508 | Tales from the Business Side

Chris LoCurto 0:00
Today we're going to look at the interesting and sometimes surprising takeaways of those who've gone through our processes, and participated in our coaching and training events that is coming up next.

Welcome to the Chris LoCurto show where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are. Welcome to the show, folks, I hope you're having a fabulous day or a fabulous year so far, wherever you are. We're having a pretty fantastic one ourselves. And I gotta tell you, I'm excited today because for the first time of this year, I'm joined by two amazing men. So Aaron West and Joel Fortner. Welcome to the show for the first time and 2023 Welcome, guys. Hey, thanks.

Unknown Speaker 0:57
Thanks. Glad to be here.

Joel Fortner 0:58
Glad to be here. Hopefully, it's not our last time on the show.

Chris LoCurto 1:01
Hopefully, there's gonna be more times throughout the year, that you guys will be here. So glad you guys are joining me. Thank you. In you know, Joel, you're joining me in the studio. Aaron, you're in the virtual studio. So that's right to have Knology at its finest. That is absolutely, absolutely. Well, this month, we have the awesome privilege. And I say privilege because I do believe it is a privilege, it's a blessing of God, that we are celebrating 10 years of making a difference in leaders' lives and helping them to take their businesses to the next level. And while this is stuff that I've been doing way before this, and you know, you guys have been doing before this, it's 10 years of this swimming group. And we're really excited about that. It's it like I say it's just an honour, and in this episode, we're gonna walk through the specialised areas of teaching and coaching and training that we do for businesses. But before we get to that, let me pause to talk about this amazing event that's coming up in just a few months that's geared towards helping your team to grow, improve to excel at their job. The fact is that the more effective you become as a leader, and we'll talk about this stuff throughout this episode today, the more effective your team becomes, which means the more your business will grow with less stress on you. Yes, folks, this is why we do what we do. Trust me, we can teach you how to have less stress on you. Now it's if you're ready to take a huge leap forward in your leadership capability, then you absolutely need to check out our Next-Level Leadership live event coming up this April. Registration is open and seats are selling out. So don't put this off. The keynote lessons are geared to equip you to build high-performing teams, cultivate excellence in every corner of the business and grow your revenues. We'll teach you truly transformative lessons during this event. And we will have breakout sessions so that you can learn to implement this stuff right away, you will not want to miss this. So sign up today at Crystal crypto.com/events and get ready for growth once again, go to Crystal crystal.com/events to take your business to the next level. Now, when we come back how our various services have evolved in our company and some of the core impacts that they've had on business leaders. And

Joel Fortner 3:33
hey, leaders, this is Joel Fortner, VP, of leadership development at Chris LoCurto. Company. I have some questions for you. Do you as a leader feel like you are caught up in a Crazy Cycle of stress and tasks that never end week to week? Do you ever have to deal with tough conversations with team members? And you sit at home the next day the night before worried about how's it gonna go? What am I going to say? What are they going to say? Can I think fast enough on my feet? Is it going to be a total failure? Are you experiencing culture problems or that stuff that just breaks down trust and unity on your team? Well, if you're if you can relate to any of this, this is a pretty typical leadership story and situation. Here's the thing though it doesn't have to be that way. And we can help you solve these things. We can help you become the leader that solves these problems and leads 13th to greater success. I want to introduce you to the key leader's programme. This is an ongoing leadership development programme that gives you the lesson track coaching and accountability. You need to become the leader you can become to actually implement what you're actually learning in this programme. Things Fall Apart without great leadership and intentionality. If you want to solve the problems that are holding you back from being a great leader, we can help you with this programme get in touch with Joey Chrislocurto.com.

Chris LoCurto 4:59
All right. We are back joined again by Joel Fortner. Aaron West, guys, I'd like you to help me to describe what it is that we do. I mean, it's super easy. There's nothing to it. So for someone who's hearing it for the first time, let's unpack some of the acronyms we use and the things that we do, how do we explain this to folks? If this is the first time they're hearing us? Yeah, I

Joel Fortner 5:20
mean, I'll go. So I mean, first, right off the bat, immune included, and our mission statement is that we guide people to a greater perspective, we're teachers, I mean, we are our hardest to teach people to develop people, to help people get unstuck in life, to get unstuck in business, become a more effective leader at home and at work. And so we have all these various programmes that we have of Next-Level Mastermind that Aaron runs and key leader programme that Aaron runs, and all these awesome virtual training events and in-person training events that we do. And also, Next-Level Life that's near and dear to our heart, our one-on-one, where you come and spend a couple of days with either you or me, Chris, and we dive super deep solving what's holding you back and get you a plan to improve your life. It's a healing and restoration event for so many people. So those are, that's the stuff. That's what we do. That's how we guide people to a greater perspective.

