0317 | Chad E. Foster

Hi, my name is chad foster@chade foster.com and you're listening to EA Interviews.

EA Interviews, episode 317, inspiration, transformation, success stories and the Imperfect Action Round. Seven days a week, join Mario Ficcini for today's expert Authority Effect interview. Have you ever wanted to create a vision for your future? Have you ever wanted to build that company, maybe make a software, maybe help a ton of people, maybe get hiring your corporate job? Maybe? It could be a lot of things, but having a vision is so important.

How would you like to create a vision if you couldn't even see?

I'm super excited to have Chad E. Foster here today because when I saw his one sheet, I'm going to have to cheat a little bit again because this, I could read this for probably five minutes straight. Forbes, Google, Business Insider, CBS News, Harvard Business School where he graduated from buzzfeed, USA Today, Thrive Global. Imagine being blind as a teenager. He has accomplished so many different things. And there's some points here. Ski double black diamond 1. Over 45 billion in contract deals. Reads faster than people with eyesight. Traveled alone to 30 foreign countries, became a dog psychologist to learn how to get around. Sees who his wife and children really are because he has never even seen them. And he is the author of Blind Ambition. And I don't want to wait any longer. I want to jump into it with him. But there's even more on here. He developed a software and a whole new programming language. I mean it's so impressive. I'm just going to get started here. But there's no way on God's green earth I would have nailed all of that without looking at it. So Expert Authority world, we're in for a real treat here today with Chad Foster. Every business needs a book, including yours. And that's why I'm launching my new book to help you, regardless of where you think your current writing abilities are. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.com Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, Chad Foster. Chad, how are you feeling today?

I'm feeling great. How are you feeling today?

I'm feeling excited because you have such an incredible story and I just want to learn from you. And thank you for being here.

Absolutely appreciate the opportunity to have the conversation. I appreciate that warm introduction as well.

I Please do me a favor. And what else did I leave off of that? Because I wasn't joking. You have so many. It's so impressive what you've accomplished. And I feel like there's one or two things that we could have had.

Add on there that was good. I mean, I wasn't tracking all of it, but yeah, you know, you're really limited in most cases by what you think you're capable of. If you think that you're capable of something, your odds of achieving it go way up. If you don't think that you're capable of something, then your odds aren't that good. Right. So the first thing is really believing and having faith.

When someone tells you that it can't be done, where do you think that stems from? When. When they're talking to you, whether you're on the phone or in person, do you feel something deeper? I mean, where did. Where does it root. The root come. Because at the core, what you're saying, it's so simplistic, you know, and I understand it, but there's times when I've even questioned it and I know a lot of people do. Where do you think it really stems from?

What? When someone tells you, or the way.

Of the core belief. Can you. When they're telling you that I can't do it or I can do it.

I mean, I think a lot of it gets down to what other people are saying, what other people tend to inform our opinions of what's possible and what's not. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. Right. And the example you mentioned, one of the examples you mentioned was I wrote software for the visually impaired that made a customer relationship management system work that I later found out that Silicon Valley was saying that it wasn't possible to do. But because I went into it, friend of mine from Accenture called me and said, hey, can you take a look at this? We've got a customer with a blind employee who needs to be able to do his job. Can you look at it? I said, yeah, I'll look at it. So I go in and I talk to the client, talk to the user, and it was a challenge for sure. Spent some time, a few weeks, couple of months working on it. Got him up and running, doing his job. Later on, a year and a half later, I get an email from one of these message boards saying, this large bank in Canada is inquiring whether or not it can be done. And I responded, said, yeah, it can be done. And so we got on a call and they had their. Their technical account manager there, and they were very curious because they said it was not possible to do it. And I had my customer on the phone there with his user who had been using the code that I wrote for a year and a half. And I think for me in that particular situation, could I have been biased had I learned that it was supposedly not possible? Maybe I didn't know that it was not supposed to be possible. I just was doing what I thought I was capable of doing, which was getting this gentleman up and running so that he could do his job effectively. So I think a lot of times what we learn about a situation can inhibit our ability to succeed and thrive in it.

Why do you think so many people lack vision?

I think, you know, the ability to.

Set our own goals and live our own lives and not live up to the expectations of other people. You know, when I went blind.

