The Art of Herding Cats: Leading Teams of Leaders With Linda Patten

Welcome to the Conscious Pivot Podcast with international speaker, business mentor, best selling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markell. The Conscious Pivot shares the stories and wisdom of people who have successfully reinvented some area of their business and personal life. You'll gain powerful insights into how you can fully embrace new opportunities, increase your performance, and master the art and science of innovation and resilience. So please join Adam as he guides you on your Conscious Pivot.

Hey there, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I feel very, very good to be sitting in the seat in front of the microphone today. Had a bit of a travel day yesterday, short trip, but man, it was active. I was on my feet. I had a wonderful speaking engagement for a group called Success for All. It's a foundation and it was started about 30 years ago by two researchers from Johns Hopkins University and they work with Title 1 schools with cooperative. They've created cooperative learning programs, reading programs that have really done some incredible work. They're in more than 1,000 schools in 40 states. And it was just such a blessing, actually to be so on purpose yesterday in the sense that I love to train, I love to speak, I love to teach, and so to have an audience of teachers who, for me, teachers are leaders and to be able to love on and just give my heart and soul to these teachers for the time I had with them, which was just about an hour. So it's not, you know, keynotes are not typically very long, but man, we dug under the surface, we got a bunch of great things discussed and brought out into the open. And mostly we celebrated them and acknowledged them for their services, for the things they've been doing for children. And that just felt great to my soul. And then I had some business meetings all day long and I was finally on a plane about 10 o' clock last night, flying home. And that's the life. That's the life some days. And wow, I just sitting here right now feeling so energized and grateful for that. So. So I know a lot of you out there are in pivots of your own and doing some great things in your careers and your businesses. And I highly, highly, highly recommend if you've got something that's inside of you that wants to seek expression, that is trying to seek expression, there's something you want to say. In other words, there's something you've learned, there's something that you want to share with the world. Now's a great time to do it, and there's so many ways to do it. You can write a book, of course, you can sit in front of a microphone and create your own podcast, or you can Facebook Live. There's so many ways to get out and do that. All I can say from my own experience having done this almost 10 years now, it is truly a blessing. It complements any business. So it doesn't have to be a standalone business of its own. But I can tell you that it can be as well. It can be very, very rewarding financially. And more than the money, it just is incredibly purposeful and has a great impact. So I am, in this moment, grateful. That's the way we always begin this show, with gratitude. So I am grateful now for that. I'm also grateful that I have an incredible guest with me this morning for the show, and I'm going to introduce her in just a second. But Linda Patton has some really amazing experiences, life experiences, business experiences. She's going to be some somebody that we'll enjoy having conversation with. You guys will enjoy learning from her. I'm going to enjoy spending time with her in a second. But let me tell you a little bit about her first. So Linda Patton, founder of Dare to Lead with Linda, the creator of the book the Art of Herding Cats. I love that title. The Art of Herding Cats Leading Teams of Leaders is an international best seller. As I said, she's an author. She's a gifted communicator. She's regularly featured on live online business panels and interviewed as a guest in the subject matter of leadership. And she really is an expert in that area as well. She's a popular international speaker speaking of speaking and seminar leader on business and leadership. And her life's work is helping women own their leadership ability and gain the skills needed as successful leaders to make lasting, positive change in the world. That's really cool. Linda, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Adam. It's a delight to be here and I'm so honored to be on your podcast. Thank you for asking me.

Oh, what a blessing. Yeah. Way cool. So obviously we are, in doing the work we do, we both get to introduce and be introduced and listening to your bio. I know for me, when I listen to my bio, sometimes I get exhausted just listening to some of those things. And I always feel like there's something that's not, you know, that isn't being expressed that I want people to know about me. So is there something that isn't expressed in that short bio there about yourself that you'd love for our folks to know about? You.

Well, I guess it goes along sort of with my pivot. But what. Where I started was with reluctant leaders, leaders who hid behind the curtain. And that was me. I was the poster child for the reluctant leader. It was like, no, you don't want me out front. You don't want me, you know, being visible and all of that. And that pivot to being visible and being out there writing books, standing on stages of 500. I know you do far larger. But 500 people being shocked to find out that 300 people wanted to be in your workshop, all of that has been. Is so truly rewarding. And it keeps me motivated and inspired every day that I get a chance to work with these women. And coming out of the military, this is something you don't know coming out of the military. I retired as a major from the United States army. And I never thought of that as leadership until someone said to me, well, I just thought you'd lead us in this exercise. It's what I expected of you. And that was the turning point for, for my life. And I've been able to work with some phenomenal women to make change. And we're moving in a slightly different direction this year.

Wow. So I want to come back to a few of these things I've been tracking, tracking and writing notes. Reluctant leadership. What an interesting concept. So you were yourself reluctant to lead or reluctant to own your role as a leader?