Chris LoCurto 6:14
And I love it. You know, I want to back up a little bit more from there and just talk about the beginning of this. We're all entrepreneurs, we all own businesses, and we've been helping people for a very long time. You know this is something that I've been doing for decades, helping businesses help individuals. But this business, the point main group, it started on my back patio. It started, literally, as God was guiding me to a new direction of helping people. I thought this was going to be just one aspect, I thought I was just going to be coaching. You know, I literally thought when I started this thing, I thought, well, it's gonna be business coaching, I feel like that's what God's got me to because he kept showing me specific things. And then these other aspects popped up. I've been helping people with their individual lives for many, many years. It was like, well, let's just add this piece in. Somebody might like it, who knows. But yeah, I started on the back patio with me, Brian Alex, who joined me back in those first few months before he left for Sicily on a mission field. It was just the two of us, we always joke it was the two of us, our two laptops, a couple of cell phones and a bottle of wine. And it was just like, we would sit out there and just dream about what was going to happen, you know, what, what, what God was doing. And interestingly enough, you just list it off stuff that did not even exist, in my mind back then. Stuff that it was like, Okay, we're gonna do coaching. You know, I'll help some people on the personal side. We'll probably do this offer this big strap plan a week-long event. But you know, I mean, that's big, that's huge. We did not have key leaders programme there, we did not have virtual training. Well, we didn't have virtual training period, not a lot of people had virtual training, we didn't have the virtual training, we didn't have the going to the people's businesses and doing whole team training, there's so much that we didn't have. And it was just this blessing of being able to help people lead their teams better and run their businesses better. And then things just exploded, obviously, next-level life exploded. We just celebrated not too long ago, a couple of weeks ago, our 500th one-on-one Next-Level Life event, just with the main insights pretty

Joel Fortner 8:35
good for something that was just going to be an on-the-side,

Chris LoCurto 8:38
just this little thing, just tell some people, you know, we'll do a little you know, if they need it, they want it and then 500 events later. It's just so powerful. And this year, our goal, guys, if we're helped me to know if we're gonna hit this because this is something we're planning on. And that is to offer a live event. So we can brand groups of people in the one-on-one event is always going to be just the most impactful and powerful two-day event. But we want to be able to reach people if they can't make it to that in a group setting. So just so looking forward to that and

Joel Fortner 9:16
we're working toward it.

Unknown Speaker 9:18
the official announcement that we're actually doing this event then later this year,

Joel Fortner 9:23
you know, that may be kind of casual throwing it out there.

Chris LoCurto 9:26
I think that was it. So we're working on it. Our goal is to have this for the fall. It's stuff we've already got together, we're just building the whole event building and structuring it for a group setting where everybody coming in can get, you know, obviously, we won't be able to work one on one with them. But we will be able to get them crazy transformative information and impact.

Joel Fortner 9:50
It's going to be such a great introduction. If you've never done something like this or you're really into you know, improving yourself and growing yourself and solving What holds you back, this is going to be a great step in that direction. I'm really excited guys to see how many people who've come through Next-Level Life actually want to come to this event as well. Because I bet there's a whole bunch of a bunch, there's a whole bunch of people that are gonna want to do that kind of as a refresh on their event that they may have had, you know, 10 years ago, or five years ago or two years ago that this live events gonna be very exciting. You

Chris LoCurto 10:27
know, and we'll talk more about that I'm sure in a couple of weeks. This, this 10 years of the business side, it's funny, we're kicking off and talking so much more about the left side, we're gonna do the same thing on that live side. And I cannot I so look forward to that as well. Being able to talk through the transformation, the things that people have experienced. But here we are on the business side. And I've got to say, I'm just so incredibly proud of you guys. And what, how I hear all the time. You know, for years, I just keep hearing people tell me, it just never stops. You know, Joel and Aaron, these guys are just amazing. You guys have done a phenomenal job, obviously, helping people. And we have all three been coaching businesses, business leaders, and owners for a very long time. And so it's just so powerful, but I wanted to kind of dig into and I want you guys to jump in and talk through some of the struggles that people are experiencing the successes that people are experiencing, what is it as people go through our stuff because our stuff is not easy. We don't do the 30,000-foot view, we dig in deep. So kind of talk to that Aaron kind of speak to you know, you've been on both sides of have great, phenomenal 30,000-foot view information and also great phenomenal, dig super deep information, kind of talk about what that's like, what's what, yeah, what do you love to see.

Unknown Speaker 11:51
I mean, the big thing is, there are tonnes of information out there, that'll get you started with your business, there are tonnes of great resources out there, that'll give you that 30,000-foot view. But man, one of the things that I love about what we do is being able to dig into your individual situation, and then help you move forward in what's going on specifically with you at your time at your moment with your business with your team. Whether it's struggling in how do I lead my team through this difficult situation, whether struggles in, hey, I'm struggling to make revenue and get great revenue and make a profit off of this? How do I work through this, how to identify those things? And this is the kind of stuff that gets into really working hard. There's no and we talked about this all the time. There are no magic pills, in what we do. It's hard work. And it's digging into those deep things that absolutely love what we do that allows us to do that, whether it's through our mastermind, where we're doing one on one coaching and group coaching, with our mastermind clients or whether it's leading the secondary level leaders like in our key leader programme we talked about earlier, just helping the entire leadership team, I work through those challenges at a deep level and digging into their specific problems are the things that I absolutely love about what we get to do on a day in and day out basis.

