Building Strong, Meaningful Relationships as a Coaching Leader with Ed Molitor

Welcome to the Athletics of Business, a podcast about how the traits and behaviors of elite athletes and remarkable business leaders frequently intersect. The real stories and hard lessons to help you level up your leadership and performance. Now your host, Ed Molitor. Welcome back to another episode of the Athletics in Business podcast. I am your host and CEO of the Molotor Group, Ed Molotor. And please forgive the roughness in my voice. I know it's always a little bit rougher than most, but they have what you call coaching voice. As we record this podcast, I'm currently helping out with three different basketball teams. My son's third grade team, my daughter's sixth grade basketball team in her high school varsity team. And this past week we had four games in a tournament that we are in.

And I also, just to throw a little more fuel on fire, had a surprise 50th birthday party for my wife, which was absolutely epic. And not because I threw it by any stretch of the imagination, but more so because of who was there and what those folks meant to her and what we did. We rented out the Comedy Vault, which is this is amazing comedy club in our small town here in Batavia, Illinois. Just have some amazing talent go through there. And the way it all came about, I was trying to think of something to do that obviously would make my wife just extremely happy. I was trying to think of something to do that would bring people together in a very light atmosphere where they could just cut loose, be themselves and have a ton of laughs.

Because I think it's something we're forgetting to do and maybe not forgetting to do. But there's so much being thrown at us. And in our personal world, we've had, it's weird, we've had a lot of friends and family members go through loss, losing loved ones, losing folks close to them. We've lost loved ones and folks close to us. And it just, this whole world just seemed to come together in terms of, okay, it's time to do this and let's really get after it and have some fun. And needless to say, it was a huge success. Everybody had a great time. But it was funny because now I'll be fully transparent here. I've struggled to put this solo cast together now for the last several days because I want to nail it.

And I think sometimes when we try to nail things, we make them way more complicated than need be. And as I was sitting at the party, people asked me, I mean, constantly, there's probably about 90 people there. And they asked me how did you pull this off? And I'm like, honestly, all I did was think of something that would make Nancy happy, where everybody would have fun. I would honor the type of person she is and what she means to all of us. Which one of them is incredibly funny? I have video to prove it of her stealing a mic from the first comedian. But that's another story, an expensive story that I will tell at some point. I just told him, I just came up with this idea. I reached out to him. I wanted to see if they'd be interested.

They had never done anything like this. We, we worked together to put an amazing event together. Great food, obviously, incredible beverages and just a setting that was just awesome. And I didn't really have much else to do. Send out the Evites, follow up, monitor the numbers. And I just sort of stayed out of everybody's way. Had some great friends that helped set up my mother in law, my sister in law, just, it just all sort of came together. And as were walking up, my buddy, listen, where are you going to tell her that we're going now? So I have no idea. I said, I don't know. We just, we had just left one of our bar slash restaurant establishments in downtown Batavia and we're walking towards the Comedy Vault. I said, I don't know. I said, just keep walking.

I said, I'll think of something. He goes, well, you have like 20 steps to think of something because they're right behind us. And I came up with nothing. I just said, were meeting some friends at a private party at the Comedy Vault. They had some community that was turning out some new. That was the best I could come up with, but it seemed to work until we walked in the door and this amazing woman that had helped set up the whole thing and put it all together didn't see me coming around the corner. She saw my wife, which it dawned on me she had never met. She was, you have to hurry up, she's on her way over here. And Nancy simply looks at her and goes, I am she. And I am here. And walked in and it was great.

I mean, it was just. They were playing her favorite. Please don't judge on this one. They're playing her favorite new Kids on the Block song, hanging Tough. No, it is not my favorite, nor do I have one that was never really my jam. But anyways, it was just an incredible evening. And as I was sitting at the party, I was looking around all the different people. I mean, there was childhood friends, there was high school Friends, college friends, college teammates, folks she had worked with when she was at Nextel 25 years ago, she hadn't seen in years. And I just tried to bring back people that meant something special to her. And it dawned on me, like, relationships, they're not simple. They're not cookie cutter. They complicate themselves enough where we just need to keep them simple.

