Episode 123: Simplicity Sails, Complexity Fails, with Lasada Pippen

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Right where you need to be. Welcome back to Stronger Sales Teams, the place where we provide real world and practical advice to help you develop super powered sales teams. Speaking of superpowers, today we have a superpower of the stage, Lasada Pippin with us. He is coming all the way from Iowa where he is in the midst of. I'm not quite sure if I picked up, it was a month long or a few weeks long journey of speaking and coaching and delivering some really powerful messages to leaders across the country of America. I'm really pleased to have Lazada here today. We're going to have a slightly different feel to leadership, I think is my gut feeling as we go through today because Lazada or LP as I don't know if it's self titled or friend titled, but Lasada Pippin, he started as a computer engineer. Right. I love it when we have people that come from different backgrounds. But from there he moved into motivational speaker. They're very much into leadership coaching, purpose driven leadership, building out of teams. Right. And that environment around bringing people together. So for him, he's very much renowned for that dynamic approach to professional development. He's a college graduate, a bilingual STEM expert and has spent over a decade in the tech industry before then pivoting into motivational speaking. He's got a young family as well, so feel for you Losada. Lots of travel, it can get really difficult, but has managed to do a lot with his career. At the moment there's a keynote series called the Climb as well as a pretty unique ability from what I've seen to be able to really connect with kind of diverse audiences and those groups of leaders and people who are looking to have someone help them with that purpose driven leadership approach. So really pleased to have you on board today, Losada. Welcome to the Strongest Sales Teams podcast.

Absolutely. Bravo. Well Done. That was absolutely excellent. Yeah, thank you for the introduction and so excited and glad to be here, for sure.

My pleasure. Well, please, before we get into today, can you tell me a little bit about the Lasada Pippin journey, where you've come from and where you're at now, and then we'll get into what we're going to talk about.

Yeah, absolutely. It's always interesting when I get to share this perspective and share this story. So came from the background of engineering, computer engineering and technology, jumped into that field not for purpose, but more so for money and longevity. I literally found myself in the middle of my first job one day when I was getting ready to go to college, which was Burger King at the time. And I asked myself what makes a lot of money and what's gonna be around for a long time? And computer engineering and technology came to mind. So that's what I went to school for and studied because I didn't have a clue. I didn't have plans, I didn't have dreams, I didn't have ideas at that time. And so I just did. The only message that I knew was go to school, get a good education and get a good job. And so that's exactly what I did. I did that. It happened to survive for over 10 years and actually thrived. You know, I actually had a really good career, a career that a lot of people would long for and desire for. But I transitioned about three years ago, maybe a little bit more. About three years ago, I left corporate and started doing keynote speaking and coaching full time. And that brings me to where I am now. And so I didn't leave because of a bad job. I didn't leave because of bad management. I didn't leave because of bad leadership or anything like that. I left strictly because a higher purpose and a higher calling, and I wanted to do what I believe I was gifted and purposed to do. And so that's what led to the transition.

Yeah. Awesome. Well, we talk about courage and resilience and being brave quite a bit in the teams I work with and certainly this podcast. And there's some courage needed there because if I'm backtracking. Right, you've got, at that point in time, let's say four years ago, you've got a couple of kids under five, got a great career. You're not just pivoting from being an engineer to running your own engineering consulting business or something that's related field. You're going engineer to motivational speaker. Right. They are significantly different in terms of not Just skill set, but also execution and how you engage, right? From being behind a desk to being up in front of people. And I can tell you firsthand, right, it's really hard work when you're being up on the stage in front of people. It can look easy, but gee, it's difficult. And it can really, really, it can really challenge even the best and most confident of speakers in this world. So well done for doing that. I know that that took a lot of courage and I think that makes a lot of sense around what today's topics are, which is purpose driven leadership and how we build resilience into teams. Resilience is still really important for me when it comes to the growth of teams because there is just so much going on in the world at the moment, be it disruption through things like AI, be it working from home, be it a global economy that's struggling, be it conflict. Right. We see conflict rising and escalating at the moment. We have some really serious potential for global conflict. Right. So there's a lot of resilience being needed at the moment. But let's start with purpose driven leadership. So what is, you know, it's a buzzword, right? A buzzfew. Words. But what does it actually mean? Purpose driven leadership? What does it mean to you?

