Leadership Execution Podcast - Tim Caroll

Hello, I'm Takis Athanassiou. I'd like to welcome you at the new episode of Leadership Execution Podcast, a podcast for leaders who'd like make a difference. My goal is to inspire you to take the initiative to change what no longer works and provide you with the necessary strategies and approaches and tools to achieve that. Without delay, let's start with today's topic.

Timothy Carroll is an international consultant on personal and professional development sector, lead athlete, and author of an excellent book on leadership with the title The Evolutionary Leader: 5 Steps to Dramatically Develop People and Performance. His insights and consultancy has helped many corporate clients all over the world to evaluate their human capital and enhance its performance, while his coaching skills assisted many private clients to find their way toward achieving their goals. Timothy is a recognized expert in organizational behavioral change, having helped direct and consulted many people and organizations towards achieving their peak performance. Today Timothy is with us and will share with us some insights on leadership, business effectiveness, and performance. Hello Timothy and welcome to the show.

Thanks Takis, great to be here, really, really looking forward to talking with you today.

Thank you very much Timothy. First of all, I'd like to ask you who Timothy Carroll is and how do you have started to look on leadership and focus on it?

Yes, I would say that my journey began, wow, way back in my teens when I was learning to water ski and ended up barefoot water skiing for New Zealand, and I wanted to learn how to get the best out of myself. And be the best athlete that I could be so that I could represent my country and be the best in New Zealand. And I guess that was a self-leadership question. How do I lead myself to success? How do I get the best out of myself? And so that started the journey off for me in regards to leadership. And I'm a New Zealand boy who grew up in Wellington. in the capital city, born into a family of water skiers and started to water ski at a young age and then learned to barefoot water ski. I now have my own company for over 15 years since 2000 and consult professional athletes and world-class leaders around the world for multinational companies. And I'm based in the Bahamas. married and have 2 kids.

Excellent.

And yes, that's a little bit about me.

So what exactly leadership means to you, Timothy?

Wow, that's a good question. Leadership to me, first and foremost, is about being a role model. You know, I think it was Gandhi that said, be the change that you want to see in the world. And so for me, it's, you know, this is a principle that comes from cognitive behavioral sciences, which I've studied Is that you've got to be the change. You've got to apply things to yourself first and be an example of what's possible. So to me, that's ultimate leadership, is being an example. Be the change you want to see in the world and in your staff, for example, and then be an example of what's possible for everyone. That's ultimate leadership to me.

Excellent.

So according to your experience, I think that you believe very hardly on leadership that can change your life. How do you think that this can happen in today's condition?

Yes, you believe— yes, I do believe that leadership can change your life. And I think first and foremost, you can't lead others until you really are able to lead yourself.

Yeah.

And yeah, so, so the principle of leading self first changes your life. If you lead yourself well and you get the best out of yourself, then you can achieve whatever you put your heart and mind into. So first and foremost, it's leading self. Second, I think if you're leading others, you can change their life. People don't really care what you say until they know that you care. They don't care what you know until they know that you care. So, you know, great leaders care and they show that they care and they take care of others.

They pay attention, yes, of course.

Yes, and they take care of others and they make sure that others are, you know, getting the best out of themselves, achieving their goals, doing what they're passionate about. So a good leader will change your life. He or she will keep you on track. Making sure that you are doing what you love and doing what you're good at. And yeah, so I think, you know, leadership definitely changes people's lives, and I know of some leaders that I've worked with in the past that have definitely had a massive impact on me. And I'm sure the listeners here today can think of leaders that have had impacts on them as well.

Well, for me, basically leadership is about transformation. You transform the lives of a person towards the direction he or she wants to direct to.

Correct.

And that brings me to my next question that interests a lot of readers. What are your roles as a leader? I mean, you have a family and you're an active sportsman, an athlete, a consultant, a writer, a blogger, and many other things. How do you find time to keep up with all of these things, living the life you have and leading the business you have?

Yes, I think You know, it's a journey. Life is a journey and you have ups and downs and that's inevitable and part of life. Whatever role that you're playing, you're going to have challenges to break through. And I think, you know, one of the books that's really impacted me, Phil Jackson, the coach of the Chicago Bulls and LA Lakers. Yeah. He recommended a book in one of his books, The 11 Rings, called The Zen Leader by John Heider. And in that book, he— it's The Tao of Leadership, sorry. It's called The Tao of Leadership. And Zen Leader is another book which I've read, which is very good. But The Tao of Leadership is basically the principles of the Tao, which is one of the oldest books coming out of China. written by Lao Tzu.

Mm-hmm.

And this book is very, very simple, very powerful in regards to helping people to stay in balance and lead groups. And I think the key word there is balance. You've got to make balance one of your top values, one of your top principles, and know, keep your priorities. If you're If you're too focused on work, then you're going to lose balance with your family. If you're too focused on your family, you're going to lose balance with your work. And if you're not focused on your health, then that can be detrimental to the performance of yourself and your company and happiness in the family. So balance between the things that are important to you in life has to be your number one goal, I believe, and that is very high on my list. Right up there.

Excellent.

Yeah, excellent. And talking about books, I'd like to ask what The Evolutionary Leader is and why you have written it.