So I said to myself, before we take off for our vacation, I'm going to sit down and record the solo cast so you can have it. Because I put a great deal of value and pride in the relationships, not just the friendships, but the true relationships that I have with my friends, with my family members, with my clients, my potential clients, with podcast guests, with peers, with anyone I come across with the. With the young man I'm helping out with the varsity basketball team, with the little dudes on the third grade team that just cracked me up. And Matty's CIS great team, which is as competitive as a group of individuals as I've ever coached at any level. And I realized, like, everyone needs something different from us, and everybody is attracted to something different in us, and that's the same as a leader.

And we try. And all these programs that folks can provide, all these leadership programs, this is where we at the Molotov group, differentiate ourself. We customize everything, and we're very focused on, yes, we're going to show you how to build an amazing team, an amazing organization, through your coaching, but we really focus on the individualization piece. Like, what does each individual on your team need from you, and how do you provide it based on where you're at, where you're going, and how you're going to get there. And I just want to give you some things a, that we do here, that I do here, in terms of relationships that set us apart, that allow me to develop deep, meaningful relationships, this with people.

And I'm not going to sit here and pound my chest like so many people do and say, I'm better than you. This is the only way to do it. This is what works for me. And it works really well. And I say that because the relationships I have with our clients, with everybody that I just mentioned and with the people in my life, they are what they are, and they're real and they're genuine and they're authentic, and they're not always easy to come by. I think that's the thing, like, we feel like if we just are honest and put ourselves out there and we're authentic, that the relationship's going to take care of itself. And that's not it at all.

And when we wrap up this solo cast, and I'll try to keep it as brief as possible for you because I want you to be able to jump off this and start thinking into your own world and how it impacts you and what you can do moving forward. I'm going to give you an authenticity checklist in terms of how you are showing up in relationships. I'm giving you an example of certain situation that we have seen a lot here with the work that we do in the space that we work in. And we do the majority of our work, most of work, almost all of our work in the biotech, biopharma, life science, med device space and just have so much fun doing it. There's so much meaning behind it.

This is not a disclaimer, but this is something I want you to think about. Victory defined is the core foundational program that we have. But here's what I mean by that. We take the word victory and how do we define what winning means to us? And let's do that in the sense of a relationship. Someone said something about win the day and I said, well, how do you win the relationship? Like, that's weird. Like, isn't a relationship about the other person? Isn't that what you tell us? I said, yes, but that's what I mean. What does it mean to have a winning relationship? What does it mean to achieve victory inside of the coaching relationship you have with your people? And we take the word victory and break it down into values. Okay, who you are and what you stand for. Intangibles.

What are the little things that you do that separate your you from everybody else? What are the little things that you do that allow people to open up to you and give you access to them so you can put them in the best position possible to be successful? Creativity. Do you have the ability to reframe novel solutions? Do you have the ability to reframe the way you think about a certain individual? I firmly believe that things that we look at begin to change when we change the way we look at them. And can you do that inside of the relationships that you have without being critical? We always hear, don't be judgmental. You can't judge. Okay, More I think about it, the more time I spend in that, the more I write about it and more conversations I have. You know what?

Being judgmental is significant. It influences our decision making. It influences the next step that we take in building relationships. Now, being judgmental and being critical are Two different things. I can be judgmental on someone or on myself, but I can dive into it. I have absolutely zero problem admitting if I'm wrong. No problem whatsoever. And when I was standing there at the comedy vault with Nancy's party, the music was gone and two comedians that were just unbelievably rip roaring funny. And then there was my wife, which again, that might be a completely separate solo cast or that might be a blog, it might be a LinkedIn post. I haven't figured out yet how I can do justice to her performance at her birthday party.

