IAM471- Speaker and Trainer Connects With Audiences for Magic in Leadership

Summer Jelinek has been a speaker and trainer for more than 6 years. She has 20 years of leadership experience working with companies such as Walt Disney World, Disney Institute, and H-E-B/Central Market. Her passion is connecting with audiences around the world-particularly audiences looking for the magic in leadership.

• CEO Hack: Being creative with my time to make it work
• CEO Nugget: Manage yourself first
• CEO Defined: Lot of responsibility and freedom to create your vision

Website: http://www.summerjelinek.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/summerjelinek/

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Transcription

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Intro 0:02

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 IAMCEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello, this is Gresh from the IAMCEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today Summer Jelinek of summerjelinek.com. Summer, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Summer Jelinek 0:38

Thank you very much. I'm super excited to be here.

Gresham Harkless 0:40

No problem super excited to have you on. And what I want to do is just read a little bit more about summer so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Summer has been a speaker and trainer for more than six years. She has 20 years of leadership experience working with companies such as Walt Disney World, Disney Institute, and HEB Central Market, and her passion is connecting with audiences around the world, particularly audiences looking for the magic in leadership. So are you ready to speak to the IAMCEO community?

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Summer Jelinek 1:03

I am? Yes.

Gresham Harkless 1:05

Awesome. Let's do it. So to kick everything off, I wanted to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. What led you to start with the business? Yeah,

Summer Jelinek 1:11

Absolutely. So as you mentioned, I've been in leadership for about 20 years. And I was watching some leaders get it really right. And some leaders get it really wrong. And then most leaders were just kind of in the middle. The further I grew in the corporate world, the more that I was starting to see some burnout. People who were in the job, and they couldn't really think of anything else to do, but they weren't enjoying it. And I got frustrated with that. Because I love leadership. I love the impact that we can have on people.

And I think sometimes leaders just get caught up in the why am I surrounded by people who don't want to do their job, instead of looking at it like the puzzle and the challenge that it is. So I decided that I wanted to create a leadership company where I do a little bit of speaking, coaching, and consulting. And it's helping leaders find the magic and leadership.

So finding that magic within themselves, that gets them excited coming into work. And then that kind of spreads throughout their team, which helps the company because they're delivering higher employee engagement, higher employee morale. And whenever your employees are happy, generally you make more money. So it's a win-win for everybody.

Gresham Harkless 2:10

There you go. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Definitely a win win win situation. And I love kind of how you spoke about the whole perspective. Because I think a lot of times, you know, you don't think about when you're frustrated exactly like the challenge of it, sometimes as you said, it's kind of like a puzzle piece. How do you fit these pieces together to get the overall picture and hit the mission and the goals that you have for your company or your team?

Summer Jelinek 2:30
Absolutely.

Gresham Harkless 2:31

And I know you touched on it a little bit, but I want to hear a little bit more on how you're working with the clients. Can you take me through the speaking and training and everything you're doing with your clients?

Summer Jelinek 2:38

Sure. Yeah. So I live primarily in three buckets. So the first one is speaking, and that's one that I'm doing the most of right now. So I speak to small organizations, large organizations, and conferences, and my primary focus is, it's called the five keys to unlocking your leadership potential, the magic of leadership. And I have created five magic principles if you will. And so we speak through those kinds of what that looks like.

So high level, how can you get that just quick shot of energy and excitement, to really remember why you went into leadership, to begin with, why you are excited, and the impact that you have on all of the people that follow you? And then the next piece is coaching. So an individual can come to me and say, you know, my leadership career here, I want to take it to the next level, or I'm struggling with employee morale.

I'm having a lot of issues with conflict management, you know, how do I effectively coach my employees, and we can work through those individual pieces. And then the final piece is a company can see, you know, a symptom, so you have low employee morale across the entire company. So you have 500 to 1000 employees. So most of the time, if you start doing some research, it'll always connect back to leadership. So they can bring me in to kind of assess and identify what's causing the issues. And then we can build a plan so that together, we can work through improving whatever symptoms they're seeing.

Gresham Harkless 3:52

Yeah, that makes so much sense. And it's funny, I think I just actually got a book in the mail. There was there's like this Gallup report that talked about it. And it's actually the book is actually called, it's “The Manager” I believe it is, we had it on our bookshelf, but it speaks exactly to what you just said that I think a lot of times when, you know, people are looking, you know, outside, into, why things aren't moving, how they want them to move, or they're not hitting the goals that they want to hit.

But a lot of times that's that leadership piece is that manager or whatever role that might be that has the power to take it to another level and not be caught in the middle as you kind of spoke to before.

Summer Jelinek 4:21

Yeah, and the Mayo Clinic just released a statistic that was kind of alarming. And it says that my employees I have more impact on my employees' health than their personal physician. I mean, how much weight is that to carry as a leader, and many times leaders take it for granted how much of an impact they have on their employees' lives. And you know, I want to shed light on that. Put the responsibility back on our shoulders, but also give the tools to leaders. So they feel like they can do it.

Gresham Harkless 4:48

Yeah, that's a huge thing and a very powerful study, and I hadn't heard of it but it goes back to I had heard I guess kind of more so on the flip side, and I don't have any statistics or anything, but I've heard and definitely let me know if you've heard the exact same thing where a lot of times A lot of people's health problems, whether it be weight or chronic illness, whatever it is, can be related to stress. And a lot of times that stress happens because we spend so much time in the office at work. And if you don't have a great environment, it can be really a bad place for your health as well.

Summer Jelinek 5:14

Yeah, I'm always telling people, it's like, look at the amount of time that you spend at work. If you don't love what you're doing, why are you willingly every day waking up and going into that environment? I mean, we spend more time at work than we do any other portion of our lives. And so it doesn't make sense to me because it has such a huge impact on their health. And whenever they're going into these organizations that don't value them or don't have it set up to set them up for success. It's so detrimental to our lives, all aspects of our lives, not just our health.

Gresham Harkless 5:43

Yeah, absolutely. Because things aren't necessarily compartmentalized, they lead into other so if you're stressed at work, sometimes it can come to you the way you interact with your family, and so on and so forth. So that's why I appreciate the work that you're doing. Because sometimes we feel like there's not a better way, or it's not possible to change or anything like that.

But you're working, you know, to empower these leaders empower these, you know, management professionals to make sure that they are able to create that environment. And they can do it if you know they're working with people like you.

Summer Jelinek 6:08

Absolutely.

Gresham Harkless 6:09

You might have already touched on this, but I want to ask you for what I call your secret sauce, and it could be for you or your organization. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

Summer Jelinek 6:17

So this is it's cheesy to start with. But let me explain before anybody makes a judgment. My job said that I still believe in magic, and I really do like the everyday magic that exists when one person reaches out to another person I like to use my husband and I as an example. This will show you the level of my dorkiness. But I met my husband playing a video game online way back in the day before it was cool to meet your significant other online.

And I'll look at my daughter, she's three years old, and I look at my daughter and think you exist because of a video game. There was no reason that my husband and I should have ever met, we were in different parts of the country doing very different things. And it's those small steps like you go outside and you go right instead of laughing your entire world changes. And I believe the magic of leadership is when a leader looks at somebody for the very first time and doesn't see a screw-up.

But she's this amazing potential that hasn't had an outlet. And that's the thing that makes us different is we're not about telling everybody what we're doing wrong, we're about going in and helping leaders find their potential as well. And bringing that to the surface and saying, you know, you're not going to be a cookie cutter, a leader, your superpowers are XY and Z. And let me show you how that can drive your team. Let me show you how you can make all of these incredible changes.

And you don't have to look like every other leader, you just have to find what makes you unique and what your superpower and your magic is. And you have to build that and train that and this around people whose magic isn't the exact same copy of yours, right?

So find people who are different and look at things differently. So you end up having a very well-balanced team, because that's when the magic happens when a group of people who are very different come together and they're all accepted for who they are and what they bring to the team, that that's where the difference is, and too many times we look at people and say, Oh, you're bad at time management.

So let me give you a time management class, when that person will always maybe only the average at time management, why can't we put a ton of effort into you're really great at relationship building. So let's give you a sales classically, even our sales department. Right? So looking at what people bring to the table instead of what they don't have.

Gresham Harkless 8:17

Absolutely, yeah, and I don't think that's cheesy at all if I get a vote. So I think that's a phenomenal example because I think at the end of the day, you know, I think work is a big part of our lives. And I think that a lot of times we want to be appreciated, I think just from a humanistic standpoint, that's what we want. We want to be in and have an environment where we're able to be ourselves and be who we are and understand that we do these things, you know better than others.

We're not great at time management, we're awesome at being able to connect with people and build those relationships. And we want people to kind of shine light on us. And I think like you said it's a true definition and true example of leadership for a leader to understand and see that in somebody and put them in a place so that they can be successful. So that the overall puzzle so to speak, it gets put together in the right way.

Summer Jelinek 9:00

Absolutely, yes. It's you know, that's that's the differentiator between the great companies and the so-so company.

Gresham Harkless 9:05

Absolutely. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit. And I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be an apple book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Summer Jelinek 9:16

When I first went on my CEO journey, I was trying to do it the way that I thought it was supposed to be done, even though I teach don't do that. And so I was running out of time every day. And you know, being a CEO, you never have enough time. So I started having to get really creative with my time. As I mentioned, I have a three-year-old and I'm still working in the corporate world, I'm transitioning, so I would work 30 minutes in the morning, and then I would go to my day job, come home, spend the rest of the evening with my daughter and then work 30 to 45 minutes at night.

And then I changed my days off. Luckily I have a job now where I can adjust my days off but I changed my days off to where I have a day off during the middle of the week for networking and things like that. So instead of looking at my life the way that it had been I was getting creative and understanding these are the pain points that I'm finding what solutions exist, and then finding a way to create those solutions.

So be creative with your time, understand that it doesn't have to look like everybody else's time, and make it work for whatever it is that you're trying to do so that you can manage all of your priorities.

Gresham Harkless 10:15

I love that. And I definitely appreciate that. And it kind of reminds me I think I heard and I don't know if I'm gonna say it correctly. But a lot of times, there's magic, I'm gonna use the word magic, just cuz we were talking about magic a little bit earlier. But there's magic and constraints.

Because a lot of times when you have, you know, only a certain period of time, it has been, I guess, kind of show that it makes you be more creative and come up with different solutions because you have those constraints. And sometimes we shouldn't look at constraints as necessarily bad things. But there are opportunities to kind of do things differently than how everybody else is doing them, so to speak.

Summer Jelinek 10:43

Yeah, I mean, no change is going to happen until we're forced to change. So I like that there's magic in constraints, I've never heard that I'm actually writing it down right now.

Gresham Harkless 10:49
Okay. If you hadn't heard that, if anybody else has, it's definitely mine, I'll take credit.

Summer Jelinek 10:55

And I will give you the credit. That's a great quote. But yeah, there is magic and constraints. You know, it forces us to be creative.

Gresham Harkless 11:03

Yeah, absolutely. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And that is a word of wisdom or piece of advice. Or if you can hop into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self.

Summer Jelinek 11:12

So this is actually the first key and there are five keys that I was telling you about. And it's manage yourself first, I think that's where a lot of shortcomings happen with anybody who's in a leadership position. And it's not just leaders that are paid to be leaders, but teachers and parents and coaches is we don't look at what we're doing and what impact we're having on the organization.

So whenever I was going to school for my MBA, I had a professor who taught me that, to work with him through others, you have to be the one to change, you cannot change anybody else. You have to be the one to change. And so it's always looking within ourselves and figuring out okay, this didn't go the way that I wanted it to, what could I have done differently? How could I have changed?

And then the other piece of managing yourself first is if you do mess up because we are human, we will have mistakes, oh, no to it, right? Take the ego, take that little voice in the back of our heads that tells us we got to be better, and we got to be perfect. And mute it. Get it into that because the ego does no good when you're in a leadership position over anybody whether it's your kids or your partner, it doesn't help the situation.

So learn how to begin using that. And you're more than you're more likely to be able to step up and own your mistakes, apologize when you need to apologize, and fix situations whenever the ego is not in the back of your head.

Gresham Harkless 12:25

Yeah, I definitely appreciate those nuggets, just because I definitely correct me if I'm wrong, it sounds like you know, it also requires a lot of self-awareness. Because in order to manage yourself, you kind of have to know who you are. And, I think that when you do that, that helps you to be able to kind of manage yourself so that you can control what you can control, as I usually say. So you're not actually trying to force somebody to change, you're actually changing your perspective or changing who you are, or not who you are, but maybe what you're doing and how you're reacting to certain situations so that you can actually see the ultimate goal that you want to have.

Summer Jelinek 12:53

Yes, absolutely. And that self-awareness that escaped, learn as much as you can about yourself.

Gresham Harkless 13:00

Absolutely. I appreciate that. And now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So summer, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Summer Jelinek 13:10

CEO means a few things, it means a lot of responsibility. I'm responsible for the first time in my life, I make all of the decisions. And what does that look like? And my company's success or failure falls completely on my shoulders? So is that responsibility, peace, freedom. So for the first time, I'm the one making the decisions, I don't have somebody saying, Oh, that won't work. Or we tried that before, let's you know, where you need to do this, or we have budgetary constraints.

It's the freedom to figure out, you know, like, we mentioned, magic and constraints. So what are my constraints? And how can I get around them. And using the full ability of my skillset and my superpowers to create this entity into what I want it to be. Now, in five years, I'll tell you whether I was successful in it or not. But right now, that's still that's the super exciting part of the responsibility, and the freedom to kind of see what happens and, you know, the business will be as big or as small as I create it to be. So it's very, very humbling, and very exciting.

Gresham Harkless 14:07

Absolutely, and I appreciate that perspective. And like you said, you know, the freedom to kind of create what you want. And even, you know, going back to what you were talking about, you know, with a nugget as far as like creating that environment where, you know, it's okay to have mistakes, and you as a leader, a lot of people will take, it will march to the beat of your drum, so to speak.

So if you do say, Hey, I made a mistake, then it becomes an environment where you're able to do that. And it's all due to the creation that you have. So the freedom to be able to paint that picture to create the vision for your company. And to be able to execute that in the way that you see fit and want to have is definitely a big definition and big perspective about being a CEO.

Awesome. Well, what I wanted to do was pass you the mic, 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 and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

Summer Jelinek 14:53

So I think the thing that I would want all of your readers to know is to forgive them and be forgiving of themselves. Because most CEOs, people that are very driven, I found tend to be forgiving of others but not forgiving themselves. So when you're going through a journey, you're going through a major change, you want to hold yourself to a higher standard, absolutely. But when you fall, it's okay to be as forgiving of yourself as you are of your employees your partner, or your children.

There's too much negative self-talk that we have going, and it drives us and it makes us stronger, but there's got to be a balance. So definitely forgive yourself and be open to we are human, whether we like it or not, it drives me crazy every day, but I am only human, but we are only human. And then the best way to get a hold of me is you email me at summer just like the season at summerjelinek.

Or you are more than welcome to go to summerjelinek.com Check out the website, and see if there's anything that I can do to assist I would love to have a conversation with anybody opening it up if they say that they heard me on your podcast and I'd be happy to give them a 30 minute coaching call for no charge. Just have a conversation and see if I can help.

Gresham Harkless 16:05

Awesome awesome awesome well thank you so much again summer for all the awesome things you're doing. And in the great words of wisdom you gave to us on how to be better leaders. We will have those links in that information in the show notes as well just so that everybody can follow up with you and take advantage of that coaching call as well. But thank you so much for all the awesome things you're doing. I hope you have a phenomenal day.

Outro 16:21

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 IAMCEO podcast with Gresham Harkless Thank you for listening.

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