The Fast Leader Show | Strategy Execution & Systems Design

Karen Chaston tragically lost her son Dan and she went straight back to work. She knew how to be a CFO, not a grieving mother. Eventually, she learned that his passing was meant for her to wake up. She now knows that you can have that career, but it doesn’t have to come at a cost to you.

Joseph Michelli now helps organizations deliver extraordinary customer and employee experiences. But in his early twenties he was all about himself until he began a journey that taught him about commitment, the power of teams and building a greater legacy.       

Matt Beckwith considered leaving his contact center job because he felt bogged down by the things he didn’t like about the job. He almost left, and then his boss asked him some very insightful questions that helped him find clarity almost instantly.

Nick Friedman started to franchise his company, College Hunks Hauling Junk in 2008, and then the economy collapsed. Nick and his partner struggled to move on. Then he found the confidence to keep going through a peer community of other leaders battling the same challenges.

Hamish Knox had the worst 20-minutes of his life. He was on a prospecting call with a senior vice president of a chemical company and he failed miserably. He knew all of the content he needed to know, but that was not good enough. Hamish realized he stopped learning and was unable to add value.

Steve Farber had a moral dilemma with the business that he owned. So, he got out. But he had nothing to go to. Eventually, he flipped his radical leap into a 30-year career of helping leaders to move onward and upward faster.

Before becoming a social media expert, Dan Gingiss decided to join a friend in taking the GMAT. On standardized tests he typically does better on the math side and struggles on the verbal side. But during the test Dan got stumped on a question that caused him to not complete the math portion of the exam. That left him with only one choice.

Brannon Beliso had no choice when he was a child, he was a victim. At some point Brannon the man had to make the better choices in his life that have led to greater self-discipline and founding one of the most successful schools in the martial arts industry.

David Hiatt had friends that convinced him to enter a speech contest. He did it half way but soon realized that when he got into it, he was really good at affecting people and helping them to do better in their life. That’s when he decided to do something of excellence.

Bill Gessert was a highly successful sales rep and was then promoted to become a disastrous sales manager. Bill eventually realized he was not a bad person, he just didn’t have the skills sets to be a leader. But he learned them and went on to be a leading expert in sales, customer service and customer experience.

Alessandra Cavalluzzi planned an event where her company was going to give back to their local community. She planned for a huge turnout but it was disappointing at best. Instead of giving up, she learned and succeeded and now she helps organizations develop Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs to create a culture of giving that engages employees.

Glenn Elliott was trying to grow his company by building a sales team. He had six false starts, received tons of advice and counsel, hired a guru that nearly bankrupted him just to find out that the answers he was seeking could be found by falling flat on his face.

Phyllis Weiss Haserot shares the leadership skills she has had to lean on as her husband’s Parkinson’s disease rapidly progressed while she is passionately pushing forward her work in cross-generational conversation at work.

Aaron Edelheit was grossly over-worked, over-whelmed and way too connected. He found himself becoming less and less productive despite investing more and more time. Not only was work suffering so was his family and friends. Finally, Aaron decided he was going to turn off.

Simone Vincenzi decided to quit his job and go to school to learn how to run his own business. Tragically, his grandfather pasted away and Simone decided to travel back to his hometown in Italy from London every two weeks to comfort his grieving mother. Quickly, his savings was exhausted, but he continued to travel home to his mother and made the choice to become homeless.

Pete Williams built a company selling phone systems but gradually learned he was not getting any repeat business. That’s when Pete and his team began to discover and implement the seven levers that companies use to create a cadence for business growth.

Ralph Welborn was working on a wicked problem with the Department of Defense, CEO’s, and Chief Security Officers of many different organizations. He had to get them all to be in service to fight the bad guys. Ralph now takes the lessons he learned to move beyond customer-centricity to ecosystem engagement.

Brad Deutser had a business partner for many years and he finally realized that the partnership didn’t work for him. He kept giving and giving and finally let go of the circuit breakers and the things that were holding him back - he embraced clarity.

Howard Partridge had the vision for a turnkey business. What he did not realize was that his strong out-going task-oriented, demanding, direct, defiant personality was really turning everybody off. That’s when his bookkeeper took him aside and shared with him some words of wisdom.

Whitney Johnson was a star analyst working on Wall Street and she had a fantastic year, except when she got the feedback from all her peers. It was really bad. So, she got a coach and turned it around. And after 15-years she’s still learning lessons from that experience while helping others to avoid the same mistakes.

Danita Bye and her husband decided to buy a snowmobile sleigh manufacturing company. Then El Niño moved in and stayed for three years. Danita was angry at everyone. Then a mentor told her to stop playing the blame game. That’s when she developed the catalyst question.

Connie Malamed wrote a book about visual language for instructional design to achieve quick and effective communication - but she had to speak about it. Considering herself more of a writer and not a speaker, she was terrified of public speaking. Eventually, she found a tactic that helped her to move onward and upward.

Jack Bergstrand was a young executive at Coca-Cola working on changing the distribution network to gain efficiency and lower costs. But his plan negatively impacted manufacturing, which he was not in charge of. Jack had to go head-to-head to make headway.

Art Combs overcame being labeled as lazy and stupid to becoming a CEO. Along the way he started several businesses, wrote a few books and traveled the globe as a contact center expert. He now starts companies focused on customer service problems that he faced as an operations manager.

Jonathan Low worked 80 hours a week for two and a half years. Then his body collapsed and he began to doubt himself. It took him an entire year to recover and learn to change his perspective on what is success, how to fail and to be a happy person and to find gurus to inspire you.