I started looking around the room like all the people I was wrong about, and I started looking around the room at people that were wrong about me. And it's been acknowledged in conversations and punctuated with either like a brother hug or a laugh or dang or never knew something like that. It's okay. But I'm not going to be critical. I'm not going to criticize you for being a human being and having your flaws when I have my own flaws, or I'm not going to sit there and be critical of you not doing things the way that I do them. Because who says the way that I do them is the best way to do them? Even they might best for me, Right? So that's the creativity piece, and then there's the team.

And when we start to look at our world as a coaching leader, the relationships that we build. I'm going to go a couple places with this and I want you to stay with me on this. All right? First of all, how do I develop and earn your trust? Okay. So I can help you understand and embrace the role that you have on this team and how can we work together to help that role evolve and grow so we continue to increase and level up the significance the team has in your world and that you have in the team's world. The other piece of this in relationships is how can I facilitate, foster, create opportunities for you to strengthen the relationships that you have with others on your team and vice versa that others have with you on the team.

And then yo's objectives, what can I do inside of this relationship to help you lock into the process, develop systems and strategies that can help you become a massive success? And what can I do as your coaching leader inside of the process to be there for you, to be available? Ask the critical question, this is me. I need to ask you the question, what do you need from me? How can I help? Okay. And that's the o inside of this relationship piece. Then mars Are rules of the game one of the constraints. What are the constraints?

Inside of our world, inside of our relationship, inside of the structure in our organization that I need to figure out, navigate, and master so I can maximize the impact that our relationship is going to have on you, all the while knowing that the relationship that we have is going to impact me as well. Okay, but my focus is on. On you. And then why is. Is you. And in this sense, how can I help you inside of this relationship? What is it that I can do personally to get better at?

How can I be at my best so you can be at your best, and how can I help you continue to grow, evolve, and be there side by side in your professional and personal journey and do whatever it takes to get you to keep working towards what it is you're working towards, keep you being committed and just not interested, but committed to your purpose and dialing into your purpose when things get crazy. I actually had a best friend. We were having lunch a few weeks ago. We had not caught up forever, especially in person. We talk all the time, but everything's in passing. It's fast, it's funny, or we update each other. He says, hey, can I ask you a question?

He goes, you got a lot of plates spinning, you got a lot of cool stuff going on, and you're growing exponentially as an organization. Isn't it great? How often do you go back to your purpose? Do you ever forget about your purpose? It was a great question. And he probably articulated the question much more eloquently than I did. And I. I sat there and I paused. But then, really, I answered without hesitation, said, I. I don't. I said, I keep my purpose front and center because it's who I am. It's why I do what I do. And it shows up in every relationship that I have with all the folks that I coach and that I lead inside of our group. And it's no different with my family, with my friends. I said, my purpose is my entire world. And so, no.

And I go, to be honest with you, my purpose is the only reason I can keep doing this, because it's a. It is. I mean, I'm not going to lie. And I know it's no resort, but it is a grind. And it's okay that it's a grind and it's messy. But here's the thing. That's what's really cool about authentic, powerful and true relationships is that's when they're most important, when things are messy, when it's a grind when resilience is needed. And it goes back to what I always say, right? Like when I interview people and when I was in the recruiting industry, everyone was always so focused on can I win with that person? Okay, well, if I hire you, of course I'm only going to hire you if I think I can win with you.

But the other thing I want to know is, can I lose with that person? Meaning can we go through tough times together? Can we grow through adversity together? And that's something that relationships do. So what is it that we do here inside of the victory defined program? And let me touch one more thing. The five fundamentals. The preparation, communication, execution, reflection, adaption. So moving forward with all of that, these things are all going to show up in the next five, seven minutes as I finish a solo cast. They're going to show up in a story I tell you, and they're going to show up in something I share with you. But I'm not specifically going to name that and say, hey, here's where the intangible piece shows up. Okay? And that's for you to figure out.

But here is what I do every single time that I meet someone new. Whether it's in person, whether it's in town here, whether it's on the road, when I'm traveling, or I'm introduced to someone, have some amazing friends, some peers, some colleagues, some clients, making incredible introductions in my world for years now, I am going to research the person that I just met and who I am meeting with or who I'm going to maybe be in a social setting with. I'm going to Google them now. It's not creepy. I'm going to Google them. I'm going to look if they're on LinkedIn. I don't go to Facebook or Instagram, at least not yet, right away. But I'm going to research the person to find out as much about their journey as I possibly can.

