Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sa.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: Foreign.
Welcome everyone to tonight's episode of Pivotal Change. I'm your host, William Kahn and we have a very fun conversation we're going to be having tonight. We're going to be talking about transformation and the leadership decision behind it. And it often involves technology solutions. But being able to discover that use the right people, find the right processes and do what it takes to make that transformation is going to be key. So, so we've brought an expert, Alejandro Codone. He is from cloudtivity and they are going to walk us through the importance, the effectiveness and the changes that happen when you need to make transformation. You need to fix the things that are not clear and you need to be able to talk about the strategic decisions and really clearly carve your path forward. So, Alejandro, thank you for coming on the show.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: Well, thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here and I'm also of course, very excited to talk to your audience. And thank you, William.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: Well, very good. So I tell my audience to watch this show with the pen and paper, so they're going to be taking your wisdom and writing it down. But I want to jump right in. When you talk to companies and you deal with people on an international scale, if it says it needs to transform, how do you determine whether their real problem is going to be like a technology, a strategy, a person process or leadership or maybe marketing position?
What do you do to determine that transformation need?
[00:01:57] Speaker A: Well, it's an interesting question. You know, most of us, and particularly myself, having managed a large technology related field team for many years, we of course know the ins and outs of businesses and most businesses are generally the same. It is all about customer retention, is about revenue, is about profit. What we're looking at and, and, and, and most than everything today in this, in these times, what we're looking at is the readiness of companies to adapt to constant changes. I mean, it's not, it's not like it was in the past, you know, 10 years ago where you, you had years to, to have a company change today you need to change most of the times, sometimes per month or, or per week. And, and so what we're looking at right now is mostly the capabilities of companies and company leadership to change, to accept change, to embrace change and to work towards constant change.
[00:03:06] Speaker B: I like that. So change, I think most people that are in the business world at this point know that change is something fear, it really surrounds change. And so you're saying one of the first things that you look at is the willingness to change, to execute the change and then keep looking for more change. Is that kind of a fair summary?
[00:03:27] Speaker A: Yes, I think it is. I think it is. And, and it is true that people fear change. And the, the, the way we're, we're looking at it and, and, and, and what we're trying to do to help companies change is basically through training, training to the leadership, training to employees, training to even customers in, in how to approach your company as a supplier. So it's all about training, basically.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: I like that. So if the decision had, the decision had to be made as a first decision.
Leaders need to make this decision before any type of major digital transformation because that's largely where you have, is your digital workflow AI. Sol, what's that first decision you're asking the leader to make in going into this digital transformation?
[00:04:19] Speaker A: I think the first thing we talk about with everyone is automation.
Before thinking about artificial intelligence or digital teams or stuff like that, like multi agents and whatnot. What we're telling people is that they have to start by automating tasks, I.e. repetitive tasks, tasks that are prone to error, and things that can be easily automated, like workflows for invoices approvals or vacation approvals. Small changes can save a lot of time and give you the time you need as a leader and as a collaborator to think what you could be doing better instead of basically, you know, doing your, your daily work, your daily chores.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: I like that. I like that a lot. And you know, I've helped some companies in similar areas. I don't specifically help implement AI or anything like that, but I always tell them to try to find those mundane repetitive tasks and either delegate them to somebody junior or automate them through technology.
And even if you just save 10 seconds on a recurring task that you do 50 to 100 times a day, that stacks up to dozens, if not hundreds of hours over work year that you have just saved and put back into your company at a higher value. And that's just one person. Now do it across your entire team and your entire company. And you can get a lot of compounding advantage by just doing and following the advice that you just gave us.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: This is, this is what we see today. And it is very interesting to see that, you know, the first thing that people have to accept is that they're doing things wrong. And it's not necessarily that you're managing your company in the wrong way or that your staff, you know, is doing the job in a wrong way. No, it's accepting that you could be doing better if you put yourself to the important tasks which are customer like customer retention or service quality, as opposed to continuously do small things and sometimes make a lot of errors.
And most managers do not even realize that they would be so much productive if things were automated or done in a different way.
