Lead Smart, Earn Big: The New Rules of Peak Performance

Are you ready to revolutionize your professional trajectory and personal fulfilment? Victor, a master executive coach and former HR trailblazer, opens the playbook on his journey to empowering corporate leaders and reshaping the landscape of leadership and pay equity. With a proven track record of catalyzing profound progress in just 120 days, Victor’s approach to coaching is as rigorous as it is transformative, combating burnout and elevating productivity to new heights. In our candid chat, he gives us a sneak peek into his latest masterpiece, "Cracking the Rich Code," outlining strategies that promise to enrich lives beyond the boardroom.

In the realm of resilience, we navigate the art of legacy-building, learning how a positive mindset can ripple through generations and solidify one’s mark on the future. We dissect the necessity of coaching for leaders at every stratum, drawing inspiration from Eric Schmidt's tenure at Google under the mentorship of Bill Campbell. Victor enlightens us on the nuanced ‘shadow of the leader’ effect, advocating for heightened self-awareness and the value of external feedback, with a unique spin on delivering critiques through 'carefronting.' The episode reaches beyond the individual, celebrating the collective wisdom gained from mastermind groups and the collaborative spirit behind "Cracking the Rich Code," underscoring the indelible impact of shared knowledge and growth.

Colorado’s best business coach, Baz Porter, has a new mindset strategy mentoring service to help you unlock new heights of growth, prosperity, happiness, and success. Book your first meeting with the coaching visionary at https://www.ramsbybaz.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 Executive Coach Shares Inspirational Journey
• 14:05 Building Resilience and Leadership Legacy

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Rice and the Ashes podcast. And as always, it's inspiring guests, inspiring content for you. The listener can take you from one place to another. My next guest is one such story. He is an executive coach, amongst many other things, but he predominantly is here to serve you. His name is Victor and, as always, I'm going to let him introduce himself. Victor, please say hello to the world and tell people what you do.

Speaker 2: 0:35

Absolutely, thank you, baz. Appreciate the opportunity beyond this program. So, yes, I am an executive coach. I've been certified as a master coach since 2012 after a 35-year career in HR, so I've been a chief HR officer before three tech companies and about 19 years of consulting firms like EY and Korn Ferry, where I've managed very large HR projects, and so what I do is I help senior leaders and board members achieve breakthrough results in 120 days by helping them reduce burnout and stress while increasing productivity, and I'm passionate about helping companies build their leadership bench from within Awesome.

Speaker 1: 1:33

So how did you become? You said you were HR and then you came into being a master coach. What was that journey like for you and what was the pivotal role or pivotal moment within that sort of process to becoming who you are today?

Speaker 2: 1:49

I felt like Sisyphus he was doomed to push the same rock up the same hill. I was director of HR for a billion dollar civil and engineering firm and they were just stuck in the 70s in terms of management style, and I fought way too many battles around paying people what they're worth. Paying people what their market rate is oh, we can't do that. If they leave, you're going to have to hire a stranger and pay the same rate. Yeah, let's just give them 7%, call it good. So I finally gave up on them, decided I should go back and get a credential refresh. But I've already taught at UCLA, I've developed programs. I'm not going to go back for a terminal degree.

Speaker 2: 2:42

Actually, a friend said well, you've been doing a lot of coaching in your work as HR director, chro, why don't you look into coaching? So I said, ok, sounds good, I've done a lot of coaching and so I did a lot of research. It had to be an ICF credential training program, that's the International Coach Federation. I had to have flexibility where I can start and stop, because I was doing a lot of traveling at the time, and it needed to be quite rigorous in its program design, and so I selected a company called IPEC, the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching, and indeed their program was quite rigorous. So it was, over a nine-month period, 100 hours of peer coaching, three, four three-day weekends, plus a lot of online training, and it was a great start, and so I haven't looked back. I really love coaching executives. I really love helping, like you were saying before people get from point A to point B, but also knowing what the blocks might be to keeping them from accomplishing what they want.

Speaker 1: 4:06

Where do you find most of your clients and where they come from? Are they referral-based or do you have some platform you go through to where they find you?

