Do you think that leadership is an inherited trait, something that you are born with? Is leadership something that you have it or you don’t?
Our guest today, Antonio Garrido, who is a leadership transformational expert, shares with us why leadership is a skill and how to develop it.
TODAY’S WIN-WIN:
Reflective journaling holds you accountable and develops your leadership skills.
LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:
- You can visit our guest’s website at: https://www.mydailyleadership.com/
- Get a copy of our guest’s book: https://www.amazon.com/My-Daily-Leadership-Powerful-Roadmap/dp/1637581807/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
- Attend our Franchise Sales Training Workshop: https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/franchisesalestraining/
- If you are ready to franchise your business or take it to the next level: CLICK HERE.
ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Antonio Garrido is the author of My Daily Leadership: A Powerful Roadmap for Leadership Success, and founder and president of My Daily leadership, which is a leadership development organization with a mission to inspire one million of the world’s best leaders to reach their full potential. Antonio has over 25 years in senior leadership positions with world-class businesses. He is a serial entrepreneur, successful business coach, speaker, and has led numerous companies including a Fortune 100 organization.
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’m wondering if you think of leadership as an inherited trait or something that you’re born with. Is leadership something that either you have or don’t have? And our guest today is Antonio Garrido, and he’s a leadership transformational expert, and he shares with us why he thinks leadership is actually a skill and how you can develop it. Antonio is the author of My Daily Leadership: Powerful Roadmap for Leadership Success, and the founder and president of My Daily Leadership, which is a leadership development organization with a mission to inspire 1 million of the world’s best leaders to reach their full potential. Antonio has over 25 years in senior leadership positions with world-class businesses. He’s a serial entrepreneur, successful business coach, speaker, and has led numerous companies including a Fortune 100 organization. You’re going to love this interview, so let’s go ahead and jump right into it.
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (01:13):
So my name is Antonio Garrido, which is G-A-R-R-I-D-O. My company is My Daily Leadership, one of my companies, the one we’re talking about today at any rate. And my title is, I guess, owner, founder, general [inaudible 00:01:27].
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (01:30):
One of the primary reasons I wanted to have you on is to talk about My Daily Leadership and your book and what it’s all about, and I really like the general premise of it. And just for our audience, let’s just assume maybe this is their first time they’re hearing about it. How might you summarize your teaching and what you go over in your book there?
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (01:51):
The principle, I guess, is that leadership is a skill that, there aren’t just some that are fortunate enough to have been born with it and stamped on their DNA and they’re excellent leaders and other poor unfortunates don’t have such a marvelous biological gift and they’re doomed to be followers for their whole life. So first of all, I think we all have the leadership gene. We all have that leadership skill. We just have to develop it, I think is the first thing to say.
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (02:22):
The second thing to say the book or the program, the principles, are that we have a model for leadership that has been developed over too many years, more years than I’d like to admit. I’m fairly ancient, Tom. That’s the truth of it. And worked for lots of very large companies and some excellent, excellent leaders. And, of course, in other businesses that we have, we’ve worked with excellent leaders. So we developed a model for leadership, which we’re quite proud of. And we recognized that leadership skill comes from evaluated experience as opposed to time served. So a lot of leaders, they think, “Well, I’ve been a leader for 20 years, therefore I am the finished article.” And when we dig below the surface, what we actually find is that when somebody’s been a leader for 20 years, really, what they’ve done is, they’ve learn for the first two years and then they just rinse and repeated for 10 years on the trot.
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (03:19):
So leadership is a vocation as much as anything else, but we’re all on this journey of development and trying to maximize our potential. And wisdom comes from evaluated experiences, as I said, not time served. There is a model that we have for leadership. And largely, a lot of people think that, if I have the right kind of IQ, intelligence, and technical skill, I will be a successful leader. But I think we all know now that EQ is a lot more to do with it.