[00:06:49] Speaker B: I like that. So in these transformation changes here, you're having, you know, programs, agents, things like that that are helping with this transformation. Is there a potential danger in the leadership maybe losing alignment with their vision and just getting bogged down in the day to day operations of trying to make all of this change in transformation? How important is vision and harmony with the transformational changes?
[00:07:18] Speaker A: Well, it's an interesting question and probably one that's a little bit difficult to answer.
But if I can give you an example, we as a company, we have developed a solution to make proposals in an automated way and turn proposals that took three to four days to prepare into something that's made in 30 minutes or even less.
The thing is that automation itself and artificial intelligence itself only helps you.
Turning repetitive tasks and tasks that are prone to errors into something that is readily available in minutes. But still it works on your data. In other words, if you have a large amount of proposals you have made in the past and these are saved somewhere in your company, in a server, the, and you direct your artificial intelligence or your automation capability to that data, your vision will, will be respected because it will based on the, on the history of proposals that you have made in the past, artificial intelligence or automation, and that they're not going to create anything. They're only going to take your information and turn it into decisions or turn it into opportunities. But it is still based on your vision, your goals and your way of even writing and putting these decisions in paper or, or on an email.
[00:09:00] Speaker B: I like that a lot. They're just going to take the data and they're going to take the product and procedures and they're going to make it more efficient. And if you were executing your vision before, you're going to continue executing your vision even after these implementations.
I like that. So when you're judging these implementations, you're coming into the customer and reviewing their processes. How do you identify which processes should be optimized first? Or before you even add a layer of technology, is there an assessment for that that you do?
[00:09:32] Speaker A: Well? Of course we do an assessment, but the assessment is basically based on. Things are rather simple. If you to your different supervisors or even staff members and you ask them, you know, give me a list of tasks that you do every day and that you repeat.
And of those tasks, those that create the possibility for error, things like, for example, vacation approvals, things like, you know, for example, invoice approvals and all of other tasks that are done repetitively are usually the first tasks we look at. I mean, and we're not, we're not. Artificial intelligence and automation are not necessarily created to revolutionize your businesses, basically to make your business work smarter. And working smarter basically means, you know, make less errors and devote your time to what's important, your customer, and not necessarily to the tasks that surround your everyday life.
[00:10:38] Speaker B: I like that. Making sure that you're doing what it takes to invest your time around the focus on the customer. So that might be a partial answer to my last question before we go to commercial. But if do you have a quick way where you know that an organization is adapting to change well and they're actually learning to lead with your automation and changes?
[00:11:01] Speaker A: Well, I think that, that what, what we see when, when and you know, the, the clues that we are seeing is, is when people, when we have our follow up meetings and leaders and staff members are smiling, that's usually a sign that everything is going well.
And the sign that it's not going so well is when you have detractors and people not smiling and being stiff at meetings.
So yeah, I think the most natural answer is your body saying, I like what is happening and I'm happy and I'm smiling as opposed to, you know, being, Let me jump in on that,
[00:11:46] Speaker B: on that thought real quick. The, so I'm, what I'm hearing is a really good human answer. We're talking about all kinds of technology and AI but ultimately you're going to say, you know, they're leading and effectively making change because it'll be worn on their faces, people will be wearing it on their faces and you'll be able to see it. Morales, is that correct?
[00:12:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I, I think it basically sums it up.
Ours may be a business in technology or technology is important, but what's most important is you, your staff and, and your commitment to do what's important for the business. Take care of your customers.
[00:12:23] Speaker B: That's a good, that's a good spot for me to say. We're going to tackle that here in just a second after a commercial break. So stick tight. We're gonna have more Alejandro in just a moment and more pivotal change right after this commercial break.
Sam, welcome back from the break to more pivotal change. I want to make sure you are staying connected to this show and not just this show which hopefully is your favorite. But all of the others we have on the NOW Media TV website and the entire platform is available at the website. Now Media tv, you can get all of this content anytime you want. You just download the free Now Media TV app as well on your Roku IRS device and you can unlock all of the bilingual programming non stop. You can even download it English, Spanish, a podcast version in case you can't watch. You can listen to my beautiful raspy voice on the road or on the treadmill. So get that downloaded, click it. It's ready wherever and whenever you are. And now we're going to go back to and pivot to more Alejandro, because we're talking about transformation in what his company does with a lot of AI agents. Automate, automate automatically getting those systems put in place. So, Alejandro, strong transformation strategies, they can still potentially fail because there's still a human factor. Technology is not perfect. But how do we recognize maybe when it's time for people to change how they're thinking and how they're working, if a potential strategy is not getting us off the ground like we want?
