1916 – Leadership Success for Businesses with Erin Andrea Craske

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1:06With us right now, it's Erin Andrea Kraske. Erin, it's great to have you. You are a business and leadership success coach, and you're the author of the book, From Purpose to Profit. Your website is erinandreakraske.com. That's C-R-A-S-K-E dot com. and again to our friend that's listening to our conversation, just click on the show notes, click around, and you're going to find a direct link to Erin's website. Erin, it's great to have you. Well, it's fantastic. Thank you very much, George, for having me. Yes, based in the UK. So thank you so much for joining us. And tell us about the work that you do, who you serve, and kind of your impact in the world.

1:43So as you rightly said in the very beginning, I'm a business and leadership success coach, and I work with purpose-driven or value-driven businesses and ethical business leaders. And basically what I do, surprisingly, I make help them, empower them to make their business and life less effortful. How do we do that? Oh, we work on our mindset. Well, basically, okay, let's start from the very beginning. In our society and in our lives, somehow it would happen that we're conditioned to take care of symptoms. we are fixing one symptom after another and often it's like a chain of event you have one fixed and then another one comes on board and you need to fix another one actually the same even happens in health care if you think about it but underneath all these symptoms always there's going to be a root cause it's going to be a systemic issue that creates all the things that annoy us in our lives or in our business.

2:50So what I do when I work with my clients, I go and I look underneath all the symptoms to define the root cause that is the reason behind running businesses effortful, about creating all this striving and struggles and changing directions and all the stress and not knowing where to go and looking for immediate return on investment. And then if it doesn't come, you know, what we're going to do. And all the thing, it just becomes like a massive steamroll. You know, all our heads is like, what I'm going to do now. You know, I tried this and I tried that. It's still not working. I still want my money back.

3:33And all that, it just creates the situation where we start running, you know, creates all the stress that is not necessary because I don't believe. And I know from my experience that driving and building a business from this place is no good. It doesn't really help and it shouldn't be that way. It feels awful. It's like everything that goes against why we got into business in the first place. So yeah, and I think, you know, this sounds very aspirational. Erin, I'm curious, like if someone's identifying with what you're talking about, how can we work to start fixing this? How can we get in the flow?

4:12Oh, that is actually very, very easy. You won't believe. just the tiny tiny moment when you swap your how-to question with why that is all that is needed yes there may be multiple whys right it may be so you can get to the root cause it may be looking at different things in the same time because symptoms can be different but what is underneath all the symptoms and in all fairness i can just give you a little hint so i believe that underneath the business struggles we have strategy strategy is the root cause of businesses you know often running like headless chickens simply because there's no direction they can take in leadership it's self-concept it's not about again how to be a good leader or another 25 trainings i'm going to take because i want to remember but i won't remember because i'm stressed and that's it right okay so it is a self-concept it's how you see and feel yourself as a leader and as a capable and confident human being that you are that you might have forgotten about in profitability it is a holistic and mindful approach to business because business it's like a puzzle right of a lot of different pieces and if we want to have it worked properly we need to look at the whole picture it's not about only one thing or another thing it's all together and another thing why you say mindful because it's not about striving to achieve the goal it's about improving your processes your contribution whatever you do on a daily basis step by step so you have holistic business improvement and when it gets better on a daily basis, it's inevitable, it's going to get profitable.

6:02Right? So it is a change of mindset, it is a change of perception. But it's not scary. It's not challenging. It's not effortful. It's just for somebody who wants to have a change. That's it. Yeah, what would be a good practice that maybe we could make as part of our daily schedule or daily work or maybe something a little bit more, you know, deeper on a weekly basis. Like if you were to say, listen, every leader needs to take time. And hopefully I think you're going to talk about, you know, these deep work principles that you're talking about. Right. But like if we were to look at our schedule and really start prioritizing, you know, some of this asking questions, deeper work and, you know, and getting in clarity with who we are, that sort of thing.

6:49What would you recommend? Well, the first thing, and again, the easiest way is to ask why. You ask why about business issues. Okay, you know what, don't try to go deep work on yourself at the moment, because you're not used to it. Look at the business and ask about why it is underperformance. I was talking to one person recently, and it was totally amazing because he's a consultant, and he was invited to fix productivity issue. And I asked, and he said exactly how to make my team more productive. And I said, and did the client ask you why the team isn't productive in the first place? So instead of trying to fix productivity issue, ask why they're not productive.

