1715 – Finding Clarity and Confidence in Your Leadership with Madeleine MacRae

0:28Hey there, thoughtful listener. million in revenue. Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high-ticket sales appointments. You can even chat with me live and I'll see and reply to your messages. Also, don't forget, the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for guests. Go to upmyinfluence.com and click on podcast. We'd love to have you.

0:58with us right now it's my good friend madeline mccray madeline you were actually this is your second time on the show we don't do that very often it's very rare but your last time we chatted was over 1100 episodes ago it was episode number 595 uh on february 18th 2021 we're you know so to our friend that's listening hey go back in the archives go listen to my conversation back with Madeline on episode 595. But Madeline, I'm so grateful to have you here. You are the CEO of Legacy Leadership Institute. You're found on the web at LegacyLeadershipInstitute.com. Madeline, thanks for joining us. Oh, delighted to be back.

1:40I love being here. All right, yeah. Please tell us about your work today. Yeah, so Legacy Leadership is really the culmination of many decades of work, both for my business partner and for me. We basically took two of our successful consulting firms, merged them into one mega firm. And it is incredible. We have an organization where people can learn and grow together so that they can achieve goals that they really wouldn't be able to achieve on their own. My business partner and I were paying attention to the stories of our clients, paying attention to their pain points. And something that we just heard over and over and over again is like, I didn't really feel, think it'd feel this way or the sense of like, Hey, I've gotten there, but I don't, not so sure that this is what I really wanted, or I keep working really, really, really hard, but I keep just not quite making it.

2:33And whatever that it is that, that thing that they're underachieving, you know, to the outside world, our clients look wildly successful and they are successful, but they're falling short of their own expectations of where they wanted to take things, or it's taking longer, it's harder than what they thought. And we're just there to help them simplify and really take all that hard work and the actions that they're taking and point them in the right direction to help them go further faster. Yeah. What are some of the big areas of concern that you hear from the folks that you've worked with? And again, Madeline, I know you have a long and storied background in this.

3:11So, you know, happy to have you kind of bring that in, but certainly in your work with Legacy Leadership Institute, you know, maybe just some of the things that you're observing today. Now, this could be, you know, related to trends, kind of market forces, things that are going on right now, but what are some of the hottest issues that you hear right now that you hear leaders concerned about? Yeah. So one of the big questions that we've been facing, it's probably a perennial question. It just feels like it's more common lately is do we scale or do we sell? Or sometimes people are like, do we just stay where we are?

3:46Do we just sustain, right? Do we sustain, scale, or sell? That's a tongue twister. I didn't expect that. But the question is, when you're sustaining, it's actually a form of scaling. And that's one of the things that we've been working with people on. Even if you're not growing your revenue, you're improving your processes, you're improving your culture, you're improving your team and your own personal leadership. So that sense of sustaining is actually a subcategory of scale. So the core question is, do we scale or scale or sell? And in order to sell, no one's going to want a business that's circling the drain.

4:24Or if they do want a business that's circling the drain, they're going to get a bargain, right? Big bargain. So that means that you're not going to get that terminal event that you really wanted, that you worked your whole career for, that you worked so hard for. So helping people to develop that scalability architecture, whether they use it to implement themselves or they use it to sell their business, is such a core component. Really knowing where you can grow, knowing how to grow and getting there, like taking the actions, those daily committed actions to get there is just such a key piece in business success.

4:59Right. There's a lot more to success than just money or just the final revenue number business success. but if you really want to focus in on your company being successful, you can't neglect that part. Yeah. And I think that it, you know, again, it appears that Legacy Leadership Institute fills a need where, you know, if you're a founder of a company, I hope you have a really good peer group that you can connect with because it's otherwise it can be really lonely and frustrating. I mean, you can maybe share some things with your loved ones, your family, Maybe you can share some things with the folks in leadership on your team and other folks on your team, maybe.

5:40But oftentimes, you know, some of the fears and concerns, I don't know that we would feel safe sharing those things in those, you know, kind of, you know, mixed company rooms. So one of the things that I've told my clients for a long time is part of your job as a leader and as a manager is to siphon information, right? Whenever you have information, especially if it's your own inner turmoil, no one on your team needs to know, oh, gosh, darn it, we're struggling to make payroll, right? Nobody's going to feel safe working for you. Everyone's going to worry, are they going to lose their job? And when people are worried about that stuff, how can they focus on performance and serving your clients, right?

