Bill Gallagher shares the story of Astrid, a cancer survivor who completed a nutrition program despite her illness recurring, to show leaders how to inspire people toward difficult goals by understanding their motivations and leaning into purpose.
Foreign. Are you dealing with somebody who's trying to convince you or sell you on not hitting their numbers, not achieving their goals? Are you doing, trying to do this yourself, trying to rationalize or get away from them? So I've got something interesting for you on how to have people accomplish really extraordinary things when it just doesn't look at all reasonable or normal to do so. My name is Bill Gallagher. I'm the Scaling coach and host of the Scaling Up Business podcast. We do shows like this every week on everything to do with your people. Strategy, execution, cash, and the leadership required to grow and scale your business. You'll find hundreds of episodes on every topic in these areas and more@scalingcoach.com or wherever you get your audio, video, podcast type content. So wherever you got this, you'll find more like that. So get it. Find that whole back catalog. Search for things that you need to deal with problems you're dealing with@scalingcoach.com so let me tell you about this, this story and this thing. I think it's really, really powerful. So I was working with a woman some years ago, her name's Astrid, and she was creating a program for restaurants around nutrition and menus and things like that for cancer patients. She was really passionate about this whole thing because she was a cancer survivor and she knew that they had special needs but still wanted a great quality of life, which is why it wasn't just about eating at home, but being able to go out and do and manage that. I don't know a lot more about it, but she was very passionate about this and she had her whole regular work and life. And then she had this new thing that she was doing a special project within her larger work. And in the middle of my coaching her, she came to me. Or actually not so much in the middle, but in the beginning of it, she came to me and she said, listen, I have some horrible news. My cancer's come back and I am going to go through rounds of some pretty serious chemo and I really can't deal with this project right now and I've got to put all my attention on this. And then if I'm successful and I beat this recurrence back, then I'll put my attention back on the. On this project. And I looked at her and I appreciated the world. And I could see the overwhelm and the fear over there with the person, you know, the fear about dealing with this and the overwhelm of having it come back and the disappointment and I could see all of that over there with her. And I appreciated it for a moment. And then I told her she couldn't quit. I said, listen, you can't give up on this thing. I don't know what it's going to be like for you, but this kind of project, the way you've got this thing structured, really comes down to conversations. You're going to talk to people. So I said, this really matters to you. I know it's important. You can't give up on this. So if you need to do this from the hospital, from with sickness, feeling overwhelmed, you should do it that way. And you should not give up, no matter what. On this particular project, you're going to have to use a team and your leaders more than ever before. But you should not give up this. And I took a breath and I said, even if it means that you finish this with your last breath, you should finish this project. It matters to you. And she looked at me and she gulped, swallowed hard, and she said, okay, I'll see what I can do. Astrid went on to finish that program. She was elated and surprised that she was still alive, that she'd accomplished all of it, that she'd been successful through the whole thing. And she was so proud of herself. And not only that, but what she'd done and that legacy and the thing that she created. It was a big deal at the time, and I lost track of her for a few years. But a couple years later, I got an email from the group about the project, and I read into it, and I'm like, oh, my God. This project, this program had continued and had survived, and Astrid had since passed away from another recurrence of the cancer. That thing that she mattered so much to her, that she was so passionate about. She finished it, and I told her she couldn't quit. She was proud of herself. She did what she wanted. So here's the thing. We've all got reasons why something can't be done. It's outrageous. It's not normal to ask people to step up, to be uncomfortable, to do things that are not normal, not easy. And if you ask people to do the things for your own selfish reasons, it's not going to go over well. You will be manipulative and an unreasonable taskmaster. But if you know why people are doing what they're doing, what matters to them and their work, you can ask them to do amazing, outrageous things. If you want to be an outrageous coach, understand why your people are engaged. Help them to discover their reasons for doing all the things that they're doing and know what they are as you coach and interact with them. That'll make you a far more powerful and outrageous kind of a leader in the very best sense of the word. I hope that helps you. I hope that gives you some room. Lean in for people for what they want, for what they care about, not what you need, and you'll get amazing things that move you deeply. I'll never forget Astrid and the lesson that she taught me about myself and about being a great coach have continued to impact thousands of people around the world since that time. She's had a much bigger impact with that in that story, and I have as a result of that. I hope it's helpful for you. I hope all that and more at scalingcoach. Com. Thanks again for listening. Talk to you again next time. Keep scaling up.