7:35instead of say we need innovation you're not creative enough so why there's no creativity in the team and when you start asking why immediately you're gonna at least get one level deeper right and if you fix for at least one level deeper already you're gonna see positive benefits and with regards to your personal self-improvement i guess the best way you can do ask yourself question journal you know you had something during the day that you didn't like about yourself why i didn't like it why it happened this way why i liked it you know so you can have a balanced perspective just ask yourself about one little thing that was significant for you in your eyes and try to understand what was behind it i like that and you know so again it's like any time like you know it's like our emotions are like some something's off right it And I agree with you.

8:30Like my wife is a family therapist and her phrase is, well, that sounds like something to get curious about. Yeah, it's exactly that. You know, because this is a very good word because curious doesn't mean judgment. Oh, no. Curious is very generic because when we start inquiring, often we'll fall into self-judgment situation. And this is something you have to avoid because it's only about understanding. It doesn't mean it's bad or it's good or even worse. So you are bad. It means that you're just trying to understand. There are no labels, no emotions attached to it. So that is a very important point.

9:09Thank you. Yeah. And so let's talk about that just for a second. I think that, you know, generally high achievers, you know, people that have high expectations for their output or for themselves. sometimes we're not too kind with ourselves and, and maybe we don't extend ourselves the grace that we should, right. Because again, we have expectations, we have, you know, high demands for ourselves and, um, you know, hopefully, you know, when things don't go our way, right. We don't blame ourselves for that. Right. And, and we stay out of this kind of self-shaming, um, kind of behavior, but it can be very natural, I'd say, you know, and some of it might come down to, you know, well, your parents didn't allow you to make enough mistakes and, you know, or somehow that making mistakes was bad or something like that.

10:01Do you mind maybe just sharing some concepts around, you know, when we don't live up to our own expectations or when we do feel like, oh, well, I sure failed at that or something. Okay. That's your thing. The first one, as we probably know or at least we heard about it that expectations and desires are the reasons for suffering right so that is something to really bear in mind that when we don't feel good about ourselves or something else or somebody else or the world is not because we are wrong people are wrong and the world is wrong because we expect them to be different or we desire something that we can't get so that's the first thing and another thing in terms of the expectations of ourselves and we feel bad because we don't live up to our expectations that is a very good thing to ask or to question yourself these expectations are they yours or are you conditioned to think about yourself that way because very often that is actually quite fascinating because you know that we create our own reality right and very often we believe that what we think is true that you know what it's not no there's no connection what we think and truth because very often it actually isn't but we condition to believe that first of all is truth and secondly we're supposed to believe what we think and the worst thing we're supposed to act on what we think right there is no correlation so whatever you think you expect from yourself because those are your expectations so the first thing where they're coming from and likely you will figure out that they're not coming from you and another thing ask yourself when they make sense to you if you are in a situation that you are not judged by other people would you do exactly the same thing as you're doing right now would you behave this way this way will you think this way assuming nobody cares how will it make you feel and likely you will probably figure out that you know what when nobody cares and i'm living i don't know somewhere on an island by myself and my dog oh you know what probably it's going to be different because it's probably not what I expect from myself, but what I believe others expect from me.

12:32Yeah. I love it. You know, going back to some things that you were talking about earlier too, I was just thinking about this too. For folks in this same vein that maybe ruminate a bit more, maybe they have an unpleasant situation with a client or team member or, you know, some dumb, dumb on social media or something like that. Right. And we let it bother us. Right. And so it's, you know, maybe we're replaying a conversation in our head. Maybe we're rehearsing what we're supposed to say, or we should have said. Right. And it just, you know, it's the brain, I think, you know, trying to protect us.

13:09Right. And, but I, I love this approach of, you know, along with getting curious about that, like if something keeps coming up for us, say, why? You know, why does this, how would you phrase the why question in some of those situations? In a very straightforward, being totally blunt again, if we talk about somebody helping themselves, I would probably say, what are you afraid of? That may be a little bit more specific because when you mentioned that, you know, all the thoughts trying to protect us, kind of yes, but often what they're trying to protect us from is not existent right it's not the real threat it's a fictional threat and we don't perceive that we're afraid of it because we don't think that way and sometimes you know people are afraid of things that really shouldn't shouldn't cause any threat to anybody so ask yourself what are afraid of that would be the first thing And the second thing, if you have time left after journaling, assuming you did your journaling, you ask your questions, you're feeling better, work on, use different techniques to stop rumination.