Everyone around me was like, oh, poor you. And you know, people would come up to me, oh, I'm sorry. And still when I meet people and I explained to them, because if I meet them out and it's a sunny day and I have my sunglasses on and I'm walking my dog, I have a hundred pound German shepherd, they may think I'm just walking the dog and I'll tell them that I can't see, like, oh, I'm sorry. And I think there's this knee jerk reaction of, oh my gosh, it must be horrible. And people can't fathom that I'm happier now and I'm more successful now than when I could see. That blows a lot of people away. But there's this sort of social gravity around.

A life with reduced expectations. Once you lose a faculty like blind, like eyesight. And that explains too why I think there's just.

A lot of people are unable to sort of step through the preconceived notions that are out there. Whether it's blindness, whether it's whatever adversity people are facing. Everybody's facing something. Not everybody goes blind.

I promise you. All of our listeners, all of our viewers are facing something, they all face something, and that's something as significant to them. And the worst thing that they can do is allow other people's opinions to influence their vision for themselves. We all have to chart our own path. I have to decide what I can live with, you have to decide what you can live with. And I believe fundamentally we are all capable of much more than we give ourselves credit for.

Where do you think that stems from?

Well, I think I've demonstrated that to myself over the course of my life. And so I've come to the conclusion that I've done things that I didn't think was easy or possible. You know, the first time I went skiing, you mentioned I like to ski. And the first time I thought about skiing, I certainly didn't think about tackling a double black diamond. That thought never entered my brain. But as soon as I got comfortable with going on the magic carpet and the bunny slopes and all that, eventually I started demonstrating to myself that there was a path to doing something that was beyond what I initially thought was possible. So now I know to not really question just how bold and ambitious something is. I think, if anything, I've learned that I don't think big enough. I need to think bigger. And because none of us really know what we're capable of, so how could we ever know what someone else is capable of? And so you prove to yourself, once you continue to take on things that are outside your comfort zone, you keep expanding your comfort zone, and you start demonstrating that you can do something that you maybe previously didn't think you could do or were not that confident. And then over time, as you continue to inch outside of your comfort zone and expand that comfort zone bit by bit, you demonstrate to yourself that there's a reason to have confidence. You know, you can do things that seem crazy, like not being able to see and being down a black or a double black diamond at a high rate of speed, that all those things may seem scary on the surface, but with constant repetition and getting outside of your comfort zone, you know, you can. You can actually do it. And in fact, in the case of skiing, I would say things like blindness can be an advantage, because a lot of people are just terrified when they look downhill from 13,000ft. But it doesn't faze me. I'm not at all terrified when I look downhill. In fact, we were out last year. My buddy and I were at Cirque Headwall, Snowmass, Colorado. It's a double black, and he's looking around going, it's a good thing you can't see what's around us, because it is terrifying. And I wasn't looking at that. I was just focused on what he told me to do, which was either a left turn or right turn. And so if we just focus on the next turn, whether it's on a double black diamond or metaphorically in our lives focus on the next turn, maybe we won't be so intimidated and scared to take on the next steep terrain that's in front of us.

Wow. That is full of expert authority insights and also a little bit of humor because when you said 13,000ft in the view and everything, I've gone skiing, I have never done a black diamond or a double black diamond. But yeah, it's breathtaking views, but it can freak you out. So do you rely on more of your hearing and other senses when in that specific situation?

Well, in that situation. So the other thing that I'll add is I take necessary precautions. So I'm, I'm adventurous. I would consider myself confident and maybe a little bold and maybe a little daring. But I'm also a pragmatist. Right. And so I enrolled the help of a ski pro who taught me how to ski, who was an expert with teaching people who are unable to see how to ski. And I got the equipment, I got a helmet, a really good helmet. If there's something you need as a blind skier, it's a good helmet. So I got a really good helmet. I got microphone and earpiece so that we could communicate with one another. So someone skis behind me and tells me which direction to go. And so we got the right equipment. Later we learned we needed microphones that would kind of block out the wind noise. So got a better microphone that could keep the wind noise out at high rates of speed or in white out conditions. And then we got the right technique, the right practice, the right, you know, having communication and trust between me and the people around me so that I'm getting the right communication at the right time. There's the right level of trust. And just getting those repetitions in, that's crucial.

So it's, that is impressive because you didn't want to go into the situation blind like most people do to, in the sense of they just jump in it full force. They have no training, they have no equipment, they didn't practice, they didn't. I mean, you knocked off every checkbox you sounds like you possibly probably could to ensure that it was still going to be relatively safe to the best of your ability.

