IAM462- Business Coach Helps Clients Affect Real Change for Success

Todd helps his clients ditch their comfort zone, dive into their “failures,” and re-frame their mindset to be more authentic, transparent, and vulnerable to affect real change along the path to success.

• CEO Hack: (1) Working in 15-minutes bits  (2) Annual to-do list of things I want to accomplish
• CEO Nugget: Trust your guts more and listen to the doubters less
• CEO Defined: Servant to others

Website: http://www.extraordinaryadvisors.com/

Twitter: @toddpalmer
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddpalmer1/
Instagram: @toddpalmer2

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Transcription

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GE APM 0:00

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Intro 0:31

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:59

Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I've Todd Palmer of Extraordinary Advisors. Todd, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Todd Palmer 1:07

Great to be here. Great to be here.

Gresham Harkless 1:09

Super excited to have you on and what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Todd so you hear about all the awesome things that he's doing, and how to help his clients ditch their comfort zone, dive into their failures and reframe their mindsets to be more authentic, transparent and vulnerable to affect real changes along the path to success. Todd, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Todd Palmer 1:26

I am ready to bring it. Let's go.

Gresham Harkless 1:27

Let's make it happen. So to kick everything off, I want to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. And when did you get started with your business?

Todd Palmer 3:27

So well, my CEO story started, gosh, about 25 years ago, I had an idea to start a staffing business in Metro Detroit and my original business plan was for about $140,000 capital. But because I needed all the bells and whistles I needed everything and as a 27-year-old guy at the time everybody wanted to give you $140,000 No problem. You gotta double that. No, that's not true.

So my eventual launch about 18 months after doing my plan was for $15,000. I got it from one of the three F's friends, family, and fools, and quickly drove that to a point of being profitable, coz it was a great time to start a business. Because the country like it is today was full of employment. So I've gotten to the staffing space, if I had people, there are plenty of companies that would take them on.

So flash forward nine years later, and I thought I got over that five-year hump where I read most businesses either succeed or fail, thinking I gotta figure it out. I don't wanna say I woke up one day, but I realized one day that I was $600,000 in debt.

I was two months away from running out of all of my money, a toxic and dysfunctional culture with my staff and I was, as the CEO, suffering from impostor syndrome. I couldn't get out of bed. I thought I had to have all the answers all the time. I was really in a really bad spot. So what I did is actually reach out and I hired a coach, with my last credit card being massively in debt and we're talking about sports a minute ago is my Hail Mary pass.

Gresham Harkless 2:58

Right.

Todd Palmer 2:59

I was in my endzone. I forgot to shut the ball down as far as I could throw it and hoped this coach would help catch it and carry me to victory. And I got lucky. He did. He was willing to work with me. The first thing we did was we fired my entire company and I started over.

Gresham Harkless 3:11

Wow.

Todd Palmer 3:11

So I'm, $600,000 in debt. I'm working a tremendous amount of hours a week. I started slowly rehiring people, started hiring people for their DNA, not for their resumes. I was in the recruiting space, I was hiring people previously, you had a lot of recruiting background, and it was no longer working for me.

I spent a lot of time working on my mindset, not in changing my way of looking at things and seeing more abundance, not scarcity, focusing on the intention of being successful versus having the definitive plan on what success would look like and lo and behold, a year later, we made the inc 5000, for the first six times is one of America's fastest-growing companies. So it's been a ride for sure.

Gresham Harkless 3:48

Nice. Well, I definitely appreciate that. I know how difficult it can be, kind of like when you're on that treadmill, and you're going going going even with the knowledge knowing you only have too much left, but even still, to be able to kind of redirect yourself is really, really difficult because I always say like the biggest enemy for anything is usually like that complacency or continuing to do what you've been doing and to make that shift or change is sometimes really difficult.

Todd Palmer 4:11

Well, I couldn't agree more I tell my clients that I do a screening process for my clients to take out extraordinary advisors and you get the clients. I've always done things this way and it's always worked for me and I really don't want to change it, then they're not a good fit. I can't help the blind to see.

Gresham Harkless 4:25

Right.