Chris LoCurto 13:12
Yeah, it's so interesting, because again, you know, I used to teach, you know, you're with me, Aaron, back in those days, I would teach eight team lessons in three days. Powerful, phenomenal, great stuff. Usually, I was in a coma after that. But just great stuff. But man, I could step off that stage. And somebody could say, can I just ask you one question, can I just get 15 minutes? And I could help somebody change their business in that timeframe. And I just kept hearing, you know what I felt like was God saying you're going to be doing this. And so again, loved every bit of it. But I felt God saying, I want you to go deeper. And so like our Next-Level Leadership Live event, all of the lessons in the Next-Level Mastermind, the cowpea the strapline, you know, all of these are just they're super deep and implementable. Like you don't walk away going, I don't know what to do. And I used to when I would teach those lessons that have people literally come up to me multiple times they go, I don't know what to do. And I'm like, Hey, pick the top three things, go bust those out, right? Because that's all I can tell them is, you know, and so it was so profound and again, fantastic information not there's nothing bad. I'm just saying that this was God saying hey, there's I need you to go deeper on stuff for people. And so so proud that that's what we're doing. But I want you guys to kind of talk through what are some of the struggles that leaders face. What are some of the successes, all those things, kind of talk through those specific pieces?

Joel Fortner 14:46
Yeah, I think one of the big ones that we see up front in a coaching relationship is how much is on the leader's plate, how many tasks how much of the operations, how much of the sales how much of the marketing is on the owner or it's on the CEO or the president or the just the leadership team, everything's on them. And they're way too involved. So therefore, they're stressed, overwhelmed and completely TAS saturated, and they can't lead their teams well, and many of them recognise that and they know that you know what needs to change. So like our verbiage is the leadership Crazy Cycle? Well, one of the first things we focus on is helping leaders kill the leadership Crazy Cycle. So they can then get freed up to go lead to go work on their teams and go deep in all of the leadership stuff that we teach. So we teach detail and depth and open your eyes up to all this wonderful stuff you can do as a leader. But if you're stuck, and you literally don't have the time to accomplish it, the depth doesn't mean anything. So we have to walk people down this journey or this path to get to a place of Okay, what's next? Well, when we solve those pieces, this is what's next. Go instal that do it really well. Okay, what's next? And that's why we work with people for years. You know, it's amazing, the long-term relationships,

Chris LoCurto 16:03
it's been always been amazing to me. And we, we've joked about this over the years of how many leaders think they're the only ones going through this. So you know, the overwhelmed the I don't have time for my family, you know, I don't even know what I got done today, I've been running 90 to nothing. It's always you know, it's up, we used to joke about it, because when people would join Next-Level Mastermind, you know, and they come in with all the veterans that have been in there for a while, we would joke about how they're sitting in the room going, I'm the only one who struggles everybody in here has got it together. And we would talk about that, and all the veterans will just laugh, and it'd be like, Hey, you remember when you came in, and you thought that same thing. It is amazing to see how many leaders and how many business owners believe they're the ones struggling and everybody else has it together. And yet, when they come together, and this is such a big part of why we do this is so that they can be around other people going through what they're going through. They start saying, wait for a second, you struggle with this? Oh, yeah, I struggle with that. I you know, I didn't do this over here. I, you know, I didn't know I should even, you know, pick up on some of this stuff over here. And I think that's one of the things that I love when they get it. I love when they realise I gotta do something. Because then they step in and go. I'm not the only one. And I think that's something that's really just, you know, been powerful for me to say,

Joel Fortner 17:29
Yeah, I think so to speak into that for just a moment. I think that I'm the only one who's failing like this holds people back from accepting change. Because to come in to do work with us and the kind of work that we do, you have to come in ready to change and ready to tackle a whole lot. Well, if you feel like you're the only one that's out there floundering and flopping around, it's a person's your own at times, it's your own pride, it's your own fear, your own embarrassment that holds you back from being like, you know, what actually need help to actually run and do this better. Because then you get more into a mindset of, it's going to be a lot of work, we've got to change a lot of stuff, we have to change all kinds of processes. That's why it's a long-term thing. It's like we don't typically coach people for three months and six months, and they're done. It becomes a let us come and help you work for years, riding the ship and optimising and improving your business and your team. And that's when we see phenomenal success with it. So like in our killing leadership, Crazy Cycle I'm gonna say this because I want people to hear this, that the average leader, on a score of zero to 100, with zero being terrible and 100 being you can't get any better. The average leader scores 58. That's not very great. It's not good. It's a low place. But that survey actually finds out where are you in your life as it meets your business. And then we help people go from 58 This is the 70 this is our own internal survey. We go from the eight, up to 80 in with scores all the way up to the 90s because people are looking at my life is in such a better place. That's the gold for I know for us. That's the thing we see that's like praise God, hallelujah.