Because when you do that, you have a tendency to be able to figure out what makes them tick a little bit, right? And what makes them go. I want to get to know what moves you. I want to get to know what inspires you. I want to get to know what you enjoy, where your struggles have been, who's important to you in your life. Okay? Now, if I'm your coaching leader and I'm coaching, I want to know as much as I can about you as a person. And this goes back to something. Remember a long time ago, I was first getting into Coaching college basketball diagonals, man, these kids got to know that they're important. They got to know that, you know, they got to feel important in your world. They got to feel special. I like, that's easy.

He looked at me, I was 22 or 23 years old. He goes, what do you mean? I go, well, that's going to be a byproduct of the way I'm going to coach them, because I know that they are important and I know that they have value. I know that they're significant, and I know what they're doing is important to them as it's important to us. So that's how I'm going to coach them. So my point is this. Yes, we need to make sure that people feel important by doing this research. You know, and the questions that I ask as we first get to know each other, they'll understand the time I put in, and that'll help that. But what's the most significant piece of this is it's not just about them feeling important or feeling significant or feeling valued.

It's about me as a coaching leader knowing that they have a tremendous amount of value, knowing that they have a tremendous amount of significance and knowing they have a huge upside. That's my job, to help them tap into the things that are going to get them where they want to go and while doing so, while staying true to their purpose. Right? So I want to know what's important to them. I want to know their journey. You can read a person's timeline on LinkedIn and you can absolutely start to figure out the roller coaster ride, the highs and the lows, the questions, especially when you've been in the game long enough and you understand certain things inside of industries, you know, certain things inside of organizations, they've been with companies, they've been with mutual connections, all sorts of stuff you can find out.

I want to know where our worlds intersect. We live in this world of dots that we don't even see, that we can connect if we're intentional about it. I want to know where our worlds intersect because they do. People say to me all the time, and I love it. It's fine. I mean, it's great and I appreciate it. They're being nice to me. They'll say, I've never met a person that can go wherever they go and always know somebody or know somebody that knows someone and connect that way. Or I've never met someone who seems, first of all, I don't know.

I mean, I have people in the world that I'M absolutely blown away by the, you know, how many folks they know, how important they are to so different people, and how many people are important to them, and I admire it so much. So I'm humble when people say that to me. But here's the thing. It's not. It's just, you know, hey, Eds. Eds a cool person. Hell, heck, I got two kids that will argue with you that I'm not a cool person. I mean, my daughter would say that I'm strange all the time, you know, in a loving, funny way. But my point being is this. I'm very intentional about getting to know people, and I'm very intentional getting to know as much about them. You know, when I was coaching college basketball, what I would always do. And it was different back then.

AAU wasn't as big. It was big, but it wasn't as big. The high school coaches still had a lot more say in the recruiting of the young men that I was. I was watching, getting to know, trying to get to come to our university. So I would ask the coaches a lot of questions about the kid, and I'd ask about the parents. I'd ask about the relationships. I'd ask about who else in their life is an influence, what teachers are significant to them, what other activities are they in, why are they in those activities? What is it they enjoy about it, where do they hang out? I want to know everything about a kid I possibly could.

I mean, if I was there in that gym, spending three hours of my life watching them practice, I want to make sure that I was sitting there for three hours watching the right kid that would fit into the culture of our program and that we can invest our time and energy and love into. But I also wanted to know that I could be the best coach for that kid, that I could be the best recruiter for that kid in that moment, by knowing as much about them as I possibly could. It gave us some great conversation points. I'm still really good friends with guys that I recruited that said no to us. And matter of fact, I had one on this podcast. Mark Hyder Spock. And Mark is.