Yeah, so purpose driven leadership is basically, you're not leading because you have a role, you're not leading because you have a title, and you're not leading because you know the job description. You're actually leading because you know why you are in this position. It's understanding that you have a unique set of gifts and you apply your purpose to it and then you implement a strategy. I just always believe that the best leaders or the best professionals, whether you're executive level C suite or your everyday professional, I believe that the best of those are the ones that know purpose, that they know why and that they feel like they belong there and it's more than just a job and just a role for them. So purpose is actually digging to the core of who you are as a person, more so of your skill set, who you are, what do you bring to the table and why, and understanding that why, why, why you're built that way. Why do you process the way that you process you're leading from that space of purpose and not just trying to fulfill a job description or role.

Yeah. So if we run the Ben Wright simplification lens over this, we're talking about doing something that you at the very least believe in, but hopefully like, if not love as well, I'm not from the school of thought that says you must love what you do, but I am from the school of thought that says you have to believe in it and there has to be a level of liking in it. Right? We don't all end up in a career that we absolutely love, but if we don't believe in it, then we are absolutely in the wrong career. So, yeah, I really like that it's a nice practical definition that you put through there around purpose driven leadership. So how does that then to you relate to resilience and building resilience? How important is that in being a leader who drives with purpose?

Yeah, absolutely. So let's kind of weave from where you left off almost is that, you know, if you don't love it, but you like it so much, it should feel like love almost. And kind of like you say, it's not that we're all in a role or a profession that we absolutely love. But I will say that if you are, you know, blessed and gifted enough to be in a position to where you do love it, you will thrive more than your everyday person. If you like it so much and if you can get right to the level of love, you will thrive in that environment, you will perform better, you will push through difficulties more than just the average person. It's hard to give up on something that you love, or it's hard to give up on something that you truly, truly enjoy or like a whole lot that is hard to give up on. And so that's why for me, it is important to have that purpose as a foundation or to have this strong, genuine, like for what you're doing and where you're leading. So that when times become difficult, when times become challenging, that you don't easily give up on that. That's how resilience is built, is being able to go back and face the music, face the chaos over and over again. Even when you don't feel like it sometimes, even when you don't want to. Sometimes it's the ability to go back and get back on the straddle and try it all over again. But I believe that that resilience stems from purpose and from liking and loving what you're doing.

You mentioned something really interesting there around how even if you don't like, love it, but you do really like it, try and find a way to fall in love with it. Look, I'm paraphrasing, I don't think you exactly said that, but have you seen any how anyone or have you got any suggestions around how people who are doing a role or in a career that they like, but perhaps haven't hit that love stage of that career journey yet, how they can put some practical steps in to help them really increase their enjoyment out of their leadership role and what they're doing.

Yeah, absolutely. We have this concept that we call the GPS in Apex coaching and speaking. Use your gps. We all know what a GPS is. You know, the geographical positioning system, if you put in an address, depending on where you are, is going to take you to the exact destination if you input the right address. So the GPS in terms of Apex speaking and Apex Coaching is that you find your gifts first, you have a purpose and then you apply strategy to it. So that's your gps. And for the person that likes it or maybe straddling with I like it, I don't love it, but I think I like it enough to stick it through is do your gifts assessment, look internal and see what are my actual gifts, where do I thrive the most, what is my best attribute and whatever that best attributes is. Then we need to talk about positioning because sometimes you can be in the right company, you can be with the right team members, you can have the right leadership, or you can be the right leader itself. But sometimes you can be out of position. And if you're out of position, it's going to be hard to navigate certain waters if you're not in the correct position, even though you may be in the correct building. And so I always say that go to your GPS and if you use your gpa, if you find your gifts, whatever your gift is, your natural gifts, and you have a purpose and then you apply strategy to it, you'll end up in the right position and leading with purpose almost every single time. But it's all about finding that gift first. And what is your number one attribute that you bring because that's where you're going to find your most value as well.

