Strategic Leadership in Uncertain Times

Starting the conversation:

Legacy isn’t Just About the Money You Leave — It’s the Leaders You Build Right Now. Mark Mears, Founder & Chief Growth Officer at LEAF Growth Ventures LLC, shares his learnings and describes how paying it “backward” can shortcut pain, accelerate growth, and inspire future generations in your company.

Building trust comes with time, interaction, and working through frustration together. Allowing team members to openly share emotions and frustrations leads to healthier workplace dynamics and problem-solving. This allows companies to set big goals, take ownership, commit to learning, and consistently deliver — this is the formula for bold leadership and results.

In this show, you will learn what the Power of Four is and how to use it, deepen your introspection to find ways to add more value, and the importance of diverse thoughts to remain innovative. Jess Dewell talks with Mark Mears, Founder & Chief Growth Officer at LEAF Growth Ventures LLC, about why it is BOLD to learn how to deliver on your biggest goals.

Host: Jess Dewell

Guest: Mark Mears

What You Will Hear:

02:50 The higher power of four can be a new foundation for leaders.

• Leading with the rule of threes allowed us to get results, yet wasn’t fulfilling.
• LEAF is an acronym that stands for leadership, engagement, and accountability.
• The four-circle Venn diagram center is purposeful growth.

12:35 Embracing setbacks and failures as steps toward fulfillment.

• Leadership, engagement, accountability — what you have is management.
• Mark Mear’s had to grow by learning to leading differently, and it sparked a passion.
• How can you use your situation and twist it in a way that makes growth possible for you?

20:25 Leaders must create space for frustration and honest conversations.

• Provide space for frustration, an emotion that fuels growth.
• It isn’t just you who is unable to sustain a hair-on-fire pace. Nobody can.
• Frustration left to fester will manifest in poor meetings, or interpersonal conflict, and even that someone just quits and leaves.

23:15 Business is about people — and feelings matter most.

• Maya Angelou, who basically said … people will never forget how you made them feel.
• All we need is love. Love as a more humanistic relational style of leadership.
• LEAF is a model pertaining to the purposeful growth revolution; its counterpart is “love,” which stands for listen, observe, value, and empower.

32:20 Build leaders, not just managers — empower and inspire legacy building.

• Listen, observe, value, and empower our team members; doing so increases the probability we retain their experience and skills, and they want to provide value to the business.
• We want to create communities of belonging as opposed to cultures of conforming.

42:55 The who, not just the why, is at the heart of purpose.

• There are four realms of service: personal, relational, professional, and spiritual.
• We learn through making mistakes.

46:50 It is BOLD to set big goals, own outcomes, and always learn and deliver.

Resources

• The Purposeful Growth Revolution: 4 Ways to Grow from Leader to Legacy Builder
• Low employee engagement costs companies 9% of global GDP

Transcript

Jess Dewell 00:00
We don’t allow space for frustration. We don’t allow space to solve problems and have the pain of solving problems.

Mark Mears 00:09
Either you win or you learn. You are not a failure if you try.

Jess Dewell 00:12
I’m so glad you’re here. Thanks for stopping by. At the Bold Business Podcast, we are normalizing important conversations. Yes, there are tips. Yes, there are ways to solve problems. More importantly are going to be what do you need for yourself to be able to solve those problems and make the most of the education, the training and the programs that you are already using? This is a supplement to that. It can sit on top of it, fuel your soul, fuel your mind, and most importantly, regardless of where you’re at on your journey, maybe you’re starting out, maybe you’re ready to scale, maybe you’re going through a reinvention. The conversations we are having will help you at each of those stages. So hang around, see what’s going on and I look forward to seeing you engaging with our videos.

Announcer 01:04
You are listening to the Bold Business Podcast, where you will hear firsthand experiences about what it really takes to ensure market relevance and your company’s future.

Jess Dewell 01:16
In this program, I’m talking with Mark Mears. He’s a number-one best-selling author, keynote speaker, and consultant. He has a track record of building stakeholder value, and this is actually the core of what we were talking about in our conversation. So let me tell you, today you are going to hear that nothing is coincidence and what that really means. You’re also going to hear what makes a good framework and all the elements for you to include to do a good job for yourself, for your company, for your purposeful growth. And you’re also going to hear how to invest in yourself and the areas that when you are aware and intentional about growth will happen and that ripples out to those around us. It’s an interesting conversation because there’s so much that you can use and what I’d like to do is share in the comments or as part of your review and say, hey, this is the piece I’m going to take away and I’m going to use and if you like it, make sure you’re following and you’re subscribed to our program, the Bold Business Podcast. Now I’m going to tell you that today Mark serves as the Founder and Chief Growth Officer for Leaf Growth Ventures, specifically a consulting firm, to inspire purpose in fulfilling true growth potential while making a positive impact, while getting to the profits, while being able to remain in business and grow. I look forward to hear what you think of this program. You mentioned something to me in one of our previous conversations, Mark, that really stuck with me and I’m going to just start our conversation here. And that is you believe in the higher power of four. I want to know about this because I haven’t asked you yet. And it’s really what’s on the top of my mind as we’re sitting here together.

