How to Achieve Unconditional Power—Steven Gaffney, CEO

August 21, 2024

Do you sometimes feel like everything is slipping out of your control or that you feel powerless? Maybe, you’re at that point right now. 

Our guest today is Steven Gaffney, shares with us how you can take control back and create what he calls unconditional power. 

TODAY’S WIN-WIN:

No one has left a marriage or a job because they received too much appreciation.

ABOUT OUR GUEST:

Steven Gaffney is a leading expert on creating Consistently High Achieving Organizations (CHAO)™ including high-achieving teams, honest communication, and change leadership. Steven has worked in more than 25 different industries and market segments for over 25 years. He uses cross-discipline solutions and best practices from other industry sectors to bring fresh, innovative, and consistently successful approaches to his clients. He works directly with top leaders from Fortune 500 companies, and associations, as well as the U.S. government and military; and is also an author, speaker, and trusted advisor.

ABOUT BIG SKY FRANCHISE TEAM:

This episode is powered by Big Sky Franchise Team. If you are ready to talk about franchising your business you can schedule your free, no-obligation, franchise consultation online at: https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/ or by calling Big Sky Franchise Team at: 855-824-4759.

If you are interested in being a guest on our podcast, please complete this request form or email podcast@bigskyfranchise.com and a team member will be in touch.

TRANSCRIPTION:

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (00:01):

Welcome to the Multiply Your Success podcast where each week we help growth-minded entrepreneurs and franchise leaders take the next step in their expansion journey. I’m your host, Tom DuFore, CEO of Big Sky Franchise team. And as we open today, I am wondering if you sometimes feel like everything is just slipping out of your control or that maybe you just feel powerless and maybe you’re at that point right now. Well, if you’ve ever felt that way or you might be in that situation today, you’re going to love this episode. Our guest today is Steven Gaffney, and he shares with us how you can take control back and create what he calls Unconditional Power. Now Steven is a leading expert on creating consistently high-achieving organizations, including high-achieving teams, honest communication and change leadership. Steven has worked in more than 25 different industries and market segments over the last 25 years.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (01:00):

He uses cross-discipline solutions and best practices from other industry sectors to bring fresh, innovative and consistently successful approaches to his clients. He works directly with top leaders from Fortune 500 companies and associations as well as the U.S government and military. He’s also an author, speaker, and trusted advisor. You’re going to love this interview, so let’s go ahead and jump right into it.

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (01:23):

Steven Gaffney, CEO of Steven Gaffney Company, and also Steven Gaffney Worldwide. Steven Gaffney Worldwide has the content that actually is distributed all over the place. Steven Gaffney company is the training in seminars and keynotes and whatnot.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (01:37):

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for being here. One of the drivers to coordinating and booking this interview is a book you release called Unconditional Power. So I’d love for you just to get started and give us maybe an overview about the book. And I always like to ask every author, what led you to want to write this book?

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (01:56):

Great questions. So first of all, what the book is about is how when we’re in a good mood, we’re smarter. And if you think about it, we just tend to do better when we’re in a good mood. So the question is how do we do this on demand rather than accident? And then also, as leaders and owners of companies and people that run companies or run teams, how do you deal with other people who sometimes are not in a good mood and bring down others, and how do you change that? That’s what the book is all about, which is Unconditional Power. The reason why I wrote that book is because I think it’s the most important key to success, mood management, because if a team is down, they’re just not going to be creative and they’re not going to be that productive, but if we’re in good spirits, and I don’t mean just a bunch of happy talk and fluffy type things, but if we’re in good spirits, we can make a huge difference in our own lives as well as in others.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (02:48):

Well, very interesting. I love the concept and the ideas behind it. Really interesting. And what is it that led you to get to that point to want to write about this?

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (02:59):

Well, great question because I have suffered from moods. I don’t mean as in clinically depressed, but what I mean is, I have been the kind of person that, like everybody, sometimes we get down and what I noticed is some people bounce immediately back, like Tom, have you ever met somebody who, something bad can happen, but then within hours, they are back, and sincerely back, not like fake back. They really just bounce right back. And then other people, they wallow in sorrow or wallow in pain or suffering or however you want to language it, and then others are kind of in between. Well, I was an in-between kind of person. I wouldn’t bounce immediately back, but it wouldn’t take forever. But I was fascinated by how some people can bounce back so quickly. And then I realized whenever I am in great spirits, I’m way more productive and more innovative and whatnot. So what is it about them that’s different from me?