I can't even put into words the amount of respect and admiration I have for Mark and what he's done in his professional career. Forget his playing career, where he was just a stud, but what he's done and the impact he's had in the biotech, space, biopharma space, I mean, and the people that he's led in me being connected to Mark and having A very real and genuine relationship with Mark has led to other friendships that I can't even imagine my world without because of introductions that he made or connections I made because I had him on the podcast. John Denny. John Denny is a direct result of him seeing Mark Heider's back podcast and LinkedIn. And that all just goes back to the intentionality that we put into the relationships. Right. And here's the thing. What you're going to get from me inside relationships.

Now, I. This is. I've left money on the table in the business because of this. All right, so what do I mean by I've left money on the table? I've had coaching relationships and I've had contracts, and because I do not play games, you hired me to teach your people how to coach their people. You hired me to work with those same people that are being coached on how to level up their performance and taking ownership of their actions and accountability. So I don't have time to play games to make sure that I get the next contract, that I get the next nod or call for a workshop you want me to do or bringing on more coaching clients.

I'm going to be me and I'm going to be genuine, and I'm going to do exactly what it is I told you I was going to do and help your people get better. And that's it. And that's the way I am in all my relationships. I'm just me. Like, you can sit there and walk away from a conversation with me and shake your head and say, he's full of crap. I'm not, you know, and I'm not saying I call people out or I'm very aware. At least I like to think I am. I'm. I'm very conscientious of the words I speak and how they're going to land. And I read people's body language and I. I try to understand the best of my ability where they're at in the world.

I'm not abrasive, but there are times in this world where I will plant my feet and take a stand because of the values that I have, and I will lead that way. And I do have what I consider a high level of standards in the relationships I have. And I do have expectations on myself inside of that relationship. Now, why do I tell you this? Why am I sharing all this with you? Because it's very important for us to build a foundation of us earning trust in the relationships that we build. And I did say us earning trust. Now, here's the trick, right? So as coaching leaders, yes, the people that we lead, that we are fortunate enough to lead, they do need to earn our trust. Okay, but that's not our focus. Our focus is how do we earn their trust.

So we have this foundation to build upon so we have access to their minds, to their skills and to their hearts so that we can help them grow and put them in the best position to be wildly, massively successful. And it drives everything. You take the time to build that trust. You're creating this relationship where people, it's a place for people to come. They can be themselves and they can open up to you. It creates a place of psychological safety. Here's a question that folks ask when they start to get in relationships with you, when they start to build a relationship, whether it's professional and personal, can I trust you? Why should I trust you? The question that we should be asking, that you should be asking as a coaching leader, how can I help? What do you need from me?

Those types of questions, right again. Remember, they want to know what you can do to help them be successful. And what you want to know is the information that you need to know to connect with them at a very deep level so you have access again to their skills, their minds and their hearts. You can help create complex situations that they need to create order out of with their systems and strategies and with their work ethic and what their processes and get them there. Okay? So ask great questions. Take the time to listen. Listen to what they're saying and listen to what they're not saying. Ask follow up questions, Read their body language. Don't play games. Don't, don't play games. I will tell you this and I have people that will vouch for me in the end.

If you're going to play games with me, I will win because I just don't care. And what do I mean by winning? They move on and move on. The truth comes out in the wash. It's going to. And at the end of the day, I could put my head down on my pillow knowing I did okay, that I did the right thing. I've never heard a person say, God, I lost complete trust in that leader because they're constantly doing what they said they're going to do and they're constantly doing the right thing and they constantly kept their word and they never played games. I can't stand that, dude. I've never heard that. It's like what I say to Manny and ej, I said, you know, guys, you know I said, you want to be great? That's what you tell me.

You want to be great at basketball. You do want to be great at football. I said, when's the last time you saw a professional athlete get up on the podium to accept a trophy or an award and say, you know, the reason I'm here and the reason I got this is I would play Fortnite five hours a day. I constantly talked about how I couldn't stay in school. And, you know, I just, I wanted everything that I wanted. And I'm not saying my kids are like that, but it's me being sarcastic. But the point is this. If you do the right things and you do them the right way and you do them for the right reason, things are going to work out and you're going to have amazing relationships with the people that you lead and that you coach. Here's the other thing.