Speaker 2: 4:14

A little bit of both. Of course, referrals are always accepted. I have a client base that has been very heavily professional services related because I worked at EY and Corn Ferry. I understand the services industry, particularly in large law firms and large accounting firms the up or out principle so I get a lot of business from those firms used to be called the big eight. I get a lot of business from those firms used to be called the big eight. Now it's the final four EY, deloitte, pricewaterhousecoopers, kpmg and then large law firms has been a specialty and I'm about to in fact, just released my new book called Cracking the Rich Code, where we talk about rich as in not only just wealthy but rich in skills, rich in relationship, rich in success professionally and personally. I'm looking at the book having a good impetus for clients to say, hey, I'd like to talk to Vic about this.

Speaker 1: 5:24

Okay. With a book being released, I really think that the audience would benefit with aspects of unconventional wisdom. People have little tidbits they've picked up throughout their lives and, in conjunction with the professional coaching and the credibility backing that up, is there anything that has been unconventional, like your parents taught you something or you've picked up along that way that still sticks with you today?

Speaker 2: 5:51

I have a lot of thoughts in that regard. Things my parents taught me led to what I call the imposter syndrome. That's where I'm overly perfectionistic one aspect of it. And a B plus average in college, in high school, was not enough. My parents expected straight A's. So I developed this either I'm perfect or I'm a failure. And so I've learned to deal with that and accept myself for who I am and only focus on the positives. And so that's one aspect that comes to mind. The other aspect I explain in my chapter of the book.

Speaker 2: 6:37

It's all about the journey one of my clients took, and it was odd that I kept getting referrals from the same firm. They were all women and they had not been promoted a partner. And when they came to me they said I really need to help refine my leadership skills. I said what do they tell you when you didn't get promoted? And they all there were five of them they all said the same thing they didn't tell me. Look, let's back up when they said I lacked executive code, executive presence, and I said well, what does that mean? They didn't tell me. So I had to go back to the committee and help them develop a model competency model of what executive presence really is and now that we know it, I can help coach that person, and it was a lot of her work. She got promoted and partnered not just because of my coaching, but it was just odd that here's a billion-dollar company that made decisions about people and promotions and they couldn't tell them what it was they needed to do differently or what they lacked.

Speaker 1: 7:58

I find that very common, though, in a lot of these industries. They have concepts, but they don't know how to implement them themselves or even put them into a frame of explaining it in very simple language to somebody. Someone like you can actually do that, facilitate it and then translate it so it's receivable and also deliverable for your clientele, which I love. When we talk about bouncing back and resilience rising from the ashes, can you pivot and rising back into a level of success that you didn't think was possible at one point?

Speaker 2: 8:45

Absolutely. It was about 28 years ago. I went from being a very successful consultant, closing the largest deals ever in the history of my last two employers, to crashing and burning the two marriages failing. The last one was a bitter divorce, so my personal life was in shambles ashes, if you will. And then a friend introduced me to a wonderful woman who's been my wife, mother to my children and partner ever since we met 27 years ago, 27 years later. So that turning point was realizing that again imposter syndrome, two failed marriages I'm a failure to realizing that. No, I've got great value. Look at the success I had as a consultant. And so she's been just an amazing woman. She's definitely the wind beneath my wings.

Speaker 1: 9:55

You'll find that with a lot of people, though, that there's always somebody who's our rock behind the scenes, and that's a commonality I've seen with a lot of successful people, including you now, which is interesting, because people define success in different ways, but there's always that one thing that is fueling the failure behind it. In your case, it was two divorces, and then you met somebody who is now your best friend. That changed your life in the course of direction. When we look at rock bottom because you mentioned it earlier how did you define or redefine that lowest point in order for you to move forward?

Speaker 2: 10:33

Could you help me with that?

Speaker 1: 10:35

that lowest point in order for you to move forward. Could you help me with that? So, when you hit rock bottom and that lowest point, imposter syndrome sat in how do you redefine that moment into an empowerment for yourself, rather than looking at it as a disempowerment and realigning it into a positive frame of a mindset for yourself?

Speaker 2: 10:57

Got it. That part of my journey is. A big part of what I do in coaching is helping clients reframe who they are and who they aren't. Just because you've had some missteps, let's get beyond it. What did you learn from it? Steps, let's get beyond it. What did you learn from it? And in my case, I was very successful at selling and I was discounting those, yeah, but what's happened lately is a bitter divorce. So it's realizing that that isn't who you are and it's not who I want to be, who I know I'm capable of becoming. And some of that impetus came from outside. That is my wife helping me deal with some of these issues in a very loving way. We had a four-year-old daughter where we got married, and my former wife was really not a good mother and I don't want to get into that, but it definitely had an impact on our lives and so we committed to making our home the safest, most loving environment and we became those loving parents partners as a result of that commitment.