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (03:51):

And I came up with that it comes down to three overarching moods, which we can talk about, and in the book there’s really nine specific strategies about what you can do with yourself and with others to immediately, not for a long time, immediately change your mood. There’s a strategy in there called intentional disruption. You’re disrupting a pattern that’s not working. And we can talk about how to do that. We can go in wherever direction you want. So people realize it’s just not a concept, a nice idea, but exactly what you do for mood management.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (04:26):

Very, very interesting. So for the mood management concept, and you started to describe three different types of people, so talk about that. What are those three types?

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (04:38):

When we look at mood, you can talk about happy, sad, whatever, but I actually found out there’s three overarching moods we all get into in life. The first type of mood is the powerless mood. That’s where we feel like what difference can we make? We’re only one person. And we all have felt that at times, right? In our business or our personal life or relationships or whatever the case may be. It’s like, oh my gosh, this looks insurmountable. And we say, “I’m only one person,” Which is actually accurate. We are only one person and the situation can seem way out of our control. But that’s one feeling of feeling powerless. It’s like the state of resignation. The second state is where a lot of people are, but they think they’re powerful, and that’s called conditionally powerful. People who are conditionally powerful, that mood is where people say, “I can get that done as long as…”

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (05:29):

For example, I can get that done as long as the other person changes, as long as I have more resources, as long as I have better funding, as long as I have more time, as long as I have more strategic ways of viewing things. We always have an excuse and those conditions are really legitimate. But the problem is we’re letting those conditions run and limit our life. But the third mood is the desirable mood, and that’s unconditionally powerful. Unconditionally powerful means that we recognize they’re conditions, they’re legitimate conditions, but we spend 100% of our time on what we’re going to do about it. What exactly are we going to do about it? Let me give you an example. In 2009, I was diagnosed with cancer. I’m completely fine now, but I was diagnosed with cancer. Back in 2009, 15 years ago, there was that great recession, and some people may remember it, not whatever, but there was a big recession. And so one of the first things to go in most companies are consulting, seminar-ish type things. And so I am in that business and also suffering from cancer.

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (06:38):

Well, I couldn’t do anything about my cancer, but I could do a hundred percent about how I was going to respond to the cancer. I couldn’t do anything about the economy, but I’m in a hundred percent control on how I’m going to respond to the economy. And so what I decided to do was take that as an opportunity and actually look at my business and I retooled my entire business. And as a result, I’ve had my best years in business. It doesn’t mean that I’m that smart, it’s more about how we apply our time and our focus, and that is really about things in life. So when people hear me talk and they say, “Well, is this a matter of a glass half empty or half full?” No, I’m actually saying you can language it however you want, but I call them problems. That’s what they are. They’re bad things that happen. But the question is, are we focused on the bad thing or what are we going to do about it?

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (07:30):

And that’s about focusing 100% of our time and helping others focus a hundred percent of their time on actions we can take that make a huge difference in our lives.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (07:41):

That is fascinating information that you share. And I think it’s an approach, and most of my time has been spent working with what I describe as successful entrepreneurs that are growing their business and we get involved where we help them franchise their business, and that’s one of the things that you describe with this mood where it’s not focusing on what’s happened to you, it’s, what are you going to do? It’s those actions or things that you can do. And that’s a common thread I’ve actually tended to see with most entrepreneurs that are successful is they just figure out a way to navigate because bad stuff happens to everyone. I’ve always found that very, very interesting.

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (08:19):

I want to give people examples of really what we’re talking about, how to instantly change our mood. One is intentional disruption through the art of questions, which we can get back to. But the one I really want to highlight at the moment is about reframing. So there’s three types of re-frames, or many, but the three that we focus on in the book, reducing the frame, enlarging the frame and changing the frame. But I want to talk about changing the frame for a moment. So you can look at a problem. Are we focused on the problem or are we focused on the opportunity? A reframe would be that all problems create opportunities. It’s a reframe. Not, there’s always good things that happen. I’m saying all problems create opportunities. And when you look at history, all problems, no matter how bad they are, do create opportunities. There were many companies that started in 2009, even Instagram and maybe even Uber started, I can’t remember, but there were companies that started in the middle of the recession. There are companies that start in really bad situations because it creates an opportunity.