Don't give unsolicited advice. Now you might be saying, well, you just did. No, I didn't. You chose to listen to this podcast. Don't give unsolicited advice. There is nothing that just irks people more. Well, there is, but there it irks people so much and it shakes people and it challenges and threatens the trust that you earn when you constantly spend your time giving answers and talking above people, projecting your thoughts and beliefs on people. Ask questions, get to know them, ask permission. You ask my clients, I'll mess up, I'll screw up. I'll be so excited to tell them something, I'll throw it out. They're like, oh, man, I just failed there. What I should have said is, hey, is it okay if I, I share a thought with you?

Is it okay if I give you a little bit of insight into how I do things and maybe you could take, well, maybe you agree or maybe I learned something from you that I'll take. You know, maybe you disagree with me and I can take something away from this. Don't give unsolicited advice. Is there anything, I mean, think about this or anything more annoying when you're standing above like a five foot putt that you think breaks like just a little bit to the left right at the end. You got old boy standing behind you or standing up behind the cup looking at you, which you're not supposed to be anyways. Yeah, looks like three balls to the left. I, I didn't ask. And you just four putted. I don't, as a coaching leader, give unsolicited advice and really don't make it a habit.

I Got some people in my world that make it a habit. And I just look at them and they know, you know what? View relationships through the lens of possibilities. And I don't mean like, how can we make money together? That's all byproducts. Lens of possibilities of where the person that you're talking to can go as their coaching leader. Where. Where can I help you get to? Where is it you want to go? How can I help you get there? And here's what we can do. Help them see things that maybe they're not capable or they're not open to seeing just yet. Yeah, I'll go back to what I was talking about before. Like, this is going to create authenticity. This is going to create resiliency. This is going to be the mental toughness, capacity, an increase in bandwidth.

And here's a word that nobody talks about that I'll give to you. All right? People are afraid to talk about this word right now. You know, we talk about retention, we talk about all sorts of different things. We're afraid to talk about how do you create loyalty? Think about the best relationships you have had, whether it's as a coaching leader or with your leader that you've had and you know, when his or her backs against the wall, that you were there for them because of the quality of your relationship. You know, speaking of quality relationship, think about this. The quality of your relationship is in direct correlation. I wrote this down days ago. The quality of relationship is in direct correlation to the level of trust that you have earned. That's significant.

The quality of your relationship in direct correlation to the level of trust you have earned. Now you might be sitting there saying, yeah, you know what? I've got someone who's underperforming, they're flying under the radar. I can't get them on a PIP or whatever it is, okay? If it's an athlete, I just can't get them to buy in consistently. And I don't know what to do. And I don't think they trust me. I don't know why I've done it the right way. Here's the thing, it's not always going to work. Maybe it works nine times out of 10 and it's that one where we spend way too much time lost in our own head. How do we get it to work? Well, here's the thing. Sometimes people just don't trust relationships.

They've been burnt so bad by previous leaders or even in their personal life and relationships. And even take it a step further, sometimes people don't trust themselves inside relationships. And I'm not trying to get you inside of a psychological evaluation or go down a rabbit hole. It's just a reality of what it is. And we can talk another time about how you figure that out and how you get to it and what you do with it. But be aware of that and don't say, oh, all this stuff I'm doing, I can't get to this person. So screw this. No, that's not it. That is not it. That's not the answer. That's not the approach. That's not the process. That is not it. And it's going to take longer with some than it does with others. And again, people's past experiences shape them.

Get to know what their past experiences are. With that being said, and to wrap this up, I want to leave you with some. We love checklist. Okay? We love checklist. We're getting ready to go. I have a checklist of things I need to do before we take off and drive up north, six and a half hours. So I want to give you a checklist that will help you in developing amazing, powerful, true, rich relationships with the people in your life and the people that you lead. And we call this the authenticity checklist. Now, what you would do, you would take a current situation. All right? What's something that's going on in your world? One of the things in 2023 that I heard over, we had over 50 coaching clients this year. Okay.