[00:14:24] Speaker A: Well, you need, you need to, you need to have a team that follows up and has an incredible number of follow up meetings to get the value of what is happening and understand if things are working out.
We continuously work on change and we have to understand that the follow up is the most important part of any system change. In other words, if you are to implement a new system, you will always need to follow up properly to understand if things go in the way you want them to go. And if not, sometimes you, you have to change the way that you're looking at it or maybe tweak your system. And sometimes you have to look at reshuffling people, moving people from one place to the other.
[00:15:18] Speaker B: I like that a lot. You just said what a lot of leaders need to hear. And I'm going to use the word care. But you need to be checking in. You need to be following up with your people. So there should be systems and routines that and knowing that if you care about your people, you're going to make sure that their skills and their mindset is in the right position.
And you might have to shuffle some people in order to keep the system which we've identified. The system's not messed up, but we got some people we can shift around. And I think that's important for leaders to hear that there's a balance to that. Right? The system's not going to always be right. The people aren't Going to always be right. There's a blend. Pay attention and get involved with your people.
I really like that answer.
[00:15:59] Speaker A: Most definitely. Most definitely.
Let me add something else.
Sometimes leaders don't want to see what is happening. And it is, as leaders, it is our responsibility to make sure that technology helps people and doesn't replace people. We do not want to replace people. We want to help people. People and put them to think and to do what they're most good at, which is not necessarily tasks.
[00:16:31] Speaker B: Pull out their best and highest use so that they can get the most value out of them, but also receive the most value from doing a job well done and being successful. So that kind of leads me into this thought of ownership. You know, you want to impart the sense of ownership to your staff members so they really get going and motivated. You know, especially when transformation and change that we've been talking about comes, sometimes it can just feel like change is just always being opposed from the top down. It's just being imposed on us. So is there a way that you can help build in or strategize or implement this sense of ownership to keep away from that imposing feeling when you're putting in and implementing your. Your services and products?
[00:17:17] Speaker A: Yes. Yes. And there's only one way.
You have to show as a leader to your staff, the people who work around you and with you, that you care about them and that they are important.
The most important thing is to feel that you are important to the organization. This is what you have to make sure nothing else things are going to change if you give your staff the importance that they have to have.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: I like that. So not only just tell them, but you use the word show and you have to show them that they are important to the work and to the staff and to the company overall. And I really hope people are writing down at home the word show. Show them that gets in there and demonstrates. So I really appreciate that answer. Thank you.
So in your experience, you're going and you're looking at these various companies in their workflow and I'm sure some of them are great, some of them are terrible. Right. And you get to. People are cared for, people are in the right positions, people are shown that they have value.
So where do you find companies where you can distinguish the truly high performance team or that truly high performance group of talented people and they're all working next to each other in tandem. What are some factors that distinguish that in the team, in the group?
[00:18:41] Speaker A: Well, we are generally and of course constantly checking on what are the Results of the systems and implementations that we work with. And like I said before, the most telling fact is how people are feeling.
If you walk and ask, we do this, we visit companies and if you walk in and people look to be happy and look to be glad that they have a new system, you know, it shows. And, and what we do is basically follow up. We do a lot of tests, we do a lot of questionnaires, and we make sure that we know what is happening. Generally, if people are positive, things are going well, even if it does look like they're not.
[00:19:38] Speaker B: Okay, yeah, hopefully I'm gonna let that sit and resonate with the audience for a minute. I like that a lot.
I like that a lot. So if we, if we pivot to maybe the next stage of now we are seeing and observing, we're getting to this point. How should leaders measure? Like, are they able to develop KPIs, metrics, any type of measurement tools, or they can tell that the transformation is producing actual sustainable value rather than just some flurry of short term activity?