Chris LoCurto 19:17
Well, Aaron, how many how he because you work with both the Next-Level Mastermind clients, you work with key leaders programme, the key leaders, how many folks think, you know, oh, gosh, I'm embarrassed that I'm at a 58 I suck. And I'm the only one I mean, you get to see it. Oh, yes.

Unknown Speaker 19:35
Oh, yeah. There are a lot of conversations that I have with our clients where they're very much of this mindset of man, I'm a struggling leader. I suck as a leader and I'm a horrible leader, and they see these results and they tell themselves these things. But after we get into conversations, we realise why are they where they are, what's the struggle that they're having, and how we help them move beyond that, interestingly enough back in January X Willie onboarded five new people into our mastermind programme. And all five of them talked about this killing the leadership Crazy Cycle on our onboarding call, because of how important that piece is. And all of them recognise their struggle, right there at the beginning. So understanding that piece at the very beginning, just like Joel was talking about, helps us to then to allow them if we can work with them to get through that over the next, you know, three to six months to get them to that place where they're not tasked saturated, where they're not focused on the day to day, but actually leading their team and leading the business, then we can help them move into these other directions with the other things that we have, which is where the change really starts to come in, then it starts to happen. They're able to find this time and energy and effort to pour into these other things, that sometimes they just don't know how to get to, because they're just so test-saturated, and they just don't have the time for it. And this is commonplace with most of the leaders that we talk to getting into mastermind and key leader programmes.

Chris LoCurto 20:58
Yeah, you know, it's so interesting, because so many people think, Well, the thing that I'm failing at is I just need more money. You know, I just need more sales. And we see that all the time if I could just throw more money at it, everything would become successful. And that is the biggest lie. That is not your issue. And one of the things we help them to see in the StratPlan is if we doubled your revenue tomorrow, what would happen to your business every single time? They spend some time thinking as long as they think if somebody fires off a fast answer, then it's all it'd be great. Every single time they spend 30 seconds, thinking about that go, oh gosh, would self implode, we couldn't handle it. That's the reason. It's not about the money. It's about discovering all of these things. And crazy enough, you believe that all of the tasks you're running after are important for you to run after and they are they're not you shouldn't be doing this. We need to get those off of your plate, which is why killing the leadership Crazy Cycle is so important. But I want to kind of pull a Brian Alex here for us. I want to see if we all have the same answer I want to see what you guys think. Why do you think you know leaders are struggling? To make the decision to go get help to plug into something like this? What are you? What do you guys think is the reason I'll give you my

Joel Fortner 22:25
hair? Do you want to go first?

Unknown Speaker 22:27
Why would you go to me first? I was gonna have you go first. Oh, this one? No, honestly,

Joel Fortner 22:31
I just, I'm just trying to be nice to Oh,

Unknown Speaker 22:34
thank you. That's so kind of, you know, honestly, I think part of it is a fear of finding out where they actually struggle, and what's going wrong in the business. And there's a worth piece that comes to that because I'm a business owner, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm the leader of this business, and I have to be doing everything right. My team relies on me to do everything right. And so if I'm going into a coaching programme, it's me admitting that I don't have everything figured out is what they tell themselves. And I think that's what holds a lot of people back from this is that fear and that struggle of stepping into something that could potentially open up greater things for them. But they've got to be vulnerable to do that. Yep. What

Joel Fortner 23:24
do you think? Yeah. And I think related to that is just the that their worth is tied to their business in their team. They are it so of course, I'm going to be fearful. If I'm going to have to face everything and have to change everything. There's too much self-worth tied up and identity tied up into either the business they created the family business that now they're running it or, and so the fear and the insecurity, that door gets opened because there's way too much worth being derived from it in lieu and there's so much worse. You're so emotionally attached, it's hard to just think through, okay, just work on this thing, work on this business, relieve my team work on myself, because the all the work just jacks up our thinking.

Chris LoCurto 24:08
Yeah, I absolutely agree with all of that. And I think for me, I think there's one big piece that they struggle with, nobody's ever taught them. Nobody has actually taught them to seek greater information. Because where have so many leaders, so many business owners, so many entrepreneurs been taught, how you're failing, how you're not doing this well enough? Oh, you did that really? Well. You should go blast that out of the water. How many folks have we seen in the 1000s of people that we've helped through the processes that have never been taught to go learn more about doing what they do better? Not from an industry-specific skill set, but from a leadership skill set? Right. I mean, if you think about it, how many times do we get people in the programme? gyms. And they're shocked and stunned by things because they're like, I didn't renew this as like, yep, that's exactly it. You know, I think that's such a big piece. I think you have all the fear of a horse, I think you have all the fear of am I going to go find out that I'm a failure? And on top of all of that, I think you have this big lack of teaching. You should be you know, we are coaches. And we have coaches, that's one of the things that we've we've always been, you know, we've always been coaches who have coaches in areas that we need coaches, right? And so it's just so interesting. It's not a sometimes I think, are we just so different? Why is it not a struggle for us to be trained and taught? And I think that's because we do it for a living. We don't have a problem reaching out, hey, teach me this helped me with I mean, I'm, I'm the guy who asked so many questions that so many people, you know, because I'm just like, how do you do that? What do you do there? How do you make that better? How can I fix this? What do you see me here? How am I what am I doing wrong here? And that it's, you know, to the point that I think some people will even I'd love to hear your opinions on this if you guys experienced this, but I have some folks that are like, Well, I didn't want to speak in on that. And I'm like, why not? Like what I didn't think you wanted me to? Oh, for the love teach me i constant sponge? You know, fill me up? What are your thoughts on all that?

