Sean Fahey Recap: How to Attract Top Talent

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Set up your life so that your goals happen automatically. This was one of the golden gems that Sean Fahey shared in our last episode. And as you know, this is a recap episode where I share with you some of the insights in life and leadership from our previous guest. Now, Sean is The founder and CEO of VidCruiter, one of the fastest growing remote recruitment platforms in the world, helping companies attract and hire better talent. VidCruiter helps recruiters to modernize their hiring. Some of their clients include Samsung, the United Nations, Lionsgate, Chicago Bears, and US Foods. Sean has been in the HR industry for over 10 years, and he had started VidCruiter after realizing how slow and inefficient traditional hiring processes were when he was tasked with hiring 200 people in 30 days. Since then, he has spent a ton of time talking to recruiters worldwide to better understand their unique challenges and find appropriate solutions to make them more efficient when hiring. Now, we talked about hiring, we talked about recruitment, but we also talked about leadership and life. Couple of things Sean shared that I just want to pass on. Leadership is leading by example. And Sean shared that, you know, he shows up and works as hard as he can on a daily basis to move the needle. If there's a meeting, there has to be a purpose to that meeting and an action that follows. Otherwise the meeting gets cancelled, there's no reason for it, and there's no action that's going to follow it. There's no need for the meeting. How much of a difference do you think that could make to your life? Rather than having meetings that really lead to more meetings and then more meetings and more conversations, how about we all agree there's got to be a reason and there's got to be an outcome. And if there's not two of those things scheduled for the meeting, the meeting doesn't happen until those things are actually in place.

How do you spot problems? This was a really interesting one in talking to Sean. Very, very smart mind. Yeah. I just feel like he thinks in a very different way and approaches challenges almost with joy. You know, sometimes when we have those challenges that are, like, frustrating, we tend to get frustrated with them. Right. So Sean said as soon as you aren't in flow, then there's a problem that needs to be fixed. So you might want to think about that in a work context. When you get out of flow, you get frustrated, you maybe get impatient. You could apply this to your personal life too. Right. But he says, think about the reason that you're out of flow and then what allowed that reason to be there in the first place? Whatever allowed that reason to be there in the first place. Fix that. Identifying the problem is half the battle and you need to be able to notice that there are problems. Some people don't see problems. They are so out of connection, their lack of awareness is high. So they actually don't see that there's a problem. So start listening to people and conversations and be able to notice problems. It's a skill that can be developed for sure. Next one was a key one. Develop a skill to enjoy the process of solving problems. Turn it into a game, make it fun, gamify problem solving. You know, let's take your funnel that you're putting together for your business. There's lots of marketing and there's lots of backend software. Some people get so enthused about the thought of solving that and connecting everything with zaps and others think, oh, that's, there's nothing worse. I would rather do anything but have to solve that software problem and connect all these dots. What Shaun is saying, to really think on that next level and to get great results, you've got to take the solving problem process and turning it, turn it into something fun. Now another one that seems really obvious, but again he reinforces it. Negative self talk can really hold you back in. Talking to Sean and if you haven't listened to the full episode, I encourage you to go and listen to it. He's very positive, he's very possibilitarian is how I would describe it. Always looking for what the possibilities and opportunities are, even during the tough times. So what's your self talk like? You know, we have anywhere between 20 to. I think it's 80,000 thoughts a day. Roughly 70 to 80% of those are negative thoughts. And over 90% of our thoughts are repeated thoughts. So we've already thought them in days prior. So we have to be really conscious about how we think. When we start to become aware of negative thinking, it's about, okay, how can I replace that thought? It's not about turning the thought off and not negative thinking because that's not possible. But we can replace the negative thought, Use that negative thinking as a bit of a trigger to go, oh, how can I replace that with something more positive? So where is that showing up in your life today? Is that with a colleague? Is that with your lack of productivity? Is that with your crappy sleep? Is it in your relationship? Where is the negative self talk showing up? Where you just go, I'm too tired, I'm too old. I'm too busy. I love that one. I'm too busy. So where are you seeing it show up and what could you replace it with? Because it's nice to become aware of it, but if we become aware of it, we don't replace it with something more empowering, then all of a sudden we're like shining a spotlight on this really negative thought and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Well, we need to replace it so that our focus goes towards something more positive.