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (09:16):

So what’s so fascinating is some people will spend their energy dissecting the problem, using it as a reason or excuse, and others say, “Okay, what’s the opportunity that we can seize on?” Here’s another little easy example. You lose a customer and you can say, oh my gosh, you lost a customer and they should have known and blah, blah, blah, or we should have known. You can say, okay, or I can say, what are the lessons we’re going to learn from that experience that is actually going to change the way we do business moving forward? What’s an opportunity in there that we didn’t hit with that customer and why we lost them that could actually grow our business? And in fact, when we look at our life, many of the time, the greatest successes came from the greatest failures, but we decided to look for what the opportunity and focus a hundred percent of our energy on that. So whether we’re talking about reframing or intentional disruption or we can talk about other strategies as well, what are we going to do about it?

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (10:14):

But here’s the key thought and the key point, there’s specific strategies to manage our mood and others that we can immediately use that changes the dynamic of any relationship.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (10:28):

Very interesting to think about. And those nine strategies to achieve Unconditional Power, I mean, I’d love to talk through some of them.

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (10:36):

Let’s take a very simple thing so people really get this. Let’s take this podcast for example. We can enter a podcast and you could say, and I’m sure you’ve had some tough guests and hopefully I’m on the better side, but whatever, and you could say, “Well, I’ll do the best I can, but there’s only one person I can control and I’m the host and I hope the guest does well and responds well.” Or you can say, “Well, no matter what, I’m going to make this a great podcast.” And also as a guest, I can look at it like, “Well, I hope the host asks me the right questions.” That would be kind of powerless, right? Conditional will be, “I can do a great job as long as they ask me the right questions.” Or I can look at this in an unconditionally powerful state and say, “No matter what is going to happen, I’m going to do a hundred percent of what I can do That’ll make a huge difference in this podcast.”

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (11:22):

So I say this because it isn’t about having grandiose ways of approaching life, it’s about everyday interaction, even relationships at home. And so are we viewing, well, I can be happy as long as they’re happy, or as long as they tell me that what they want, or I can say, what am I going to do so I have the greatest relationship possible and I’m going to focus on a hundred percent of my energies and what I’m going to do about it. So there are many strategies, which one was intentional disruption, the other is reframe, but let’s go back to intentional disruption for example and the art of asking questions. So here’s an example that’s in the book and you can immediately apply for the rest of our lives, and that is ask this question, what would you suggest? So when somebody’s negative and goes, “Well, Tom, I can do that as long as they do this and I’ll do the best job,” Whatever excuse. You could say, “Well, what would you suggest we do? How do we move forward?”

“Well, there’s a lot of problems that I’m faced with, I’m not sure I can get the right resources, the funding.” “So what would you suggest? What would you suggest? What would you suggest?” Another great question is what would it take for you to move forward? And a third question is can you live with it? But the very first question, what would you suggest? Can single-handedly change the direction of any conversation that goes from negative into a solution-oriented conversation by simply saying, no matter how negative the person is, “Well, what would you suggest we do? How do we move it forward?” And that’s an example of intentional disruption. So we’re not going to be a victim of a conversation, I’m going to ask the question because whoever asks the questions really controls the conversation. That’s another example that’s in the book, and so hopefully people can apply immediately in their lives.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (13:08):

I’m thinking in my own mind when I’ve been in a situation with someone who is really in that powerless mood where I might ask, maybe not exactly the same way you just phrased it, what would you suggest? But something like that to say, “Well, what do you think you can do about this?” And they say, “Well, nothing.” What happens if you’re leading someone or having that conversation with someone and they kind of keep in that, “Well, there’s nothing I can really do about it.” How might you help someone work through that process?

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (13:36):

It’s a great question, and a lot depends on our role, our energy, and our time. And here’s what I mean by that. There are some that might be random conversations and you just don’t want to participate in the negativity, and you might say, “Well, what would you suggest?” And they go, “Well, there’s nothing I can do.” And you might say, okay, well, if ever you need help or for anything I can support you, please let me know. And I’m trying to politely exit out of the conversation. But if it’s somebody I’m working with or somebody that I care for, what I might say is, “Well, my gosh, I have ideas of what you could do, but the bottom line is what would you suggest? How do we move forward? And if you’re open to it, we can have a dialogue about this, about what we could do or how we could work together.”

