You Can’t Lead a Great Team If You Can’t Lead Yourself
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“I know focusing on what I can control, is the only way of me impacting the world and impacting myself and impacting my family and my clients and my friends.”
–Mike Goldman
- Leading oneself is fundamental before leading a team or a company.
- Personal and professional success are closely linked to self-leadership.
A Turning Point: Overcoming Personal Challenges
- Transitioned to a coaching business, facing ongoing challenges with my son's Asperger's syndrome.
- Seeking coaching and self-reflection led to a shift in mindset and improved relationships.
- Progressively built a sustainable business from 2013 to 2015.
A New Chapter: Health Realizations and Business Success
- Achieved a holistic alignment of mind, body, and spirit, resulting in improved business performance and personal well-being.
The Key to Success: Mind, Body, Spirit Alignment
- Emphasizing the importance of self-discipline and health consciousness in achieving professional success.
- Recognizing the interconnectedness of personal and professional growth.
- Focusing on internal locus of control and what can be controlled to positively impact oneself and others.
The Impact of Self-Leadership
- The significance of leading oneself before leading others.
- Expressing optimism for continued growth and improvement through self-awareness and self-mastery.
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You can't lead a great team. You can't create a great team. I would argue you can't even be a strong part of a great team if you can't lead yourself. I don't think you can create a great company or lead a great company if you can't lead yourself. And I've seen this in my life and it's so much easier to see the effects of how I was doing.
Mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually. When I look back at my life and I see how I was doing leading myself, and then I look at how I was doing from a business standpoint, it's unbelievable how closely they are tied to each other. There's never been a time where I was stressed and frustrated mentally, but doing really well in business.
So I want to take you through some kind of highs and lows, and it starts out mostly lows and then it gets higher of the last 20 years or so of my life to give you a sense of, of what I'm talking about.
And I want to start from my first business that I created, which was a staffing and recruiting firm, back in 2004.
The first year or so, just trying to build it, felt pretty good about things. Even though I wasn't making any money, I was losing money. still feeling good, my first business, I'm gonna make it work. and then, you know, things started getting tough, started getting worrisome. And in, in 2006, between 2006 2007, Couple things happened.
Number one, my father in law, who was an unbelievable guy I was really close with, passed away. My mother in law, was diagnosed with breast cancer and, and had to live with us for a year, year and a half. I don't remember. Whatever it was, it, it felt a lot longer. I did not, at the time, get along with my mother in law at all.
Quite as well as I did with my father in law. In fact, we butted heads a lot and having her. live with us. And at the same time, having two young kids, my daughter was about 10. My son, Richie, my daughter, Jessica was about 10. My son, Richie was 12. And at the time, and I've mentioned this on other podcasts, if you've watched my TEDx, TEDx, you know, a little bit about my son, my son, Richie has Asperger's syndrome.
And from the time he was, you know, 10, 11, 12, that was probably the worst time for me and my relationship with my son. And, and I did not handle it well. I was very, very frustrated, by his behavior and just a lot of yelling and screaming. And I was not a very good dad back then. And on top of it, here comes my mother in law living with us.
and you know, I can remember. You know, kind of a, a funny story, I guess, although it wasn't funny at the time, how my mindset made things worse. I can remember one morning, my wife, Angela had to leave for work earlier than usual, she would normally make sure to get the kids up for school.
At seven o'clock or whatever it was. And, she had to leave early and it's about five to seven and I'm up, I'm ready to wake the kids up. And it's this knocking at my door and my mother in law peeks her head in and says, I know Angela's not home. Do I need to get the kids up? And I thought, does this woman not think I can take care of my children?
Like, you know, Angela's not home. So I can't wake up the kids and, you know, I could take care of the kids. And I looked at her and I said, no, I, I got it taken care of. Don't worry. And I said it just like that. And I heard about it later, my attitude. And, you know, if you think about what this horrible woman was trying to do was to help, she was asking if I needed help with the kids and that pissed me off.
But my mindset was so screwed up back then that instead of looking at what she did and taking meaning away that, Oh my God, you know, My mother in law is trying to help me. And if, and, and if that's what I thought I would have said, probably use the same words, but I probably would have said, no, don't worry about it.
You know, I, I've got it taken care of. Thank you. Instead of the attitude I gave her, but it's because my mindset was so screwed up and I was automatically assuming negative intent. On her, but that's what things were like back then. That's what my mindset was like. And, and, you know, between dealing with my son and, and, and dealing with my mother in law, you know, and, and it's always, you know, a struggle to get a business off the ground, but business was never that bad.
Our finances were never that horrible. At that time, I was in the process of digging about a seven year financial hole for me and my family. And, my mindset just wasn't right. So you get a sense of, I wasn't leading myself very well and, and it absolutely impacted my ability to grow a business.
So let's go beyond that. My mother in law, thank God, you know, does well health wise. She's able to move out of our home and move back into her own place. And now it's, you know, 2007, 2008.