Mark Mears 03:06
I’m glad you asked because it really serves as the foundation for my belief system. But it started actually when I had the belief system that’s shared by many. The concept called the power of threes, or indeed the rule of threes. And I’m sure you’ve heard of the rule of threes. It basically says people can’t remember that many things. So focus on three major things and it provides people with focus action and you’ll get better results. And so when I was serving as president of a half-billion-dollar casual dining restaurant concept, I used the rule of threes in accomplishing what my team and I were asked to accomplish, which was, first, turn the brand around. It’s down double-digit negative in sales. Okay. Second is it’s gotten a little long in the tooth. We want it to be more relevant, more contemporary to the way people want to dine today. So you need to establish a new brand positioning and menu enhancements and design, decor. And then third, you know, we’re a publicly traded company and we were a unit of a bigger conglomerate that was publicly traded. So we got plenty of capital. We really want to put it behind your brand. And so if you come up with a enhancement to the current construct of the brand, we can put capital behind it. We had about 145 restaurants in 24 states and so pretty big-sized enterprise. I was recruited from my position as chief marketing officer for the Cheesecake Factory to then become president of this new brand. And coming into it as a relatively young leader, it wasn’t that long ago I’d heard of the rule of threes. And I said, okay, we’re going to focus on three things. What are those three things? Leadership, engagement and accountability. If we do those three things, we’ll turn the brand around from double-digit negative sales to positive growth. We’ll put a fresh, contemporary, relevant brand positioning out there with new menu design and decor. And we’ll come up with a new way to grow our business enterprise that will earn the right to capital. And not only was it my mantra that I use in every presentation, but I also use it as part of recognition and reward. I’D say, oh, Jess is doing a wonderful job of leadership. Look what she and her team have accomplished. Or Jess is engaging her team members on a deeper level and look what they’re now accomplishing. And I know this is one of your favorite words, accountability. Jess is holding her team accountable for results. Not only are we a publicly traded unit or a unit of a publicly traded company, but we want to be accountable to our team members and restaurants, obviously our guests and each other. Right. And leadership, engagement, accountability. We did all that we were asked to do in two years relatively quickly. And the CEO came to me at the larger enterprise and said, the board’s decided to move in a different direction. What? Yeah. See if we can sell the brand at a higher multiple than we maybe could have otherwise. You guys have done such a wonderful job of turning it around. I said, okay, so what about me? What’s going on? And he goes, oh, no, don’t worry, you’re going to lead the sale process and we’ll give you a stay-on bonus and a sale bonus if it sells at the multiple we’re looking for. But if it doesn’t, it’ll be business as usual. This is, this is going to be a quiet process, which they never are. So I couldn’t tell anybody. I was sworn to secrecy. I signed a confidentiality agreement. After a certain length of time, we found who we thought would be our perfect suitor. Instead of a private equity play that would have probably chopped us up and sold us for parts, we found a strategic play that owned not only several restaurant chains, but also had their own manufacturing facilities. We thought, that’s perfect for what we’re trying to accomplish. So the deal closed on Friday. We’re drinking champagne, celebrating over the weekend. Monday morning at 8:00, I had a meeting with the new CEO of this new enterprise and we were going to plan our future together. We had series of meetings scheduled that week to get our respective executive teams together and start this process. And at 8:05, I’m out the door. We’ve decided to move in a different direction. I’m like, so that just happened. And so after a fitful night of sleep…

Jess Dewell 07:33
I’m impressed you made it five minutes.

Mark Mears 07:36
Yeah, I wouldn’t have been five minutes. It would have been one minute except for it took four minutes for my jaw to get off the floor and…

Jess Dewell 07:42
Get out the door.

Mark Mears 07:43
Door and then gather whatever I could and walk out the door. This was February 21, 2013. We were living in Southern California at the time. And that’s about the time the first signs of spring start to emerge. So again, after a fitful night of sleep, I get up early, I take the dog out, and Jess is God is my witness, we have a fig tree in our backyard that was barren from the five or six weeks of winter we do get in Southern California. And there on the end of one branch was this tiny little green sprig of a leaf just starting to emerge. And there I got this epiphany that a leaf is a symbol of growth and rebirth. Here I’d been beating myself up the prior day and all night, and what could I have done different? What’s going to now happen to me and what’s going to happen to my family? And oh, by the way, as it turned out, two weeks later, all the other executive teams were walked out the door door. And so I’m feeling like sorry for myself, pity party. But that leaf gave me this jolt of inspiration because I saw it as a symbol of growth and rebirth. Back to your question. How does that translate? By leading with the rule of threes. It got us to get results, but after getting the rug kind of taken out from under us, it wasn’t very fulfilling. We were chasing numbers for the sake of numbers. We were tired, burning the candle at both ends. Not only did we have our day job, but we had this project that led itself into a test mode. And I started writing down, leadership, engagement, accountability. Where’d I go wrong? And I said that wasn’t very fulfilling. So I wrote the word fulfillment down, and I saw that it became an acronym which stands for Leadership, Engagement, Accountability. Three things we definitely do need. But it has to be in a manner that gets you to feel a sense of fulfillment. And so then I drew this four-circle Venn diagram, harking back to the four seasons. There are four seasons, not three. There are four directions, not three. There are four chambers to the human heart, not three. There are four elements to an atom, the source of life, not three. I could go on and on with this foreplay, but you get the idea, right?