[00:20:11] Speaker A: You know, it's a very important point.
Generally people either devote themselves to system implementation or artificial intelligence or automation. And they do forget that you have to have KPIs to measure the results of what you're doing.
KPIs are very important and we generally suggest our customers, when we have the opportunity of the KPIs that they should be implementing.
But it is true. If you do not have a way to measure the impact of the changes you are doing or you are performing in your company and the way it operates, you basically are doing nothing.
Generally people do forget about this. And it is very important. It is very important. And like I said, we suggest the most rational KPIs, and that of course includes the building of dashboards with Power, BI and other tools that help people know or leaders know if the changes they are making are working out.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: I like that a lot. So you want to build dashboards, you want to build things that are going to track and provide that easy flow of information with those key performance indicators and maybe some of the more individualized team and staff metrics and be able to put that all in one place so that you can watch the grow. And it's not just a flurry of activity and people getting new projects, tasks and methods and being busy for the sake of busy, but truly observing the sustainable growth.
Tell me, tell me how you feel about this statement. I was told once that you can't grow or you can't correct what you do not Measure. So if you're not measuring activity and production and sales and various things, you can't grow it and you can't fix it. How do you feel about that?
[00:22:03] Speaker A: Well, it's true. It's true.
And it is particularly interesting and true in small companies.
When you talk to small companies owners and medium sized companies owners, they basically say that I don't need any information because I know what's happening. I know about cash flow and I know about revenue and I know about, about customer addition and whatnot. And the reality is that is that you think you know and, and most of the times you don't know. There is a saying that says, you know, the problem of ignorance is, is not necessarily not knowing the information.
The problem with ignorance is believing that we know. And this is what, what really helps hurts us most, not thinking that we know what we don't know. Dashboards give you the possibility to decide earlier.
The problems are still going to be there, but you will have quicker decision making. And this is the most important thing.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: Gotcha. So give me a real quick answer on this one. For a company facing its own pivotal change right now, what would you recommend a leader does in the next 30 days? What should they go do?
[00:23:17] Speaker A: Build a dashboard.
[00:23:18] Speaker B: Build it.
[00:23:19] Speaker A: Understand what's happening. Understand what's happening with your business and make decisions once you have that information.
Decisions about automation, decisions about artificial intelligence. You have the data, you're not using it. The data is there, you do have it, use it.
[00:23:38] Speaker B: You have the data, you're just not using it. I like that a lot. Well, Alejandro, let's do this. We got to wrap up this first half of the episode, but before we leave, I want to make sure that people can get to you. You get to your company and ask you more questions or maybe even use your services. If they want a dashboard, they're ready for leadership change and they're ready for transformation. How do they find you?
[00:23:58] Speaker A: Well, we're going to put our contact details. I mean, we would be happy to hear about the small medium or big problems you have and we'll be delighted to help you. Again, thank you very much for the opportunity. It was a very nice conversation. I hope we can, and we can talk again sometime soon.
[00:24:18] Speaker B: We certainly will. And thank you for coming on the show. For the rest of you out there, we're only halfway through and this transformation conver conversation is going to continue. Sit tight. We'll be back with more pivotal change and more me, William Kahn, your host, right after these messages.
Foreign.
Welcome back. You have Reached the halfway point and we are going to continue talking about transformation.
And we had a great conversation with Alejandro about making transformation inside the organization. And it led to a lot of things about showing care for your people, making sure you have the right systems in place, get yourself some dashboards, track the numbers and grow, become more efficient and grow. And he's definitely the man for that activity. But one thing I want to make sure that we understand is that when you are looking to transform a business as a leader or an influential part of that business, you cannot do that without transforming yourself. So I want to talk about those two segments inside an organization, but learning how to make decisions about yourself and about people, because it's companies and AI software doesn't technically make those crucial decisions. People ultimately make the decisions.