Yeah, you have to take the necessary precaution. So I, I played sports growing up, so I'm naturally maybe a little bit more athletic. I played basketball and football and baseball and I wrestled and I played soccer and those sorts of things. But I had never skied before I went blind. And what I did not want to do was learn technique that wasn't ideal that I needed to unlearn later on. And so just like with anything, what do you do when you're getting involved in something? If possible, get someone who's an expert in it to help you out and show you the ropes. And that seemed like a wise thing to do, particularly given the fact that I was knowingly and willingly strapping myself to some skis and going down a mountain, not being able to see. I consider myself a pretty sharp guy. That doesn't sound very sharp on the surface, but I knew that it was possible. But I have to know what I don't know. And could I clumsily bounce around and try and figure it out over the course of many years, or could I just short circuit maybe 10 years out of the process and learn from someone else who's been there, done that? And that's exactly what I did. I'm smart enough to know what I don't know. Let me surround myself with people who can augment my skill and my capability, can help me get up to speed more quickly, and so that I can take on a more prudent level of risk where the consequences aren't quite so great, where I've taken all the necessary precautions to get what I want out of. Out of a given situation.

Wow, that is. That's inspiring because there's so many preparations that can be taken and people have at their disposal, and they just don't do it. And, you know, especially when you say high rate of speed, how fast would you say that was or is?

I think we got up to 55 this last trip.

That's pretty good. Pretty good without a car. That's pretty good. With a car.

You're moving pretty fast. Yeah. And I gotta be honest, it felt great and didn't even really mean to go that fast. We were on a run, and the snow was just perfect. It wasn't too loose or too icy, and it just was like the skis just kept gripping the turns really easily. And it felt like you were driving a Porsche in and out of some pretty hard turns and just felt great. Just let it rip. Next thing I know, we checked our ski track and we'd hit 55 miles an hour, which explains a little bit, because we were definitely flirting with the edge of control in terms of our edge of comfort. And I think that's one of the great things about skiing, and I think it's a really important point about all of us in life, is we have to live life outside of our comfort zones. I believe that life begins outside of our comfort zones. And that's the phenomenal thing about skiing, is it gives plenty of opportunity to get outside of our comfort zones. And that certainly was an example of that. Just having that opportunity to continue to expand and Grow. But it is really important because if you are not getting outside of your comfort zone, then you are really, you are not growing. And I have lived a lot of my life outside of my comfort zone. Between losing my eyesight as young adult, learning the limitations of my eyesight at an earlier age, and then going blind in college, that was pretty, pretty far out of my comfort zone. And then getting a guide dog and then taking a guide dog into university classes and then the job interviews, that was all very uncomfortable. And then traveling the country in my new job, learning a new city, not being able to see, to navigate the transit systems of the airports or hotels, doing that domestically and then eventually doing that internationally, where I'm traveling all over the world and cities I don't know the language, can't read the signage, and I'm doing it with just me and my trusty guide dog companion. And doing it.

And getting up at 5am for my workout and forcing myself to go get that 5am workout and finding the gym and finding the machine and just living constantly out of my comfort zone, I think it's given me a big advantage professionally as well, because I am more willing to experiment and push the limits of my comfort zone. And I found that as I continue to do that, as I said earlier, my comfort zone continues to expand and I find that I'm capable of more than I thought, which is fantastic. Whether you're in the conference room or the boardroom or out on a mountain.

Yeah, I mean, I can relate to on my waverunner, 55, 60 miles an hour, but that's on an open lake with nothing around. And that is what won a lot of fun. But two, you got a lot of freedom and flexibility, but going down a mountain like that, you know, congrats to you. And I love the mindset that you're sharing here. And what I'm hearing is, you know, stay outside your comfort zone, get outside your comfort zone and go for it, because that's when you're truly living. And you had touched upon it, you know, when you lost your vision as a teenager, did that. How did that impact you going into college and of all the colleges you could go to tell us about Harvard?

Well, it happened. So as you can imagine, this is when I was doing my undergrad is when it faded out completely. Started at around 19, 20 years old. Whether it was, you know, I ended up losing all of my eyesight. Maybe I was 21, 22, 23 years old. It was a process. So it wasn't some catastrophic event. So it was a process.

And it was a really difficult time for me. And at the time I was doing my undergrad at the University of Tennessee and I was going into the medical field because I saw myself as a hard charging young man eager to help other people. And after going blind, I wasn't even sure if I could help myself. And it's pretty hard to see yourself as a hard charging person if you're not able to walk. So that was a, that was a tough time. My self identity was called into question. My hopes and dreams for myself, the my imagined future self died when I went blind in college. And I'm not going to sit here and pretend to anyone that it wasn't a difficult time. It was a very difficult time. I had a really rough one to two years.