Joel Fortner 26:18
Yeah, I would agree, I think because we've been able to work through a lot of fears and insecurities and working through things like we have to prove ourselves to everybody. So therefore you have to know everything. And you become incredibly not teachable, that we have a culture of just solving the problem. Oh, gosh, you don't know what to do. Just solve it not, you don't have to lose worth over it. Just fix it. Even if it's looking at yourself being like, oh, shoot, that's a problem area there that I have, that's an immaturity that I have. It's a, it's a thing that I'm holding myself back like, well, let's just work on that and solve it. And I think we just I think we're at least all three of us for sure. I think we're just really deep in that. So it doesn't become an emotional thing.

Chris LoCurto 27:01
Yeah. Thoughts.

Unknown Speaker 27:03
I would actually, interestingly enough, add in the whole root system piece on this from a business standpoint, and looking at, okay, growing up and going through business that I went through, there are some great leaders that I've had, there are some leaders that have not been great, in my time, and utilising this idea of root system within your business, of understanding, you know, those things of what am I experiencing as a leader? What am I doing as a leader that has been shaped by the leaders before me, if I've only had a bad leader who's led me in the past, and I go into a leadership role, guess what I'm going to be, I'm going to be a bad leader? And so because I'm not going out and looking for these things, I don't know these other things exist, I don't know that these other teachings are out there, that will help me be a better leader. Instead, I'm just being the leader that I was, I have experienced and have seen in me, and so that whole root system element I've really been latching on to recently with leadership has been really important for me, because I look at those leaders that I have learned from and have grown from and have influenced me in a great way that has helped shape me like Joel was just talking about, have helped me become a place where I don't lose worth and I don't get caught up in what does my leader think about me? I'm better at it. Let's solve the problem. We've got the problem with going to solve it.

Chris LoCurto 28:32
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And that's, you know, I think that's why people appreciate us. And what we teach is that they're not experiencing judgement. They're not experiencing, you know, we're not the bad leaders from their past, or the people going, you got this, let us show you how, you know, it's funny, because we talked about, and we've hit it multiple times in this episode because it's so foundational. And we've talked through killing the leadership Crazy Cycle in the past. There are episodes of that in the past, but it is so foundational to understand the things that are keeping you from being a better leader. First. It's not, I need to go read another book. It's not I need to go, you know, see this motivational speaker, all good stuff, but not going to change your leadership. It's discovering all the things that are holding you back first. And by far the biggest thing is that leadership Crazy Cycle in that you've got yourself stuck. And because of that, that leads to one of the biggest business issues and I have said this over and over and over and over again. And we see it in every single strap plan. We see it all the time you guys see it all the time, Next-Level Mastermind and key leaders programmes, all that kind of stuff. The number one issue in every business number one, number one is the lack of high levels of quality communication. Step number two, it's a number to actually think about But number five is out there. It is, is the number one issue? What are some of the key takeaways from teaching people how to have great communication?

Joel Fortner 30:12
Yeah,, this is where people's eyes really get opened. Because there's so much involved in this short, or this simple little word of communication, there's an immense amount involved in that. Especially when leaders get introduced to personality styles, it is mind-blowing to them, because they can start to see themselves, they start to see their team members and the people they work with, and it's like, oh, my gosh, that's why they do that, oh, my gosh, that's where I'm messing up and my communication, oh, my gosh, now I can see how to better communicate with all these different people on my team for failure, because I didn't know this, and you start getting your eyes open. And it's so intriguing to people. But you know, it's like we talked about from time to time, it's a lot of people take a personality style test to see what it says about them. And then they move on with their life, and there's no application to it. Well, we go super deep and application on DISC personality styles and disc mean, the framework, that's our favourite. So that part is such a powerful introduction. And then we go to phase 2345, with gets them deeper into communication and personality styles. So that is exciting for people. It's not just this, like, oh, gosh, I've got to learn how to delegate, oh, my gosh, I need to run these meetings more effectively, it tends to be something that's, that's exciting for people. So they get those quick wins early on in coaching. And that gives them the traction, the momentum, just to keep going and keep working on things.

Unknown Speaker 31:41
Yeah, and I would add into that, you know, talking about those phases, 234, and five, I mean, this is why I love our key leader programme. This is why I love our mastermind programme. This is why I love our training. Because what we get to do then is we get to talk about communication, not just at the top leader level, but throughout the entire leadership team, and then to the entire team with our team training and stuff. And when you start to open entire teams, ideas around communication and help them see where they don't communicate well, and how they can communicate better, it changes everything within an organisation. It starts from the top all the way down. And that's what I love about that is now we're not just helping a leader go, hey, you need to be able to communicate better with your team. Now we're helping team members communicate better with team members, we're helping leaders communicate better with their leaders leading up and things like that. And that's the key to helping build this communication thing that you're talking about. Chris?