Processes that you implement don't technically have discipline. They're going to run, they're going to do their thing. But it's the people that have the discipline to keep them pushing forward to make the decisions about yes or no, proceed or not. Technology can't really and truly create vision. Only you can. You have to take it from your brain and maybe use technology to grow it and broadcast it. But people are what have vision. So I want to make this A1 level, deeper conversation about what happens when the things, the thing that is needed for transformation to truly unlock is you, because that is ultimately going to be the baseline. And you heard Alejandro also talk about the mindset of the leader and the readiness for change and to see change and implement change and continue looking for change. I think that transformation is important. So it usually begins with an honest assessment. You've heard me talk about this. I got the five M's and one of the M's is mindset, and that's the first one. And you have to have the mindset that say that I gotta identify the real problem or problems before I just try to throw technology or money at it.
And I think we have to do this with our own personality.
We may be sitting here in life looking around saying, I need to make more money, I need to lose weight, or just I need to have a better relationship, improve my relationship. Well, maybe, maybe you need to get better or more of those things. But it's probably underneath is a lack of discipline. Maybe you have placed yourself into the wrong environment. You've allowed poor habits to creep in.
Maybe it's just a lack of knowledge. You didn't continue the skill development, the educational development. And a lot of times there's either fear or complacency, really Playing a heavy role in those, those places where we can get stuck, we can get trapped, or maybe even just slow down a little bit. So we often seek, we look around, we try to solve the wrong problem, we keep busy work. So we don't actually do a deep dive onto the heavy work, the heavy lifting. And that's the stuff that's actually going to be changing you is looking to solve the problem inside yourself, inside your mind, inside your environment, etc. And being able to be a little bit more radical about what you do that separates you from the other people just kind of coasting and drifting. So there are multiple dimensions to this. You've heard me talk about in the past how there's always a physical side to life. There's a mental, emotional side to life, there's the skill and experience side to life and the spiritual. Those four sides make up that tetrahedron. I've talked about it on the show in the past. But you need to understand that if you want to do something like you want to have impact on your team and even implement a new aid driven dashboard that tracks your KPIs. Did you know that that will actually be easier and more effective if you are in better physical condition? So you need to examine yourself.
What condition is my body in? Am I truly providing myself the strength, the energy, the mental clarity, the appearance and command presence necessary, the sleep and regeneration that I need, my nutrition, just my overall physical discipline actually plays a huge role in your ability to care for your people, to show up on time to push through that final deadline. Some people actually have physically demanding jobs jobs. And of course being in great shape helps a physically demanding job. But whether you're a remote virtual assistant sitting behind a computer for eight to 12 hours a day, your physical fitness makes a difference with your focus, your attention, etc. And then there's the mental side of things too.
What am I feeding my mind?
This is a big question for today because we can all just sit here and probably admit way too much time on our phones, our devices, our, our subscription package packages for entertainment. What am I feeding my mind? Am I feeding my mind? Something that's going to help me make better decisions, see people more clearly? Am I feeding my mind? The next level of education and product and liability protection for my company.
How does what I'm feeding my mind help me or hurt me when it comes to responding to stress? Fast deadlines, maybe hardships in life show up. Sick children, death of a family member, some natural disaster, does some type of insurance claim and hardship on Your house, you get displaced. There's going to be a lot of adversity in life. There's always going to be uncertainty. That's one of the largest triggers to fear is we fear the unknown, the uncertainty of what's going to come out. But I don't want you to use a negative prediction of the future to be able to drive what you need to do today, right now.
So get your mindset, your mental faculties developed. Read self help books, get counseling, get advisors. You've heard me talk about my five types of advisors every influential person needs in their lives. Get those things going and put yourself in stressful situations again through fitness. If you go to, let's just say, whatever yoga, CrossFit, weightlifting you do, dynamic hit exercises, putting yourself under stress in a physical controlled environment helps you respond to the emotional mental stress. When all of the negative things show up in life, your body and mind are conditioned for it. The spiritual side, what do I believe? Like actually not, what did I grow up or was raised to believe or not? What does the media tell me or my friend group believe, but what do I believe? What are my values? And I've spent a lot of time helping people draw out their values, their core values, to flesh them out on paper, to refine them, to specifically articulate them so that it is absolutely clear to themselves and others what you value and what you're going to use to drive yourself forward into the future.