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (03:48):
So we started putting these things to linked around self-awareness more than anything else. And so we put the program together to help leaders develop their self-awareness, develop themselves and their people and their business and their job. Tom, you know that you could go to any Barnes and Noble or any bookshop, whatever, you’d find miles upon miles upon miles, shelf upon shelf of what leadership’s about. And I guess for us more than anything, it’s about future proofing yourself, your people, and your business, trying to make sure that, to use Marshall Goldsmith’s language, what got you here won’t necessarily get you there. And it’s to prepare you to get there, if that makes sense.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (04:31):
It’s interesting, as you described, the leader that maybe was trained for a couple of years and was attuned to what they were doing, and then all of a sudden they think, “Okay, well I’ve learned. Now I’m ready to,” as you described, “Rinse and repeat. And I just do that same thing for the next 10 years.” Or maybe the next 30 or 40 years of their whole career.
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (04:49):
Right.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (04:50):
And retire and think that they were a quality leader. You really talk about this idea of leadership journaling and really what you’re talking about is, at least as I’m thinking and processing it, idea of reflection and application and thinking about what’s happened and processed. So talk about how this intertwines with your leadership journaling idea.
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (05:11):
So I think, so maybe a little quick story to illustrate. So just before COVID happened, so I was a very early adopter. I caught COVID at the Super Bowl final just before it kind of hit the world. Right? I did a talk to, gosh, let’s say three or 400 leaders were in the audience. And I asked them, I said, “Okay, ladies and gentlemen, who here doesn’t have any leadership blind spots? By a show of hands, so please put your hand in the air if you have no leadership blind spots.” And thank goodness, Tom, nobody put their hands in the air. So that’s already quite a self-aware bunch, right? Because you’d be amazed at how many think they’re the finished article. So fortunately, nobody put their hands in the air, which means that at least they all have the wherewithal to recognize that they probably did have some leadership blind spots.
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (05:59):
“Terrific,” said I. “If you could just take a second now and write down what they are.” Well, now that’s where the problems start because everybody recognizes they probably have some blind spots, but they don’t know what they are because if they knew what they were, then QED, they wouldn’t be blind spots. Right? So we all have blind spots. All of us. And how do we eek them out? How do we discover what they are? How do we find out what they are? Well, it’s tricky because first of all, it’s hard to tell somebody they have an ugly baby. I don’t know anybody that’s a leader where somebody’s knocked on the door and said, “Hey, Tom, have you got five minutes?” And you said, “Yeah.” And they go, “I just think the last six months, you’ve just been very dreadful. Right? I think you haven’t done a good job here. You haven’t done a good job there.” So kind of, nobody tells you this kind of stuff.
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (06:45):
I’ll never forget George Bush senior, the president, he’d left the White House. He was no longer president and he was just finishing off a row and golf game, and he just walked off the 18th green and somebody shoved a camera in his face and said, “How was the golf, Mr. President?” And in a moment of lucid thought, he took a second and he went, “It’s amazing how many games of golf I’ve lost since leaving the White House.” Right? Because whilst ever he was the president, everybody let him win. He’s now no longer the president, and suddenly his game’s gone off a cliff.
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (07:23):
So we have this thing about, look, we have to grow our self-awareness. We have to figure out where our strengths and weaknesses lie. We talk in our program, of course, and in the book and in our business that really, you need to take some kind of benchmarking, self assessment, self-awareness assessment to figure out exactly where you are. But most people, they’re not nearly as gorgeous and delicious as perhaps they’ve been led to believe by their people or their pay packet. Think, “Gosh, I’m all that,” but maybe you’re not. And we’re all on this journey. So the principle, that daily reflective practice where you say to yourself … I had a chairman who said to me once, “I’d just been made CEO.” In truth, Tom, I probably wasn’t quite ready for it. It was a very large organization. You’d call it a top 60, Fortune 60 company. Top 60 PLC. Very, very large organization. There was obviously some kind of mix up in HR and I got the gig, right?
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (08:30):
So when I was talking to the chairman of the group not too long after that, he said, “Hey, I met you in the canteen.” And he said, “Couple of questions for you.” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Did you do your best today and did you earn your money today?” “Well,” I thought … He always asked some incredibly insightful questions. So I said, “Well, yeah. I do think I’ve earned my money today and here’s why. And I did this and this. I came in early and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.” And started kind of big whole list of the things that I had achieved or accomplished or at least attempted to do. “So I went to this meeting. I made this contribution. So definitely I think owe my money today.” He said, “Great, that’s the right answer.” He said, “If you ever find yourself three days on the trot thinking, ‘I’m not earning my money,'” he said, “Come and see me. I’ll give you something to do.”