Yeah, more reluctant to call myself a leader, to own it and really to step out, step out, step up into leadership. It was my client that I always put out front or I carried a four star general around as his protocol officer. And I would never have called it leadership until again, until somebody had pointed it out. And I look back and I go, yeah, we created his agenda. We drove him around, we took him to meetings, we created his lunch. You know, basically we were leading him around the post and it was like, wow, that was such an insight to me. And what I say to the women that I work with is, you lead whether you want to or not. You, as a woman are a leader. It may be a cookie drive, it could be the neighborhood watch, it could be the pta. It doesn't have to be in business. And we don't. You get your kids up every morning and we don't think about those as leadership activities.

Oh, my goodness, are they ever. I was thinking about my wife this morning, how just incredible she is in so many things that she does. She's brilliant. I mean, and she is, she's not shy or anything. Like that. And I don't think she has any false humility about it. Maybe. Maybe just not, you know, she's not the one tooting her own horn. And I think that's pretty characteristic of a lot of women that they don't toot their horn. And then some are even on the side of sort of ignoring the obvious, or at least what's obvious to a world looking at them, whether it's other women or men looking at what they do. Like, I look at my wife, and I think, I don't know how she does so many things with so much love. I do a lot of things, and I put a lot of heart into everything I do, for sure. I just don't look at what she does. I think she's so much more present. And the level of her attention to the detail and the way that she takes care of things and also is such an incredible mom to our kids, and so there for them, that just impresses, you know, me on a level that I don't even know what to do with other than to just tell her I love her as much, you know, as much as possible. And, you know, and, I don't know, take her out to dinner every once in a while.

Buy her flowers.

Yeah, do that, too. Valentine's Day is coming up for sure. Good, good, good reminder there.

Yeah. And, Adam, I think that's so true, though, that. That women don't want to take on that title because it has so many interesting connotations, and so they shy away from it. They'll do the work. In fact, what I used to love is I'd walk into an association or networking group or whatever, and the next thing I knew, I was on the board of directors. I go, I haven't even joined yet. But they could see the fact that I brought that to the group. And again, I didn't always see that. And I think women, for the most part, it's a gender heritage that we have. We have to be perfect, we have to support. We have to know 100% of the job before we take it. And it's all of those components, and somebody else will recognize the fact that I want that job. And I think that is what holds the leadership back. It puts it behind the curtain. Because if I can't do those things and I don't feel I can do that as a leader, then I don't want to be that.

Yeah, that's interesting. You know, and I'm not certain I'm tracking all that. Okay, if you would. If you would I would love it if you would take us into the. It's the mysterious mind of a woman who is reluctant in her leadership, whether it's the fact that she's just not stepping up, so to speak, or she's stepping up, but just won't actually own it, or. I don't mean own it. I want to take that back, won't acknowledge it, that that's what she's actually doing.

And actually it can be both or either. Oftentimes we, okay, we look at the quintessential male leader and go, I don't want to be that leader. And then we look at the quintessential woman leader, at least what we used to be, and we go, I don't want to be that either. Because in order. Look at Dianne Feinstein, okay, we go back a ways when she was at that time, the first and only mare. Now there's a new one since we just lost our mare. And Diane Di Phi really believed that she had to dress like a man, she had to act like a man in order to get her agenda through the city council. And so we look at that and we go, no, I don't want to be that hard. I don't want to be that masculine. I want the feminine side to come in as well. I want that creativity, that collaboration, that love, that heart. I don't feel I can do that. Stepping into a masculine model. So rather than, in essence, bringing the two together and making them both work, in other words, the feminine side creates, collaborates. And then when it comes down to implementation, you turn it over to the male and say, here, go, do. And we're just beginning to really step into that blending of the two. And I think you'll see more women leaders. Heck, we've got 300 more applications for office from women for the midterm elections. That's incredible that we are stepping up to the challenge.

Yeah. I think it's this idea of how do you harmonize those things is really rich. This as a concept, my instinct tells me this is where we have to be. We need more discussion, more conversation, more support. And we. I mean, as you know, all of us, so men and women both. But I think with women in particular, I would look forward to and want more women leaders to step up and be in a role of influence in the world. And what doesn't feel great to me as a man is to see a woman that's leading like a pretend man. And that's a term I remember Randy, my wife, using years ago, that the Problem with a lot of the women she was working with and she was leading women's circles and things. And these women came in and were really off balance, out of balance or what they called out of balance. To me, it's, it was out of harmony. But regardless of how you look at it, they were not happy. They were really unhappy, miserable in some cases, and really crappy relationships, you know, marriages that were going bust and this thing and that thing. But maybe they had their business, you know, their business was working, they had their finances in shape, some of them. But to do that, they, it was almost like they had to sell out the most feminine aspects of themselves and. Or put their family on hold, put having a family on hold. So get married later, have kids later, maybe never have kids. And not because they didn't want to have children or have a family, but because it would interfere with the process that it would take for them to compete again, a male or a masculine concept, more than, more than a collaborative or maybe more of a feminine way of looking at things. But they'd have to do that to compete in a male dominated workplace.