And I close my staffing and recruiting firm. And I start my coaching business for the first time, still having tons of struggles with my son, but starting to get around some people that were
were really helping me start to get my head on straight, you know, as a coach, I had to be there for my client.
So, of course, my head had to be on straight. I had a great coach at the time. I had kind of a barter coaching relationship. because I couldn't afford a real coach. So me and a woman named Susan, we're kind of coaching each other. And there's another,that I have a TEDx and there's another podcast episode called the antidote to anger, where could you could hear some of that story, having a coach, started to shift my thinking about how to deal with my son, helping me realize that I was assuming negative intent in him instead of.
Assuming he was trying to do the best he can. And my relationship with him, my relationship with myself started to change. And, and business started to get a little better. We were still in a pretty deep financial hole, but at least, at least we were starting to work our way out of it. Money was, you know, I was, I was putting money in the bank as opposed to slowly watching it drain away.
Fast forward to. 2013 to to 2015, I decide to join a different coaching organization, kind of change my neighborhood, take a level up, and join this organization called Gazelles. With a, you know, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, friend, biggest hearted person I know in business guy named Keith cup, who I've interviewed, on this podcast, who was leading that organization and getting around some people that were just amazing examples for me on.
how to lead myself and lead a business and finally started building a, I wouldn't say a thriving business, but a sustainable business finally thought, okay, you know, I'm, I'm paying my bills, regularly. And, I see that not only this quarter is going to be good, but next quarter is going to be good.
And not only is this year good, but. but next year, you know, looks pretty good. So 2013 to 2015 things, start heading up, not a great business, but a sustainable business. And then fast forward again to 2018 and.
There was an event that I'm not sure I looked at back then as a turning point, but I look at it now, I was sponsoring the New York chapter of an organization called the Entrepreneurs Organization, EO, and there was an event where they had a Spoken word poet.
I never understood the spoken word thing. If you read it out loud, does that mean it's spoken word? But you know, one of these poets that, there's a rhythm to what he was saying, but it wasn't in a rhyme, but, but it was a gentleman named, spoken word poet named NQ. look him up. Amazing stuff. He got up and he did a bunch of poetry.
I didn't think I'd like it. I'm not exactly a, a poet. Poetry kind of guy, but went to the event cause I thought I'd make some good business connections and you know, really just locked into some of his messages and it was great stuff. But, but he did something really interesting. He, he probably did about 30 minutes of his own stuff and then he gave out pencils and notebooks to everyone in the audience and he gave us 15 minutes and he said just write.
Doesn't matter what it's about. Don't think, don't pick your pencil off of the paper just write. And I'm thinking, I'm, I'm not a poet, you know, spoken word or otherwise. I'm not a poet. What the hell? I'll kind of do this thing. And I had had a kind of difficult day, probably a difficult week with my son. he was, I guess at that point about, you know, 23 years old and things have gotten better with him over the years, but we were still having struggles, I was still very angry a lot of the time and he was on my mind, and I just started writing and I didn't stop and the tears were coming down as I was writing and I'd never written anything like that before in my life.
And when the time came for in cue this spoken word poet to ask if anybody wanted to come up on stage and read what they had written, I knew I had to get up there and me and about two or three other people got up there and I actually want to read to you what I wrote back then. And hopefully I can get through it without crying.
But I want to read this to you because you'll get a sense of how writing this was a turning point in my life. And again, back to this theme of you can't lead a great company, lead a great team until you could lead yourself. This was a turning point in me being able to lead myself in dealing with something that, you know, over the last, you know, since my son was about, a year or two.
So it'd been 21, 22 years that I had let the challenges I was having with my son, not only impact my relationship with my son, but my relationship with my wife and daughter and myself and, and was impacting the business. So I want to read to you what I wrote and, and hopefully it'll mean something to you, like it meant something to me.
I fix companies for a living. But I can't fix my son. Such a beautiful baby. His future was limitless. I'll be a great dad. This can't be so hard. He'll grow up to be a better me. What more could I want? It's his first birthday now. This should be fun, but it's not. What's wrong with my son? His words aren't coming.
He doesn't play like the others. The doctors say he's fine. I'm not so sure. The months go on and things get worse. He's my son. We should be watching baseball, having a catch, but he won't. He's not talking right, not eating right, not socializing right. I'm a coach. I fix companies, but I can't fix my son. He goes to a special school with kids I would have made fun of when I was a kid.
Was I really that mean? I'm angry at him all the time. Angry he's not the son that I dreamt of. As he gets older we fight all the time. He's better than he was. But can't stay in college. Can't keep a job. I'm angry because I know he can do better. But what the hell do I know? What I do know is I've spent more than half his life knocking him down because he wasn't the son I dreamt of.
What I should have focused on was being the dad he dreamt of. I'm better now than I was. Once I realized how much of our lives I screwed up trying to undo the damage I did to both of us. My son's 23 now and still living at home. He may never be able to live on his own. But that's okay. He's perfect.