I had to reimagine what it is that I wanted out of my life. We ask children all the time, what do you want to be when you grow up? And none of them say they want to be a blind person. But to succeed with any change, we have to be able to at least visualize greatness. In that situation, I had to figure out how I could make blind look good. Now the technical term is called cognitive reframing. And essentially what that means is I need to learn how to tell myself better stories. And I really, I didn't know that was the key to resilience and happiness and success at that age. But that's where those seeds began to be sown. As I was sitting there in my dorm room on campus, I realized, you know what? I couldn't sit there and continue to feel sorry for myself. I was 20 something years old and I realized that if I live to be 70 or 80 or 90 years old. Pick a number. 50 plus years of feeling bad for myself. That's a whole lot of feeling bad. Now I was already promised a life without eyesight, but no eyesight. And negative negativity constantly, yeah, no way, no thanks. I'm not going to live like that. So I decided that I just couldn't do that. It wasn't like I made that decision. And then instantly things changed. Certainly not. But there was a tipping point event that I had in my life. And I went to Leader Dogs for the Blind to get my guide dog, my first guide dog, Miles. And I was there. And I lived with people who had mental impairments and they were blind. I lived with people who were on dialysis because they had diabetes that robbed them of their eyesight. And then I even met with the Met and lived with these People who were deaf and blind, and they, like everyone else there, were getting a service dog to be independent. Now, for these girls, we had to talk with an interpreter who would then sign into their hands, and that was the only way that they could communicate. Yet they were getting a guide dog to travel independently. Now, it's one thing when you meet someone on the street and you hear how rough they have it, but it's another thing altogether when you live with someone and you see their challenges firsthand for an entire month. That moment was a real tipping point for me. I learned that happiness is not a feeling. Happiness is not an emotion. Happiness is a decision that each of us make every single day when we wake up. We can either choose to deliberately frame our perceptions, or we allow the circumstances of life to determine our happiness. For us, life is like a game of poker. Nobody controls the hand or dealt, but everybody controls how they play each card. Now, this I learned about happiness, and I believe the same is true for success. Success is not an event. It's a mindset. You either choose to accept less than your definition of success, or you don't. We can all sit around and make all these great legitimate reasons to fail, but how do they serve us? They don't. Legitimate reasons to fail don't serve any purpose to, but to comfort us in the moment. I could have made a thousand legitimate reasons to fail in my life. I could have made a thousand reasons as to why I shouldn't be happy in my life. I chose to not do that. I anchored myself instead to the gratitude that I had for the many blessings that I had in my life, the 23 years of eyesight, all of my hearing, and all of my kidney function. And I chose to hold myself accountable for my life and its outcomes. I wasn't responsible for all of my circumstances, but I have to own my life and its outcomes. It's my life. I have to own it. It's your life. You have to own it. If you don't, who will?

Wow, that's hitting close to home. And I appreciate the honesty, because.

Even with what some would consider being, you know, to your poker analogy, dealt a bad hand, you're still finding the good in it. You're still having that gratitude. Because, like you're saying, there's people that, you know, have mental impairments, they have kidney functions, they have. There's, in short, there's people that are in even worse situations. And, you know, but.

All over the world. Yeah, it's out there. It's not just them. Right. Those. Those People are among us. Right? And it's easy to forget about that. I think we all forget about that. It really does get down to.

And I guess maybe for me, it etched into my brain in a way that was indelible because I lived with them for a month and I saw those challenges firsthand. It really seared it into my memory. And I left Leader Dogs with a completely new outlook on life. My attitude did a complete 180. And things started to happen for me. Doors started flying open for me. Everyone.

Would you say. And it sounds. Would you say it's because of the gratitude and attitude change?

I would say it has a huge amount to do with that. You know, 80, 90% had to do with that because my effort, and that's.

Something anyone can do, no matter what their situation, have an attitude of gratitude.

It is. It is. It's learning how to be thankful for what you have. And in fact, it's been so crucial in my life that at home, we're doing this with our children. We. Every night we sit down before we go to bed, every single night without failure, we all go around and say three things we're thankful for that day. Because I'm convinced if we can bring our conscious attention to things that we take for granted each and every day, everybody takes things for granted. We all do. I did. I took my eyesight for granted.