Jess Dewell 09:58
Yeah.

Mark Mears 09:58
He said there’s a higher power here. It’s a higher power of fours versus a rule of threes. And so that model, that four-circle Venn diagram, you might say, what’s in the center of it? If all these circles are intertwined, what are they revolving around? And that’s purposeful growth. That tree, that fig tree in my backyard, only knows how to be a fig tree. Its purpose is to grow fig leaves where all growth happens through a plant or A tree through the magic of photosynthesis, right? But it, its purpose is not just to grow fig leaves, it’s also to bear fig fruit. That not only is sustenance for animals and people, but you break it open inside. It’s got seeds for future growth. So this whole idea of the revolution that I created, the Purposeful Growth Revolution, which you can see my book behind me and that, that’s the name of it, the Purposeful Growth Revolution. Four ways to Grow from Leader to Legacy builder. And that really is the crux of this higher power of fours. And that model of a four-circle Venn diagram that is the centerpiece of the book. And really, again, my new belief system, higher power of fours is much more fulfilling and much more satisfying than just the rule of threes.

Jess Dewell 11:19
You’re listening to the Bold Business Podcast. I’m your host, Jess Dewell. This is your program for strategizing long-term success while diving deep into what the right work is for your business.

Announcer 11:32
Right now, you’re listening to the Bold Business podcast hosted by Jess Dewell, a nationally recognized strategic growth consultant. She works with business owners and executives to integrate just two elements that guide business through the ups and downs of growth. Number one, know what work is necessary. Number two, do all the work possible. Schedule a complimentary consultation to find out more at Red Direction dot com.

Jess Dewell 12:00
I’m excited you are listening to Mark Mears. Mark is a best-selling author, keynote speaker and founder of Leaf Growth Ventures where he helps leaders unlock purposeful growth. Now let’s get back to the program. Hindsight being 20/20. Mark, my question next question is about looking back. Would your journey have changed any to get you to find the F and that fourth piece? Or would it have been the same even if you had fulfillment earlier as part of your acronym?

Mark Mears 12:36
I personally don’t believe in coincidences. I had to go through that process to find this sense of fulfillment that wasn’t there prior when we were just chasing numbers to chase numbers to then give me a deeper sense of what leadership is all about. Because if you just have leadership, engagement, accountability, what you have is management. When you add fulfillment, you think about the model of leaf is that leadership represents the seed and the root system, right? Like any business, you’ve got to have strong leadership or that plant or tree will wither and die. Right? Engagement is about the trunk, the branches and the system of nourishment. Which I learned is called savia, which Spanish translated English means lifeblood. What’s the lifeblood of any organization? It’s people. Right?

Jess Dewell 13:32
It’s people.

Mark Mears 13:33
You want to engage people with their heart, their head, their hands, and their habits. That leads to empowerment. And then you have accountability. Right. So accountability now is the leaf and the fruit of that particular tree. What’s its purpose? What do you want to achieve within your business? And so you need to be accountable to be able to achieve your goals. And then fulfillment represents the ecosystem. It’s the soil, the sun, the rain that creates photosynthesis for again, that plant, a nurturing environment for that plant or a culture, what I now call community within an organization to thrive and grow up to its full potential. I believe I had to go through that whole process to come up with this model that led to this book now has me not only leading different, but as you can tell, I’m pretty passionate about this every chance I get. I do keynote speeches on this. I consult other businesses and coach other leaders because I went through the painful process that got me to not only have the epiphany, but follow it faithfully. And that’s. It’s been now several years ago, and it took me a long time to finish the book and really get my head wrapped around that this could be an extension of my career. A transition from being corporate America teen guy to, to now entrepreneur with three employees. Me and I often don’t agree. So I’m not sure how helpful that is about that. It’s not that things happen to you because I could have kept the pity party going and just said was me and taken my severance and looked for another job. But I also use it as a chance to really deeply get introspective when I had the time off what mattered most to me and actually went and did pro bono consulting for my church and then got hired on as executive pastor of communication for a year. And God used me in a different way than what I thought I needed to do, which is jump right back on the horse and get another job and do X, Y and Z. But that time of reflection and introspection, how are you going to use this situation that did happen to you?

Jess Dewell 15:53
Yeah.

Mark Mears 15:53
Twist it in a way that makes it happen for you. And then it got me thinking about the power of purpose. And I got to thinking, I don’t want to just make money and retire. I want to make a difference and inspire. So you can take something that happens to you and it could be twisted into something beautiful.

Jess Dewell 16:12
I like that. It makes me think of a kaleidoscope. And I use that imagery a lot.

Mark Mears 16:16
Right.