Yeah, that's so true. Having come out of the military, which is traditionally more male than female, it was very interesting when I came in and I love how change happens. You couldn't be pregnant, you couldn't be married. If you did, you were kicked out.

And we say that again. When you started in the military.

When I started in the military, if you got pregnant or you married, that was the end of your career. So the types of women who stayed and were career women in the military for the most part, were lesbians. And we loved them because they were powerful women in their own femininity. And that was just incredibly, I thought, brave, to be honest. But it was male dominated. And now we're hearing all sorts of, again, tales of sexual abuse in all aspects of business. But the military obviously was, was targeted as well. And now, now we have women who are leading male units and on shipboard as the. It amazes me how far we've come and yet we still have that sense of I need to be asked, I can't step into that. And I ask my women who say, well, I just thought I'd get that promotion. I said, did you ever raise your hand and say, want it? Well, no, I just thought that they would see me. I go, no, they don't see you. They see what's like them and you're not like them. So that's who they'll choose first. Which, which is really Sad.

I'm sitting with that. I want. I would like. I'd like that again because, Linda, I think it's important that, that this one be repeated, you know, because there's a lot of people. I even have a client that's overseas who just recently was passed over for something and she's the second in command, which for. In your language, two. I see.

Yes.

In a major company and was passed over for a significant promotion, a significant raise in her salary and bonus structure, and she's really upset about it. And. Yeah. So say that again, if you could, please.

Well, I think women, I know women are passed over because one, we don't tell our masculine leaders that we want that job. We are qualified for that job and we will do an outstanding job with that job. And so we're not seen. And what tends to happen is, because it's a male leader, is that he sees the people who look like him and sound like him and, you know, are ready to step in and have said, I want that job. So in a lot of cases, we. We sabotage ourselves by not stepping up to, this is the job I want. This is where I want to go. This is why I'm qualified and really own it and take that leadership position.

Including the responsibility for not getting the result, not getting the promotion. In fact, if you're expecting somebody to be not a mind reader, but to see you.

Mm.

I mean, that's one of those. Of course they have to see me. You know, me mail. I mean, mailing this person 16 times a day. I'm in the office next door to them. We talk about, you know, but it's.

So interesting to watch. To watch men and women in a meeting and how they'll go around the room and they'll skip her. They won't. They don't see her, even though she's the anomaly oftentimes in the room, it's like, no, what I see are those that are like me and those are the people that I. Those are the people that I promote, and they're also the people whose. Who I pass ideas to. This was one that I thought was really criminal, was I had a colleague who had some phenomenal ideas, wonderful projects, and she'd present them to her boss again almost. Well, the proposal was fully developed. She'd hand it to him and he'd say, thank you very much, let me review this and I'll get back to you. Next thing she knew was her counterpart, a man was working on the project and was getting credit for it. And I said, there's a sense of you don't exist. You're just there to be, in essence, a proposal generator. But you're not seen as someone who can carry the proposal through to completion. So you need to change that image for them.

Good. Let's do a little spot, almost like an intervention with a person who's not here, you know who it is, and I'd love for you to walk us through. How would you coach somebody in that arena? So you've got a woman who's feeling, who's been passed over and doesn't want to, you know, what are her options? Obviously, she can get pissed off, she can quit, she can turn in her resignation is a lot of options, of course, but the one that she'd really like is to be able to stay there. She's dug in, she's gotten, you know, got a good situation or feels like she maybe could have a long term career path. And, and she's coming to you and she's saying, hey, this is what's happened. Gotten passed over or my idea got put in someone else's hands. They're getting credit for it. This is total BS and I want to strangle somebody. Linda, what do I do? Short of strangling my, you know, my boss or whatever.

Well, I mean, one of the things that I always ask them is, well, when you turned over the report, the proposal, did you say, and I'm ready to implement this as soon as you say yes, let's talk about it now. Let's fill out, flesh out the details now here, and tell me what hesitations you have about this so that I can make sure it's a perfect proposal and I can get started on it today. Again, you know, she said, I never said I wanted to work on the proposal. I just said, here's the proposal, here's.

An idea I've got.

And so I said to her, you need to be clear with him, what your expectations are by giving him this proposal and the work that you've already done on it so that it moves forward. I have the project plan already here. I've started in the first two steps. I'm ready to begin. Just give me the go ahead. And it sounds pushy. And that's where she comes from. She goes, oh, my God, that's so pushy. I couldn't possibly do that. And as long as, as long as you step back, he's never going to give you the proposal. You have to be visible. You have to step in with the conviction of your beliefs that this is a Proposal that you have the expertise to bring to completion with huge successes. And you gotta let him know that because right now he's sinking your secretary. She looked at me, she goes, you've got to be kidding. I go, no, that's how he sees you.

Wow. So this. This fictional intervention that we're talking about.

Yeah.