Yeah. And for the most part that really makes sense. Right. Know what you're good at and then work out how you can apply it to that role you're doing generally. And this is what I say generally is, I mean, there's a few things that I'm really good at that I don't necessarily love. But at the same time, the majority of the things that I'm good at. Right. I tend to really, really, really enjoy doing. So I think what I'm hearing here is find out what you're good at, identify what you're good at, label it, and that's Labeling it as a GPS in your instance. And then when you're in times that are tough or you need to front up again and again and again and again when things are not going your way, keep tuning back into that GPS to what you're and bring it out in the open as often as you can. Because there's two parts here. I think it sounds like they'll help you be more resilient, but it'll also help you perhaps fall into even more love with what you're doing.

Yeah, absolutely. I've found it very hard to not be good at something that you love and that you're really good at. You know, even if you look at childhood, most kids enjoy sports or activities that they're good at, and most kids will shy away from sports or activities that they're not good at. And so there's a strong correlation there between liking something, loving it, and being good at it. It's going to be hard to do a bad job as something that you really enjoy, that you really like, and where you have the skill set to match that'll be hard to do a bad job and most likely you will thrive in that environment.

Yeah. Yeah, Good. Okay, great. Makes sense. So then let's extend that out to how would you build that resilience into your teams?

Yeah, absolutely. So the number one factor for teams is usually a lack of communication is. Or the barrier of communication. And we have this thing called C4. How do you C4 your communications to build resilience within teams? And it simply just stands for is that you have to have a clear communication. That's the first C. It has to be clear. And then number two, it has to be concise, which means you want to simplify the process. You want to simplify it. Don't make it confusing. Don't create too much chaos around it. So you want to be clear, you want to be concise, and then you have to be compelling also in the communications. And then number four, be confident. If you can have those four things to work in your favor in terms of communication, teams work together better. And they also are able to push through difficulties and challenges better because of those four elements. So that becomes a resilient team. They've been through some things together, they've worked through some things together, They've been clear about it, they've been concise, they've been compelling, and they've been confident. Or the confidence was at least built by going through the process of working together. But we're having clear channels of communication and Teams become more resilient that way when they can face a problem, find a solution to that problem, and come out on the other side of it. Resilience is built, but it usually starts by having a great layer of communication built first. If the communication is broken, it's going to be hard to navigate challenges, or it's going to be hard to build resilience as a team. If the communication is broken. Yeah.

Okay, great. I have to say, that wasn't necessarily the answer I've expected. Right. I mean, I've done lots and lots of podcasts, and I love it when I hear a different perspective on something around a topic like resilience, which is often spoken about in great depth. So I think that's a great approach. As a leader, you need to be able to communicate effectively, but also as a leader, you need to be able to build out a communication modality into your team that's effective so that your team are all aware how they communicate with each other, to each other, and then even perhaps outside of the teams. Yeah, great. Okay. So to bring teams together, particularly around communication, requires a bit of cohesion. And we spoke about team building, and I got. No doubt you got some cool team building activities that you do. Right. Just having spent a little bit of time with you now and a little bit of research about what you do, can you tell me how you go about team building and I'd love to know what one or two of your cool team building activities that you do are?

Yeah, absolutely. One of the simple and fun things that we do is we always try to separate the room. So when we walk in a room, let's say there's 100 people there, we try to separate the room. And what do I mean by separate is that most people, when they walk in a room, they're going to gravitate towards the person that they know. They're going to gravitate towards the person that they're most comfortable with. So we have an activity to where we crisscross the room. Hey, the person on my left, I want you to get up and you go all the way to your right. And the person on the right, you go all the way to your left. Because most likely the distance between the people that know each other the most is usually about a room size apart. And so based on that information, based on that knowledge, we put the person that on the left who doesn't know the person on the right as well. We bring them together and then we allow them to figure out, hey, you're going to Learn something novel about this person, you're going to learn something different about this person, you're going to learn something unique about this person and the same, and vice versa. They're going to learn something different, unique, and novel about you as well. When you bring all of that together, team building is happening. Because now what you're creating is you're creating a level of collaboration that usually doesn't transpire. And so it has to be done intentionally, which means you have to create that environment to where different perspectives can come together, where they can come together, learn something novel, they can learn something unique, and they can also share and hear others share ideas and thoughts around a problem, around a product that they probably would have never heard before. Because we naturally gravitate towards those people that we're most comfortable with and the people that we are most familiar with. So we try to create the opposite effect. That's a very simple, fun activity. And people will leave that space feeling fulfilled because one, they got to connect with someone else that they don't usually connect with. They got to break the mundane routine of where they would normally go, where they normally sit, who they would normally talk to. It just changes. So now you've introduced collaboration, and you're also having team building at the same time. And so I think that's a fun way to get people to work together, to learn about their peers and what they're working on, what they're doing, how they do it. I think that all of that is so valuable when you see it in play, when you introduce collaboration to team building.