Jess Dewell 16:16
We twist it around and we can change all the pieces. We can change what it looks like, and we can see things from a different perspective. Now, what happens when you actually go and you change out the pieces of glass or the. The pieces that are whatever the shapes or the things are that are in the end that create that kaleidoscope? And that’s another. It’s because then you get to change perspective. Ooh, I get to actually dabble with what’s in the end. And, oh, now we can twist it and look and take that to our people and find out how are we aligned? That’s why one of the things that was coming up for me as I was listening to you speak, Mark, and now I’m curious. I agree with you. Nothing is coincidence. But did you like the order of the things going back to your introspection? Did you like the order of the things that happened to you? I know you probably do now, but in the moment, right? Is it?

Mark Mears 17:08
No. Who likes pain?

Jess Dewell 17:10
I don’t like pain.

Mark Mears 17:11
Who likes a feeling of fit? What feeling? That you were a failure.

Jess Dewell 17:16
Right, True.

Mark Mears 17:17
But that is what I felt. And so the introspection allowed me to go back and really pick at all these things. And how do I feel? Why do I feel that way? It doesn’t do any good to say, what could I have done different? But more importantly, what did I learn from this for the future? And so often we as humans tend to beat ourselves up and play the what if game. What if I would have done X and Y or Z instead of what did I learn? And how can I apply that learning to be better as a leader, as a person, as a husband, as a father, as a friend, neighbor, whatever. How can I use the experience that happened to me right over what I could do differently going forward? And how could I use that painful process and twist it into something beautiful?

Jess Dewell 18:11
I’m doing a lot of active parenting right now.

Mark Mears 18:14
Been there.

Jess Dewell 18:15
I know you have. Can yours, you right? Yours are grown and flown. You’ve been there. You know what I’m talking about. As a person who wants to do well, as a person who wants to create capacity and capability of my child, there are a lot of elements that come in, into business that same way. The only reason I am bringing this up is because in my efforts to develop as a parent and to be the best parent that I can be right now with who I am and all the things that have happened to me, one of the things that’s easy to do today, and I do believe this happens in business, and I’m watching this in my clients, which is why I’m bringing it up here is we don’t allow space for frustration. We don’t allow space to solve problems. Problems. And have the pain of solving problems. And I think that. And what they’re talking about in parenting is so you get kids who are entitled. And I expect to have something positive come out of this, even if that’s not in my personality, because I don’t ever have to feel the frustration of not getting on a team, not being invited to a party, not being able to get there because the schedule didn’t work out, or not doing my job. So I didn’t actually get the opportunity to earn the opportunity to go do something, whatever that is. And I was thinking about that, and then I was like, introspection. Oh, yeah. I had to be. I had to get everything done. If I didn’t get to do stuff, if I did, I still might not have had a ride. How do you deal with all these things? What are the things that you have to learn? How do you build your network? Who can you rely on? There are all of these interesting things that come from stress, failure, frustration. And I think we’re talking about, I’m talking more about frustration here. And so now I’m curious if you were to take all of those things in your introspection, and you were saying nothing is a coincidence, and you can take that and learn from it. Sure, it happened. But how we use it is what I’m hearing you say matters.

Mark Mears 20:17
Yes.

Jess Dewell 20:17
So how do we actually build that in a team, in an organization, in a time where we all don’t want pain, we don’t have time for frustration? We just got to get the result and go. And it’s got to be a good result to go.

Mark Mears 20:28
I believe you use the right word space. You got to create space for people to express themselves. Mark, I’m frustrated that you’ve given me a deadline. I want to do my best work, but I don’t see how it’s possible to get it done by that amount of time. Because if you don’t allow that space and provide that listening opportunity and we’ll talk more about the importance of listening in a minute, that frustration in that person will build up. And it may like anything that builds up like a volcano, at some point it’s going to blow. And it may blow during a meeting and they may say something they will regret, or it may be that they’ll just not do their work and just say, I can’t. I can’t get it done. So I won’t get it done. Providing that space for frustration, which is a human feeling. Excuse me. An emotion allows us to talk through it. Now that I know that, I can say, yeah, Jess, you know what? I think I can move some things around and we can give you more time to get this done. But thank you for bringing that to my attention. It was never my intent to stress you out and create anxiety. It was more about trying to look at how things fit in the bigger picture so that person now understands why I made the decision. It wasn’t arbitrary. It wasn’t to hurt them. But now here I am, having heard it, it’s for me now to solve for it. But we have to make time for space. Because if we say, oh, we got to get it done, we got to get it done. Hair on fire. That lasts for a while.

Jess Dewell 22:07
Yeah.

Mark Mears 22:08
It doesn’t mean that pace. Nobody can again, we’re all human. It may be that someone just quits and leaves.