It was just an incredible year for the Melon Group, for those that are listening, that participated in a 90 day leader and role coaching program or the 90 day emerging leader coaching program. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your world and continuing to be a part of your world as we connect even after we are done with the 90 day. The 90 day program. It means a lot to me and I hope you took out of it what we said. And I kind of know the answer to that because of how we wrap things up and what our, you know, the end of the program is and while we do things and the questions that we ask on our end. But thank you.

I want you to know that genuinely that our time together meant a lot to me and for you to allow me to keep behind your curtain to your world so we can get to what were trying to get to and do the work and get you set up for success and your people up for success. It means a lot to me and it humbles me. Okay. But here's something that I would do with myself. And I'm going to begin sharing this more with our coaching clients. I think it's important we do this with our team here. Authenticity checklist.

So all the work that I did this past year, one of the things that kept coming up time and time again, it's nothing new, it's nothing revolutionary, but it is key to success is the ability, the inability or the challenge to have the difficult conversation with the person that is underachieving, that always seems to have all the answers, all the excuses, all the spins doesn't understand. But they're not a bad person. But I know that they trust their work. But how do I have the difficult conversation and tell them this? It's very normal, it's very natural. Often in time, especially with the constraints that we have in our bandwidth, our capacity and our time, we tend as leaders to lean veer towards the path of least resistance. It's critical, it's significant, and it's key to do your best to master the difficult conversation.

So I have an authenticity checklist. Okay. And as you know, or may not know, if this is your first or second time listening, but we break authenticity down into three key components. First is honesty, the ability to be honest with yourself and with others. Okay. The second is integrity. How your words and your actions are aligned. You do what you say you're going to do, when you say you're going to do it, how you say you're going to do it. And then vulnerability. It's not our job as coaching leaders to have all the answers. It is our job to find it. It is our job to ask for help.

It is our job to do what we need to do to get the answers that allow us to maximize our impact, to impact, influence and positively inspire the people that we lead to achieve that, the results that they and we desire. Okay. It's that simple. So honesty, piece of it, right? The authenticity checklist. Was I honest with them or did I kind of alter reality? So did I fabricate the details, that I fabricate the numbers in the data? Did I stretch it or did I drill into the negative to make it easier and be more aggressive?

Or did I alter reality in a way like maybe it's not as bad as it seems, I could soften the blow here, or was I just brutally honest in a compassionate way, conscious of the way what I said to them or what I asked them was going to land on their end, understanding that they may have things going on in their world. But was I asked them, did I tell them the Whole truth, okay, Was I able to be honest with them in real time? And did I talk about the next steps? Did I talk about expectations and standards and not sugarcoat it, but not be dramatic about it either? And then the honesty piece for the authenticity checklist. In this conversation, the difficult conversation, I always ask myself this, what role do I play in this?

What role am I playing in their struggle? Maybe I'm not pushing them hard enough, maybe I'm not holding them accountable, or maybe I'm asking for too much masking to lean into skills that maybe they don't have. Okay, but the honesty piece, integrity piece, did I navigate, execute the conversation or process like I said it would? In other words, when we sat down for this conversation and this is our process, this is the way we go about it, and this is what you can expect as a person? I'm leaving. Was I true to that? Now, here's a key to this. With difficult conversations that we often forget. The others on the team, you have all eyes upon you because everybody knows that this person's struggling. Everybody knows if this is the case, that this person's flying on the radar.

Everybody knows that this person pushes your buttons or doesn't buy in or pushes back or thinks they have all the answers. Everybody knows that. And they're waiting to see what you do with them. And you may have had side conversations where you said, I'll handle it. Are you going to handle it? Are you going to do what you said you're going to do the way you said you're going to do it in the time frame that you said you're going to do it in? And then here's the other piece that I communicate effectively and was my approach and my delivery productive and vulnerability? Did I ask them? And this is where we often really have a hard time with people, is, did I ask them for help and understanding what is going on in their world?