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (09:18):
So that, “Did you earn your money today?” is a question, it is actually a reflective question. When you say, “Did earn my money today?” And you think about, what did you do? This is a million years ago when I first started thinking about the processes that we started to put into play. The second question was, he said, “Did you do your best today?” I said, “Well, yeah. I did my best today because I did this and this and this and this.” He said, “Well.” He said, “Best is a tricky bar. It’s a very high bar. Best is world gold or every time you run the race, it’s your personal best. Or the 120 pound mother that lifts up a car to free children. Did you do that today?” I said, “Well, yeah. Probably not.” He said, “Okay, good.” He said, “The answer to, ‘Did I do my best today,’ is normally no, but, ‘Did I earn my money today,’ is normally yes. Well, that then demands of you is to say, ‘Well, how could I have done better?'”
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (10:13):
So if I’m going to give myself a leadership report card today, and I’ll give myself, let’s say, a B plus for the sake of argument, then I have to say, “Well, what could or should I have done to make that B plus an A minus? What should I not have said or what should I have said? Hindsight’s a marvelous thing, knowing now what we know, what would we have done differently? Well, that daily process of doing that reflective and reflexive practice, this wisdom comes from a evaluated experience where you think, “I could have done this a bit better. I could have done that a bit better. And I could have done this a bit better.”
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (10:48):
The challenge is that when you ask people … I remember I was a customer years ago of Sandler Training in Baltimore. It was a training company. I know you know them well. One thing led to another and I decided to start my own franchise in Miami. You can tell by the accent, there was nowhere else you could have placed me other than in Miami, right? Long story how I got to Miami. But anyway, there we are. I’m in Miami now, started Sandler Training Company.
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (11:16):
And the CEO on my first day asked me, “Hey, Antonio, do you journal?” And I said, “No,” because I didn’t at the time, right? Well, this was many, many years ago. I said, “No.” And he said, “Oh.” Very critically, very critical look on his face. He said, “Well, why?” And I said, “Well, probably because I’m not a 16-year-old Victorian school girl.” I mean, I can’t imagine who else might journal, right? So he said, “Okay. Well, why don’t you do me a favor and find the most successful people that you can find in business, entertainment, sports, anything, right? Captain of a ship, pilot of an airplane, whatever. Anybody you can find what you consider hugely successful and go find 10 of them. Let me know how many of them journal.”
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (12:07):
Well, I got to eight, and where the answer from eight was, yes, of course. Doesn’t everybody else thinking, “Hm. Maybe,” right? Because anyone you can think of, if you just Google now, or other search engines available. If you just search, first of all, maybe the benefits of journaling. Well, there’s billions of things. Or famous people in history who have journaled. I mean, it’s a huge list, right? And you’ve got to think there has to be a correlation. But then when you ask people, I mean, I’m going to ask you now, Tom, and put you on the spot and probably embarrass you. Do you journal?
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (12:40):
Off and on. That’s my biggest struggle is the consistency of doing it.
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (12:44):
Okay. Good honest answer. Thank you.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (12:46):
Yes.
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (12:47):
I feel bad for having sprung that on you. But here’s the thing. So when we talk to leaders, large, successful, or small, tiny brand new startups right across the peaks, from the smallest to the largest, from the most established to the newest in every vertical, every market, every segment, right? Every color and shades and size, “Do you journal?” Those that do, do. And they go, “Yeah, I’ve been doing it for 30 years. Why would I do anything other than, right?” Or it’s a polarizing question. Or they kind of say, “Well, I would, but I can’t get into the habit,” like you. A little. “I haven’t made that bit or practice yet.”