14:27Because it's no good to anybody. If you can keep your mind empty, and this is the second part of effortlessness. The first one was mindset when we're talking about leaders and self-concept of how you perceive yourself. And the second one actually is keeping your mind empty because that's going to help really big time. Boy, that sounds easier said than done. I want to ask you about your book, but can you tell me just a bit about what you mean by keeping your mind empty? Because I've got one of those monkey brains, right? That's just like always like it's you wouldn't want to hear what goes on. There is just like a nonstop cacophony.

15:07cough any you know what i don't believe you would want to hear what's going on in there so my book has nothing to do you know what what was just discussed because my book was um farewell i guess to corporate marketing as i knew it and more importantly it was a tribute to brands because i'm in love with brands i love what i did and i believe that brands are forgotten we now have branded products we have no brands we have no concept of emotional branding or human connection with consumers so it's all again went into this instant gratification thing you push sales you get money you push sales you get money right so i wanted to let people know that there is a word behind it and the world of strategy where things are different where things are much easier where resources are properly managed where profitability come you know comes together with your contribution to the business together with your progress, something that people don't know about because surprisingly, they're even called tactic strategies.

16:13So they're no even understanding of the difference between the two. And the book introduces people, business people, two different types of strategies in a very easy to read, easy language, easy to, you know, skimmable format. All you want to know about brand strategy, business communication, portfolio, you know, growth, market entry, they're all described, but it's kind of bite-sized. It's like a textbook reference book for all things marketing. And yeah, so that's something that I wanted to share with the world because I believe brands deserve it. So your book is titled From Purpose to Profit.

16:56Who needs to read the book? oh those people who would like to get profit they would like to get to profitability yes i had obviously all purpose-driven you know ethical businesses in mind because for them purpose is something that is part of their foundations business foundations but at the same time you know if you want to genuinely introduce purpose to your business because it comes with multiple benefits beyond just being a purposeful business it comes with mental health benefits. It comes with reputational benefits. It comes with self-motivation, morale benefits. It comes with many things.

17:34So if you'd like to introduce purpose to your business together with strategy, then you can definitely use this book. And even if you don't want to use purpose, fine, you're still going to get information about business strategy and how to build your brand, communicate, and all other things. Yeah. Aaron, tell me about the work that you do with clients. How do you engage with people? Are you working within organizations? Do you work with individuals? What does that look like? I work with individuals simply because I believe that your business is as good as a leadership team, right? So I work with people who are in a position, who are capable of changing the culture.

18:14They are capable to cascading a different atmosphere, a different direction, and stick to this direction, by this direction, to their teams. So yeah, the people that can be change makers, that they still want to. And what does that look like? Like engagement, like if someone might be listening and are like, well, how could you help? How could we work together? Well, the first thing, you know, we can definitely work together if my message resonates, because that is massively important that your view of the world and your view of the business resonates with a coach that you engage with. And the second thing that there must be trust.

18:54There must be mutual chemistry because the work I do and the white question that I ask, they may sometimes feel uncomfortable. And although I really take care of the comfort, emotional comfort of my clients, you know, everybody's different. So honesty requires trust. So that is one thing to bear in mind. And with regards to all other questions, you know, So there is no, I do have programs that focus on different things, but all every program is a collection of different techniques and different tools that are sourced, you know, from psychology, sociology, neuroscience, coaching, therapists, arts, philosophies.

19:40so it's really a combination of different things it's like a toolbox that within every program i can adjust it to whatever the client is looking for right so there's no cookie cutter approach programs yeah because there's certain logic you know how you go down you go deeper and then you go up from totally different mentality from being a different person. But then, you know, it's not always necessary. Some people have smaller fixes. Some people have something that is deeper transformation. It really depends where, where, where is the starting point? Yeah. Your website is Aaron andrea krask.com.

20:25And I know you also have some free resources. Do you mind? So for someone that's been listening to our conversation, where do they go from here? What do they do next? All information is going to be in show notes. I believe that is just the easiest way because I always think, you know, when somebody says, this is my website, and then they start to sell the whole website and then still spell every letter, I was like, okay, and if somebody is driving, they're not going to stop immediately, you know, just to write down letter by letter to the website. So just being mindful of where listeners may be, if they're interested, all information got it in show notes so you can always come back, you know, and click to, you know, on the website that is featured.

21:04Yeah. Again, we've got everything all kind of linked up to our friend that's listening to our conversation. Just click on the show notes, click around. You can find that direct link, Aaron, to your website and your book. Again, Aaron Andrea Krask, business leadership success coach and author of the book From Purpose to Profit. Aaron, thank you for joining us. Thank you very much, Josh. Thank you.

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