Jess Dewell 22:15
We might have the right people and we might not have the right people on our team, regardless, they are the resources we have. So, how do we show up in companies where their service products or their projects that take a long time and we’re not measuring units per hour? We don’t have that kind of metric with which we’re going for efficiency. There’s a whole different thing. And I know that doesn’t translate well. I think there are a lot of organizations that leave space for conversation, but they don’t leave space for hard conversation or space for people to be able to process and come back. So if you ask me something big, Mark, I will say, you know what? Okay, I got. I’m going to think about that and let me get back to you by whatever I’m going to say. Right. Whatever date. If you came to me and said, I need you to stop everything, Jess, I need you to work on this instead. Here’s why I’d be like, hang tight. Sounds exciting. I’m sure I’m going to have some questions, but I’m not in a space to find them right now. Let me come back to you this afternoon and we’ll talk some more. And hopefully that would be okay with you because that’s pretty assertive. That’s pretty assertive to say, time out. Don’t you dare stop my energy. But at the same point in time, I hear we might be changing directions. I’m on board. We are.

Mark Mears 23:35
It doesn’t matter what your industry or your vocation or even your job position is. We’re all in the people business.

Jess Dewell 23:44
We are all in the people business.

Mark Mears 23:46
And in the people business, and we want to be successful, we have to then be in the feelings business. I love the late great poet laureate Maya Angelou, who famously said, I’ve learned that people will forget what you’ve said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. So it dovetails into the new book I’m writing, which is about putting the human back in human resources. And I say, to do all we need is love. Not the kind of love that’s going to get you a quick call from HR and escorted out of the building, but a more humanistic, relational style of leadership as opposed to the tired old hierarchical command and control management style that no longer serves us, especially among younger people. They don’t want to be managed and required, they want to be led and inspired. So I’ve created as LEAF is a model pertaining to the purposeful growth revolution. Its counterpart is love, which stands for listen, observe, value and empower. The purpose of listening to develop a bond of trust, right? Listening to what the person’s saying, but maybe also what they’re not saying and probe and ask good questions. Because we’re all different, right? And if you take DISC or StrengthsFinder 2.0 or Myers Briggs or Enneagram, any one of those kind of personality tests, you’ll find out we’re all different. But guess what? Different is good. I’m a big believer in the power of diversity, and it breaks my heart when I see and read and hear all this talk about rolling back DEI policies and practices. They’re missing the boat on the power of diversity as a competitive, leverageable advantage for a firm. That’s where innovation comes from. If we all think alike, it’s called groupthink, and that doesn’t work out too well. Instead of I believe words matter. So instead of like-minded, oftentimes people get in a conversation and then agree on something. Go, we’re like-minded. That’s great. Except if you’re like-minded, how are you ever going to learn and grow? You’re going to pat each other on the back because you think alike, but you’re really not going to learn and grow. So I prefer. And that means you’ve got a sense of empathy and understanding in your listening style where you’re seeking to understand and you’re seeking to learn. I still might not agree with everything you said or your position on X, Y and Z, but what I might have done is learn something new that I didn’t know that may Help inform or reshape my own thoughts because I value as a fellow human being, I’m not worse, you’re not better, you’re not worse. We’re still human beings. We need to listen, we need to observe. And that means observing by coaching and mentoring, even critiquing in real time. Don’t wait for the dreaded annual performance appraisal that no one likes, no one does well, but be a coach that runs with the team and then value the hope, not just through compensation, excuse me, and benefits, that’s the greens fees, or authentic recognition and reward when it’s merited. All those are great, but by valuing the whole person, we’re also investing in them. And when you value something, you tend to want to invest in it to grow it, right? And so it may be, Jess, you come to me and say, hey, I really think there’s some cool ways that we could employ AI into our team to make us more productive, more efficient. And I say, oh, there was this workshop that came across my desk. I think maybe that would be better suited for you, given your interest. Why don’t you go? It’s a couple days, it’s in the Bay Area, and you’ll come back and we’ll talk about what you learned, and you’ll go, wow. I have an opportunity to learn and grow, but I believe in the higher power fours, as we’ve already discussed. So we gotta listen, we gotta observe, we gotta value. But most importantly, we’ve got to empower our team members to grow into their full potential. An example would be when I learned to ride a bike. I don’t know about you, I have a scar.

Jess Dewell 28:08
I got a scar on my knee.