6:19So as an owner, especially as a founder, there are so many things that you carry that are not appropriate to share with the people who report to you, no matter how close they are. Primarily because when we burden our downstream, when we burden our team with things that are not theirs to carry, they don't have the tools to fix it. So this great rule of thumb is you either complain, you never complain out, you only complain up. right so complaining out means you're just spreading disrest you're just venting you're getting it off your chest but complaining up means you're moving your complaint your problem your issue to someone who has the authority the power the knowledge to help you fix it and if you are complaining down to your team you're burdening them with things that they don't have the authority the power or the knowledge to fix and that leads to a sense of sometimes like desperation and fear in your organization is really a culture killer.

7:14And we don't want people doing that at all. Yeah. Yeah. So help me understand the structure of how Legacy Leadership Institute works, like how you work with people, like what does that look like? Is it a membership? Is it like a mastermind? Sure. So it's kind of like the best of many worlds. It's not a strict mastermind. It's not a strict course. It's a blended experience where you have community. So we have these knowledge intensives, which are teaching you the things you need to know and to master in order to make that progress forward. It's teaching you about yourself because one of the little dirty secrets, I don't know if it's a dirty secret, but a little secret secret of highly successful individuals and organizations is that the leaders of those organizations do personal development work.

8:08They themselves build their own inner capacity because water seeks its own level, right? And if you're at a low level, your team is going to come down to you. You're never going to raise up higher than yourself, right? So the leader is the one who sets the tone for that container. And you have to increase your capacity, increase what you have to give in order to change or to increase or to elevate your team, right? So we give you that knowledge. We also do curated support within a group coaching structure. So how do you apply that knowledge into your organization, into you as a person, right? So those two key components are for our entire community participate in those two key components.

8:50You talked about having community, having people you can share your struggles with has to be a safe container. So we develop that. And then having the content, having that actual knowledge of what do you do and how do you do it? in a very practical way. So that's for everyone. And then we have other layers of service delivery where we can work more hands-on in your business with you. And we have some intensive deep dives, whether you're looking at M &A readiness, whether you're looking to sell your business. We have some deep dives you can do with us and then join our community as part of that, or just do that as a solo.

9:26And the same thing just with looking at where you are in your business, where can you grow next? We have those really super deep dives there as well. So it's a really all-encompassing, have a digital aspect, a community aspect, and then that one-on-one coaching and support. So critical. You know, and again, I just want to implore to anyone that may be listening to us, if you feel like you just don't have that outlet, that is a lot of burden to shoulder by yourself if you don't have that outlet. And it really, I just, I mean, I can speak for myself and it just, it degrades significantly my ability to lead because it saps my motivation.

10:05It saps my emotions. And, you know, Madeline, I was just, I was listening to this conversation about secrets, right? And, you know, we might look at some of our concerns as a bit of a secret, but they were talking about the power of sharing a secret with somebody else. And now it's like, you don't have to shoulder that alone. This could be anything, right? But when we feel like, oh, I'm thinking about this, I'm worrying about this, and I have no one else that I can bounce this off of. That's hard. And so, yeah, so again, your website, LegacyLeadershipInstitute.com, for someone that's been listening to our conversation where you can kind of follow along and see exactly how you can kind of work with kind of Madeline and the leadership network.

10:52um madeline one thing i wanted to ask you about as well you're you're also an author um your book is the tenacious pursuit of peace tell me a bit about that since we're kind of talking about that already yeah i just wanted to go back to what you said about that sharing a secret then i'll jump to the book really quickly um i was i have this um my my guilty pleasure in the evening i watch reality tv right and it's not generally a place you're like oh i'm gonna find great inspiration here it's just like popcorn right it's just candy so it's you can't eat a diet of just candy but I do like every night so wait so wait before you before you go on housewives or what do you watch housewives I like the bravo shows I'm kind of a bravo fan sometimes a tlc show here or there but yeah I like my housewives yeah my wife and I watch uh we which which housewives we watch salt lake city my favorite is salt lake city yes I'm right there with you I'm right there with you Um, so I was, I was watching, I can't remember which of the housewives I was watching.

11:52I think the new one from New York, maybe I can't remember. And one of the ladies said, one of the most powerful things about sharing a secret, about telling something that's a secret is no one can then weaponize it against you, right? You've taken control of that narrative and you're the one who's, who's telling the story, not like this, this shameful thing that someone's going to out you about. Right. So there's some really big power about when there's a secret, when you're holding something as a secret, there's always this worry. There's at least two little cells in your brain that are preoccupied with being found out, being discovered.