Now, I would say one of the biggest things I resonated with Sean was around vision. And as you know, for many of you have been through my high performance leadership program, it all starts with vision. Vision precedes victory. Time and time again. You know, we look at, you know, a recent guest we had, Roman Shulear on recently. He was a lawyer in Ukraine, and now he's fighting to protect his country, to get freedom back for his country. He has a vision of freedom. He has a vision of his community getting their country back. Now, that vision fuels his emotions and his feelings of passion, of determination, of relentless execution. And those feelings then trigger these behaviors of, I'm going to do what I got to do to get that freedom. He's very clear that vision will precede the victory. He thinks about that victory, that freedom again and again. So Sean Fahey in our last episode said the difference between being employed by someone and being an entrepreneur is night and day. He says, to be an entrepreneur, you need a strong vision. It comes first, and it's so important. So what's your vision right now for your life? Where are you headed? What do you stand for? What do you not stand for? What's your vision for the relationships around you? What's your vision for retirement? What's your vision for your company or your position that you work in? What. What do you see as being the most incredible vision? I was recently connecting with my partner, Caroline, and I said, hey, can I just connect with you for a moment in the office? And she come in. And up in my office wall, I have essentially a vision board. And I do it towards the end of December every year for the year ahead. And I'm just reflecting, of course, we're getting towards the end of 2022. I was just reflecting on the vision board. And I don't fanaticize over. I don't look at it every day and I don't say it out loud every day, but I visit it every now and then. And Take a little look at it and remind myself of the vision that I'm working towards. And sometimes, honestly, I'm way off. Sometimes I have taken such a tangent because life is that way and I need to really work on my ability to focus for long periods of time. But when I looked at it recently, I asked Caroline to come in, we started to go through, because I want Caroline to hold me accountable. I don't want to come up with these grand visions and then not follow through and then have nobody hold me accountable. So Caroline's good at that, as most of our intimate partners are. Right. So we started looking at it. I was like, wow, surprisingly, 90 plus percent of what I set out to do this year has already been ticked off. Or I put a big line through it. I like that satisfaction of finishing something and physically striking a line through it. So that to me, you know, I don't say that to impress you at all, but to impress upon you that when you put a vision out there and you get out of your head and onto a page, maybe add a visual element to it. So for me, I put personal photos of my family and personal photos of the views I want to see from the house that I want to live in. And it just brings it to life. And maybe I only look at it once a week and it's maybe not even intentional, but it's there, it's in my office. I'm always kind of subconsciously looking at it, but it's amazing that that actually comes to fruition. The vast majority of what's up on that vision board, and I've still got a month and a bit to go. So I'm still going to put their head down and drive towards it. But it's really satisfying to see that those things are achievable when you put it out there. And honestly, I'll be honest with you, like, sitting down to do a vision board is exhausting. It's exciting, but emotionally it's draining. It's deep thinking. It's asking myself that question, do I really want to spend the next year focused on that? But then I draw it out to 5 years and 10 years and life and go, where am I headed? Is this going to matter this year? Is it going to help me move towards that in some small way? And that's what helps me to sit down and take the time. Sometimes it takes me days to do these vision boards, but to me it's so worth it. Now looking back, going, ah, great, most of that I've moved towards it or completed it. So now next year I'm excited and encouraged to do another vision board because I know that it helps me move towards something. So that's where Sean and I really connect on the whole idea of vision. And I'd love to know what's your vision? Please share it with me. You know, many of you are connected with me on LinkedIn. If you're not, please go and connect with me on LinkedIn or on Instagram. Jameslochlanofficial I'd love to know just what's your vision for your life? What does it mean to you? That really inspires me to know that what other people are doing and what other people are heading towards. So I'm looking forward to sharing with you. This week's guest. There'll be in a few days time so be sure to tune in and if you haven't already, please subscribe to the podcast. And even better, please share it with somebody that you love or care about that's either into leadership or personal growth or like hearing key insights about how to really help, influence and lead others. I'd love you to share it, but for now, get out there and lead your life on purpose.

Sam.