Am I actually living in accordance with those values? Not living in accordance with those values is called cognitive, cognitive dissonance. And again puts anxiety and stress in a mental cloud all into your life and actually affects the physical. It affects everything else as well. So make sure you know your values, you can articulate them to yourselves and others and then live out those values. Don't fool yourself. And then there's a skill, education, experience side of life as well. And this is where transformation can begin. Just like in the other categories. Am I more valuable today than I was one year ago?
If you are equal, you're actually less value. Because people, I hate to say it like this, there's something called the time value of money. Your dollar is worth more right now, today than it will be in 10 years. Okay, you can buy more with your $1 today than you'll be able to buy in 10 years. If you have a dead end to you pushing yourself to grow in skills, experience and knowledge, you are not going to be as valuable with that same set of knowledge as you are one year, five year, ten years from now, and again let's go back to that. AI. If you're a master of AI technology right now, do you think if you don't make any changes, you'll be a master of AI technology in a year or two? No. It will have developed so fast, it will have left you in the dust. And now it's more rapid than ever that you spend time doing that. And even if you're developing skills outside of your workplace or outside of your leadership realm, everything is connected. There's always an overlap to everything. That's where wisdom comes in, is how can I learn to use my gardening skills, my woodworking skills, my martial arts skills to benefit me and grow in life experience, relationship experience, and business experience? So ask yourself that question, am I more valuable today than I was? And you can shorten the time period one month ago, six months ago, five years ago. And what have I learned that I can do now that I could not do before?
And make a game out of it and expand yourself. You know, we can also expand in some other areas as well, like your social, you know, who am I around? Who is challenging me in a good way? That's kind of that said of the healthy advisors. Who has access to me, like who can disrupt my flow, my life, or who can enhance it by having access to me? You know, am I taking habits from. You've heard the saying you are. Are the average or the sum of the five closest people that you associate with. So whose habits and expectations am I absorbing? You know, and then you have your financial professional. Am I truly trying to build something, or I just making enough money so that I can eat and entertain myself? Or am I building something, growing something, investing in myself, my family, my future, or am I just maintaining? Because again, time value, money, if you're just maintaining, you're going to eventually decrease and wind up short. So you don't have to go absolutely crazy. You don't have to feel overwhelmed. You know, I've coached a lot of people in various areas, including wrestling and business and other sports, and I've had to step back on the mat at 40 years old. I didn't have to. It was just let you know. At 40 years old, I want to test myself. I want to make sure I'm growing. And you learn very quickly when you're locked in with another person and nobody's there to help you, what you're capable of. And did you do a good job being prepared? Right. And you understand that the second you step into the business meeting with that big, you know, whale of a Client if you did preparation with the questions they're going to ask and the information you're going to present.
So on the physical side of things, you can't negotiate with conditioning. If you need to run to safety or play a game with your kids in the backyard and you can't run very far and you have to quit and lie down because you weren't in shape, you're missing out on life. You can't fake conditioning, you can't fake strength. And there's a lot of other things that, that go over into the business world. If you get exhausted because you're working all these late nights, you can't push during that crunch time period and you're the, the weak link in the chain, well, you have failed to prepare. So business, there's the similarities all over the place. And one of them that I want you right now is that pressure exposes preparedness. Okay? So the more you work, the more you become prepared, the more pressure you can handle. And when something really bad happens, there's a deadline, there's an audit, there's something crazy. The people that prepared, they might break a small sweat, but they're ready to go. And the people that didn't prepare, they tend to be the ones that are freaking out and having negative reactions.
Get disciplined. Built in one area of life, start today and then start splitting it up into the other areas. Don't try to do everything all at once. And that's what people really can do to make those transformations. If you can do that, you can identify the area that maybe has the biggest need, the biggest bottleneck attack that first make one meaningful change and then build it on. You can definitely go into a 30 day motivational burst. But ultimately, to get the lifetime changes, you need to have discipline and just show up consistently. We're going to stick a pin in this conversation. We're going to talk more about transformation. But while we're on the break, I want you to ask yourself, what do I want to change and who would I have to become to overcome this sense of normal that I'm experiencing today? We'll be right back after this message.
