The Rooftop Podcast

“The Proof, power, and purpose of how stories can help you make deeper connections and bigger impact in life and business.” In this second part of the hard-hitting interview with Kendall Haven, Scott will dive in with Kendall as they explore the critical components and methods to ensure your story influences at the optimal level. Whether you deal in sales or military ops, Scott asks questions in t...

“The Proof, power, and purpose of how stories can help you make deeper connections and bigger impact in life and business.” Everywhere you look, people are talking about the power of story as a leadership and communication tool. Hell, it’s part and parcel of the Rooftop Leadership Methodology. But, how do we know if story works? And does it work for everyone, even those “left-brainers” who deal in...

Intelligence preparation. It is, the work you do on the front end before a mission to really get to know the terrain, the climate, the enemy, all of the things around you in your battle space that you need to be familiar with at a micro level all the way out to a macro level and then back into a micro level. Because as Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese philosopher says, know the enemy, know yourself an...

We have an epic erosion of trust. At the institutional level, we don't trust the media like we used to, we don't trust politicians. We don't trust bankers, we don't trust the mortgage industry. All of these pillars of leadership that once held our society together, this society that values the individual, not the group, that values the dream of the individual, right? The inalienable rights of the...

I think in this day and age, one of the things that we fail to teach our young leaders as they are coming up in the ranks, is that there is a “Loneliness of Command”. There is a weight of leadership that one must bear when going through the tough decisions in life. And you cannot outsource that, you cannot avoid that, you cannot deflect that. Join me by the fire pit as we dig in and discuss the, “...

The subject of this particular video clip on the Rooftop Rally Point series is, “Battle Buddies: Getting Out of Your Own Way”. I thought telling the story of my Ranger Buddy, Cliff would be very appropriate because Cliff taught me the importance of Battle Buddies. Cliff became my dear friend and we lost Cliff in the Pentagon on 9/11, 2001. Yeah, he was my Ranger buddy, but in other units that are...

I worked with a certain a team Sergeant that made sure we always accomplished our missions, we always got stuff done at a very high level and it was because we did the little things right, and that's the theme for this Rooftop Rally Point. PCI’s, “The Science of Getting Ready”. PCI stands for Pre-Combat Inspections, and it’s a critical element in leading a team in the art of high performance. Now...

What I would like to get across in this Vlog, is the importance of “Human Terrain” in our work. In this day and age where we are so distracted, so disengaged, so distrustful of each other, we've become completely transactional at the corporate level, the entrepreneurial level, with our clients, and we just focus on the transaction, and we don't look at the human terrain. Right? We don't look at wh...

I want to talk about a lesson that I learned in special ops, one that is really pervasive in a lot of other military organizations. This lesson is one that I think can really help you have a competitive edge or as our subtitle says, that can help you win before you even show up when you have to do that right? This concept is called, “The Leaders Recon: How to Win Before You Show Up”. Join me by th...

The title of this episode is SLLS: Being Present in the Chaos. The acronym stands for: Stop, Look, Listen and Smell, because all around us, chaos is going on. When you walk into a restaurant, just notice how people are, they're lost in their own conversations. They're not paying attention to what's going on around them. Most of them have their heads buried in their phones. Everywhere you go, you w...

We are going to talk about how to use a “Decisive Point” to arrive at a solution for a complex problem. Now, in the last Vlog you heard me talk about “Unity of Effort”. It’s taking all of the different participants in your organization, and unifying their effort under one common vision, that you the leader create, right? How do we arrive at a true “Unity of Effort”, where everyone is content playi...

One of the lessons that I talk about a lot in corporate America and in organizations from nonprofits to small businesses is this notion of what we call “Unity of effort”, in the military world. “Unity of Effort”, this timeless principle of military planning and operations and strategy that's been around, frankly, since Sun Tzu and Clausewitz is so appropriate for your organization. Join me by the...