Todd Palmer 4:26

The reality is within most organizations, that the bottleneck within the organizations typically starts at the top of a fine bottle, a fine bottle of wine poured from the top. If you gotta fix the company you gotta start with the CEO and it's a struggle sometimes, for that CEO to have that level of self-awareness required to look from within to change the world that exists outside of themselves.

That's what I find to be the biggest challenge, but also now that I'm coaching them, it's my biggest reward and I often will speak from experience I'll tell them the debt story, I found the firing story, I tell them the other stories of myself and other CEOs that I've worked with, let them know that they're not alone. Anybody listening today struggles with self-awareness and concern as we get immersed in fear and self-doubt.

There's a lot of different techniques to get out of there. But it all starts with having a recognition and awareness of what you're, you're being you're being put through.

Gresham Harkless 5:12

Yeah, absolutely and I think it's definitely, really, really difficult to just because sometimes you have that fear of, yes, the grass may be greener on the other side, but what if there's not even any grass, where the grass is brown, you're always a fear of making that change.

It's always great when you have people that you can lean on, like yourself, that you can be able to kind of work through a lot of those things so you can still see the impact that you want to have.

I know you touched on it a little bit, but I want to hear a little bit more about what you're doing with extraordinary advisors. Can you take us through exactly how you work with clients and some of the services you provide?

Todd Palmer 5:41

Sure, it's a really simple yet complex process. I start with a new diagnostic, and in the interview process, because what I find is that people hear me on a podcast like yours or listen to me speak on stage, and they will identify them as a good fit for them. I have to identify whether are they a good fit for what I can provide them. I focus a lot on the mindset.

So I have to understand how they hit bottom, I have a couple of clients who shared stories from their personal lives and family members of theirs, or even some of them who've been through 12-step programs “Have they hit bottom?” Because you can't change until you reach that point, we either change because we recognize we have a heightened sense of awareness that what we're doing doesn't work anymore, or the world has told us what we're doing doesn't work anymore, usually one of the two.

In my process, we've spent a lot of time getting them to refocus on what success looks like. I create a life by design. Being part of a life by design is being an entrepreneur, but it's also being a partner, a husband, or a wife is being a parent sometimes, it's being the parent to your parents, as some of my entrepreneurs are getting older, and creating that life by design so that they recognize that failure is just a construct.

Now people probably say, oh, my gosh, I failed, and it hurts and it stinks. I understand that. But the reality is if you try something, and it doesn't work for you, you've learned, and you haven't failed. From someone who learned a lot and struggled a lot. It's a matter of reframing what definitely works.

Actually, I gave a speech in Toronto, and a nine-year-old boy taught me that I was really getting a message across guys, and then 15 minutes, I said that we've failed 12 times. He wrote this diagram that connected the word failed 12 times and equals success. So he said, Mr. Todd, if I just keep trying, and I keep learning, and I keep trying, I keep learning, I keep trying, and I keep learning, I'm never gonna fail, because I'm never gonna do the same thing 12 times. That for the mouth of babes comes the greatest amount of wisdom, right?

That's what I do with my clients. So I have a very simple program, I do a call twice a month with the CEO and I meet quarterly with the leadership team. And then for me, the part I think is the most important for them is they have access to me 24/7, 365 on text or cell phone, so that if they're in the middle of a crisis, they're in the middle of an urgent issue, or they get hijacked by fear and self-doubt, they can text or call me and I can be available to get them out of it.

Unlike a lot of coaching programs out there, there are not great coaching programs out there, don't get me wrong. Mine is, I really enjoy walking the path of leadership, right alongside the CEO. So that when they're in chaos, they're in crisis, I can be there because chances are what they're experiencing, I've already dealt with, or I'm one of my clients is dealt with, and they don't have to suffer for more than just a few minutes versus waiting to our next quarterly meeting.

Gresham Harkless 8:19

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I think that's one of the great benefits of having a great team and the team, including a coach to be able to lean on that expertise because a lot of times, as you said, I guess as a nine-year-old said is that when you understand that if you fail 12 times, that you keep not doing the same thing, it allows you to be successful.