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (13:25):
And some others say, “Well, I would, but I don’t know what to write and when to write and how much to write. And if I knew what to think about, if I knew how to do it, then it’s likely that I might do it.” And again, another reason for the book, which we was like, “Okay, well let’s help leaders of any size that want to improve, that want to develop themselves, the people in their business. Let’s walk them through a day one, write this. Day two, write that. Write this many words about this and write those many words about that.” And we really hold people’s hands through that whole process until … So I bet you brush your teeth every day, right? Tom?
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (14:06):
Of course, twice a day.
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (14:08):
So there are some things that are habitual and Tom just wouldn’t be able to function properly. You wouldn’t be able to go to bed if you haven’t brushed your teeth properly, right? So there are things that you do do, and what you don’t do is you don’t wait until you don’t brush your teeth at all all week, but then on Sunday, you have at them for two hours till your gums bleed. It’s this little often 1% every day, but every day. And this consistency compounds. And so when we give people the very clear program what to write, when to write, why to write, and exactly what the formula looks like, they can start to see the development. And it’s not a heavy load. It’s every morning, a little bit. Every evening, a little bit. Very about this reflective and reflexive self-awareness growing program. They tend to get on board pretty quickly. So we really give them everything they need, in other words, to grow and develop because no one else will do it for them.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (15:10):
What are some of those questions that you encourage people to start with or maybe the first couple sections or pages in a book or journaling that you offer that could get someone thinking and going down that direction?
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (15:23):
In the book, My Daily Leadership, right? We give a template of the first kind of 30 days. On our website, www.mydailyleadership.com, we give other templates that you can just download for free and start to have a go. But there are some, if you like, consistent threads that continue throughout from the most basic right through to the most experienced and advanced, and we cover everything in between. But not least, this principle of self-reflection. What would my leadership report card look today? That’s a very kind of common thread. We position it kind of differently, but wherever you are on the rung, and even if you’re not at leadership yet, at that leadership level yet, this principle of, if I had my chance to replay the day, how would I have done things differently?
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (16:20):
That is an amazingly powerful tool that I’ve had people, our clients, reach out to us specifically about just that one particular question and how it’s made huge differences to, once you start asking yourself that question every day and your subconscious latches onto it to say, “This is something, guys, that we’re going to have to report on a little bit later.” Right? It’s like, I don’t know what car you drive, Tom, but the day that you bought that car, right? As you were driving home, what did you see? A million of those cars that, hitherto, you hadn’t seen. It’s not that suddenly they’re on the road, where yesterday there were none, right? What happened is now your subconscious is alive to that car and that brand and that car is now on your subconscious radar if you like. And suddenly you see them all over the place where you’ve driven past them before, but you hadn’t paid any attention to them. And that principle of, “Hey, hey, Mr. or Mrs. or Miss subconscious,” right? “There’s some things that we’re going to have to think about every day, so let’s store them away.”
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (17:28):
So what will happen pretty soon just with this one specific question, what could I have done better or different or what should I have done, right? That particular question. What happens is you’ll have an interaction with somebody, you’ll send an email to somebody, and then, we get it all the time. Someone will email and say, “I sent this email to somebody. I instantly wished I could have brought it back, but couldn’t. So then had to call them and talked about it. Thanks very much.” And these great things happened just because they thought, “Oh. Well, this’ll save me time later not living with regret for something I could’ve, should’ve, would’ve done and just do it now,” type of thing.
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (18:05):
So what it does is, it helps build your hindsight, right? Because hindsight leads to insight, which leads to foresight, which leads to re-sight, okay? So it builds your hindsight muscle so that you can actually get a bit more insight and think, “I could do it like that, but that’s probably a lazy way. Let me do it a little bit more intentionally and do it like this.” So that’s one of the questions, which is, “What could and should I have done?” That’s a question that we always ask ourselves.