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (14:16):

So what I’m politely doing is nudging into the solution oriented kind of conversation. But what I’m not going to do is participate in only the negative part of the conversation. So it depends on that. And let me kind of answer something that you might ask me and people often ask me, what if the person says, look, there’s nothing I can do. Or how about this one. They ask you for advice, “No, I’d like to hear your ideas.” And then they start battling you. Like you’d say, ‘Well, what if you try this?” “Well, that won’t work because of this.” “Well, what if you tried that?” And finally you could say, “Look, I have ideas, but if you’re not open or if you tried everything, look, I want to be there for you, and I’m always open to things, but I’m not sure where else to go in this conversation.”

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (14:59):

And sometimes if we really have a close friend, it’s an important time to maybe give them feedback. Let me give you an example of that. There’s a friend of mine, you ever meet one of those people that say, “Oh, yeah, I knew that. Oh yeah, I knew that. Oh yeah, I know that. Yeah, I know.” And I said to him, it’s interesting when we have conversations and you’re often asking for advice or help, you look at the filter, you look at it through a filter of what you already know. When I’m seeking advice, I’m looking for what I don’t know. I discard all the things I do know, but I’m really focused on looking for what I don’t know. And I don’t try to spend my time debating people and justifying what I already knew because that’s not working, or I wouldn’t be asking for advice. I want to focus on what I don’t know.

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (15:44):

And also when we’re focused on that, it invites more of a dialogue. But my point in bringing this up is, even in that situation, I actually did give him a perspective and I said, “Look, just something to consider.” And do you know that completely changed the way he viewed things? Because he thought to himself, “You know what? You’re right.” And sometimes we have conversations that he starts out as, “I know…” Oh, he stops himself. And so great friends give great feedback. And so it’s all depending a lot on our relationship, the time and the energy on how we decide how much to push it. But here’s the thing, what I want to emphasize is that we don’t start to be a victim and say, “Well, they’re bringing us down and they’re causing us to be negative.” No, we don’t get to have that excuse. Just simply say, what would you suggest? How do we move it forward? We are in charge of our own happiness. Somebody said this to me years ago, happiness is an inside job.

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (16:41):

We are responsible for that, and nobody can bring us down unless we allow ourselves to be brought down. So whatever the capacity, it still comes back to a hundred percent on what are we going to do about that?

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (16:53):

Fascinating. Great advice. I’ve got three kids at home, so I think about business conversation, but quickly thinking, oh yeah, this great approach with my kids as well.

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (17:03):

These strategies… I get hired by these big businesses and do work with AWS, Los Alamos, National Laboratory, Marriott, Lockheed Martin, a lot of major organizations, and even in the gold mining industry and whatnot, but here’s the thing, what’s inevitable is people will… I’m hired in those environments, but people apply it at home and save their marriage and do all kinds of great stuff because there is really no difference between business communication and personal communication. It’s just how we apply the same strategies. Intentional disruption works at work and it also works at home. Reframing works at work, but it also works at home. So these are strategies we can all use, and I’ve learned them because I needed to learn them. I am just fascinated by how much we can manage our own mood and the mood of others and the difference we can make in our lives as well as in others.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (17:53):

It’s a great lead-in to the next question I was thinking about. Part three in your book is talking about leading others and being a leader. Most folks that tune into this, they’re leading, they’re maybe the founder, the president, CEO or the head of their department. They’re leading a team of people and they probably have a mix of folks in those three moods at any given point in time. So what are maybe some suggestions or techniques or ideas you have for helping leaders lead folks that are at various moods?

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (18:25):

Well, let’s go to the strategy on reframing, right? I talked about changing the frame and reframing a situation from problem to focusing on opportunity. But there’s two other types of re-frames too besides changing the entire frame, and that is reducing and enlarging. So as leaders, reducing the frame is an excellent strategy, when we want people to go in a certain direction and it seems insurmountable. Reducing the frame is basically simplifying things so it looks doable. Think about it this way, if we’re going to change our marketing strategy and we’re going to go after some new customers and change a lot of process and procedures, people can go into overwhelm and start to feel powerless or really conditionally powerful. But if I say to folks as a leader, look, we are going through this massive change, that’s the big vision, but all we need to do is focus for the next 30 days on changing this one procedure and responding to customers within 24 hours by email and within two hours by voicemail.