[00:37:19] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:37:36] Speaker B: Welcome back to the final segment of the night. Make sure you go to NOW Media tv. Go to the website, explore all the options there. We got culture, lifestyle, business, news, politics in leadership. Go get NowMedia TV opened and scrolling. You can find pivotal change in all of your favorite episodes. Everything else is going to be bilingual, English and Spanish. You can also download the Now Media TV app, Roku iOS, get the podcast, get Everything you need to have that information brought to you on demand, whenever you want it, wherever you want it. So let's close out our conversation as well with transformation. We talked about the AI technology, the dashboards, oh much how Condros gave us some really good advice. We talked about the areas of transformation in the last segment and how you can get working on those. But we got to make this personal change stick so that we can ultimately have no issues with the transformation and change we want to put into our business life. And sustainability is going to be a huge part of that.
Usually getting started isn't our problem because we have early motivation, but relying on motivation is really what what kills people's diets, kills people's new startup business. Or they might buy some courses and just never finish because they fizzle out. They join the gym. And gyms are packed in January and even February, but November, December, the gyms are pretty slim. So people go back to church, people start networking and then they just die off from those relationships. So you got to set goals, you got to set action plans. So what are you still doing six months later when you tried to have this motivation to make this transformation?
So you got to build systems and that's what Alejandro was talking about. You got to build systems that show your metrics, show your results, hold you accountable, get really annoying with notifications and whatever is maybe it even is a series of accountability groups where they're just going to nag you to death unless you just flat out quit and walk away and then, boom, that's on you. So build systems at work. Do it to where they are absolutely going to take over when you get tired, frustrated, busy or discouraged. Put workouts on the calendar, make people show up at the gym to help spot you and be your workout partner because there's some guilt if you don't show up on a Tuesday and you leave your partner hanging, you know that's going to cause a problem. So make that obligation automate what can be automated like again, all those calendar appointments, all of those things that can connect you with people, email reminders, summaries of the information that's coming into your messaging programs and stuff like that.
Get it funneled to you. There's a lot of real smart technology if you want to start a diet to track your calories, track your foods, auto order your food for you. So if you have a problem buying that extra tub of ice cream, well, you can auto renew your groceries and have it delivered to your house and you don't have to walk down the ice cream aisle, right. So there's a lot of things that you can do. But what you want to make is the behavior easier to repeat. That is your goal. Make the behavior easier to repeat in whatever category it is and have accountability. Have something that's going to annoy you, something that's going to tell on you and trigger a friend to intervene or something like that. And then of course, environment, that's got to be a change. Got to have a part of your system that changes your environment. If you're just, let's say you're, you're making it a goal to wake up early every morning, lace your shoes and go for a walk or a run.
A lot of people have their phones right next to them and they hit snooze three, four times. Now there's no more time left in the morning to squeeze in a run before you got to jump in the shower and go to work. So you might have to put your cell phone on the other side of the room, which I highly recommend anyway for all kinds of different reasons. But if you get up, have to walk out of your bed to that little dresser in the corner and then turn off your alarm, you're already up, you're already got your feet on the ground, you're already ready to go. Just lace your shoes up and get out the front door. So little tiny things like that can, can really help your environment is really important. I need you to write down and if you need to go look at a calendar, look at your communications and whatever apps or message systems you're using, who are the five or maybe 10 people, but definitely five people you're around the most or communicating with the most. And if people are shooting each other, you know, gifs and reels and memes on social media platforms, that's influence. Look at the five people, write their names down and what are they normalizing in your life? Ask that question, what are these five people normalizing in my life? Is it fitness or an activity? Is ambition or complacency? Is it faith or is it cynicism? Am I getting people that are helping me build wealth and look at the next step, or just being a consumer? Are they learning and education and sharing like, hey, look what I learned, look what I hear, or are they just giving you a mindless brain rot entertainment? Your social circle can definitely have a huge impact on your future.
It influences what you feels normal. Another thing that I become a pretty big believer in is the experiences that you put yourself into can really accelerate your growth. Go places that you haven't gone before. Get out of the routine, Meet people outside of your normal circle. Like, I've never been to this place. Maybe there's a cultural difference or something like that, or maybe just locating the town next door. We've never really experienced their restaurants or their music venue. Go there, meet the people, talk, situation.