We're talking about not stating expectations. Not being clear with expectations. Almost like in any relationship. Not almost like in any relationship, you've got to be clear with your expectations, especially whether it's an intimate one or it's a professional one. Nobody's a mind reader. So to assume I'm not taking the guy off the hook here for doing what was probably, obviously a, you know, sort of a shell game of sorts, but where somebody can interpret the. What took place as, oh, yeah, you know what? You know, sue has. She. She's got a great idea, and it's so great that she came up with that idea. And it's really wonderful that she contributed that idea to the team. Right. She put it. Let's just put it in the bullpen and find the right person to execute on the idea. Like, it wasn't even in this guy's head space that the person who came up with the idea ought to be the person executed. Because she didn't plant that seed.

Exactly.

Didn't make it clear that the idea comes with her desire and her willingness, her readiness to step in and execute.

Yeah.

So he didn't look at her as an executor. He said, no. What a great idea. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

We'll give it to Bob. Bob will do it.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And so he was grooming Bob to be his replacement. And she's going, but I have one. I have more experience. I have more ideas. And it was like. But it's not clear to him that you have all of this. You've done this all almost behind walls. You know, you put up a wall that says, I'm gonna stay here because it's safe, and I don't want to step out there because it's not necessarily safe out there. What if he doesn't like the idea? I said, you won't know until you ask him. You won't know until you present it fully with you as the core of that idea.

Yeah. Well, you know what? Some people. You tell me if this is your experience as well, working with women. Two thirds of our popular. The community are women in our. In our world. Well, in the pivot space. And there's plenty of Men as well. People don't like men and women. They don't like to hear the word no. It means something. Rejection has a meaning to it. So it could have been that this person said, hey, thanks for the idea. No, actually if we do the, if we decide to take this thing and run with it, it's going to be Bob's thing because I really feel strongly he'd be the right, he'd be the right player on the team to take this. So with all due respect, I really appreciate bringing the idea, but it's not going to be you. Now what would you do with that? There's a lot you can do right there and then with that because first of all, it's honest, right?

Right. Yeah.

And it's great feedback. You may not want to hear it, but it, but it's still useful feedback. Would you agree?

I do agree. And then what I'd want to find out from him is so tell me, what am I, what, what's not there, what don't I have that would make me the ideal candidate and can I be the number two on this project if indeed there were things that I was missing, experience wise? Although, you know, the fact that men will take a job that they know 10% about and then learn the rest and that's okay, but women need to know it all anyway. And so if he truly says no, I think Bob has a little bit more experience in this area. I think he can bring it to successful implementation. I would ask, I'd love to be number two then because then I can learn from him what I don't know. Again, not something that she would normally do is ask that question.

That's a great strategy right there for anybody listening. This is men or women in this situation where you ask for something, so you step forward, forward, ask, and then the response is no or some form of no. There's, there are options such as asking the follow up questions. So what would it look like or have to look like for me to be your top candidate for this, for this role and getting that feedback would be valuable because that's all about my, you know, your personal and your professional growth. But then included in that would be, I'd love to be that person's second in command. I'd love to be able to shadow that person, to be able to learn what it is that that is lacking or missing or, or where there's my, you know, where's the area for growth for me to be the, be the number one contender for this, this, you know, project Next time. Yeah, it comes around. Wow. Fantastic.

And this is all. All about empowerment. You know, one of. One of the things that Bill Gates said at the end of the last century, I love saying that, is that leaders in the next century now will be those who can empower others. And I think that's a real key shift also in our world today is that we are looking to empower the people who work with us, our followers or whoever, rather than just managing them, which is. I have a company that actually wants to turn that on its head. I haven't quite figured out all of that, but it's interesting. And I loved that quote.

That is beautiful. So Gates is, in essence, is saying in this new century. You know, speaking of the last and moving current one. We're already 18 years into this new century.

I know.

Hard to believe that, but it's true. We're talking about empowering people within your community, so. Within your command to empower them.

Exactly.

And that is the transformation, if you will, that's promised by, at least by Bill Gates for this.

Yeah, but I think it's so true is that teaching that training, that giving experience to the people who work for you so they're ready for the next job so you can honestly recommend them for something else. Because I think one of the worst things that can happen to you in corporate life is to become indispensable. Because what that means is I can't do without you, so I can't possibly promote you. So there are two things to do. One is to learn the next job you want, but two, to train that replacement. So empower them to take your job so that you can move up.

And that requires a mindset shift because too many people would be thinking of training my replacement. Are you out of your mind? It's like. It's like writing. It's like writing my own pink slip. Right, right.

Or writing my own obituary, you know, whatever. Yeah, exactly.

It's a scarcity mindset, for sure.

It is.

It's a shift from. As you use the word, shift earlier, it's a shift from scarcity thinking to prosperity thinking or abundance thinking.

Yeah, exactly.

Yes. I do train my replacement so that I can actually move on and continue to evolve versus really getting dug in and in essence, committing to the status quo for the duration or some. Some length of time. And we know. We know anything that's stagnant ultimately decays and dies eventually. Right?

So.

Well, now, you were a major in the U.S. army for how long?

I retired at about 15 years, so I didn't I didn't go full term. And part of that was because I was up for lieutenant colonel and I hadn't had any active time. And there's a story behind that as well.