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (19:27):

Of course, I’m making this up, but what I’m trying to say is simplify it so it seems doable. Great leaders take complex ideas and make it very simple so we can do it. Think about this. You’re in the advice giving business as well, and so if we say, “There’s 20 things you got to do,” It’s like, oh my gosh. But if you said, “Look, there are many things, but just do this one thing,” And the person starts to do it and feels confident. Then it’s like the guy who’s spinning the plates, you get that person moving and they feel excited, “Okay, I got that.” Then you add to things, then you add to the next plate and you keep doing that, and then suddenly we can do it. And if you really think about it, great coaches and teachers in our lives saw greatness in us. And even though it looked, “Oh my gosh, how am I going to get it done?” They helped us to say, “Okay, first do this and this.” And they got us believing in our self and believing in this situation, so reducing the frame.

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (20:21):

Enlarging the frame is a great strategy to put it in a bigger picture. So for example, let’s say you had a bad month, revenue was down, profits were down, and people are down. And I can say to folks, listen, revenue is down and profit is down, I could say that, and obviously have a truthful conversation. But then if I then say, “But let’s put this in the larger picture, we are part of a successful franchise that inevitably has been successful over the years, and we’re going to do many great things. So although this is a problem, there are opportunities in that problem. And let’s put this in a big perspective. It’s not the end of the world, we just had a bad month, but now we’re going to focus on what we can do about it.” So if I put it in a larger frame, it’s not spinning it, it’s not saying it didn’t happen, it’s reminding people to put it in a larger frame.

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (21:14):

And when you think about it, and this is what gets me so excited about this, when you look back at people who bounce back from very tough situations, it’s because they always put it in perspective. They’re like, “Yep, that’s a problem.” But they’re reminded by all the great things that have happened to them in the past or all the blessings and appreciations they have or great stuff that’s going on in their life. So they put that problem part of a larger perspective of their life, and they look at it through that overall larger lens, you could say. And that’s a matter of enlarging the frame. Those would be specific examples that leaders can do in any team to make a huge difference.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (21:54):

Excellent, excellent advice. Well, Steven, we make a transition during the show to ask the same four questions we ask every guest before they go. And before we jump into those, I just want to make sure you get a chance to let folks know how can they get a copy of your book and learn a little bit more about what you’re doing here?

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (22:11):

The book is called Unconditional Power, Unconditional Power, and they can go to Amazon or Barnes & Noble and get the book. If they mention this podcast and they send us an email that they listen to it and they did something specifically with it, we’ll also send them a copy of the very first book I wrote called Just Be Honest. I wrote it many years ago but it’s on a communication strategy that can make a huge difference when you’re having a difficult conversation with someone. We’ll send them the electronic version for free, and all they have to do is mention the show and share at least one thing they did differently in their lives. So that’s whether they buy the book Unconditional Power or not. So obviously I want people to buy the book, not just to buy the book, but it’s made a huge difference in people’s lives and that reframe and all those strategies in there that can make a big difference.

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (23:01):

But no matter what, send us an email, they listen to the podcast and they did something with it, and we’ll send them the electronic version of Just Be Honest for free. So they go to our website, Just Be Honest. It’s all right there. So JustBeHonest.com is where they need to go for our own website.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (23:17):

Wonderful, wonderful. Well, Steven, as we make this transition, the first question we ask every guest is, have you had a miss or two on your journey and something you learned from it?

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (23:28):

I’ve had many. It’s kind of along lines what we’ve been talking about in that there are many things that were problems where you’re like, “Oh my gosh, what am I going to do?” So I remember years ago, I hadn’t figured out how to sell consulting, and so I studied it and out of… Because the business was down and I was again, why are some people successful at selling consulting and that type of services, and why was I not? And I came up with a ten-step strategy, and out of that ten-step strategy, that helped us get over… Well, we produced millions of dollars in revenue, but that was a big game changer. But again, it was out of a problem. But again, I could talk about cancer, I could talk about all various things where we just realized there’s a problem in what’s happening, or the mood we talked about earlier where I’ve been down in life and I’m like, “Why can some people bounce back and I take a while to do that?”