Mark Mears 28:13
A couple years before the big wheel was big wheels. I remember. I don’t remember which birthday, but for my birthday, I got this beautiful royal blue Schwinn Stingray. It had a banana seat, cool handlebar, a mag wheel in the back. But I couldn’t ride it by myself. So I had training wheels and had an older brother, an older sister, and neighborhood kids. But I’d tool around. I thought I was hot riding around with my training wheels, until one Saturday morning, my dad wakes me up and he says, son, it’s time to take the training wheels off. Are you ready? At one point, I’m like, yeah, because I get to be like the big kids. But on the other, oh, that’s something new and scary because I’d never done it before. And I remember we’re in the garage, he’s taking the training wheels off. And all the while, he’s talking to me about the key things to remember about riding a bike. And then he gets out, and I sit on the bike, and he doesn’t just push me and say, go ahead, fly out of the nest. He’s walking alongside, holding the seat and one of the handlebars with me while he’s still coaching me. And then he says, okay, I’m going to give you a push and let you go. Keep pedaling, and if you start to wobble, don’t overcorrect the handlebars because you’ll wobble and fall. And sure enough, I stopped pedaling and started wobbling and fell down a few times. He got me back up on the bike and said, I need you to keep pedaling because that momentum is going to keep you moving forward. And then, oh, by the way, here’s where the brake is and all that. And he pushed me again. And I remember when I finally got it, I pedaled down to the end of the street. I was able to stop, turn around, start, and pedal back. And when I got to the edge of the driveway where my dad was standing, I don’t know whose grin was bigger, his or mine. But I remember in my mind’s eye to this day, feeling that sense of freedom, a sense of freedom I’d never felt before. My neighborhood got bigger. Heck, my world got bigger. I lived on that bike that summer and subsequent summers. And that sense of empowerment, I had it in me to do it all along. But he empowered me by coaching and teaching and giving me the resources that I needed to do to live into my full potential. So let’s segue back to your AI workshop. Jess comes back and I say, hey, you, you learned a lot. Would you be willing to put together a training for our whole team? And you say, oh, sure. And all of a sudden, your eyes light up because you’re feeling value. But now you’re being empowered to grow into your full potential. And two weeks go by, and I say, what resources do you need? What can I do? And you’ll go. Three projects I’m working on. One’s almost finished, but, boy, it would sure help if Todd or Mary could take that on so I could finish on focus on finishing this presentation. I said, okay, sure. What else you need? I need the room. I need the audio-video equipment. You give the presentation, the team gives you standing ovation because you just help make their jobs better, more fulfilling. You feel great about yourself, and you feel great that you were valued and empowered to be who you are capable of being. Now, if we listen, observe, value and empower our team members, who’d want to quietly quit that, who’d want to leave that environment, you would want to bottle that up. And that’s where this model goes from. If you’re a team member, it’s transactional. I need a job. All of us, early in our career, that’s what it was, let’s be honest. But then when you get to be promoted into a manager, that could become transactional. You’re managing budgets and timelines and metrics and resources and people and you start to build trust in a relationship and now you’re called a leader. So if you’re a manager, someone might just say, I must obey you because you have a higher title than mine. But if you’re a leader, they’ll probably say, I will willingly follow you. The goal of every leader should be to create other leaders. And that’s how you become a legacy builder. That means that person says, not only will I follow you, but I will lead like you, if not better, when it’s my turn to lead. So to me, this is where we want to create communities of belonging as opposed to cultures of conforming.

Jess Dewell 32:44
I’m your host, Jess Dewell and we’re getting down to business on the Bold Business podcast. This is where we’re tackling the challenges that matter most to you with actionable and achievable advice to get real results that lead to your success.

Announcer 33:02
Focused on growth. Listen to more programs like this which support the challenges and opportunities you are working with right now. Search Bold Business Podcast for the key terms at red direction.com or your preferred podcast listening app.

Jess Dewell 33:18
I’m excited you are listening to Mark Mears. Mark is a bestselling author, keynote speaker and founder of Leaf Growth Ventures where he helps leaders unlock purposeful growth. Now let’s get back to the program. In this power of four. It’s a framework in the way that you were describing this and how everything is interconnected. There is a framework the way that you even worked in. How do you measure and know there’s some sort of progress, Maybe not a result, but a progression, an iteration forward movement in a way that will support where whatever those biggest goals are. What makes a great framework?

Mark Mears 34:01
Again, words matter. You say the word framework. The end of the word framework is work. It has to work. Otherwise, it’d be like trying to build a house without architectural plans. You create the framework that then you build on top of and make modifications along the way. So for me, it’s got to work. And we don’t just roll out of bed and come up with something. It’s often trial and error. We learn and we grow and we improvise and we mold and shape until we, we have enough empirical evidence to support the framework as being trustworthy. So I didn’t again just roll out of bed and think of the leaf model. I already had leadership, engagement and accountability, but fulfillment came through a perceived failure. And again, I hate the word failure because failure to me means you failed to try. I believe either you win or you learn. And learning is really important. And we’ll probably talk more about that later. But I think that having a model or a framework gives one what I call I took it from a friend who I worked with years ago at an agency. He called it a mind handle and I thought that was really cool. A mind handle is something that you latch onto and it helps you understand different elements and maybe take chaos and then mold it into something manageable and easy to understand and memorable and relatable.

Jess Dewell 35:28
I’ll bet you we have one for the Bold Business podcast.

Mark Mears 35:33
Well, I have been thinking about that and I really do think there is something there. And as we’ve been talking, I thought first, I think bold. It’s got four letters like leaf and love. And I’ve got some other models throughout my book that are four letters, which is based on the higher power of four. I think there’s this nice symmetry. If you think about your car, it’s got four wheels, right?

Jess Dewell 35:55
When we look at business statistics, there’s usually some sort of a quadrant with four boxes that you’re filling in, right? Yeah.

Mark Mears 36:03
And not that a three-tired wheeled car couldn’t work, but it wouldn’t have the same.

Jess Dewell 36:13
I’m going to go back to your story. Graduated from the big wheel to the bike, right?