If we can just say three things that we're thankful for every day, habitually I'm convinced that eventually that will creep into the subconscious and it will create that attitude of gratitude. And that is the foundation for perspective, which becomes a phenomenal anchor point for learning how to tell ourselves the right stories, which I believe is the foundation for resilience. It determines our life and our outcomes. The stories that we tell ourselves either limit us or. Or they propel us towards our goals. I could sit around and tell myself that I went blind because I have incredibly bad luck. And that could be a technically correct story. Another story that I could tell myself is I went blind because I'm one of the very few people on the planet with the strength and the toughness to overcome it and help other people. Now, technically, that could be a correct story. Both stories are correct. Which story should I tell myself? One story frames me up as a victim and keeps me trapped. The other story frames me up and takes my struggle and turns it into a strength and allows me to bounce back.

We all become our stories. We have to choose our stories wisely because none of us can escape that fact. We will all become the stories that we tell ourselves.

Wow, this, this is hard hitting. And I know this is easy and effortless for you, but I so appreciate the value you're delivering. It's reminding me of one of my favorite quotes from. It's from Helen Keller. And it's, you know, the only thing worse than not having sight is having sight but no vision. And you're just giving example after example of it doesn't matter what your circumstances are. And I appreciate it. I know expert authority world's appreciating it. And the story with your family, no doubt. Do they appreciate it? In the future generations, I want to ask you, how old are your kids?

My son is 4. The one who tried to burst in here and make a cameo appearance, he's 4 and my daughter is 12. So we're very fortunate. They're both healthy. And my eye condition is genetic, although it's autosomal recessive, which means I got two bad copies of the same gene to be symptomatic. Neither of my parents are symptomatic, which means by definition they're, you know, they're carriers. They have one good and one bad copy. My brother does not have my eye condition, so that means he came up on one side of the dice roll, I came up on the other. Fortunately, my wife is from a different part of the world where the gene pools more diverse and we're not from the same part of the world. She's from Brazil and she does not carry it. So our children by definition are carriers, but are not symptomatic, which is phenomenal.

That's awesome. That's. I'm happy to hear that. But in the same token, you know, you really got me thinking, what's the better scenario? Because you've, you know, you're a young guy and you've lived life more than some people, I'd say, that are twice your age, without a doubt.

I just don't want to live my life in fear. I can't live my life in fear. I know that all of us are going to die someday. We're all going to die. There's no escaping that. And the last thing that I want to do. We can all live a life that's safer and not take chances and not take risks. And we might live longer, but is that really living or is it just existing? I would rather when I'm older, assuming I'm fortunate enough to make it to ripe old age, in my golden years, I look back and know that I tried everything I want in my life, everything I wanted to do. I did. I failed at some, I succeeded at others. But I tried everything I wanted to do.

Versus looking back on my life going, well. I don't know what I was capable of because I didn't have the guts to try what I really wanted to try. Maybe I could have done this, maybe I could have done that. The thought of that haunts me. That pushes me to make decisions. Maybe that could seem aggressive. Skiing is a great example. You look at that on the surface and say, that's probably not the safest thing to do, not being able to see and skiing some of that terrain. And that's true, but I got hurt. My dad was taking me to the gym one time around the same time. Said, leave the guide dog at home, I'll walk you around. Walks me into the wall, bust my head open. Right. Didn't do it on purpose. But we can get hurt doing the most benign thing, right? You can be going to the store and getting a car accident or whatever. So why not do what you want to do? Why not live life to its fullest? So anytime in life when we're dealing with fear, there are fears and there are counter fears. There's a fear of failure in my situation versus the fear of not knowing what I'm capable of. And that's the fear that drives me the most, is just not wanting to have regrets and wanting to know that I've reached my full potential. And in the case of blind ambition and the keynote speaking and resilience workshops that I teach corporate and leadership and sales teams, it's making sure that I've communicated as effectively as I can because I don't want to leave anybody behind. That's what drives me, is making sure that I have reached my full potential, whether it's in the boardroom or on stage or writing books or whatever the case may be. The fear of failure is. It's normal. In fact, I think if we're not failing from time to time, we're not aiming high enough, we should be failing.

Some great expert authority insight. You're absolutely right. If everything's easy and, you know, comfortable 247 your whole life, it sounds like the recipe for mediocrity. You know, there's this quote, phrase, whatever, it was really a meme. I don't know if there's even an author, but it was. I don't want to live this. Don't live the same year 75 times and call it a life.

I love that. I love that. Yeah, A lot of people are scared of change. They're just scared of change. A lot of people are.