Is this your pivot story? Is. I know we're going to, I think now would probably be a great time to share a little bit about significant pivot. But. And it doesn't have to be relative to this, but finish your, your thought on that, please.

So, I mean, I had a phenomenal time in the military. I had, I had a good experience. I also met my husband there, who was one of five single male officers and opposed to 5,000 women. And really I met him within six months of him getting there. And we've been married 43 years, so it was pretty exciting. And yeah, that was a pivot in my personal relationship, to say the least. Not so much in my business life. Adam, There have been so many different pivots. Getting out of the military was one. But while I was in the military, I learned that I could stand up in front of groups of people and talk and really get troops to listen to me. I got four star generals to listen to me. And that was really powerful. I learned that I could be on the army recruiting team and actually recruit twice as many recruits as the males on my team. And I shouldn't have been on the team. There was another woman who should have done that, got out, went into corporate. And that was an interesting shift, but I think the one that was the most dramatic is when I got out of corporate, when Crocker and Wells Fargo merged 31 years ago. And I decided to go out on my own and it was scary. I knew I had a contract with a training company that I worked with for until 2000 and so for a really long time. But we thought we were going to do training and it turned out we ended up doing multi association management and conferences and have done that for 31 years very successfully. But the thing I learned in all of that and what I'm doing now is all around two words, command and influence. Because in the military you use a command voice to get work done. It's. You do this because of rank, not because you necessarily want to, but because of rank. And I can command. And when you try doing that in the entrepreneurial world, you end up losing your team, you lose your clients. They're what I call one and done. You can't build relationships and people just don't want to be around you. So while you might have a great product and you Have a great movement, or in our case, we were fantastic at what we did. I kept my clients because of my business partner who was that heart based, phenomenal man. And when he died of liver and spleen cancer, I was on my own. And it was like, I don't know how to shift into his role. And it's taken a lot of experimentation and a lot of tears to actually make that shift to being more influential in my work and to really work from my heart and from asking questions and being curious and really getting them to tell me what's going on and what they need and not, this is how we're going to do it, and this is the steps you're going to take, and this is where we'll end up in three months. And it doesn't work. So, Adam, I'm writing a new book, and now that I've declared this, I have to actually do it. It's called no One Stood up when I Walked into the Room. One Woman's Journey from Command to True Leadership. And if you understand the military, one of the key things is as a senior officer, when you walk in a room, everyone stands up. Whether they want to or not, they stand up. And it's respect, but it's also the rank and getting out and being in corporate. I still had people standing up as a vice president in a bank, and that in 20 cents will get you two dozen. But still, you know, you have positional power there. So I've had rank, I've had positional power. When you get into entrepreneurship and you walk into a room, you're lucky that they even acknowledge the fact that you're there, much less stand up. Although I did have a real shock at a speaking engagement that I did. I went over to the table that I was going to sit at and I put my coffee down, and the two guys who were sitting there stood up and I was shocked. It was like, well, thank you. He said, my mama taught me right. I always get up when a lady sits down.

There you go.

And I thought we as women actually did that to ourselves when we said in the, in the women's movement in the 70s, we don't want you to stand up. We don't want you to hold the doors open. We can do that for ourselves. It's like, no, I really like that. So the book is about that transition from command to influential leadership and how to make that happen. Yes, and recognizing it as well.

So is command more the masculine piece and influence the feminine piece?

I don't in some respects Yeah, I mean, command comes out of the male military. We, we as women just took on the aspects of the male military so that we could. When, when WACs were separate wax and waves and WAFs, women in the Air Force, we, we basically used almost all of their traditions. And that command voice is what they use on parade fields. You know, whenever you're in any kind of formation and your troops all know that you will use it with them if they're not doing what you want them to do.

Right. It's not a shock to them to hear you create a command voice to not at all control the environment in essence.

Exactly. Because again, in wartime, you don't want anyone questioning you at that moment. You can question either while we're planning or you can question after the fact. But when we're in motion, no, you follow that command, whatever that command was. So, yes, you now have the ability to, in the planning phase, to actually put your voice in there. But once you've decided on what you're going to do, it's command that makes that happen.

With your partner. Go ahead. Yeah, whereas.

Yeah, whereas. You're right. The influence side is more the feminine collaboration. Let's build a relationship, let's do this together kind of thing where you're really building a relationship and all the work that you do around that is based on that relationship, not based on the fact that I have positional or rank and can tell you we're not up here, we're on the same playing field even. I think in client relationships, in coaching, you're on equal footing. I may have more experience in this, but I'm learning about you. I don't know you. I don't know what your situations are. I don't know where your wounds are or whatever. I have to learn about you just like you have to learn about me. And I think that's a powerful relationship that we build as consultants and contractors.