Did I ask the right questions to try to figure out what I was missing? I'll be blunt. I mean, told you before, I will be blunt. I'll sit there and look the person I say, hey, what am I missing? Because I get the feeling this isn't working for you. What am I missing? What is it? And it's amazing how all of a sudden that question builds a bridge instead of a wall and helps you pull that person out of the silo. You all of a sudden have the walls that they see around you as their coaching leader crumble, and it's one step closer to earning their trust. What Is it I'm missing? What can I do to help? Why are you struggling? And when you had this authenticity checklist. And again, this is just one example.

You can sit there and have an authenticity checklist. Like, let's talk about some of the things that go into building relationships, okay? The trust, making the recognition meaningful for your people. Right? Building psychological safety. How do you create psychological safety within your teams? Making your work fun, joyful? Joy and hard work are not mutually exclusive. You could take this exercise and do it in any of these facets of building these deep relationships. And it's not perfect, it's not clean, but it's like I said way back when I did the solo cast after my half Ironman, it was almost like a spiritual awakening. It dawned on me in the middle of this bike ride in the middle of nowhere in Michigan that it's okay for things to be a hot mess.

You're still going to get the end result you want if you do it the right way and follow the process and trust it and hold yourself accountable and find joy in the hard work that you're doing. Enjoy the moments along the way. And it was one of the greatest epiphanies of my life. I know it sounds strange, and I know it sounds maybe quirky to you. That's you, man. It was. It was awesome for me. And relationships are no different. It's no different, man. And it's fun. I mean, it is fun. Again, it was funny because I was thinking about all the people that couldn't make the party the other night. There's a lot. I mean, there's something going around. I know people are saying, oh, Covid's back. I mean, there's something going around. People are sick. People are out there.

You get to be our age. People have commitments with their kids that can't come in from out of town, and. And the time of the year was a struggle because they just celebrated something. Hey, whatever. But. But relationships aren't just about having a lot of friends. To me, relationships are about meaning and about enjoying this. This journey we're on, enjoying this ride that we're earning and learning from others and being able to offer something to others. Like, I don't want to have a relationship where I have nothing to offer the other person. I want them to look forward to our time together. Or at the very least, I don't want them to be completely appalled that we have to spend time together because it ain't so bad. My point being, is this building meaningful relationships, earning the trust of Your people.

It's not about becoming friends. Friendships will be the byproducts of very meaningful relationships, but what it is for us in this world. And as coaching leaders building meaningful relationships, they foster significance and a resilience and a connection in the people that you lead. And here's a real cool part. I say relationships are the force multiplier in our success. And they absolutely are. It's the fuel that you want to throw on the fire of relationships. The quality of the relationships that you have makes everything worth doing. And it absolutely makes the people that you lead excited about being able to have the impact on those that they will lead when it's their time.

Understand that what you pour into the relationships of the people that you lead as a coaching leader, okay, the impact that you're going to have is going to be exponential, is going to multiply. It's not just the 10 people on your team. Think about if it's the 10 people on your team and each of them goes on to lead a team of seven, there are 70 more people that are being impacted and influenced and inspired because of the relationship that you built with the people on your team. So I encourage you to really be intentional. It's simple. Embrace the messiness of it and be committed to building relationships that again, are bridges.

And if you take away anything from our time together here, which obviously I sincerely hope you do, take away this, you have the ability to earn the trust of those people that you lead. Whether it's in your professional life, your personal life. It is up to you what you do with that ability. Some may be more natural at it than others. Your thing may not being in a social setting, smoothing. But what is the little thing that you could do that sets you apart, that attracts people to you and allows you to earn their trust? What is it? Figure it out. Be intentional about it and spend time in that. Because that is going to be a huge, huge difference maker in the level of success that you experience as a coaching leader. Thank you for listening to the athletics of business.

Be sure to give us a rating and review so we know how we're doing. For more information about the show, visit theathleticsofbusiness.com now get out there. Think, act and execute at the highest level to unleash your greatness.