Exactly as he should be. He's doing his best to fit in a world that's foreign to him. I'm doing my best to be the dad I should have been. I fix companies for a living, but I can't fix my son. But that's okay. He's perfect.
I think that's the first time I got through that without stopping and crying a little bit, but That Writing that poem, reading that poem, coming home and sharing it with my wife. I haven't had the courage yet to share it with my son. But, looking back, that was a turning point for me. My relationship with my son got better, my relationship with myself got even better.
And, I was able to give more to my business, give more to my clients because my head was on straighter than it had been for the last 20 years.
Fast forward from 2018 to mid to end of 2023. Business is thriving. I go to the doctor. And by the way, you should know before I tell you what happened at the doctor. While from a business standpoint, I've always been very disciplined mentally. I had really started getting, getting my head on straight since 2013.
If it's really since 2007, a little bit, and then that turning point in 2018. But physically, although my wife is a health coach, just not a lot of discipline. what I'm eating,you know, no real disciplined exercise. And, towards the end of 2023, I start having some difficulty swallowing every once in a while.
And, I go to see a doctor and I, he schedules me for an endoscopy and I find out, That I have a severely ulcerated esophagus and a hiatal hernia. Kind of scary stuff. That's a lot of inflammation. He used the C word, the cancer word, not that I have it, but that the inflammation that is caused and is part of the ulcerated esophagus.
If I didn't fix that, that inflammation is a major cause of things like cancer. So. It scared the crap out of me and with my wife's help, I became way more disciplined only because I needed to, way more disciplined in eating right and losing some weight and starting to exercise and still wasn't doing a lot of exercise, but definitely was eating better, lost some weight.
went back to the doctor four months later and esophagus healed great, but right around the same time, I have a regular checkup and I find out my cholesterol is high. So my doctor says, You know, before we put you on a statin, let's get a CAT scan and let's look at something called the Agatston score, which is the, it looks at the amount of calcium in your arteries.
And it's a way to look at whether there's a chance you're, you're, you've got some issues with your arteries and there are some blockages. now. Anything from like zero to 100 is you're doing pretty well. 100 to 200 is, you know, starting to have risk of heart attack and you've got some blockages, you know, 200 to 300 is medium risk of a heart attack.
You probably have some blockages, you know, 400, you know, up to 400 is, you know, very high risk of heart attack. and, and you definitely have some blockages going on in your arteries. Well, I passed with flying colors. I got a 719. So all of a sudden, this is January, 2024. All of a sudden I feel like a ticking time bomb.
I went from feeling immortal to, oh my God, I'm high risk of heart attack.
I always talk about the fact that I never want to retire. You know, I love what I'm doing. And all of a sudden I thought
I'm a ticking time bomb and there's a lot more I want to do all of a sudden I'm 59 and I'm thinking maybe I'm not going to last as long as I thought. So. I jumped on this faster than I've ever jumped on anything else in my life and started going more plant based. I haven't had any meat or pork in three months.
Now, as I'm recording this, it's, it's March of 20, 2024, got much more disciplined.
On exercise and, and as it turns out, I'm going through some tests on my heart and things look really good and it may not be as dangerous as I thought, but I have never been so disciplined around food and exercise as I am now, on top of how disciplined I've become mentally and the relationship I have with my son, mind, body, spirit, all things are working together for me like they never have.
And all of a sudden my business over the last three months has never been better. The phone is ringing like it never has before. I'm at the point where I've, I've got too many opportunities and I don't want to say that too loud because as soon as I say that, you know, the universe is going to hear me and, and say, Oh, we'll screw with this guy.
But I never imagined my business could be this strong. And I don't think it's a coincidence that I'm so disciplined and, and so health conscious mind, body, spirit. I don't think it's a coincidence. And when I look back at, again, the last 20 years or so. It would be easy to look at it the opposite way and say, Mike, as your business got better, you felt better mentally and physically and Mike, you're getting it backwards, but it wasn't backwards.
The better I did leading myself, the better I saw my business grow. And it's not just about my business. The stronger my relationships became with my family, with my friends, with my son, with my daughter, with myself. If you don't focus on leading yourself, if you don't, as my friend, Kevin Lawrence says, if you don't put your oxygen mask on first, if you don't have an internal locus of control, internal locus of control says I happen to the world as opposed to an external locus of control, which is the world happens to me.
We need to focus on what we can control and we can't always control our outside circumstances. I couldn't control my son's Asperger's or my mother in law's breast cancer or maybe I could have controlled my ulcerated esophagus or my heart stuff with some better diet, but I could look at that stuff is, you know, woe is me.
Look at all this stuff happening to me, but I know if I focus on what I can control, That's the only way of me impacting the world and impacting myself and impacting my family and my clients and my friends. So what are you doing to better lead yourself? You can't have a great company without a great leadership team.
You can't lead a great team unless you lead yourself.
I hope my story has inspired you. A little bit today and, and you know what? Look back at your life. Your story will inspire you more than mine. But, but if maybe I triggered something to help you do that, then, then I've done my job. Look forward to talking to you again soon.