I think it's both. And you said that at the very beginning and you had a partner that was more the heart centered person, maybe more of that yin energy, you know, yin and yang. And that harmony between the two is really important because people do want to know that. I believe this is my experience anyway, that people want to be led. It doesn't mean you're going to lead their life or lead their business, but they certainly want to be given some roadmap, let's say, and clear direction, because that's more often than not why they've gone to a consultant or a coach or a mentor or somebody because they lack that direction and they're looking for that. That leadership, that clear and I'll say even authoritative leadership. But it can't be exclusively that because as you said, that doesn't work. People don't want to be bossed and they don't want to be commanded in their in, especially if you don't know. And it's not possible for you to know the little details about their business or some other area that you want to help them in. So it really is both this harmony between that energy and that listening, that curiosity, that leaning in, that patience. And whether you call that male or masculine or feminine, feminine. I don't know that it so much matters. But you've just announced this book like we're creating, or at least talking about what the structure of the book might look like, because in the subtitle, it's command and influence that you're talking about. It's a juxtaposition or the. Maybe it's the way those two things interplay. It's actually really an exciting concept.

It is. And I'm really. I'm excited about how it's going to come out because I've got the outline of the chapters, but that's as far as I've gotten. I think it's interesting, Randy, that you brought up roadmaps and directions, because I think this is something else.

So funny. You just use my wife's name.

Oh, I'm sorry.

No, that's good. It's cool.

I love her.

Everybody, look for the people listening, watching, however much you like. You know, if you like me, that's great. Love better. It's a 10x. It's a hundredx with Randy.

Oh, she's phenomenal.

Just amazing.

Yeah. And I thank her so much for all the support she's given me in this process. But you talked about roadmaps and directions. And what I find very interesting is how many people don't have a vision for the year, much less further out than that. And I was with a group of realtors, and it was like June. And I said to them, so how many of you are on track to meet your vision for the end of the year? And nobody raised their hand. Okay, does that mean you're not on track or you don't know what the end of the year is going to look like? And the answer was there were only three people who had any idea of how much. How much money they want to make, how many houses they want to sell or anything else. Out of a room of almost 60 people. And I go, if you were on a road trip, which is, which is what you brought up and you didn't know where you were going, how would you know when you got there? And they all looked at me like, we never thought about that. So that's one of the first things, at least I do with, with my clients as well is what's that vision that you have? If we're doing a movement, if we're bringing a neighborhood watch into your neighborhood, what's the vision? What does that look like? Why are you doing it? What's the benefit to your community? You know, it's around safety and security and feeling comfortable and happy and whatever it might be. But what is that vision? And take all five senses to make it happen. And when people do that, they tend to be more influential because they, they sit in that command basically says, I don't know how to bring, you know, I'm just gonna, I have a vision, but I'm not telling anybody. And we're just gonna bowl through it. So that's, that's the other piece of it is aligning it with the other people who are working with you or living with you or whatever, but also finding out what their vision is and how do we make it all happen together.

Yeah. Beautiful. This is a wonderful place for us to. One or, one or two questions to conclude. But the book Pivot is really interesting in that area because it's foundational. What you're saying to create clarity is the foundation. You cannot go anyplace in life with any real purpose if you can't have a vision. If you don't create a vision for where it is you want to end up. And it's that old expression or the, you know, statement. I think George Harrison said that if you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there. And that's a really interesting point, that we are in many ways on a day to day basis, have to reacquaint ourselves or be really clear that the vision that we have for where we want to end up is current. It's not our parents vision, it's not our spouse's vision, it's not the vision we had two weeks ago. But somehow it's not accurate and true for us at the moment. It's a daily check in. I'm not saying you have to revisit the whole process of creating that clarity every day, but you gotta check in and say, yeah, just like when you checked in with those realtors about their vision for what the end of the year would look like they had no clue because, frankly, they just wanted to take care of whatever, sell the houses.

They've got the transactions right now, continue to get listings.

Right.

Yeah.

Do the things that are sort of urgent and important in front of them. And that's almost like a triage of sorts, way of living. So you've got to create a vision, for sure. And then something you said earlier I would call enrollment. You've got to enroll other people in that vision, which is where your ability to speak well publicly, your ability to speak with a wonderful balance. I'll use the word balance in this instance, and then also include harmony in that of both the command and the influence, what you call that masculine command voice as well as the influence voice, the voice that opens hearts. That a listening voice is a curious and a collaborative voice. And you blend those two things together, you're a. Not only a powerful presenter, a powerful speaker, but that you're speaking from a place of attraction. I mean, the authenticity will only attract people to whatever it is you're saying. And that gives you this great opportunity to enroll them in that vision. That's how you build teams. That's how you sustain and keep teams. And that's how you can leverage your time and leverage the tools that you've got to create exponential results. It's not just you. How many houses can you sell? But if you had a team of 10 people, what you know, you wouldn't just sell 100 houses, each of you selling 10 with 10 people on your team. You might sell 500 houses because of the way that the things. The compounding effect of that. So what a wonderful topic to include in a book. Will you share any of the things that you learned in the military and how you found your voice? Is that part of it?