Speaker 1: 12:16

I love that story and that's a lesson for all the listeners now is the perseverance and the reframing of a perceived downfall into building the resilience, and that's what I want to go into next People who build resilience and legacies. I find they have something in common. In your experience, is there any misconceptions about resilience and how has your journey debunked that myth?

Speaker 2: 12:45

First off, it is, by definition, the ability to bounce back from setbacks or failures. Back from setbacks or failures. And a way to counteract that and we call it that critical voice in your head is that we call it a gremlin or inner critic that's telling you, reminding you that what you're not any good, you're not very smart, you're not rich enough, and so the way we need to reframe that, reprogram the gremlin, first off, is to give them very little attention, tell them to get lost in yourself and in your team. If that's part of the issue that you need to bounce back from, that failure is really just a momentary setback. What did you learn from it? And in my case, I learned that I am very successful. I do have some very strong superpowers, if you will, in terms of working with companies and clients, and so that was my bounce back story.

Speaker 1: 14:05

I love that People look at resilience and they think, oh, it's just a buzzword. But actually it's not, because we come across it every single day in our lives. We just sometimes don't realize it and we don't give it the attention and also gratitude that it sometimes needed, because we learn, as you said earlier, victor. We learn from our mistakes. We build compounding elements and habits from these downfalls, pitfalls we have. But what they tend to do is build legacy and they build a continuing theme, not just in your life but your future generations. If you could build a legacy now, what you're building, what would that be and how would that look like ideally, in an ideal world, for your future, for your kids?

Speaker 2: 14:55

I think my wife and I have both taught our children who are now adult women and quite successful in their own right the same things we talked about how to bounce back, how not to give credence to your inner critic, how to learn from your missteps. They're not failures, they're just minor detours to accomplishing your ultimate goal. What I find very interesting is that Eric Schmidt, who was a former CEO of Google, was told he needed a coach within a year and he, of course, said wait a minute and I hear this all the time from my executive clients. He said wait a minute, I'm a successful CEO already. I've arrived. What do I need to do differently? And he learned quickly and kept that coach, bill Campbell, till he died as a brainstorming partner who offered unbiased feedback and accountability.

Speaker 2: 16:03

And he said the one thing that CEOs are never good at is seeing themselves as others see them, and I call that the shadow of the leader. Others see them and I call that the shadow of the leader, and in coaching I talked to my clients about that. So what is the shadow that you cast as a leader? How would you describe it? And then we might even look to talking to individuals who report to that person to get their viewpoint. See if it meshes.

Speaker 1: 16:39

Yeah, I like that approach as well. I also like the way you put in the shadow of the leader that isn't widely talked about because of the resistance to it, and hit someone hearing it, as in a ceo or person in a authority position. Teachers go through this, attorneys do as well, especially in that power position. How would you address that in in that environment, if you see it and someone says, oh, that's not me, because that's well normally what happens. That's not me, because that's normally what happens. Oh, that's not me, I don't do that. How did you manage to cope or transition into that conversation, because that's often a very difficult conversation to have.

Speaker 2: 20:04

Yeah, absolutely, and that's a sign of emotional intelligence throughout. Another concept here is your degree of self-awareness, and that's something that most leaders lack, as we talked about. They're unwilling to accept external feedback, even when the data supports something to the contrary, and I've had clients who said you mentioned well, that's not me, I'm not like that. Wait a minute, let's see what other people have to say. So I might do what's called a 360, where we get feedback from peers, subordinates, clients, bosses hence the 360. But I also use assessments that will give us detailed behavioral information around a competency model that I developed for that particular role the client's in, and then we assess them or conduct stakeholder interviews to determine what they feel versus what others feel, and that gives us a lot of insight.

Speaker 2: 21:18

Now I had one client who was determined for two months of me badgering. He would argue that's not me. I'm telling you that's not who I am, and it turned out this case we actually did do a 360. And we had feedback from his wife and his brother, in addition to his staff and his team, and they all agreed about these areas that were really needing attention. So it's an aspect that we all struggle with. No one likes to use a phrase that's often overused. I just want to provide a little critical feedback, or criticism which is building, taking someone apart, rather than feedback which is positive and building one up I like the, the concept of giving.