Just bump elbows with somebody next to you and strike up a conversation. Go to a different park and go walk your dog someplace different. Just get out, shake it up just a little bit and you're going to start meeting people that are different. They're going to have experiences that are different. And there's going to be a degree of improvement and exposure in your life. For someone who sees a problem differently than you, who sees a solution and sees a mindset or a viewpoint completely different than you, and just having that proximity to that experience can help change it. But if you can get into the experience, like I don't go to rodeo sometime and do some like, you know, child's version of calf roping and learn how to rope a lasso and talk to a cowboy, that's going to change your experience.
Build some skills and try to pick ones that compound over time, like communication. Right? Learn how to communicate effectively and right emails differently. Get into sales and just take a sales course. Maybe you're a back room bookkeeper, computer keyboard wizard and you don't have to ever do sales. But if you study sales, couldn't you convince your boss to give you a better promotion next year? Couldn't you talk to somebody in your social group about what you do and they become a client of the business that ultimately results in your help. Take a negotiation class, a financial literacy class, leadership books.
We already talked about technology and AI, but networking events, public speaking, Go get public speaking. Just learn how to connect to people and those skills will compound. They don't exist in isolation, they stack up and there's a lot of crossover. But get moving on some of that stuff.
It's considerably more valuable for you and your role than you ever think. And then get your spiritual foundation under control. Transformation without direction can really make you a wild card. And you're going to be much more effective in where you're going and how you get there. If you don't start off in the wrong direction because you don't have your spiritual or faithful foundation, those values matter so much. Like those, the spiritual values of just who you are and what you stand for isn't necessarily just a religion bible thing, but it is the core of who you are. So what am I actually pursuing? Is a huge question to ask.
Why am I pursuing it? And then work on, on stuff like that.
You know, do I want to be a better father, Do I want to just be a better friend? Don't want to be a better businessman? Why am I pursuing these things then? Why am I pursuing them now versus in the past or in the future?
So trying to chase success without some type of internal framework, that's not going to help you get what matters most to you. Build that internal framework and then evidence is really important. You have to track, just like Alejandro was saying, you have to track your results and gain evidence. You cannot correct and grow what you do not measure. So you have to. People on a diet, they're stepping on the scale all the time and measuring that weight loss. Okay, don't just tell yourself you're changing. Look for the evidence. Did I actually approach a stranger, engage in a conversation, exchange contact information, expand my network? How many people last month, month did I grow my network by? Oh, only two. Well, that's just like accidental, organic, right? I want to do 10 this month. Set a goal. Go meet people. Go network. Get your physical change. Did I go up in weight? If you're not writing down your workouts, you know your bench press is £225 and you're not measuring your weights, how do you know what you did last week to improve upon your memory is going to eventually fail you. Same with calories and health and energy levels and stuff like that. How did I feel today? Did I have my head bounce off the pillow and check that I had a good night's sleep? There's sleep trackers and stuff like that. Mental. I had something, I had some pressure come into my life this month. How did I respond? Do a debrief of your situation and write down in a journal. Get your spiritual. Did I go to church? Did I read my Bible? Did I do my meditations, my exercises? What skill that I developed can I do? You know more of X than I did last month. You guys get the point. Okay, so let's switch back to kind of Alejandro's mentality. There's a 30 day question I want you to ask.
If I'm facing pivotal change right now, what do I do in the next 30 days?
Write it down, break it into categories, Maybe pick one single physical component, one spiritual component, one skill and education component, and so on. You're going to improve it. You're going to write the goal and you're going to track the progress.
That's how you transform. And that's how you circle back to even getting something inside as a leader of your organization, primed and ready. And the people are mentally ready. They know they're cared for. They know they're going to have ownership, and they are going to do the same things by investing, tracking and growing. So pick one, get it going. Write it down, and report back next week how that's going.
Here's the important part. You can transform a lot of things, but you got to transform yourself first. So get that going. And I want you to go out into your personal life, go out into the world and see the change and be the change. We'll catch you next year right here. Next time on PIVOTAL change.