Yeah, that's part of it. A lot of it is my experiences as not being a leader and then being a leader and then recognizing. It's just sort of my journey with some teaching points and success stories as well, of women who've been able to turn their business around and their life around because of it. And that's really, really powerful. And I look at Dr. Martin Luther King, and if he hadn't had a vision, he called it a dream, but he had a vision of what the civil rights movement would look like. And I remember this story. His advisors were all male, and they're all going, oh, Martin, don't. Don't share that dream story. There's no one out there who wants to hear that. They want to hear what your plans are and the power. So, in essence, the command voice. And Mahalia Jackson, he stopped. When he got to the podium, he stopped. It was like. And he was confused, like, what do I really want to say here? And Mahalia Jackson was sitting in front of him, and she looked up at him and she goes, martin, just tell him the dream. And so we got that fantastic speech on the dream and what he saw, and it moved a nation. It's amazing what he could do. But without that, we probably would not be where we are today. Although there are folks who say we're not any further along in integration than we were when he first started to speak. There's a whole movement called Teach Us all that looks at how segregated we still are in the United States. Very powerful.

Well, I believe his dream is still alive and well, and people are still referring to it all the time. So clearly, there's debate about how far we've come and how far there is still to go. I certainly believe in the progress that. I mean, you don't have to look further than the fact that we had an African American man as president for eight years. Yes, I think we've come quite a distance. And. And I don't know that he. Dr. King, would have even predicted that, possibly, but who knows? So I certainly believe his energy and his soul is out there and certainly is aware. That's just a personal belief, but I don't think our souls ever depart the universe. They're just not here necessarily in our bodies. So. What a wonderful conversation. I really, really enjoyed your presence today, Linda, and the fact that you've. You've got a great blend. As you said, you had a partner that was more the warm and fuzzy type, and you were coming out of a military background. And part of your own pivot has been to now be able to embrace that other side of yourself, to blend that, to be able to better serve your consulting clients, your coaching clients, because they don't want to hear just. They don't want to hear you barking orders at them or telling them exactly what to do all the time. And that's been an adjustment for you, right, to have to retool yourself a bit in that area.

Yes, it has. Very much so. And. And also having more of a balance and maybe even tending a little bit more towards the feminine side, the influence side, and only using command when it's absolutely necessary to really make something move forward. But, yes, I've become much more on what I call the soft side, the feminine side, because I like that collaboration. I like working with people, and I want them to stay and really realize their dreams and their aspirations as well.

Yeah. I love it. We have a program called the Heart of Enrollment, which is our OR speaker and sales masterclass. And. And what I love about that program, which, as I said, two thirds of which are women that attend that program and are part of our Start, my pivot community, etc. We cover what you're talking about, this idea of how it is that you can both honor your true nature because we can't have the. To be effective as a leader, as a teacher, as a communicator, as a speaker. We cannot be in front of people with pretense. That's the death knell.

Yes.

For connection. So you will not connect and people will not. The value in Dr. King's speech and in any of the great speeches of all time was the level at which people connected to it, the level at which the idea that was in the mind of the speaker was birthed in the minds of the people listening and watching.

Yeah.

And that's not a gift of nature. They weren't born to do that. They practiced, they learned, they became that. And then they also had a moment, you know, these. These inspirational. These moments where they were inspired in a way to communicate with their body language, with their voice tonality, with the variation, the variance in the way they presented, and with the quality of the words of the language that they. They recreated that dream. They created that idea in the minds of those people listening. And that is very much about presence, not pretense.

Exactly.

Yeah. And so it's just wonderful that women in particular are able to own that side, that true side of themselves at the same time, also be able to create the command voice.

Right.

Own the command voice. Because one of the challenges with a lot of our folks that participate in, whether it's a speaker training or in some other area that they're pivoting in, is a shyness about asking for what they want, about doing, you know, sometimes called the call to action. And I like. I like the term. And I also have some trepidation around the term because it's usually associated with people saying, hey, get up. You know, like from a seminar, get up and go to the back of the room kind of thing, which has its.

Its own challenges, for sure.

So there's. There's a. An energy about that, but it is the ability to enroll in an assertive way, convey your message and enroll other people in that message, and then. And be able in that process to Ask for what you want, because you will not have clients, you will not have coaching clients or consulting clients or clients of any kind if you are not able to ask for what you want. So the person in the earlier example that has got a great idea at work and offers the idea up to their supervisor, but does not ask for what they want, which is to be the one considering to execute on the idea, well, then they're the ones standing in the wings going, how in the world did I get passed over again? And so it's. Again, it's this blend of both being authentic who you are and also owning maybe some. Some part of yourself that at the moment is a bit dormant. And that's the voice of the command.

Yeah.

When. When required. Yeah.

And moms use it all the time with the kids.

No kidding.

Yeah. And, you know, their influence is very subtle and there. But when you gotta get out the door, the command voice comes in. Yeah, but it's situational. It's not always.

Yeah, yeah. This is beautiful. I think the book is amazing. There's going to be some really rich examples. I think that one right there is going to resonate with a lot of. A lot of women that this. There is that voice, you know, that voice is there, like you said, when you got to get out the door, get in the car, etc. It's like, get your shoes, you know, get your jacket. There's the door, you know, and. And people take you seriously.