Chris LoCurto 32:35
Yeah, it's I've said it in the past. I don't know if I've said in a long time, but the phrase that I've heard, overwhelmingly, when people have implemented it with their team, you know, it's one thing to learn it yourself. When you learn personality styles yourself, it's great. If you learn it with a spouse, it's fabulous. But when you take your team through it, the thing that I've heard is people come up to me, nobody, they didn't know each other. I've had a leader at a leader come up to me and go, we didn't realise how our communication was chaos. We thought we had great communication until we implemented this. And then we discovered it was chaotic. It was literally chaos in our business. And it's stunning to realise that we were even the business was even moving forward. This is every business, right? It's so funny. Because if you think about it, what is your summary of your biggest complaints as a team member at a company? Oh, well, they don't you know, they don't communicate? Well, I'm not sure what I'm doing. I don't even know if I'm having an effect. You know, it's always this stuff about communication. But then when you become a leader, or you become a business owner, somehow that just is something you forget how chaotic that communication was. And I think maybe it's because you tell yourself, well, I'm going to do it better. I'm going to do it the right way. And then only to find out who taught you how to do it better. If you haven't been through this, what did you learn to do better? So another thing that I'd love for you guys to speak about, and this is something that is so near and dear to our hearts. And I'll just kind of give a little bit of backstory on this. This is something that you know, our company name is pointing, which is a specific type of shepherd who loves his flock kills his flock feeds his flock would leave the 99 for the one that's super important to all of us. When Jesus is talking to Peter. And he's saying Do you love me Do you love me? Yes. Then feed my sheep. The second time he says that if you're looking at in Greek he sang point may know the verb of appointment Shepherd is shepherding my sheep, right? And this is something that's super important to us. And this is something that I felt like God called me to when we started this business and I think it's something that ever since I was in youth ministry back in the late 90s, mid to late 90s. That was something that I just felt like God was calling me to but as we started bringing people on, you know, Joel, you other folks as they came on, Aaron, we started seeing how many people were shepherds, you know, as part of a team. And so it went from there. is oh, well, God's calling me to go Shepherd. Oh, wait for a second, God's coupling me with shepherds. Okay. Well, we Shepherd, right? And then this past Next-Level Leadership Live Event when we were at our office and we were doing we do this fantastic time of just getting together with all the folks that have come to the event and share stories and things and talk through how this business started. As I'm sitting there, I feel like God says, look at all these people, most of those folks are a good number of those people in the room have been with us for a long time, a long period of time in years, been growing, have been doing phenomenal jobs have become great leaders, great business owners, I felt like God was saying their shepherds to their Point Main to they are pointing to and it was just this amazing joy. And almost bring me to tears moment of oh my gosh, we're shepherding folks to shepherd as well. And I just changed my mind that what I was sharing about the event and or about our business and just said, Hey, guys, your shepherds as well and was able to talk through that. And you could just see everybody just get it. And it was such a powerful piece. What is it like as we try and help people to point maintain their team, their families, and all that kind of fun stuff?

Joel Fortner 36:17
Well, it just gives us such an amazing purpose and meaning, where, you know, we're, we've talked to, we've thrown around the words, we do training, we do coaching, we do all those things. earlier on. I said that's how we help people. And that's how we guide people to a greater perspective. But for one our mission shows us why we exist. And our company name shows us why we exist, we're here to shepherd other people, as we've been shepherds, and as we're being shepherds every single day by God. And so it's a total, not just a motivator, it's a total honour that we get to do this. I mean, there's no other place I would ever want to work like I'm doing, I feel like I'm doing exactly what God is, has built me to do with such joy. And this isn't it this if this isn't a job, it's not a job. It's a calling. And it's a purpose. And I'm fulfilled every single day, because of what we get to do. But the most important part is seeing the impact on hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people and the stories of the transformations and the healing, and the business turnarounds. And nowadays, we spend a lot more time, you know, directly teaching teams of our leaders whereas years ago, it was just the leaders. Now we're reaching in and we're able to help the team members directly, just seeing the light bulbs go off, seeing the tears flow at times, seeing them just get changed lives and find freedom in business or find freedom in their lives or their marriages. I mean, what more could we possibly ask for?

Unknown Speaker 38:01
I don't know how much I can add to what Joel said there, because he just spoke what I was gonna say there. I mean, I absolutely love what I get to do. And this idea of being shepherds, shepherding. And teaching others to be shepherds is such a powerful thing. And it's hard to imagine there being something more important for us in what we do with individuals, with teams with businesses, than to just change the lives that we've had the opportunity to.