Mark Mears 36:19
Well, I was on the trike. I missed the big wheel era, but.

Jess Dewell 36:20
I was a big wheel girl and a tricycle girl.

Mark Mears 36:22
But also we. Right. Think about. I’m a big believer that we should look at you talked about metrics, the four things that matter most in any business. All are all revolving around our stakeholders. Yeah. Notice I didn’t say shareholders because words matter. We’ll talk about that in a second. Our four stakeholders are our team members, our customers, guests, clients, depending on what industry you’re in. Right. Who you serve and your business partners. Is anybody in your business ecosystem. It could be shareholders if you’re publicly traded or financially driven through other people’s money. Right. But it can also be your manufacturing Partners, your distributing partners, your warehouse partners, your agency partners. Right, Anybody in your business ecosystem. And then the fourth one is really important. Most people stop at those three. But again, the higher power fours compels me to look at our communities as our fourth stakeholder. And so think about that as a four-circle Venn diagram. They all overlap. If I’m purposeful and I’m community-based, I’m probably going to attract team members and give them a sense of purpose beyond their life now, a purpose in their work. So they’re going to want to work harder, higher quality output, more discretionary effort, ownership in the outcomes and they’re going to want to stay longer. Your customers or guests or whatnot are going to say because of your product or service and how the way you treat your people and how you give back into community makes me feel better about your brand versus brand X, Y or Z. Your business partners all have something to gain by supporting you, right? If they’re a manufacturing partner, they’re making money on manufacturing your widgets or distributing in them or storing them. And then your communities. It’s like having an opportunity to be purposeful and giving back in our communities. Whether it’s your direct community, it could be even globally. When you think about Patagonia as a wonderful example of a brand, not just a company, a brand that stands for taking care of their team members, doing right by their customers, and taking good care of their business partners and giving back in their communities, they’re doing one step further.

Jess Dewell 38:37
They’re even including the Earth. They’ve made commitments to only use products that are actually good for the Earth, which are actually good. Better for us too. I’m all about Patagonia.

Mark Mears 38:48
Yes, because when I say do right by your customers, they actually have a program that’s about give us a worn jacket that’s got a rip and we’ll help fix it. Instead of selling you on a new one, which they could do. They are wanting to either recycle what you have that you’re giving away, or throwing away or fixing what you have so you don’t have to buy something new. But a purposeful company has a bigger vision than just profit. Not to say profit’s bad is not. I’m a big believer in capitalism, which is why I’m a member of the Senior Leadership network of Conscious Capitalism Incorporated, a global enterprise whose mission aligns perfectly with mine. And that’s elevating humanity through business.

Jess Dewell 39:33
It requires an investment and it requires a long-term view. And in today’s world, we are challenged with getting past the next month, getting past the next 12 weeks or quarter, regardless of the size of an organization. When I’m hearing you talk about if we’re thinking about fulfillment, if we’re thinking about our stakeholders, if we’re thinking about what we are actually doing, not only for our own fulfillment, but to be on purpose, to have purposeful growth, I’m hearing it’s so necessary to set aside some of the immediate gratification or the immediate tools or the immediate results and be thoughtful about how do we take what we’re seeing and make sure that any adjustments are looking ahead. 18 months, 24 months, 36 months. And the bigger the company 5 years, 10 years, 25 years. There’s growth and development happening here in my city in Kirkland, that they were going out 15 years and guess what? That project stopped the all of the things that were being involved. The companies that were looking that far out said we’re out. And to me, those are those key things that help us understand the bigger pulse of what’s going on. So we can take a little closer look. We can actually go back and do our introspection and reflectiveness to be able to go, what are the things are we learning what we need to do when we hear things like that are 15 years out, that are changing? What could that trickle-down effect be? What are they watching in their polls that can help us make better decisions now so that we can stay on purpose?

Mark Mears 41:11
Steve Jobs once was quoted in front of his executive team during a planning meeting and he said, our jobs is to invent the future while we’re managing the present.

Jess Dewell 41:22
Yes.

Mark Mears 41:22
You got to do both.

Jess Dewell 41:24
Yes.

Mark Mears 41:24
And there’s a proverb, I’m sure I’m going to butcher it, but it basically said we’re planting the seeds for a tree we may never stand under.

Jess Dewell 41:33
Yes.

Mark Mears 41:34
And I think you have to have that mindset. That’s what it means to be a living legacy builder. Because if we’re just a good leader, that’s great. But if we really want to make an impact, that ripple effect, we want to create future leaders, but we may not be around to watch how they lead and the impact they make. And so we’re basically planting seeds of a tree who. Which we may never stand under. We know that when we make that impact, there are multiple ripple effects that can create a tidal wave. And I think that’s what’s so cool, is to be able to. Most people think a legacy and they think about it like bequeathing something of value. Once we’re dead and buried. That’s one definition. But for me it’s about how do you use every single day? The one thing I know, Jess my I don’t know much, but I do know this. All I know is each of us is given 24 hours in a day. Not one of us is granted one minute more or one minute less. So we have a choice on how we use those 24 hours to not only enrich ourselves or our families or even our team members, but also our communities and help make the world a better place. How many lives did we touch and change to make the world better?