12:27Right. So many entrepreneurs, leaders, founders, so many individuals in leadership have this feeling of being found out. right? That there's some big fraud, that they're conducting some big fraud on the world. And the reason that so many people feel that way is that they don't realize that we're all making it up as we flip and go along. Okay. There are best practices. There are tried and true things you can do to make it easier. You know, you do not have to reinvent the wheel. There are ways that work, but your personal execution, the way that's working for you, your path, your history, your everything is so specifically unique that it feels brand new and it is brand new.

13:13And there is that sense of like, I'm just kind of making this up. That is the way we unfold our lives, right? There's this amazing Soren Kierkegaard quote that says, we must live our lives forward, but we understand our lives backwards, right? So really contextualizing yourself and letting go that feeling of like, I'm going to be found out. Yes, you are making it up as you go along. And that's exactly right. You're doing it right, not wrong. Right. And that's just a very detrimental storyline narrative to have running in your mind. And it erodes your confidence from the inside. And when you erode confidence from the inside, you have to strut yourself on the outside.

13:54Like that's where ego really gets majorly inflated because you're protecting yourself from found out. Right. So I wanted to speak to that. So I actually do chat about that a little bit in my book. Yeah. Yeah. And Madeline, that is, I know you're, is that's an advanced copy you're holding right now, or is that available right now? Yeah, now it will be available. We're in November, launched in November, Tenacious Pursuit of Peace. It's been a many years journey, subtitle, Where to Go When Success is Not Enough, because there's this feeling of like, when you have succeeded, when you have arrived, you think this is going to be like some Hakuna a toddler life and you're going to have no more worries for the rest of your days.

14:37That's true. Okay. You just have different problems. It's more money, more problems in some cases, right? No money, better problems, right? Better problems. Yes. Problems are still problems. So I had this hilarious story. One afternoon, I was sitting in a hotel lobby, very, very like fashionable high-end lobby with a bunch of my friends. We had all gathered together in Philadelphia. and one of my friends was complaining that he had to take his car in the second time to get the steering wheel, the heating on the steering wheel fixed again. And he was complaining. And then someone else was complaining about a high-end problem and someone else was complaining about how they had to change their housekeeper or like something else was happening.

15:19And then I started chuckling because we're all sitting around here complaining and I was wearing this tennis bracelet, a diamond tennis bracelet that had been a gift for when I had my son. And I was like, yeah, I was thinking of what things could I actually complain about? I was like, yeah, you know, we got this tennis bracelet and I kind of regret that I didn't go for the one with the bigger diamonds. And then we all burst out laughing because it was like some hilarious, like joke that we were living. But it was, except for my problem, that was a fake problem. But there were real problems. Your car breaks down, a feature on your car isn't working the way it's supposed to work.

15:56It's still a problem, but it's not a survival problem, right? You move from survival to thrive to soar. And we're having like thriving, soaring problems, but it doesn't take away the fact that we do have to solve them. They still need a solution. It just isn't, are we going to eat today or not. Yeah, right. Yeah. Madeline McRae, again, LegacyLeadershipInstitute.com is your website. When somebody goes there, what would you recommend they do? I'd recommend that you sign up for an interview with us. There's a find a coach or schedule your chat. There's tons of little boxes, CTA, where you can click on those and just sign up.

16:42They don't cost you anything. It'll give you clarity on where you are, where you want to get to go. and really help you see if we're a great fit for you. And if not, we'll give you some great insights and we'll part as friends. I love it. All right, Madeline McCray, CEO, Legacy Leadership Institute and author of the book. Can you hold it up for me one more time? Yes, yes. There we go. The Tenacious Pursuit of Peace, Where to Go When Success is Not Enough. Madeline McCray, thank you so much for joining us. My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

17:15thanks for listening to the thoughtful entrepreneur show if you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program please visit upmyinfluence.com slash guest if you're a listener i'd love to shout out your business to our whole audience for free You can do that by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or join our listener Facebook group. Just search for The Thoughtful Entrepreneur in Facebook. I'd love even if you just stopped by to say hi. I'd love to meet you. We believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. We love our community who listens and shares our program every day.

18:00Together, we are empowering one another as thoughtful entrepreneurs. Hit subscribe so that tomorrow morning, that's right, seven days a week, you are going to be inspired and motivated to succeed. I promise to bring positivity and inspiration to you for around 15 minutes each day. Thanks for listening and thank you for being a part of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Movement.