Chris LoCurto 38:33
Yeah, I think that's what I love. about it being an everyday type of thing is that we have such a phenomenal team. Obviously, you guys that have been, you know, we've been doing this together for so many years, but we have been adding phenomenal people to the team that are behind the same concept, you know, that just love this aspect of helping people shepherding people. And now this concept of shepherding people to be shepherds, right to continue this. It is such a higher calling. Like if we can help you get unstuck in your leadership. If we can help you to get unstuck in your marriage if we can help you to get unstuck in your parenting. Phenomenal, an amazing blessing, incredible honour. But if we can help you to lead in those areas and shepherd people in those areas, world of difference. I mean, it's just a whole new level to helping people and it just feels like such a colossal blessing from God. All right, when we come back, we're gonna hit a couple more of the phenomenal takeaways from the amazing stuff we get to do at the plumbing.

Joel Fortner 39:48
Hey, it's Joel Fortner. Here I'm the vice president of leadership development on Chris's team and I oversee our Next-Level Mastermind business coaching programme. Most business owners and leaders lack a clear path to succeed in business They question whether they're making the right decisions if they're focusing on the right things to really grow their business. If this is you, you need a coach in your life. coaches help you make better decisions, navigate uncertainty lead more effectively, and grow your business without sacrificing your life and your family. In their first year, our clients typically see an average of 67% increase in gross revenue, and an average of 138% increase in net profit and regained hours of time. Our clients stay in the programme for over three and a half years, simply because of the results they get. So if you're ready to run your business at the next level and see the growth you've been wanting, then visit Chrislocurto.com/mastermind. Again, Chrislocurto.com/mastermind today.

Chris LoCurto 40:49
Alright, we're back. And I wanted to kind of hit a couple of things that I know are. I know this is on the minds of people that if this is the first time they're listening, you know, they're saying, Oh, my gosh, people are with you for years. Why do you have to know it's not you have to it's you get to we get to continue to grow? There isn't just one level of leadership growth. There's a tonne. And it's a constant thing, right? So much show, you know, we got the phenomenal folks, I go all the way back to a Josh Gedik in our early days when we're teaching all of these business owners and leaders and he's like, do you mind if I bring one of my leaders with me? So that I don't have to explain all this? Or like, Yes, please do we want you to do that and that everybody else follows suit it to the point you know, we've got a Magnus seminar son who, you know, came in, and he's got, she's I don't know how many folks and key leaders programme

Unknown Speaker 41:45
over 30 easily in the key over 20 of the key leader's programmes right now,

Chris LoCurto 41:49
over 20 in Keillor's programme. And it's just amazing how much you know, being able to have that impact of people learning, this is something that I need my people to learn and grow with, which is just powerful. But if on the first, if this is the first time I listen, I want to know a couple of things. What is this going to do for my productivity? And what is this going to do for my revenues? Speak to those?

Unknown Speaker 42:10
Yeah. So when I think about first off about productivity, I mean, I go back to this whole thing of killing leadership Crazy Cycle first, because so many leaders come in, as we talked about task saturated. But getting beyond that. Now, what happens? Well, now we start digging into things like mission vision goals, we spend time talking about your culture and your core values, and we help you understand the communication piece with your team. And we talk about those things. We talked about how to have tough conversations with team members that a lot of times you don't have training on it. They don't teach you in business school, how to have a tough conversation with a team member. You know, these are things that we dig into and go, Alright, here's how we work through this. Here's how we walk through this, to set you up for success with your team and lead you. And so helping you get to that better place of leading your team instead of just doing the day-to-day stuff, is what makes a difference in your productivity. And in helping you be the leader that your team needs you are going back to a really defining Why am I in leadership? Why am I in the role that I am in? Why do I run this business that I run every day, and help you recognise what I think is the key to productivity? And then when you start talking about the revenue, this is what's amazing to me is we see people who then go and take this stuff, and they put it into practice. And they start leading their team in a different way. And what's funny is when they do that the revenue starts happening. And we start seeing a difference in their gross revenues coming in, we see a difference in their profit that's happening that's coming in, we see their team starting to care more about those things. That before was just Jo B's for their team. Now they understand the passion and the purpose behind what they do. That helps lead to these revenue pieces, these revenue streams for these businesses. And I think it's just amazing when you start stepping back and looking to what our leaders are experiencing through the programmes with those things.

Joel Fortner 44:08
Yeah, I think what big finding we've had is that clarity produces productivity. So when you've got clarity on direction, and I, as an individual team member have greater clarity, on the key results that I'm aiming for, in my role, the KPIs that I need to be tracking, and I'm talking with a leader about them, or let's flip it around, if a leader was talking with our team members consistently about where we're going, how your performances on KPIs and K RAs, on adherence to our culture, you now have the confidence to tackle tough conversations where you used to be intimidated by them or fearful of them for various reasons. You've now established and clearly communicated, where you're going as a company, and why and you're talking about it a lot. And your meetings are uplifting and impactful and then your business becomes more organised and structured. All that clarity causes people to be more productive personality styles, just use spinning, don't want to spend the time that you need to be able to spend with your team members. It all produces clarity. And then you start getting the productivity that comes with it. And you get more ownership and roles and responsibilities. Because people feel better, they feel more bought in and they feel more a part of something. And then this is ultimately where we start to see, okay, because we've got the health of the team where we need it, we have the clarity that we need, we can then start adding more because the business in the team is so much healthier. We're now primed to scale. Now we can go to your thing earlier, Chris talking about how so many businesses would say that we would implode. Now we won't implode? Now we can go after bigger goals and go after bigger opportunities and take bigger risks. And the team's ready for it. Because we're healthy enough to go after that stuff.