Yeah.

Cool.

And I think the art of this is actually in how you get the team sharing information. We've all done an exercise like that before where we ask someone around us about them. I think the art really comes down to how you can get those questions and that three or four or five minutes of interaction that those people might have to be really more meaningful. Yeah, no doubt. You can do that activity. It doesn't have impact. And you can do that. If you get it right, it can have some serious impact.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, even something as simple as we've taken this Hula hoop in two environments before, and it's quite funny and quite interesting to see how teams work together to figure this particular strategy out. But it's a very simple activity where they simply have to pass the hula hoop from one team member to another without disconnecting hands. So think of 10 team members all holding hands together. They're tied together, they're connected, they're a team, and they have to pass this hula hoop across the entire team without disconnecting. So what that teaches is that teaches resilience and being able to stay together even when you have objects and challenges thrown in the middle of your team. How do we stay together and how do we stay connected? That's another activity that we do that's pretty golden and pretty valuable when you watch these teams work through this obstacle.

Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Did you ever have anyone start with a hula hoop at one end, put it on the ground, and kick it all the way to the other end so it got there without them disconnecting hands?

Well, yeah, so they figure it out after a little while. Sometimes the hula hoop falls off if they're trying to get it over because you can't touch it, you can't grab it or anything like that. So you have to use other extremities to get the hula hoop to pass. And so sometimes you'll see the hula hoop falls off. You'll see it get tied around somebody's neck, and you'll see them figuring it out. You'll see them start to communicate. Hey, why don't you try this? Or, hey, if you would just raise your right arm just a little bit, you can get it over to the next person. You start to see them actually communicate and to talk and to figure out a solution to the problem. That's what the goal is, is to try to get them to figure it out and how to work together cohesively as a team. And it's a pretty fun thing to watch.

Yeah. Yeah. Cool. I like it. Excellent. Okay, so, Lasada, last question for you today. Put yourself in the shoes of a sales leader. You're looking to grow a business, Right. You're looking to really grow revenue in a team. Doesn't matter if it's a new team or an existing team. Right. But you're sitting there this year, and for the next 12 months, you need to focus on something. Where would you start to try and drive growth, revenue growth into that sales term? Yeah.

I love this. Let me flip this a little bit. I want you to do a little activity with me, and we're going to get to the solution of this. I have one core principle that I think is game changing. I think is revolutionary. I just think it changes everything in terms of perspective when you hear the concept. And so I just want to play this little activity with you really quick.

Okay.

And it's just two or three questions. All right?

Hmm.

Go for it. So what do you think is the number one selling beverage in the world?

Coca Cola would be my gut reaction.

Okay. Coca Cola, number one. Okay. All right. And what do you think is the number one selling ice cream flavor in the world?

Oh, I love ice cream. Lasada. This is. If you ask me, it's going to be chocolate chip with lashings of chocolate sauce for it. But I'm going to go with vanilla ice cream being the number one.