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (24:21):

So there’ve been many misses or problems or challenges, and I look at what am I going to do about this using the strategies that we talked about. So there are many, many misses in life.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (24:33):

Fascinating. Well, and kind of a sidebar, thinking about your description there of where some folks, as you described yourself, feeling a little down, you see others bounce back quickly. It’s interesting, I found in myself on the opposite side of that, where I bounce back very quickly. I’m that person, that quick recovery, and I look at someone else and I say, “Why are you still down? I don’t understand.” So it’s kind of interesting, the different vantage point on that.

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (24:59):

That’s where these strategies are also helpful because there’s a tendency sometimes, and we’ve all been there where we bounce back or we don’t see the problem and we say lines that really don’t help, but they sound like they would help. “Well, just cheer up,” Or, “Well, don’t get stressed.” But have you’ve ever been down in life and somebody goes, “Well, just cheer up.” Or if you’re stressed and they go, “Well, don’t get so stressed.” I mean, it doesn’t work that way.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (25:21):

That’s exactly right. I know I have had friends and acquaintances and people I know, family over the years where I’m like, “Come on, just cheer up. Just get over it. What’s the big deal? Move on.” And it’s like, well, but it is a big deal. And you get older and you start to figure some of this out or read resources like yours to help recognize that. So it’s great.

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (25:42):

And very simple. To come back to something we talked about earlier. What they can do in that situation is say, “My gosh, it seems like a very tough situation. What would you suggest? Or how can I support you? Or what can we do?” So even that, using intentional disruption through the art of question can keep us still in a good state, but help nudge them into more of a solution oriented state.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (26:04):

Well, let’s look at the other side. Let’s talk about a make, some highlights, a win or two you’d like to share.

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (26:10):

Well, I’ve been blessed. There’s been many, many that has happened over the career. The very first kind of breakthrough with my business was when I developed a nine step formula on how to have difficult conversations and get things resolved. And people used it at home, again work, and they still use that nine step formula. If they want that incidentally because I don’t want them to think that I’m making a series of sales pitches, they could just email us again, referencing your podcast, and we’ll send them the nine steps. We’re more than happy to do that. But that was a big breakthrough in the business. And then that led for another make when somebody said, well, can you apply these communication strategies to a team? And out of that, we developed this reboot process for teams so they’re consistently high achieving teams, and that produced a lot more content that’s made a huge difference in turning any team into really what I call a consistently high achieving team.

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (27:02):

So there’ve been many makes over the years, but again, it comes from either originally was a problem and then turned into an opportunity, or how about this, by listening to our customers because the whole reboot idea with teams didn’t come from me, it came from a customer who said, “Well, why don’t you apply this to teams?” I had not really ever thought about that, and that’s now the biggest part of our business. So some of the makes have happened and great stuff has happened by just listening to our customers and what they want and what they need.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (27:33):

Excellent. Well, let’s talk about a multiplier that you’ve used to grow yourself personally, professionally or maybe businesses you’ve helped grow.

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (27:41):

So one of the key things on multipliers, because there’s a lot out there on this, is really knowing what makes us different. What is the core essence of our business? Why are we different than others? So let’s take my own example, right? In our business, there’s a lot of consultants and people that do work on teams, but what we have found is by focusing on high achieving teams versus high performing teams, performing can be confused with hard work, “What do you want me to do? I’m working hard,” Versus high achieving teams, achievement is about producing results. So why I’m saying about this is what I’ve learned about what the best way to multiply is to simplify. In fact, Dan Sullivan, a mentor of mine, and he does a lot of great stuff through strategic coaches, you have to simplify to multiply. But I think even that concept applies to what’s the core essence. And part of the problem that we have when we multiply is we’re either too complex or we haven’t really figured out the essence of what makes us different.

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (28:41):

So one of the big essence over the years has been, I’m very big on creating formulas that work consistently that are successful. So whether it’s a difficult conversation or how to create team success, they’re all various formulas or steps so it’s very easy to use. So knowing that’s kind of a core essence has helped us multiply over the years. So what’s the essence of our business? And then going from there to multiply.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (29:08):

What does success mean to you?