If you can understand maybe six of those things, your coach says this, so and so did so maybe you can avoid that. It also sounds like it might help you to be more successful, and a little bit quicker as well, too.

Todd Palmer 8:45

Well, It's so amazing that you said it because I find that when the CEOs and the leaders apply this to their personal lives, their relationships with their spouses get better. Their relationships with their children get better, relationships with their friends get better because what they're doing is they're, they're taking off the masks or taking off the masks of leadership, and the masks of what I think I should be or how I think I should conduct myself to becoming real, becoming authentic, becoming transparent, and demonstrating a level of vulnerability that maybe they were uncomfortable sharing before. I think, especially for a lot of the male leaders I work with to show authenticity, transparency, and vulnerability would be seen as a weakness.

Gresham Harkless 9:19

Right

Todd Palmer 9:19

And it's the exact opposite. The more we are real, the more we are transparent with our staff, and with our families, the more buy-in we get, the more collaboration we receive, and the greater the success becomes.

Gresham Harkless 9:32

Yeah, absolutely. And I know, you touched on the idea of like, imposter syndrome as well, too, because I feel like so many of us deal with it and have to face that but I think that it's also this kind of, like you said mask that we put up so that nobody knows that we have impostor syndrome, but technically kind of everybody has it. So it's kind of like, that balance beam, I guess, act that you have to do as a CEO or as a business owner, just to make sure that you're trying to be successful.

Todd Palmer 9:54

I have a great story for that. So a couple of weeks ago, I was really blessed. I was part of a group of CEOs and we get together, they get together for a conference every year, there are 600 CEOs in the room that are the top 5% of all CEOs statistically in America. I'm introducing one of the speakers, actually introducing my coach who I currently use.

He's one of the world's leading mindset neuroscientists for the West Coast. And I went up there and told the story, of how, by me shifting my mind, I improved my key relationship. As I'm a single dad, and I had an opportunity, I was not connected to my son through his choice. And I told the story in about four minutes about how I was able to reconnect with my son. Through the work I do with my coach, Danny. There are people crying in the audience.

Gresham Harkless 10:33

Right.

Todd Palmer 10:34

I didn't do it for the purpose of striking that chord, I did it for the purpose that this is my reality. This is what I experienced. I had people that I've known for 15 years come up to me afterward saying, oh, my gosh, we've never seen you so real. We thought maybe with a mask on now we see this guy, a father who struggled and it was at the peak of my business success. I'm on the Inc. 5007 times, and I don't have a relationship with my son. That's painful.

That is not a life by design at all. But the greatest gift for me was these people coming up and sharing with me how I took off my mask. And then I turned around to walk offstage. And my coach, my mentor, was standing there. And he was in tears because he had now seen the impact he had on me and my family, oh, by the way, my business. And that's such a powerful experience, to stand in front of a room and be real, and to be accepted and to be heard, I challenge all of my CEOs to do that with their leadership teams. I feel if I haven't made my CEO cry, within the first three months of working with me, I'm not doing my job.

Gresham Harkless 11:32

There you go. And maybe that can, be because I was actually going to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And there's the extra secret sauce to make your CEO cry to really get down to the nitty-gritty, to understand who that is, who they are as a person.

Todd Palmer 11:43

It's not who they are, as a person, that's certainly a part of it. It's more, and I suffered from this as well to actually put a stake in the ground, and to stand up and say this is what I want. I had a CEO recently say to me, I want to retire, I want to stop doing this, I want to walk away from my business. She burst into tears.

Another CEO said to me, I want my company to thrive and be successful because I remember what it was like to be on welfare and to have no money and I never want to feel that way, they started talking about his employees and he trailed, he started getting tearily eyed and started to losing his composure and getting very real because I never want any of you to be there.

Because no one had my back, I want you all to know in the room that I have your back. He's weeping, some of his employees are tearing up. Those are real moments we as people connect with.