Okay, awesome. So on the first part, it's not Coca Cola. That's the number one selling beverage in the world. It's not coffee, it's not Pepsi, it's not Sprite, it's not ginger ale. It's not Gatorade. It's none of those things. It's the number one selling beverage in the world. The number one selling beverage in the world is water. Water is the number one selling beverage in the world. And I'm going somewhere with this. But watch this. Number one, if you go to a grocery store, you can pay a dollar for a bottle of water. If you go to a gym, you're going to pay $2. If you go to an airport, you're going to pay $5. If you go to. If you actually get on the plane, you're probably going to pay $7 for a bottle of water. It's still the same water. Nothing changed about the water. Number one selling beverage in the world. Water. The number one selling ice cream flavor in the world. I would have thought it was cookies and creams myself, but you're absolutely correct. It's vanilla, the number one selling ice cream flavor in the entire world. So put water and vanilla together. There's something very common about that. And this is the answer to the question of what I'm about to tell you. This is this one concept right here of how you grow revenue, how you sell more. And it's this concept right here is that simplicity. Sales complexity fails. That is a revolutionizing concept. If you can wrap your mind just around that, just for a moment. Simplicity. Sales complexity fails. That concept changes everything. How does water become the number one selling beverage in the world? You can access water almost anywhere, but it's the number one selling beverage in the world. You know why? Because it's simple and it's plain. Vanilla ice cream. Number one selling ice cream flavor in the world. Why? Because it's simple and it's plain. It's not the sprinkles, it's not the cookies and cream. It's not the complex things. It's the simplicity that sells. So my advice is always that if you can simplify the sales process and if you can simplify the product, sales will go through the roof. And it points back to this principle that we teach in apets coaching and apets speaking is that simplicity, sales and complexity fails. So we would do an assessment of all of your products. We would understand what is the flow to get it from production, manufacturing to actual sales. How simple is that process? And then once the product is ready, how simple is the selling language of this product? If it's simple, it'll sell. If it's complex, it'll fail. Simplicity, sales, complexity fails.

Love it. That is one of the best answers I've had to that question in 125 odd podcasts. And I was tossing up between Coca Cola and water and I'm kicking myself, right, that I went. For those who know me, I'm a pret healthy guy, right. Water is my go to. Awesome. Love it. So today we've gone through purpose driven leadership about knowing your gps, right? Tapping into that GPS whenever you're going through tough times or whenever you're trying to find more love and joy in what you do, helps build resilience and helps you really add value. We've spoken about C4, which is around building resilience in your teams, right. Which is not only being a great communicator yourself, but also making sure your teams have ways to communicate. We've done a little bit around hula hoops. First time I've had hula hoops mentioned in 125 podcasts and then we've kicked off with I now have a craving for water. I don't know why in my heavy Australian accent. And vanilla ice cream's on the cards tonight. I know there's some in the freezer, so there you go. Marley, my daughter, if you're listening to this recording while you're at school holidays today, vanilla ice cream's on the table tonight. So thank you Losada. Before we go, so where can people find out a little bit more about you?

Yeah, very simple. Just visit lasadapipen.com you'll find everything you need there. You'll find our coaching product there as well. You'll see that you can do the whole program. It's only a six module program but lasadapippin.com is where you can find everything that you need.

Awesome. Thank you very much. Now before we finish up, you are my first podcast recording after the the Cairns Ironman that I just did. And I've had a running theme on this podcast for about 10 weeks about the road to Cannes. I had a bike crash, I tore my calf, I got hit by a bus at 80 km an hour on bike. So I had some real challenges along the way. But for everyone listening, I got there, we got the job done. Cairns was the other weekend, a few little bike issues, had a mechanical failure, had a great swim, had a mechanical failure early on in the bike that cost me six or seven minutes. Got back into a teeth chattering headwind but eventually made it. It was only really my second or third run in six weeks, but stopped the clock at 9 hours 58 minutes. So job done. First Ironman done. Is it my last Ironman? Well, I'm not rushing back to do another one but gee, I loved the, love the experience. And here I am ten days later, I still can't quite wear shoes. My toes are so, so banged up. But very grateful to all those that helped me get there. Very grateful to my family. There was a little support team, a little medical team that helped with quite a few people actually across the medical, few people with the calf. So yeah, really, really good to got that done. So yeah, for me, I mean if that's nothing about some validation to keep living in a world of possibility, then then nothing else is. So for everyone listening, please keep, keep living in that world of possibility and you'll be amazed by what you can achieve. Bye for now.

I love it.

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