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (18:35):
Another question that we’re constantly asking our leaders is, we break leadership down into a whole bunch of sections, but five main sections, really, which is, people development. So the best leaders are really good at developing people. Company development. So instead of just saying, “I am a leader,” we start to say, “Well, what could I do to develop my people better? What could I do to develop my company better? What could I have done to develop myself better? Or the leaders and strategy development. What could we do better on strategies?” So it’s not just the, “What could I have done better today?” It’s then we get into then, “What could I have done better in these particular five areas?” Right? And so that gives a bit more focus to things.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (19:20):
This is a great overview. And I love the resources you have available for someone to get started and make it easy for them to get a quick download, go to your website, review it, and just start. I think as I listen to you share this, and even in my own inconsistencies, I do a really nice job for a few weeks, and then it’s a few months off. And then I’m back on. It’s almost like working out a little bit. So I think about that and the resources you have provide a nice framework just to jump in, just go. Just start. Just get going on it.
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (19:53):
Yes. And a plan gets laid one day at a time. And plan. But if there’s anything worth being intentional about, I think it’s the development of you and your people and your business. If you’re a leader, let’s be intentional about that. Intentionality is so powerful. And then let’s just say, “You know what? If you have a business plan,” and I’m sure that everybody that’s a fan of your podcast, they must have. Right? So they’ll have a business plan and they’ll pay attention to a business plan every day. They’ll review the numbers every day. They’ll think about the KPIs every day, the goals every day. Certainly every month, and then quarterly, and much more formally often. Well, just have a plan for you and your leadership. Have a leadership development plan, and work that plan. And in the same way that your business plan gets laid one day at a time, so does your leadership plan get laid one day at a time.
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (20:51):
So another super quick story. So I had another leader that said to me, “Hey, listen. No, I love this. Yeah. Okay. This is great. Yeah, no. I should do this. Yeah, yeah. How can you help me with this?” I said, “Well, in what way? What does that mean?” He said, “Well, how can you hold me accountable to it?” I said, “Do you have any children?” He said, “Yeah, I’ve got three kids.” And then gave me the names. I said, “Okay. Well, do you remember when the first one was born? Did you ever change its nappy or its diaper? Did you ever feed it? Did you ever look after it? Did you ever dress it? Did you …” “Yeah.” “Oh, okay. Great. So who held you accountable to feeding your children?”And he went, “Well, nobody held me accountable to it.” I said, “Well, then why did you do it?” He said, “Well, because it’s just something you’ve got to do.”
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (21:42):
I said, “Well, when you become a leader, it’s just something you’ve got to do. You’ve got to develop yourself, right? You’ve got to future-proof you and your people and your business.” Because what’s a leader’s job? A leader’s job is to make decisions. Will every decision be the best decision on the planet? No. If you ever read Bill Clinton’s book, I can’t remember what it was called. It’s a pretty good book. He’s quite fake, but he was quite a good writer, Bill Clinton. I quite liked the cut of his jib. And he said that whilst ever he was the president … It can’t be My Way. That must be Frank Sinatra. But anyway, so he said, “Whilst ever I was the President of the United States,” probably quote unquote leader of the free world of making some of the most difficult decisions on the planet, maybe about Palestinians and the Israelis on the West Bank, maybe about Northern Ireland. Maybe about terrorists. Maybe about the economy, right? Tricky, tricky questions.
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (22:40):
And he said, “The best I could ever do was seven out of 10,” right? “Seven out of 10 decisions. And I hope that those seven outweighed those three.” Well, leadership’s the same. Your job is to make good decisions. Right? Is every decision the one that you’re going to make perfect? No, it’s absolutely not. And unless we figure out why and how it could have been better, and what skills and abilities do I need to develop? Where do I need to raise my self-awareness and my EQ? Where are my self-limiting beliefs and blind spots holding me back? What kind of plans and actions aren’t as good as they should be? If you don’t do it, who’s going to do it for you? I just don’t know who. Right? So you got to do it. You got to do it. You got to do it.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (23:29):
Well, Antonio, this is a great time in the show for us to make a transition where we ask every guest the same four questions before they go. And the first question is, have you had a miss or two in your career and something you learned from it?
