environments. He is a bestselling author, the founder of The Unstoppable CEO, and the host of the podcast of the same name.
When Steve began his role as CEO of his engineering consulting firm, he knew nothing about marketing or selling services. Steve quickly recognized the need to study sales and marketing as a way to attract new clients and keep his business thriving. Steve now shares the hard-won lessons he learned with other CEOs and growth-minded professionals through his consulting business.
Steve recognized that the same "sales" skills that work so well for product-based businesses tend to be detrimental to selling a service. Sales pitches are fine for getting a customer interested in your product, but they won't help you become someone's trusted advisor. That's why Steve developed the Unstoppable CEO and fine-tuned his marketing strategies to be tailored solutions for service firms.
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As the leader of a service-based business, the challenges you face are often very different from those of a product-based company. Growing your business has added layers of complexity because you and your team are your company's product. Marketing yourselves can be challenging, but your business can't grow or thrive without leads and without new clients.
For this episode of Absolute Advantage, my guest is Steve Gordon. Steve knows firsthand the challenge of leading and growing a service-based organization; when he was just 28 years old, he became the CEO of the engineering consulting firm he had worked at since college. One of the biggest challenges Steve faced as CEO was that he had gone to school for engineering, not marketing. He didn't know how to effectively sell his company's services, so he began studying. Thanks to his hard work and dedication to learning effective marketing processes, he was able to grow his firm's revenue by ten times in his twelve years as CEO. Today, Steve and his team work with other business leaders to help them achieve those same remarkable results.
On this episode of Absolute Advantage, Steven shares the major marketing challenges service-based firms face, and he outlines the strategies he and his team employ to help them overcome these challenges. He discusses the importance of narrowing your focus to marketing to the right clients rather than to anyone with "a heartbeat and a wallet". He talks about why improving your offer and being more valuable to your clients matters. And he shares organic and engaging marketing strategies that your prospective clients will actually appreciate. I hope Steve Gordon’s wisdom helps you supercharge your marketing.
Ways to contact Steve Gordon: