IAM983- Founder Creates Unique Methodology for Organizations

Founder of Innate Leaders, psychological coach, mindset consultant, writer, and thinker, Joe Britto has worked with a wide range of entrepreneurs and leadership teams across the non-profit, public and private sectors. His grounding in experiential learning, along with his studies in literary theory and psychological coaching, has allowed him to create a unique methodology that has successfully facilitated sustainable results for a range of organizations including Lockheed Martin, NASA, Coca-Cola, and intel. Joe’s passion for his work comes from a personal belief that when mindsets shift everything shifts.

• CEO Hack: Starting and ending the day with meditation
• CEO Nugget: Allow the idea, business and process to evolve
• CEO Defined: Being at the helm of my life and meeting incredible people

Website: http://www.innateleaders.com/

www.sixattributes.com

https://il4life.com/

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/joebritto
Instagram: @innateleaders
Twitter: @innateleaders
Blog: https://www.innateleaders.com/blog-sign-up

Full Interview:

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Transcription

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[00:00:12.50] – Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without your time? Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I Am CEO podcast.

[00:00:40.60] – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I Am CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Joe Brito of Innate Leaders. Joe, it's awesome to have you on the show.

[00:00:48.70] – Joe Britto

Thank you. Thank you for having me

[00:00:50.79] – Gresham Harkless

Definitely. Super excited to have you on. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Joe so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. And Joe is the founder of Innate Leaders. Psycho, is a psychological coach, mindset consultant, writer, and thinker. Joe has worked with a wide range of entrepreneurs and leadership teams across the nonprofit, public, and private sectors.

His grounding and expert experiential learning along with his studies in liter literary theory and psychological coaching has allowed him to create a unique methodology that has successfully facilitated sustainable results for a range of organizations including Lockheed Martin, NASA, Coca-Cola, and Intel. Joe's passion for his work comes from a personal belief that when his mindset shifts, everything shifts. Joe, are you ready to speak to the I Am CEO community?

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[00:01:34.50] – Joe Britto

I am.

[00:01:35.50] – Gresham Harkless

Well, let's do it then. To kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit here a little bit more on how you guys started, what I like to call your CEO story.

[00:01:44.00] – Joe Britto

The CEO story. So for me, I guess, it begins in, two two thousand and eight. So, you know, while the rest of the world was reeling from a financial meltdown, I was reeling from one of my own. A personal meltdown, because I was going through, a nervous breakdown. And that's not fun for anyone, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. But for me, it was, you know, it was a turning point because up until that point so since around two thousand, I'd been, a management consultant, a leadership trainer, and I've been doing these things.

And then when I fell into, a breakdown, you know, you start to reevaluate everything and you start to rethink what you're doing with your life. And one of the things I was rethinking was what I did for a living. And it bothered me that the work that I've been doing, you know, maybe was cool and maybe was fun, but it didn't have a long-term effect. And I knew that because I would contact clients, and I would say to them, so, you know, how did that work go that I did for you three years ago? And they would say, it was great. And I'd say, what are the long-term effects? And they'd say, well, none, but it was great.

And it just wasn't enough for me. And I started to think about how you create change, and I was specifically thinking about how you get out of a nervous breakdown. And I was looking at what needs to change before you start to emerge from this place. And it took me two years to emerge from it. And what I started to realize is the thing that needs to change is the way that we think. If we're thinking the same thing over and over again, not only does that reinforce a breakdown, but it makes it impossible to get out of. So as I started to kind of figure out, you might say, how do you get out of a breakdown? I also started to figure out, how do you, create a long-term sustainable change? And that's in the way that we think.

And as I started to do that, I started to develop this work that I call the six attributes of a leadership mindset. And when I first had it, I was lucky enough to be working with a couple of, businesses who I'd, you know, who I'd known before, but were willing to try this new approach with me. And that was the beginning of innate leaders. Because as I started to try this approach, I saw that it worked, and I saw that it worked in businesses, and it did create a long-term change. And then, yeah, then, you know, we went from there to working with larger businesses to different businesses, and we grew from there.

[00:04:25.60] – Gresham Harkless

That's extremely powerful. I appreciate you for sharing that, you know, so much and, you know, being vulnerable and being able to share that. Because I think so many times we don't realize how, you know, powerful our minds work, our brains are, and what happens to our lives and understanding to make what sounds like true foundational change. It requires looking at that and sounds like making changes and adjustments based on that to see not just a change for a day, but long-lasting change, which I imagine these organizations and people wanna be able to do.

[00:04:53.19] – Joe Britto

That's exactly right. And, like, you're entirely, right, Gresh, as well because it's not something that you enter into lightly. Do you know? Like, if a person starts to do mindset work, they're, like, they're already saying something special about themselves. They're already saying, do you know, I can see that there's a route through. I just don't know what that route is, and I'm willing to look at myself as being the vehicle that is making whatever I'm trying to do difficult. That's like just think about that for a minute about what does that say about someone willing to go, yeah. Do you know what? I can see that maybe I'm part of the challenge here.

So I'm always really grateful to work with people like that because it means that our work will be meaningful on more than one level. Yes. We'll affect whatever change we need to in the business, But maybe even more important than that, we're affecting the way senior teams, and CEOs, want to run their business. And then for me, that means that you help and shift enough businesses that you start to change the world. And that's, to me, what this is all about.

[00:06:06.00] – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. And I love that you were able to kinda make that shift, you know, yourself from, you know, the work that you did previously and then, you know, kinda pivoted and adjusted into this because I think you're right where especially if you're talking about the mindset work, you make that impact on whatever, somebody might come and talk to you about it in search of what they're trying to reach as far as goals. But I think it starts to manifest itself in the leaders, the teams, the families within the teams, the leaders itself, you know, family. It just starts to really, manifest itself in so many ways.

[00:07:34.69] – Joe Britto

Yeah. So the way that we work is we're kind of fortunate in that you can talk about strategic direction or you could talk about, change management or building cohesive teams. And all of those things are things that we do. We do it from, I think, a unique perspective of what is the thought process that is going on. So let's say somebody has a challenge and let's say it's a strategy problem, and I think a lot of people right now in the land of COVID are thinking about strategy or thinking about how do we grow our business or how do we recover our business even. And one of the things that we do is we don't start with that challenge. We start with how are we thinking about that challenge.

So we typically begin by exploring and introducing through some kind of fairly lighthearted games, you might say, which we can even do on Zoom, things that kind of stretch our thinking in the areas of the six attributes. So that's the flexibility of mind, genuine curiosity, enterprise thinking, growing leaders of others, mindfulness, and resilience. And we're playing these games too, you know, to kind of pull people out, you might say, from their usual way of thinking, from their worldview is what we often say, and kind of push the limitations and sometimes even see the limitations of our way of thinking. And then once we do that, our second step is to then go so now that we have this shift in thinking, now that we have a different perspective, what would it be like if we applied that shift in perspective to the challenge that they normally called us for in the first place.

And what that does then is means that we look at the challenge from a different angle. And from a different angle, we can now see things differently. We can see possibilities that we didn't see before. We can see ways of doing things that we wouldn't have even dreamed about before, and that means that we can now see a different route through. So then what we do, our third step, if you like, is then we say, so what would it look like to operationalize that new point of view and that new solution?

So then we design a way to operationalize it. We help a team develop an implementation plan, and then from there, they can kind of run with it themselves. So our kind of USP, you might say, is that because we help people think differently, we help them solve the challenges of today that are right in front of them, but also the challenges coming down the road that they didn't even know were around yet. Because once you think differently, you know, like like you said in your production, everything is different.

[00:10:19.29] – Gresham Harkless

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

[00:10:31.60] – Joe Britto

I would say so every day, I start the day, with Qigong and meditation, and I end it that way too. So at 05:00, at the end of my working day, I'll meditate as well.

[00:10:45.50] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. So I want to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So that could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client, or if you hacked into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

[00:10:56.79] – Joe Britto

If I were going back to my younger business self, I think what I would probably say is that the business that you often intend to start isn't the business that eventually becomes. And I would tell my younger business self to allow that process to happen, to allow the idea, and to allow the business to evolve.

[00:11:17.10] – Gresham Harkless

Now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different, quote, unquote, CEOs on the show. So, Joe, what does being a CEO mean to you?

[00:11:26.60] – Joe Britto

I think what it means to me is being, being at the helm of my own life and deciding for myself what I wanna do and what I don't wanna do. And then to meet some incredible people, because some amazing people work with me and innate leaders, like Ruth Morris, is one of them, Sylvie Managuri is another. They're they're they're they're these amazing people who you get to meet because you're standing up and saying, this is what I stand for. And then as a result of that, people come along and go I like that. I'd like to play along too and they're not doing exactly what I'm doing because they're different people, but they're doing, you know, there's enough of a synergy and there's enough of a connected vision that makes us go, hey. Let's walk this road together.

[00:12:20.39] – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. And I'm a true believer in a lot of times when you step into your brilliance, step into, you know, what makes you who you are, your uniqueness, our zone of genius, however, we might phrase it, it also reminds so many others of those around us that they can do the same as well too. And as you said so well, there's often that opportunity where those things align, they overlap, they're maybe not the same, but you could create so many win-win opportunities the more people you can get around, and that's when things, I think, in my opinion, take off.

[00:12:47.50] – Joe Britto

That's right. Because I think, like, the point of being a CEO isn't that you're, I know all the answers and everybody do what it's not that at all. And, like, I think most people know that. Certainly, all of the enlightened leaders that I work with know that. And I think that the cool thing about being the CEO is you get to go, what can we create? And because nobody has to go, is it alright if we do?

Because when you're the CEO, everything is possible. And I think that's kinda what I mean about being at the helm of my own life that you like, you don't have anybody to answer to who says no. Like, we like, we don't approve. You have, like, the people on your team and they're the ones who check you to a certain extent. Right? So if I have, a ridiculous idea, they'll they'll tell me. And that's great. And then we'll work together to go what's the bigger idea, what's the best idea. But having that space is, I think, what I value most about being a CEO

[00:13:44.39] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. That space is everything and being able to create that culture that cultivates that is huge. But I love that phrase where you said everything's possible when you start to realize that you can create that dent in the universe, so to speak, is really when things become truly, phenomenal. So, Joe, truly appreciate that definition, and I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know, and, of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

[00:14:13.39] – Joe Britto

Well, the easiest way to get hold of me is through the website. So that would be innate leaders dot com. You can email me at, joe@innateleaders.com. There is so the thing that I think that I'd like to share is that I think that the whole idea about mindset is fundamentally important because you know there are lots of people who talk about mindset and it's almost like a buzzword and that's a shame because, to me, mindset is fundamentally how we shift everything. So it means not just shifting the way that we navigate ourselves through life, but it's how we solve the intractable problems of the world.

So things like climate change, things like challenges around systemic racism, or any kind of challenge at all begin with we have a certain way of looking at the world, and if we've held on to that worldview or that mindset for long enough, it becomes entrenched and it becomes systemic. And now it becomes difficult to do anything else. And that's true if we're in a business if we're a country if we're an individual. So there's something truly, truly powerful about being willing to examine the way that we think and I'm thrilled to be a part of it and I'm thrilled to work with people who are willing to do that.

[00:15:43.29] – Gresham Harkless

I appreciate that, Joe. We will have the links and information in the show notes as well. But what you said was extremely powerful, and I think it's all something that we all need to pay attention to and and and heed just because not only, you know, being willing, but as we talked about so well, being, you know, humble enough to be able to, inspect ourselves as much as we're inspecting the world and seeing these flaws or things that can be improved.

We also need to look at how we're looking at things and how that impact reverberates beyond just our worlds and into so many people's societies and their lives and so on. So I truly appreciate you for for being that change, for helping empower, you know, so many of these phenomenal leaders as well too. And, of course, I appreciate your time today, and I hope you have a great rest of the day.

[00:16:26.10] – Outro

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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