Speaker 1: 22:18

There's a. It's how they're giving feedback, because that's a neutral way of putting it. There's also a concept I was taught by one of my mentors was care fronting something. Instead of confronting or being evasive or destructive to something, he said. He taught me to care front, and it was the language behind it. Instead of being confrontational, like the word is normally taken into, it's care fronting something, so it's brought out into the open, which de-escalates the situation but also brings out an element of truth and also authenticity. I want to to touch on that book, cracking the Rich Code. I know you were authored in it, along with, I think, 21 other people as well. Can you speak into that a bit please?

Speaker 2: 23:04

I do like that phrase. I had never heard of it carefronting and our language is so critical. The words we use have meaning and power and I don't think leaders realize that often enough. But the journey to writing the book I look back on it and my story just poured out of me because it was a real journey of one of my clients. I didn't really give a lot of thought to it, but I will tell you that my other 20 colleagues are really tremendous people. We have a mastermind group.

Speaker 1: 23:44

We get together and talk about not only the book but our work and our contribution to the book, and it's been an enjoyable journey and opportunity to meet people who would probably never have met in other channels the thing I like about what you're speaking to is this mastermind aspect and the word mastermind is widely overused these days and there's other words to use, and I have similar projects that I do, but they're not masterminds. What collaborations have come out of these places, if any other than the book? Has there only been other collaborations that you've started with other people? This is what this is all about is collaboration and excelling of people's future and humanity. Essentially.

Speaker 2: 24:30

You just never know where these relationships are going to come from. One of my co-authors is an expert on helping individuals handle Parkinson's disease, so not only the person who has it, but the caregivers around them to help them grieve over the disease, which really doesn't have a cure, and so that would have been someone I probably would not have met. I've also met other like-minded coaches and we get together outside of the mastermind group, have our own little mastermind, which is a concept that dates back to Edison. He had a mastermind group. He was funded by the Ford Company, and every time he blew up his lab, his mastermind group provided the funding to start all over again. It's back to the book, my colleagues and the wide range of background and missions, if you will, that they're committed to have been really enjoyable and helpful.

Speaker 1: 25:45

Collaboration, certainly after a certain level of success within an industry, is imperative. And then you get other ideas, other concepts as you were speaking to earlier. If you could start a movement, not something that is going to be short-lived, but an actual movement. What would that movement be?

Speaker 2: 26:05

Wow, that's a tough question. I love it If I were to start a movement. I think it goes back to my mission statement. A movement? I think it goes back to my mission statement. I'm very passionate about helping companies build a leadership bench from within. All too often they're going to the outside and hiring people that are strangers, but rather than looking inside and seeing what they have and committing to developing them not necessarily just hiring me as a coach, although I would love that, but really commit to developing them as leaders, and I think that would be the mission that I would not only get excited over but be willing to commit time and resources if it were to kick off as such.

Speaker 1: 27:00

Yeah, I love that. Is there any way you'd like to see the book Link's going to be in the bio and also in the descriptions and the blog. So if you're reading this in the blog, go back and look in the blog. It's under the description. I highly suggest you click on it and I have a bunch of the book. Share it with a friend. Share this with a friend. Do you have any final parting words for us, Victor, or some inspiration you may share to inspire the audience?

Speaker 2: 27:27

I would say check out my website. There's a lot of information there. It's core-energy-coachcom and you'll understand, or you'll find out, what core energy coaching is and my methodology called breakthrough laser coaching. Otherwise, they can call me anytime they'd like to connect, refer me to others who might need help. I think those are a couple call to actions. I'm currently involved with coaching MBAs at UCLA. I do have my own philanthropic commitment, so it's not just commercial. I would suggest that follow up.

Speaker 1: 28:13

Awesome. Thank you very much, victor. It's been a pleasure having you here today and thank you for sharing your message and your expertise with the audience and also Journey Anybody else. If you've got value out of this, please share this story. Use it as a platform to inspire somebody else. You can change lives by a simple message and this is why this podcast exists. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching From myself. Thank you very much, victor. Thank you for joining me here once again. You're an awesome human being and I'm looking forward to collaborating with you in the future.

Speaker 2: 28:50

Great back at you, Baz. It's a pleasure being part of this program.

Speaker 1: 28:56

Thank you. The pleasure is is mine. I will assure you from myself everybody. Have a blessed day and remember live with purpose, my friends, and inspire with legacy. Let's talk soon.