Let's.

Yeah. So I don't know. I hesitated right there, but I. It was like there's so many. I got so much rolling around in my head. I want to ask you, but I'm trying to keep it focused. And I want to ask you about the book, because, again, you didn't need to do it. Why did you want to?

Because I thought I could help people. And I had idealized it for some time about writing it down. And then. So I went to hbs. You asked me earlier about going to hbs. I had a very.

Successful endeavor at my last employer. Well, all my employers, but particularly the last. I brought in over $45 billion in contracts. And for some reason, they asked me what they could do for me, and I said, send me to Harvard. And for some stranger reason, they said, okay. So they sent me to hbs. And so I get to hbs, and I'm in Bill George's class. And Bill George teaches authentic leadership there, among other things. He's a former CEO of Medtronic. He took their market cap from 1 billion to 60 billion when he was there in just 10 years. Phenomenal leader, tremendous human being. So he's a senior HBS fellow there. And I was in his class learning how to discover my true north. And we're all going through this discover your true north field book when it becomes really obvious to me that my true north was trying to use the gift of blindness that came in some really crummy wrapping paper to help other people. People. And people had told me from time to time that I inspired them, but it didn't really resonate with me because I wasn't trying to inspire anybody. I was just doing what I had to do, was showing up on the job, and I was learning how to write code and engineer my software. I was talking to my daughter's elementary school class on career day. I was just doing what I had to do to get by. I never really saw myself as anything inspirational. I was doing what I had to do, just like most people do. We all do what we have to do to get what we want out of life. But for some reason that day, it really struck me that there was an opportunity to do more. And then later in the class, I was elected as our graduating speaker. And I had had this feeling that I was going to be. So I put a lot of thought and preparation into that. And as I was elected, I was very prepared for it. And I, for the first time, saw Just how much I could help people if I were to be intentional about it. And I blew my classmates away. But it blew me away really, because I wasn't prepared for how much it would help me emotionally to use my struggle as a strength to help other people. One of my classmates decided he would commission an opera inspired by my life story. Several came up and told me that I needed to be a professional speaker. I never really saw myself as that. That was something I just hadn't even contemplated. It wasn't part of my self identity. I hadn't opened myself up to this new dimension of myself. But as I began to do that and think about the way that I connected and helped with people who told me some very personal stories that evening of how I had helped them, it was moving, right? I'm not a very emotional person per se. I'm not like super warm and fuzzy. But when I was thinking about how I connected and helped with these individuals just by sharing my journey, I was moved. And I realized at that time I was doing something that I was uniquely qualified to do, something that I was meant to do. And I knew there at that point that I need to put more effort and focus behind it because I almost felt compelled or obligated to do something more to help people. And so I've started giving motivational presentations all over the world and giving resilience workshops. And then obviously the book is a way for me to reach more people at scale because I can go where people are and they can read in their homes. And obviously with the pandemic too, Face to Face, the brakes have been pumped on face to face interaction. So it's an opportunity for me to share the lessons that I've learned with everybody without them having to go blind to learn them.

Well, I'm glad you are because I'm getting a lot out of this personally and it's just incredible. And I thank you for all of that. I do want to ask you a couple more things before we thank our sponsor, but one of them is.

Having to do with all the people, the stages, the coaching, the leadership. What would you say is your biggest transformation story you've been able to give to someone or an organization, I'll say a group, whatever you want to call it, Association.

Biggest transformational story.

Well, the biggest transformation, like they were having a problem, they talked to you in whatever capacity, and it helped them go from X to Z or A to B or.

Well, one of the things that I talked about at Red Hat, actually, as we were going through this very Large acquisition from IBM. And I presented at all of our sales kickoffs. So I was a presenter.

At all of our three sales kickoffs globally. And I talked about set some context for how we process change. And it's a. Yeah, we all deal with change in our lives. And a lot of times, well, all the time. The meaning we attach to circumstances are more important than the facts alone. And I mentioned this earlier, it's the stories we tell ourselves. But that meaning that we attach is so crucially important. And as leaders, it's really important that we set the context for the organization. Otherwise we allow other people to create their own interpretations, which not everybody has.