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (23:41):
Oh, I’ve had masses of misses. One of the ones, I think I talked, not in this book. I’ve written other books, but in, I think, my second book. I worked for an organization, when I took over as sales marketing director, the company was about 40% behind in its sales targets. Scroll on six months and we’re now 40% ahead. And it was time for my review. And I was skipping like Fred Astaire down the corridor to go and see my CEO for my review, for my appraisal. And in my head, I was already spending the money. I was thinking, “So I could get a cabin in Aspen and I could get a boat.” Right? I was already doing all of these things. And I walked into his office and I sat down and he said, “So Antonio, give me your view of the last six months. How do you think it went?”
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (24:29):
And I started. “I think it was terrific. I did this and this. And we did this, and we did that.” And started regaling him with all of the achievements that we had made. And yet his face was stony. It was very, very bleak. Right? And I was thinking, “I don’t know why, but I know this isn’t flying.” And I wasn’t entirely sure why. So I kind of ran out of steam and then I thought, “I should have approached this differently.” And I said, “Well, what do you think?” Right? So he said, “A business that’s 40% ahead of it’s targets is as out of control as a business that’s 40% behind in it’s targets.” And I went … I mean, crestfallen and crushed. You can’t imagine. And I went, “Oh. Right, okay.” “So tell me about cost.” I said, “Well, yeah. Costs have gone up a little bit.”
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (25:19):
He said, “Yeah, we’re running three eight hour shifts. Right? And costs have gone up. Tell me about accident rates.” “Yeah, we’ve had a few accidents lately.” “Yeah. Cause everybody’s [inaudible 00:25:31] and working so hard. Tell me about on time in full.” “Well, yeah. That’s dropped from 97% to 86%.” “Yeah. So customers are leaving. So we’re losing market share. So our competitors are taking market.” Right? And for everything that I thought was great, there was another side of the coin. So the lesson to me was, be very clear about unintentional consequences of things. I think that’s probably the lesson. Most companies, if a leader can come in with the right, and I’m doing speech marks in the air, because really it’s the wrong. The right can leader can turn a company from making a loss to a positive. But if the style, if it’s not done well, if people aren’t brought with you, if it isn’t done consistent with core values and stuff, then you cause more problems than the solutions that you think you’ve brought.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (26:23):
Absolutely. Well, thank you for sharing that. And let’s talk about a make or to a highlight.
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (26:29):
Actually, it’s another miss, but it’s also a highlight because it’s probably the best lesson I’ve ever learned, right? Which, we were quoting a large project, the largest project we’d ever quoted. And we didn’t get it. And I thought we didn’t get it because the price was too high. And I thought that we hadn’t brought enough value. And most people make the mistake of thinking that they don’t get business as a consequence of price. And things are never about price. Everything’s to do with value.
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (27:02):
What I learned was the reason that we didn’t get it was because we hadn’t discussed properly the implementation, and it was the implementation that was the issue. So when we talk to people about, what’s the cost? What’s the price? What’s the budget? All of those kinds of things, make sure you understand that dollars is only the smallest piece of it. It’s an important piece of it, but it’s not the most important piece. So when you are talking to prospects and clients, start to use the words, “other than competitive price, which, of course, is critical, what other criteria will you be using when you’re deciding who to partner with on a project like this?” And really make sure you understand what that is. When I learned that, things got significantly better. My prices went significantly up too.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (27:47):
Great lesson learned. That’s a great application. And let’s talk about a multiplier. We get a great wide variety here, so I’d love to hear what you have to say.
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (27:56):
Well, what can I say other than journaling? I mean, there’s nothing else I can possibly say. But one of the things that we do talk about in the book and in the program a lot is make sure that you hire and onboard right. And just make sure you get the right capabilities, credibilities, competencies. And it’s not just about chemistry. But then also if you can figure out the way that Lego did, so you can research that. If you can figure out as a leader, it doesn’t matter the size of the organization. If you can figure out how to get your people not just cooperating, but collaborating. Collaboration is the absolute force multiplier in any business.
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (28:41):
And it has to start with you. You as the leader have to cascade that. And it’s not just asking the question, “How can I help?” Because most people go, “No, boss. You’re okay. I’m fine.” But force an answer out that. “How can I help? What’s broken? What’s missing? What are you confused about? How can I help?” Force an answer to that. Get people to collaborate, not just cooperate, and the world will change.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (29:05):
Well, Antonio, the final question we ask every guest before they go is, what does success mean to you?