Chris LoCurto 45:57
Yeah, I think back, one of the things that just jump to my mind, you were doing, I think it was a customer service training for one of our clients that brought a whole team up to our office. And I don't know what I was doing. I don't know if I was at the next level of life or if I was just working on other things or something. But I know I was tied up with something I came down at lunchtime. And I stepped outside and some of the team members were outside. And a because we I think we did a food truck, you know, and so I went out to get some food. And so I was talking to some of the team members. And one of the guys there. He said, Hey, can I tell you some? I didn't know him. I mean, maybe he knew who I was, I don't know. He was gonna take some I said, Yeah, he goes, I left this company a couple of years ago because of how bad the culture was. Because I came back because of how good it's become. And I just, I mean, everything, it gives me chills to think about it right now of thinking, here's somebody who left because he just couldn't stand the culture. And this company jumped in, started walking through these processes, did multiple strap plans and just went ballistic, this is a pretty decent-sized company that went ballistic on changing things. And it changed so much that somebody who left because they didn't like the culture came back because of how much the culture changed. And I think that's just so powerful. Because this is exactly what we're looking for, you know, in both of you have touched on this, of how much it just changes, definitely the productivity is bigger, obviously, they're going to make more revenues. You know, on the average strap plan, we find 2.1 million above what they're planning, not because we're just finding revenue opportunities, but because we're discovering the things that are keeping them from getting to that place. Things like bad communication, things like horrible culture, things like incredible lack of accountability, things like not having KRAS on your teams, things like, you know, just all the different things, I could rattle off a bajillion of these things that are keeping them from actually getting to greater revenues. And then when they do it, it explodes. So I think it's just so powerful. And I love it. I love that we're talking about this, you know, we've got so many clients that when they come in, they come into like the coaching side, they're focused on leadership, they're focused on how to run a business better, they're focused on how to lead other people more effectively. So that they can run a profitable business. But the amazing thing is, after they've been here for a while, they start to discover a whole other world, of growth as a leader, learning more as a leader, learning how to be a shepherd of others, and seeing this other amazing level of transformation. So just so powerful, last takeaways from you guys.

Joel Fortner 48:47
It's been a blast in years. I mean, it's just talking

Chris LoCurto 48:50
about it, it's emotional and talking about it's amazing.

Joel Fortner 48:52
And it's very fun memories of thinking about, you know, talking to people and 10 years ago, and walking around on the sidewalk and Allegan Alexandria, Virginia, you know, selling what we did and talking to people about it, or on my breaks when I worked at the Pentagon and very fond memories to look at what God has done and what he's woven together over the last 10 years and I think about I just makes me wonder like, you know, Lord willing, what what are the next 10 years look like? It's, I imagine it's going to be full of surprises, and full of just more amazing stuff.

Unknown Speaker 49:28
Yeah, I would agree with that too. Because it's been fun for me, you know, I've been on the team now for just at you know, just over three years. But I've been kind of on the outside looking in through AV stuff for gosh, seven or eight years of the 10 years that we've been doing stuff and you know, working with Chris early on when you first made the transition and watching what happened is as you create it, you know, Next-Level life and strat plan early on, and now what it's become has been a has been just absolutely amazing to be a part of that and watch that over the last really last, you know, 789 10 years that I've been not only a part of the team but just watching from the outside in.

Chris LoCurto 50:12
Yeah, well, it is an honour to do this with you guys, you guys know that I tell you all the time. And the thing that I've been sharing with the team lately is, how strong this team is and how much I love, you know, the phenomenal team and the hearts more than anything. You know, we have incredibly capable people, we have people with great capacity. But we have people with great hearts. And I think that has been the funniest thing ever. So folks, hopefully, you're hearing our hearts here. Our hearts are for businesses, for leaders, helping you guys to have the best leadership, the best business the best life you possibly can. That's why we do all the things that we do. If you've been struggling or you know somebody who's been struggling to get them, get them to subscribe to the podcast, and get them to April's Next-Level Leadership live event which will be big, right? Get them into a strap plan with their leadership team, whatever it is, we would love to help as much as possible. And if at all possible, if we can help leaders to lead better and also help them to become shepherds, if we can help you to become a shepherd of your team, your family, and those around you that that's our goal. That's our hope. So hopefully we can do that. Well guys, thank you again for joining me today.

Joel Fortner 51:25
Thank you. Great to be here, as always appreciate it.

Chris LoCurto 51:27
We'll do this again here in a couple of weeks as we talk through the life side looking forward to that. But folks, that's all the time we have for today. So hopefully this information has helped you today. We want you to take this information, this information that we are celebrating after 10 years. Take this change your leadership, change business, change your life, and join us on the next episode.