Jess Dewell 42:56
How do you invest in yourself to stay on purpose?

Mark Mears 42:59
Back to that four-circle Venn diagram. Most people have probably heard of Simon Sinek and the whole start with why movement. Several years ago that started as a TED talk that became a book and now it’s a whole industry and people are always saying what’s your why? My why is this. And I don’t believe we start with why. He thinks the mat or the Golden Circle is bullseye is people want to know why you do what you do before they care how you do it or even what you do. And I bought into that for a long time. But again, I don’t believe anymore in the rule of threes. I believe there’s a fourth element hidden in plain sight. As someone who grew up in marketing communications, we’re always taught about start with the target audience. Who are you trying to reach? In sales they call it a Persona or a unique avatar, someone that you want to target because otherwise you’re just like opening up your jacket and saying here’s all these watches, which one do you want to buy? But by starting with who and specifically who we serve. And I believe there are four realms of service. There’s personal, relational, professional and spiritual. So to answer your question, the personal realm is about physical, mental and emotional and even financial well-being. Because if we don’t take care of ourself, the other three realms of service don’t matter and the importance of self-care. And I know this from being someone who used to run a type A plus personality, serial achiever and still recovering perfectionists. I would drive myself into the ground and work crazy hours, nights, mornings, weekends. Had the sense of satisfaction like I’m really taking one of the team. And then I’ve had a few health scares along the way that got me to wake up and say what are you doing? Or I’ve had some relationship issues that didn’t go the way they should have gone because I was not balancing those four realms of service. Personal. I was letting myself go because I was all about professional and relational. Some relationships went south because I wasn’t being attended spiritual. Sometimes we’re there in the moment when we have the need, but we don’t weave it into our daily discipline. So I’ve learned through a lot of error to take care of myself better, which then allows me to take care of those I love and who love me in my relational realm of service as well as professionally. I’m better at work. I’m better with people around me when I’ve taken care of my physical, mental, emotional and financial needs. And then spiritually, I’ve gotten a lot closer to understanding that. Regardless of your religious conviction or faith tradition, if any, I think most of us would agree that love is the tissue that binds us all together as human beings. It connects us in some way, shape or form. And so my new thought system is when you figure out who you serve, it often leads you to your why, which is your kind of purpose or motivations. That then leads you to your how. Are you uniquely gifted? Right? What are your superpowers? We were all given something, and some of us a few things, and some of you many things that make us unique and different and special. How are we using those to then accomplish our what? What ultimately are we trying to accomplish again across all four of those stakeholders, our team members, our customers, our business partners, and our communities. And that really is a holistic view where indeed the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. And I think that’s a new way of thinking versus just start with why.

Jess Dewell 46:52
What makes it bold? What makes it bold to stay all in and strive for intentional growth?

Mark Mears 46:59
There was a book called Good to Great, and in it, it talked about setting big-hairy audacious goals. So the B stands for big-hairy audacious goals. And that should drive you and motivate you each day. Even when you have those dark days, those days of self-doubt. Remember the big-hairy audacious goals you’ve set? And then the O stands for own it ownership. You gotta own the outcome. And it’s one thing to have a goal, but if you don’t own it, it just, it becomes a nice platitude. But then also the L stands for learn. And we talked about the idea of learning and the importance of learning. And I wrote in my book that when you stop learning, you start dying. We have to learn again. Either you win or you learn. You are not a failure if you try. But what can I learn? I’ve taken ownership, but something didn’t go exactly right. So what am I learning about that? That then leads to the D, which is deliver. At the end of the day, you got to deliver on your commitments to yourself, to your family, to, to your team members, customers, business partners, and communities. And that bold acronym is something that I think can inspire all of us to lead bigger, own the outcomes, learn from the good, the bad and the ugly, and then deliver, live up to our commitments. And if we do that, we’re probably going to be pretty darn successful.

Jess Dewell 48:31
Every single time I have a conversation, I take away something that I want to share with 25 people. I know. When you’re listening to this podcast, you’re also listening for that and will have something that you want to share in the comments. I would like for you to engage with us. What is that thing that you want to tell 25 people from this program? Here’s why it’s important. It’s important because, yeah, there are going to be how-to’s. Yes. There are going to be steps. Yes. You’re going to be like, oh, I wish I wrote that down. I wish I wasn’t doing this and I could actually take action on that right now. But guess what? You’re not so engaged right now because that one thing you want to share with others will be the thing that you can figure out how to incorporate in your business, in your workflow, in your style. Tomorrow.

Announcer 49:22
Jess hosts the Bold Business Podcast to provide insights for building a resilient, profitable business by deeply understanding your growth strategy, ensuring market relevance and your company’s future. It is bold to deeply understand your growth strategy. With your host, Jess Dewell, get more information about how to drive solutions and reset your growth mindset at red direction dot com. Thank you for joining us, and special thanks to our post-production team at the Scott Treatment.