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (29:11):
Listen, we’ve got a very clear view about this. And when you ask a hundred CEOs, you say, “What is success,” here’s what you get. I’m not wanting to disparage any answers you’ve had of that question from many of your previous, but they were all wrong. Cause I’m going to give you the right answer in a second, right? But they’re going to say things like … I mean, from a very flippant answer on one end, whoever dies with the most toys wins, right? Then you’re going to get other people to say, “Reaching goals, right? Reaching your goals. That’s what success is.” And you know what? I have a cousin, really, really lovely guy who has such little self-belief that he sets himself such poor, low goals and he achieves them. But by any measure, would anybody look at him and see that he was a success? No. I mean, I love him dearly, but he’s not. And he is unhappy.
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (30:02):
So some people also say that, “Well, success is happiness.” And when we look at some of the people that we coach and train, some leaders of large as well, very large and complex organizations, that revenues of billions and casts of thousands. It’s like Gandhi every time they walk into they place. And by any measure, anybody looking at them would say, “Well, that’s a successful person.” And yet, very often they’re unhappy. So if you’re measuring success by billions in the bank and they’re unhappy, I don’t think you can call that successful.
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (30:33):
So, to answer your question, so that’s what it isn’t. What it is, for me and for us and for the business that we have and the model that we have, success is reaching your full potential, whatever your potential is. So there’ll be some people whose potential is down here, and that’s where they’re at. And so they’re happy. And then there’ll be other people, these billionaires who, their potential is here. They’re only here. And that delta, that gap between where they are and where they think they should be, that delta, that unfulfilled, unrealized potential means that they don’t feel successful. So as a leader, it’s our job to maximize our potential, the people that report to us, people in the organization, and the business’ potential. So that’s why we have this leadership development model that talks about maximizing potential. So for me, success is anybody that has or is on a clear path to maximizing their potential, then they are successful.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (31:31):
Wonderful. Well, Antonio, is there anything you were hoping to share or maybe get across you haven’t had a chance to yet before we go?
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (31:39):
Honestly, no. Just if you’re a leader, get yourself assessed. There are lots of assessments out there. None of them are as good as ours. I would say that wouldn’t I, right? Check out our website. Have a look. Get yourself assessed. Take a leadership health check, a business health check. You get yourself checked medically every year. Go have a look and figure out where your gaps are and then figure out how to close them.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (32:06):
And that website, again, that’s mydailyleadership.com. Is that the best place to visit?
Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership (32:07):
That’s it. mydailyleadership.com or one word apart from the dot and the com. My Daily Leadership’s one word, dot com.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (32:19):
Antonio, 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 Antonio described leadership being a skill. And he said, “Just because someone happens to be a leader for 20 years, that doesn’t mean that they’re a good leader.” He described leadership as being a vocation. People need to grow in that vocation. Takeaway number two is he provided three reflective questions that led him down his journey to start leadership journaling, and something maybe for you to start with. First question was, did you earn your money today? The second was, did you do your best today? And number three is, how could I have done better? Those are three great starting questions to begin your reflective journaling process. And takeaway away number three is that he and his organization described leadership as having five sections to ask questions. What can I do today to help, one, people develop, two, the company develop, yourself develop is number three, number four, other leaders develop. And number five, develop strategy? And now it’s time for today’s win-win.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (33:41):
So today’s win-win is when Antonio talked about his multiplier being journaling, which came as no surprise because he is a huge proponent of leadership journaling. And he said, “Why journaling is so important is because,” he asked the question is, “How do you hold yourself accountable as a leader?” And journaling allows you to hold yourself accountable. And you asked the question, “If I had a chance to replay today, what would I have done differently?” And he said, “By asking that question and many others, it helps develop your hindsight, which leads to insight, which leads to foresight, which leads to re-sight.” And so I thought that was a great takeaway and a great win-win for today. And so 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 your business or take your franchise company to the next level, please connect with us at bigskyfranchiseteam.com. Thanks for tuning in, and we look forward to having you back next week.