The same way to internalize. Some. Some of the. Some ways that we can internalize things can be less than productive. My story is a phenomenal example of that. I could sit around and feel sorry for myself and woe is me, and that would be who I would. Who I would be forever. Or I could have a different way of framing the situation to myself. Well, I do that for me, but I also do it for other teams too. And it's up to all leaders to do it for their team so that we can frame a situation for ourselves, so that we know how to internalize it in a productive way. Things that are outside our sphere of control, outside our sphere of influence. If we can't reimagine how we can make things that are less than ideal look good, the odds of us moving to acceptance are very, very low. So we have to learn how to take these facts, these unchangeable circumstances that maybe aren't so easy to digest, and reimagine what greatness looks like with those. And then we can start working towards the things that are inside our sphere of influence, the things we can control. But we have to start with a new vision that includes the things that we can't control and learn how can we attach meaning to them in a way that carries us forward and allows us to work productively towards those goals versus just holding us back.

Wow.

I have nothing to say other than just wow.

And I have one last question for Think. I feel like a broken record, but sincerely, thank you. You are. You're incredible. And thank you. That's all I can say. Well, in addition to, I have one more question for you.

Sure.

This is the wheel of whatever. And.

That'S on me.

This is the wheel of whatever. And I'm going to spin it now. And I want to ask you, do you want yellow or black?

Like yellow.

Oh, that's my tie. Okay, so Yellow. Here's the question I have for you.

Ah.

If you could see again.

For whether a day or a week, what would you want to do?

See my family.

You want. I can.

I can elaborate more, but, yeah, you're welcome to.

That one's easy. Like, I haven't seen my kids. I haven't seen my wife ever. And not a lot.

I could not be more at peace with my situation. Okay. I'm completely fine with the way things are. Curiosity does get at me, though. What do my children look like? What does my wife look like? You know? And I could sit around and in many ways, truthfully, I see them more deeply than maybe other people because I'm not distracted by the way they look. So I actually look inside them and in a deeper and a more meaningful way. When I met my wife, I wasn't distracted by what clothes she was wearing or how her hair looked. I looked at her traits. The fact she was energetic and bold and smart, articulate and all these things as opposed to how she looked, that has helped me in a lot of ways, and it's helped me communicate and connect with people and empathize with people in a way that otherwise wouldn't be possible. And in many ways, I'm a better listener than what I was when I could see because I'm not focused on how the person looks. I'm focused on the message and the content and the character. All that being said, if I could see for a day, I would want to spend as much time as I could seeing my wife and my kids and going through photos. And because I haven't seen my daughter, she's 12, I didn't see any of her development. I didn't see her as a baby physically, which she looked like. Obviously, I held her and I knew her, but I would like to see, physically, I am kind of vain. I am a little bit of a vain person. I would like to see being. Being real with you. And my son is 4. I would like to see some of those things. So if I could get it for a day, I would spend all of my time doing that.

Wow, that's precious. And thank you again for sharing.

Absolutely.

There's so much I could say, but I just. I'm. I'm just blown away. I'm speechless on a lot of this stuff, but I'm trying to make it.

Oh, good man.

Easy for you with the questions and everything. I know I have. I gotta ask you stuff. I can't just sit here and go, keep going, keep going. But you're Incredible. Like I said. So thank you for that.

I can, I can keep going. You have to. If you, you do that though, you'll have to shut me up. I'll start getting the Oscars music.

That's funny. I was like, you know what? Actually I have all kinds of pre. I have a ton of stuff loaded up in this, you know, with the software, what is going. Yeah, we got to thank the sponsor and we'll be back with the imperfect action round. You've heard me say every business needs a book, including yours and it's true. And that's why I'm launching my new book@eapublishing method book.com so you can learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. But you know what, don't take my word for it. Take it from a few of my authors like Lori, I went from having an idea and a possibility to actually.

Getting my book published.

Or Catherine, thank you for making my.

Mom number one best selling authority.

Or Mary Alice, what he got done for me in three days regarding my book launch.

Unmanageable John Cody.

I've worked with Mario over the phone and online and he's been very helpful in getting me where I needed to go with promoting my books. Rocio, there's no way in the world I would have been able to do this with somebody else again. I've attempted it in the past. It didn't serve me. As a matter of fact, I ended up more frustrated than anything. So this has been a very seamless process. Adele, if you're looking for an amazing business coach, I highly recommend Mario Ficcini or Bill Benner. I can't make a higher recommendation than to work with Mario Ficini. He has been great for me and right now I won't work with anybody else except for Mario.

Hey, their words, not mine. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com to get your copy and I look forward to hearing your transformation and as our next video success story. Once again, that's EA publishingmethodbook.com and we are back with the imperfect action round. Now, I don't think I've ever said this before, but it's going to be kind of a stupid question because I know the answer. But Chad, are you ready to take imperfect action?