Yes, The Evolutionary Leader is a book that is about transformation. It's about helping leaders, existing leaders and potential leaders, to understand how they work as a human being. And empower them to transform themselves into the best person, the best leader, the best mum, the best dad that they can be, and support them in being all that they can be. So it helps the person, the reader, to learn about the mind and how to master that, to learn about our emotions and how to master those, to learn about the The physical body and our health and how to keep that in balance. And most importantly, I believe, and one of the biggest things that I've learned in my career is how to switch off your mind, to go into that place where professional athletes go, where there's no thought, no mind, just being in the now, being present, and executing what you're doing. essentially getting out of the way of yourself. That's what I like to call it, is that you stop minding and get out of the way of yourself and performance naturally happens and happiness naturally occurs. So this is called the zone or the flow in sports psychology. And it's something that I think is very important for leaders to learn. So I've included techniques in the book of how to still your mind, stop your thinking, and be present, be in the now.

Yeah, it is an excellent book in any case because it reminds me a lot— I had a small experience in martial arts and it reminds me in your book a lot of katas, which is practices until you need something to be done. And I think your book is an excellent manual on that.

Thank you.

But it does not reflect just your own path of your apprentice status. It is rather a description of a course of action for anyone to follow, I think. It has valuable lessons for everyone if he wants to commit on that path.

Yes, I would agree with that. It is, I would say, a workbook which gives practical tools to people to help them to master themselves and evolve their consciousness and their thinking and ability to not think so that they can lead themselves, get the best out of themselves, perform to their potential, perhaps even exceed what they think they can achieve. And that's what it's all about— empowerment to help people evolve.

Excellent. So, if you could give only one piece of advice to a person who would like to embrace the principles you describe in your book, what would that be?

One piece of advice, it's a good question. I think you've got to be committed to embodying and immersing yourself in practicing the principles that come out of the book. Just like when you're learning a new language, you need to decide that you want to learn this language and speak it fluently. Then you need to commit to practicing it and immersing yourself in it so that you merge with it, literally. And, and I would say that's the same with this book. It is to merge with the knowledge and use it daily and apply it to your life daily until it becomes part of you. Otherwise, if you, if you don't do that, it's, it's a bit of a waste of time really. You read the book, it goes in one ear and out the other, or you retain 20% of it but you haven't applied it to your life. So the advice I would say is application, action, Apply it to your life every day and put it into practice and see what it can really do for you. That's my suggestion.

For me, always learning has to do with transformation. I mean, there's no point in learning something if you don't change the behavior you previously had and create the problem you now have and try to solve it with learning something new.

Exactly. I mean, it's just like with your martial arts, Takis. In your martial arts, it's repetition, repetition, repetition until it becomes part of you. And I was just thinking about my friend William Trubridge, who just broke the world record in freediving yesterday. Congratulations. Yeah, he dived to 102 meters unassisted on one breath.

Wow.

And returned to the surface. And when I spoke to him A while back, I said, you know, William, what are you really thinking about when you're diving down there? And he said, well, sometimes, you know, thoughts will come up that this is the last breath you'll ever take, and, or, you know, turn back, you're going to die. And but I'm so bored, I don't listen to those thoughts anymore. So I said, well, what are you paying attention to? If you're not paying attention to your thoughts, what are you paying attention to? When you're diving? And he said, I'm paying attention to the silence between my thoughts.

Hmm.

And the deeper that I can dive into that silence, the deeper that I can dive into the ocean and return again. And that's been my experience with top-end leaders or top-end athletes or top-end martial artists or musicians. All of them are able to go to this place where they can still their mind, be super present, and allow all of that training to come out and express itself. And I think that's what they call peak performance, peak performance or a peak experience. And yeah, I just wish that this book and hope that this book can help people to access that place.

I believe that it does because it is an excellent book and it exemplifies a lot of things in order for you to be the model you want to achieve. And I think this is the power and the strength of this book. It's not It's not just a common leadership book that provides some theoretical framework for you to follow. It is something actionable you can use in everyday life, and as you said, if you practice all the time, you're going to achieve something.

Yes.

And this is the context, the book provides the context for you to achieve that.

Definitely. Thank you, Takis, that's excellent. Lovely thoughts. Lovely words.

For the, for the— thank you. I know I don't have too many questions, or rather I have too many questions but I don't have the time.

Yeah, no, I appreciate your time, Takis. It's been a pleasure and, and, uh, and I look forward to staying in touch with you.

I would like to re-invite you to a second podcast if you definitely have time and effort.

Yes, sir.

But for now, I think you provide this valuable insights, uh, for us to follow the things that each of us want to follow.

Excellent.

And I'd like to say goodbye. Thank you very much, and we'll be in touch.

Yes, sir. Thank you very much, Takis. Have a great day.

Have a great day too, Timothy. Thank you very much again for the interview.

Bye-bye.

Thank you all for listening today. I'd love to see you at the next episode of Leadership Initiative Podcast. If you have a question or a comment, Please send me a message at my site, takisathanassiou.com.

Until next time, take the initiative to become the person you want to be.

Start now and make a difference.

Thank you all for listening.