What is it that rings the bell for Your Organization? What are the things that if you don't do money doesn't come in, you don't achieve your mission? These thoughts took me back to a term that we use in the military. We call it METL. Mission Essential Task List. And every organization in the military has one. The Mission Essential Task List is a few of the absolutely critical tasks that you must d...

As I moved on through my career, I saw leaders good and bad who would put out their leadership philosophy. It was something that I started to do myself as a team leader, as a company commander, and I saw the value in it because what it does, is it shares with people who you are, why you're there, and where you're going, where's the organization going. When you do that, when people can get a sense...

Stuart Diamond tells us to, “See the pictures in their head”. If you can do this, let me tell you something, you have a serious leadership advantage in life and business because when you see the pictures in their heads, now you know where to start and you have a sense of the roadmap you need to follow to meet them where they are, not where you want them to be, and to collaborate to meet each other...

Assess and understand the emotional atmosphere in the room. It’s critical in your boardroom, with your kids, with your associates, your prospects, your clients. There is an emotional climate always around us, because humans are the most meaning seeking, emotional creatures on planet Earth, right? So, there's always emotions going on with the people across from you and inside yourself. Right? So, w...

One of the first steps that I want to go into for meeting people where they are, one of the first tools is to leverage the network. Leverage a powerful network. If you can do this, you can move people to take action. You can create a movement, right? Networks are at our disposal. You'd be amazed in this book, Game Changers, how many people we were able to rally around village stability, nonprofit...

How do you go from 75 people who are committed to something, to 15,000 in less than 18 months? Would those numbers make a difference in your business? Would those numbers make a difference in your association or your organization? Would those numbers make a difference if you went from 75 people following you, and I mean avidly, to 15,000 people willing to run through walls for you? Willing to take...

Isn't it interesting that although we know listening is such a powerful thing, we know that biologically it validates us at an identity level and it endears and creates relevance and reciprocity. Yet so few of us do it. It's hard, right? Right. It's not easy. It's a skill, and when you think about the listeners in your life, think about the great, great listeners in your life, for me my grandfathe...

There are a lot of studies that show your body language, your physicality in an interpersonal engagement, is up to 60% of the human connection. Another 30% is voice tonality and maybe 10% is the actual spoken word. But where do we spend most of our time? We send it in the spoken word, from the neck up. The physicality, the presence, the intention, the availability...we leave it out. And so we are...

Homework Before Leg Work. Our monthly theme this month is ‘Owning the Room’. Achieving a level of relevance so that people follow you, buy from you, invest in you, believe in you. How do you do that? You achieve relevance, you become the most relevant person in the room. You're relevant to the people you serve, and the problems that they face, and the opportunities they want to pursue. You're rele...

Today we will discuss the desire to “Own the Room”. The desire to make powerful connections, so that the people sitting across from you, feel inspired and compelled to follow your lead, to proceed with that transaction. To engage in what you want them to engage in. This is how you lead when people don't want to follow. This is the essence of Rooftop Leadership. I call it, “owning the room”. Now th...

This month we're talking about the power of narrative and the theme this week is closing the gap with storytelling. When you think about your skill as a storyteller, whether you're a business leader, a veteran, a nonprofit leader, or like Byron, a Canadian ranger who has to mentor young junior rangers, who has to work with elders, who has to train Canadian regular army forces all the time. Regardl...

Whether it’s Army Rangers, Navy Seals or Green Berets, the reality is the same, they train. They have a deeper and better relationship with practice than anyone around them. They are able to get into a state of flow that is similar to what extreme athletes do when the stakes are life and death. That's ultimate performance. If high performance is what professional athletes do, Ultimate performance...

Stories are purposeful. They are designed to serve other people. They are gifts and when you use them as gifts, a certain thing called reciprocity occurs where the audience or the listener of the story is connected or is reminded of what's important or is given a lesson that they can learn for their life that they don't have to get scuffed up for. Let me tell you something, this is a quarter of a...