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (29:10):

Success as a whole for me is about producing, really, results. And it isn’t about, “Oh, well, what you did with the team was really great.” It’s really about the impact we have on others, which I think is a really important issue because sometimes it’s easy in this line of work to… People are very complimentary and say, oh, it was so great, or whatever, and that’s very nice, but what I’m most interested is that they produce results. Even like with this podcast, I said it’s not just that I want to listen, but I want them to do something about it. So really what inspires me is when people go out there and use what we talk about and make a huge difference. That’s what excites me about the business, and that’s what’s most important.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (29:54):

Wonderful. Well, Steven, as we bring this to a close, is there anything you are hoping to share or get across that you haven’t had a chance to yet?

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (30:01):

We’ve hit all the big ones, but I will leave them with this, and that is appreciation. It’s remarkable how stingy people are with appreciation. And people might, and I’m going to give a different way of viewing it because sometimes people will say, “I work with a great boss,” Or peers or whatever, and I’ll say, “Well, how often do you compliment them?” And they’ll say, “Well, I don’t want them to have a big head.” I’ll say, “Well, why don’t you just acknowledge them and appreciate them?” Or I’ve also worked with leaders who actually are working with people who haven’t been achieving the best, but they start to show progress. And I said, “Well, have you acknowledged them for that?” “Well, no, because they still haven’t done all these other things.” I’ll say, well, have you ever met somebody who you feel like you can’t get something right or you’re never going to make them happy? But if you acknowledge people for what they’re doing right, they’re going to do more of that, which is something very basic but easy to forget.

Steven Gaffney, Steven Gaffney Company (30:57):

So I want to leave people with this, something we haven’t talked about, and that is really about appreciating others. Nobody has ever left a marriage or left a work situation because they were appreciated too much. Can’t stand it, too much appreciation. So what I like people to do is leave here and think about who’s important in their life and just send them a nice note. And not about being touchy-feely, but you can make a huge difference in people’s lives by just appreciating others.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (31:24):

Steven, thank you so much for a fantastic interview. And let’s go ahead and jump into today’s three key takeaways. So takeaway number one is when Steven talked about mood management, and he said he thinks that’s the number one factor to success, is being able to control your moods, to be in a good spirit or have good spirits. And he said there are three moods, the powerless mood, where we feel like we’re the only person in that situation, the conditional or conditionally powerful mood where you think or someone might think, “I can get that done as long as…” Fill in the blank. And then unconditionally powerful mood, which is really the whole focus of our interview, is when you focus on what you can do about the problem, not what you cannot do about the problem.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (32:16):

Takeaway number two is when he shared about intentional disruption in the art of asking questions. So when you find yourself feeling in maybe a powerless mood or even a conditionally powerful mood to help get you to that unconditionally powerful mood to ask questions like, what do you suggest or what do you suggest we do? And he said that’s the first step to help transition your thinking back to problem solving and addressing what you’re capable or able to do in that moment. Takeaway number three, I love this line, he said we are in charge of our own happiness. It’s the saying, happiness is an inside job. And isn’t that so true? Anything external, whatever might be going on, I know I can say that for me, that when I’m at my happiest, it’s based on the inside, not on the outside. And now it’s time for today’s win-win.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (33:19):

So today’s win-win is when Steven closed our episode today and he talked about appreciation. And I loved how he said no one has ever left a marriage or a job or a business relationship because they were appreciated too much, because there was so much appreciation they just had to leave. And I thought that was a great takeaway, and it made me think about how as a leader or the leader of your organization, that appreciating your team, your people or at your home, appreciating your husband, your wife, your children, your parents, showing that appreciation, that will help support the mood of the people around you as well, and maybe help create some more stability there. So I thought that was just a great takeaway. By showing appreciation, especially to your team, they will feel better, their mood will improve, their spirits will be uplifted. They will in turn be more responsive to you in supporting and helping your business achieve its goals and helping you achieve the goals, and ultimately creating a wonderful win-win, upward, virtuous, spy roller cycle.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (34:35):

And that’s the episode today, folks. Please make sure you subscribe to the podcast and give us a review. And remember, if you or anyone might be ready to franchise their business or take their franchise company to the next level, please connect with us at big sky franchise team.com. Thanks for tuning in, and we look forward to having you back next week.

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