Absolutely.

I got three questions for you. The first six 60 second or less answers. The first one is what is the fastest path to the cash?

The fastest path to the cash is finding something that you absolutely love, love, love doing because once you connect your passion and your purpose and your profession, you will work every day, relentlessly, and it won't even seem like you're working at all. And eventually, once you tie your competency, which you're good at, your talent, to that profession and to that purpose and passion, you will get so good at it so quickly, there's no way you will not make the cash, because we all have to work. You may as well work at something you love doing and you have talent at so that when you put in those hours, you arrive where you want to be in terms of a lifestyle much sooner.

So well said. So well said. Number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way for them to fix it.

What is the biggest problem? I see my prospects See? Who are my prospects? Just my prospective clients.

Yeah, clients. Your audience. What are common problems you keep hearing over and over that you've picked up on just from everyone you've helped?

I think the biggest problem is dealing with change. Most people have a really hard time, whether it's organizational change. An organizational change gets down to individual mindsets. So collection of individuals make up an organization. People's mindsets influence their words and their behaviors and their actions and eventually their outcomes. That's where culture comes from. All of those individual elements feed organizational culture, which determines whether or not an organization's culture is resilient enough to handle change. And as I see right now, the world we live in, the pace of change has increased so much organizational resilience and ability to deal with change. Look at the last year we've had. Is crucial to every business's viability in the long term.

Wow.

Still blown away. Number three, what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

The best way to maximize customer lifetime value.

Is to ensure that you're playing the long game and not the short game. A lot of people want to play the short game, and it's all about the transaction and maximizing the transaction. Anytime you're maximizing the transaction, you're exploiting customer value. There's a fine line between capturing fair value for a transaction and making a customer feel manipulated or exploited. You cannot do that. You have to make sure that you're fair and you treat them obviously like you want to be treated. That's cliche, but especially when something significant is going on, people don't really forget how you treat them when something significant is going on in their business. And so it's really about.

Not seeking to make too much off of any one transaction or Exploiting a situation and ensuring that you meet your customer where you think they should be. Maybe you can make a little bit more off of a deal or an opportunity than you actually choose to do, because that customer is worth more to you. So it's looking beyond the transaction and looking into the future from a. From a pricing, from customer service standpoint and just ensuring that you're thinking beyond and playing the long game.

Excellent. Love that too. What books would you recommend for Expert Authority World?

One of my favorite books that I would recommend is Difficult Conversations. It's a fantastic book about obviously, how to have difficulty conversations. I am a big fan of that because I think we can all use a little bit more curiosity. A lot of people go into conversations, especially conversations of conflict, and they're looking to send a message. I need to tell this person this. I need to tell this person that. As opposed to using curiosity to build common rapport and empathy so that you can communicate to them that you care about their point of view. Because if you've ever been in an argument, one person has so much energy that they can't hear you until they get that energy out. Well, that's a big part of understanding where that person's coming from. Somebody has to play the higher or the has to take the higher road and let that person get out what it is that's on their mind so that they can actually listen to you. So it's a really good book about dealing with conflict and working through all sorts of different situations.

Great recommendation. Thank you for that. Where would you like people to learn more?

They can learn more about me at my website, which is chadefoster.com I'm on Facebook. I'm on Instagram. That's Indchade Foster. I'm on Twitter, Chad E. Foster. I'm on LinkedIn, got a YouTube channel, my website. They can learn about my programs for speaking. The book is there. The books also at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, Books, A million bookshop. Pick a store, it's there. All those links are on my webpage@chaddiefoster.com Excellent.

Well, thank you for that, Chad. It has been so powerful and incredible. I just thank you again.

It's my pleasure. Thank you.

All right, Expert Authority World. We have another great episode here today. I'll see you tomorrow. Have a great day and God bless.

You're already the expert, but have you transformed your expertise into a tangible asset that will generate qualified leads while increasing profit for you 24? 7? And if so, how well are you promoting it? With my new book, the Expert Authority Effect Publishing Method, I take you through my process step by step. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Visit eapublishingmethod book.com to get started. Now. Once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.com thanks for listening to today's episode. I would love to know what you enjoyed most from it, if you haven't done so already. I invite you to connect with me on my new LinkedIn. You can go to it directly at eainterviews.com forward/LinkedIn. Once again, that's eainterviews.com LinkedIn. Lastly, check out the full eainterviews.com site for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I'll see you on the next one.