Gresham Harkless 11:43

It's definitely awesome. So I appreciate you for sharing those stories. Definitely also, of course, the work that you do. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app or book or a habit that you have but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Todd Palmer 12:47

By working 15-minute bites, typically, I find that's really, really helpful. I do an annual to-do list of things I want to accomplish. But what I shifted out as I shifted to the intention of accomplishing, so it's the essence of success. I don't always have a step-by-step process and sometimes life will throw me a curveball and it won't happen just the way I want it. I really focus on intention, not expectation, and I find that to be super helpful.

Gresham Harkless 13:09

Nice. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. So this is a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. Or if you could happen to be a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Todd Palmer 13:19

You know, I think we all struggle with self-esteem. I think we all struggle with self-confidence. I think a lot of entrepreneurs can be brash and bold and be out there. I think that if I could go back and talk to the young Todd Palmer, I would point out to him to trust his gut more and to listen to the doubters less.

Gresham Harkless 13:33

Yeah, that makes total sense. So now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is a definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different “CEOs” on the show. So Todd, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Todd Palmer 13:45

I think for me being a CEO, is is about being a servant to others. It's about taking care of my teams, it's about taking care of my clients and taking care of what they want. If I do a really good job of taking care of my employees who serve my clients, if do a really good job of taking care of my clients who serve my employees then as the CEO, I will be fine. In my mind is kind of the inverse of a pyramid. I am of service to both of those audiences. And in turn, I will get taken care of. If I may get that they're both in service to me at the top of the pyramid I've never seen that work.

Gresham Harkless 14:22

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I think that getting back to what we kind of talked about before, that emit that mission and understanding why you're doing what you're doing. If you're helping to support you create a kind of energy where you're helping out your client, you're helping out of your team and creates that energy where it creates, you know, just a great environment for not just yourself but also for everybody's families, friends, all that starts to happen largely because you have that kind of service mentality.

Todd Palmer 14:44

Well, I think it's really key to recognize that nobody takes his journey in life alone, and like I talked about an entrepreneur loan as an entrepreneur at risk. When I want to give a speech my job is to go on stage and to be of service to that audience and I have a very casual style I know what I want to talk about but if somebody wants to know, all they want to do is a Q&A.

The Best time I've had lots of crazy questions and experience shares, and was the energy in the room, that conversation that was powerful. If I walked out, I said, please hold your questions to the end, because all about me talking about how great I am, it would have been a very different, much less enjoyable experience. My job is to be of service to the audience. When I'm on stage, my job is to be of service to my clients that I service as extraordinary advisors. My job is to be of service to the audience today who's listening to your podcast.

Gresham Harkless 15:30

Well, awesome. Well, you've been of incredible service today Todd. I truly appreciate you, appreciate your time. What I wanted to do was passionate, Mike, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional, you can let our readers and listeners know. And then of course, how best they can get a hold of you find out about all the awesome things you're doing, and start work with you as well.

Todd Palmer 15:44

Well, thank you so much. You know, what I'd like to do is for anybody who's listening today, or in the future, who has heard me on your program, I'd like them to write to me at extraordinaryadvisors.com Go to the ‘Contact Us' section and say they heard me in a show and mention, maybe something you liked or something you want to talk to me about and to honor all those mentors and leaders who worked with me, I'd like to give them a half hour of my time for free, just to talk to them to see what's going on. I've had some powerful conversations, literally around the globe with people.

I had one guy who got, like three in the morning in Norway to have a conversation with me, because he was stuck on an issue working through it. He hasn't talked to me but he wrote me such a glowing review on Facebook, I couldn't thank the guy enough. Those enriching conversations are why I do what I do to help somebody who maybe doesn't have to get $600,000 in debt and fire their entire company. So that's what I'd like to offer your audience today.

Anybody who's interested write to me at extraordinaryadvisors.com. Myself or my booking manager, Jeremy will get me on your calendar, and we'll have a conversation to see how I can be of service to you.

Gresham Harkless 16:39

Awesome, awesome. awesome. Well, thank you so much again, Todd. We will also have that information in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you but truly appreciate your time. Appreciate you, reminding us of so many things of why we're doing exactly what we're doing. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Outro 16:52

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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