They do.

Those kids will listen to you in that moment. So what a wonderful way. I think that we've closed some loops in a wonderful, great conversation. I want to ask you this, the final question about your rituals. Is there a ritual that you have that you do something each day that either reminds you of this work that you're engaged in, which is leaning on that. On that more sort of feminine side of things at times? Or is it some other ritual for your spiritual growth or some other area of your life that you're developing still? Would you share that with us?

Oh, I have so many rituals. In the morning, I do meditate, and I spend a lot of time with my higher self, who is the archangel Ariel. And she and I have these very interesting conversations, but she's the one who keeps me grounded and also is there to provide, you know, answers when I need them. I have two totem animals that I also spend a great deal of time with, a wolf and a cougar. And there's a very interesting story about them as well, which we don't have time for and I do affirmations and I noticed in Pivot that there were some fabulous affirmations, but I have a whole series of those as well. And I write, I'm working with, I think it's called the Essence Book of Days. So it has meditation to begin with. It has you looking at where you're going to do a specific thing like joy or comfort or today was spiritual growth. And then you write and where am I going to show that? And then last of all is what were the feelings for today? What, what came out? What did, what, what feelings did you like? What ones didn't you like? And then there's an evening meditation as well. And I do that on a daily basis as well. So there's a lot. I walk with my dog every evening and he doesn't say anything. But having him there, I always know that I have a support. He's the one that when I present, I always do my run throughs with him. Very supportive, he's got great eyes, but he's not critical, which is great. But it's that kind of, kind of thing that I do on a regular basis. And then of course I write and I try. No, I don't try. I do at least 20 minutes a day either working on the book or articles for magazines or whatever else that I'm working on, or just writing about me and the vision and where it's going and how it's going and door knock Scotland and all sorts of other wonderful things.

So exciting. Well, in, in the show notes we're going to have information about where people can find out more about you, connect with you through social media, through your website, things like that. So everybody listening and watching and we've got folks that are watching on YouTube as well. That's exciting. This is an amazing, amazing woman, incredible leader and it's been a joy to spend time with you today.

And thank you so very much for having me on the show. It has been an honor.

Truly beautiful. Everybody out there, a few quick reminders and then we'll close the show as we always open the show with gratitude. We'll close with gratitude as well. And of course, I don't even want to use the word close because. Because we just open. It's a beginning and it's a new beginning and what a blessing it is to recognize that. And a perfect way to segue into the wish that I have, the hope and the prayer that I have for all of us, which is that tomorrow as today we woke up, that we wake up again tomorrow that we get to wake up a little bit more tomorrow than we even are today. So that means waking up our minds and our consciousness and waking up our emotional bodies and our physical bodies. That's. I think the best that we can actually do is to just wake up a little bit more tomorrow than we are today, even. And we've got a good trajectory going when that's. When that's what's happening. And in that moment that we do wake up, that we take that first aware breath, that conscious breath, we can be grateful. Because as we're receiving that breath, just as we're receiving this breath, in this moment, all of us together, interestingly enough, all of us breathing together, one, as we take that breath, there are people who will be taking their very last breath. That's a fact. There will be people that are being born who are taking their very first breath. That's a fact, too. So what a wonderful thing that is. What a holy moment. What a precious moment. Sacred even. And in that sacred moment that we will all share tomorrow as we wake up, I will implant a phrase, if you are willing to say this out loud, a declaration of sorts. I love my life. I love my life. I love my life. Those words have blessed me for many, many years. And I've been further blessed, exponentially blessed to be able to share them with so many people around the world. So that's what I wish for you tomorrow. If you've not subscribed to the podcast yet, please feel free to do so. You can go to AdamMarkel.com and subscribe. Also would love for you to leave a review on itunes. The reviews are wonderful. The feedback is great for us, and of course, we love the five stars. But whatever they are, whatever this is for you, please let us know. It's all really useful information for us. And lastly, our community on Facebook is growing and we would so love to invite you, and I am inviting you now, cordially inviting you to join us there. It's called startmypivotcommunity on Facebook. And the simple way to get there is to go to pivotfb.com pivotfb.com takes you right to the front door. We curate that community and it's filled with people just like you who are pivoting into something. And maybe they're in that pivot process, maybe they're pre pivoting. So it's a bit of a curiosity about what's next and the next pivot, if you will, which is actually the title of our next book, which is really cool. So however it is that you join the community, please show up prepared to both receive and to give as well. It is really an incredible group of people there and we look forward to seeing you. So until we are together again, I will just say again to you how lucky we are to be a part of each other's lives. How lucky I feel to have you as part of our community. Much love to you and blessings as always. Ciao for now everybody. Bye bye.

Thanks for listening everyone. We hope you now have the tools and greater insights to navigate your own pivot. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over@adammarkel.com podcasts for more tips, strategies and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love. Join our Pivot community on facebook@pivotfb.com.