Prepare to be captivated by the wisdom of Atiba De Souza, a master storyteller and SEO guru, who joins us to share his transformative journey from individual excellence to a leader who shines the spotlight on others. Discover how the pillars of the E-Myth and the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership are not just theories, but actionable steps that can elevate a team to its full potential. Atiba's unique approach to recognizing and nurturing the 'Michael Jordan-esque' superpowers within each of us is a testament to the profound impact authentic leadership can have on personal and professional growth.
This episode takes a deep dive into the art of creating content that leaves a lasting impression—one that extends beyond mere metrics into the realm of genuine connection. Hear how Atiba's commitment to authentic storytelling through video marketing can initiate waves of change, providing a fresh perspective on the value of organic content. It's a narrative that challenges the status quo of paid campaigns, and a revelation for agencies keen on expanding their influence through strategic content creation that truly resonates with audiences.
Rounding off our session, we explore the psychological barriers that can inhibit success and how to shatter them with the precision of a sculptor. Get personal about the hurdles faced as a leader and how developing the CASE method revolutionized the team's ability to trust and thrive. Looking to improve every day, even if by just a fraction? Tune in to hear how incremental progress can accumulate to achieve monumental results.
To connect with Atiba De Souza and explore personalized growth strategies for yourself or your organization, visit meetatiba.com.
Meet Dr. William Attaway, your guide to peak performance. As a seasoned Executive Mindset and Leadership Coach with nearly 30 years of experience, William empowers high-performance entrepreneurs and agency owners to conquer challenges and maximize their potential. Join him on the Catalytic Leadership podcast as he shares insights on achieving Clear-Minded Focus, Calm Control, & Confidence, helping you thrive in business and life.
Prepare to be captivated by the wisdom of Atiba De Souza, a master storyteller and SEO guru, who joins us to share his transformative journey from individual excellence to a leader who shines the spotlight on others. Discover how the pillars of the E-Myth and the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership are not just theories, but actionable steps that can elevate a team to its full potential. Atiba's unique approach to recognizing and nurturing the 'Michael Jordan-esque' superpowers within each of us is a testament to the profound impact authentic leadership can have on personal and professional growth.
This episode takes a deep dive into the art of creating content that leaves a lasting impression—one that extends beyond mere metrics into the realm of genuine connection. Hear how Atiba's commitment to authentic storytelling through video marketing can initiate waves of change, providing a fresh perspective on the value of organic content. It's a narrative that challenges the status quo of paid campaigns, and a revelation for agencies keen on expanding their influence through strategic content creation that truly resonates with audiences.
Rounding off our session, we explore the psychological barriers that can inhibit success and how to shatter them with the precision of a sculptor. Get personal about the hurdles faced as a leader and how developing the CASE method revolutionized the team's ability to trust and thrive. Looking to improve every day, even if by just a fraction? Tune in to hear how incremental progress can accumulate to achieve monumental results.
To connect with Atiba De Souza and explore personalized growth strategies for yourself or your organization, visit meetatiba.com.
Meet Dr. William Attaway, your guide to peak performance. As a seasoned Executive Mindset and Leadership Coach with nearly 30 years of experience, William empowers high-performance entrepreneurs and agency owners to conquer challenges and maximize their potential. Join him on the Catalytic Leadership podcast as he shares insights on achieving Clear-Minded Focus, Calm Control, & Confidence, helping you thrive in business and life.
I'm so excited today to have Atiba De Souza the podcast. What is the answer to the age-old question of how do you generate more leads? Nothing less than fresh, original and engaging content. But who's got time to create content, much less launch it across every platform in the universe in the appropriate format? Well, the answer is what our guest today talks about.
Dr. William Attaway:
Atiba is the content superman. Decades of running an exclusive agency, combined with hardcore technical skills, have made him one of the few people with the skills and insight to marry emerging software and Google's algorithm with an intuitive feel for the culture of every social media platform. His clients call him the SEO super sleuth, the business ninja, the build your team guru and the super connector. He was killing search engine optimization before the term was even invented, ranking regional and national brands in the US on page one of Google for over 15 years now. His content strategies are not just bells and whistles. His vision is thunderous. In the B2B SEO space, not even the best of the best can say they ranked more than 3,000 pages on the first page of Google results, while helping companies enjoy qualified leads. Atiba, I'm so glad you're here.
Atiba De Souza:
Thanks for being on the show. Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here with you, William, and I'm ready to go.
Intro / Outro:
Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host author and leadership and executive coach, dr William Attaway.
Dr. William Attaway:
Host author and leadership and executive coach, Dr William Attaway, I would love to start by hearing a little bit of your story. I'd love for you to share some of your story with our listeners, particularly how you have grown and developed as a leader over time.
Atiba De Souza:
What does that look like for you? It's a really great question and I'm glad you asked. I was actually having this conversation with one of my coaching clients just yesterday and you know, early on when I say early on, I'm saying 16, 17, 18, somewhere in that time frame I was watching Michael Jordan play Nice, right, and you know, in awe of the greatness that he was and the art form that he created on the basketball court and the way he willed things. And I remember a conversation on ESPN or somewhere saying would Michael Jordan be a good basketball coach? And the answer was a resounding no. The answer was the greatest of the greats never make good coaches, wow, right. And and I found that so striking at that point and you know, my goal was to become the greatest of the great in what I do, and so I then just assumed I would never be a good leader then because they were mutually exclusive. Okay, fast forward into my twenties now, and now I'm leading teams and so on and so forth. And you know I had success with building teams and then I also had lots of issues with building teams and, yeah, it took a while, but it caused me to realize it was me, I was the problem. Right In my early 20s, I read the E-Myth, revisited by Michael Gerber yeah, great book.
Atiba De Souza:
I read that book every year for 20 years straight, my goodness, every year, without fail, wow.
Atiba De Souza:
And it reframed the way I thought about leadership within an organization.
Atiba De Souza:
It reframed the way I thought about the fact that you can strive to be the best of the best and still be great to your people, right, and that what it took was and this is what I learned one of the major things of many that I learned from that book was what it takes is that, yeah, you might be that guy or gal who's like world class and on a pedestal in some way, shapes or form, right, whatever that may look like, but you've got a team and each one of them, each one of them can be world class in their tiny little areas themselves. And what if we could help them achieve that? What if we can find that greatness inside of them and help bring that out? That was the transformation that I've gone through, right, and why? Now people say, oh man, you're a great leader, you build world-class teams. And it's not so much that I build world-class teams, I just find great people, figure out what they're really great at and create environments where they can be great yeah.
Dr. William Attaway:
Man, I love that. I love the other-centric approach of what you're describing. That is, I think, the highest calling of a leader. Yes, that's what John Maxwell calls high-road leadership.
Atiba De Souza:
Yes, yes, and so it's interesting that you mentioned John, because the year before I read E-Myth, I read 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. Yes, right, and you know that book set the foundation for the next 20 years of reading E-Myth as the backdrop. Right Of OK, we can be a leader in a different way. Right, michael Jordan can coach. Yeah, right, you know, and it wasn't. It's not about a conceit thing either, william, because you know, I know a lot of people hear that and say, oh, you're comparing yourself to Michael Jordan. Listen, you need to compare yourself to Michael Jordan. Listen, you need to compare yourself to Michael Jordan. If you're not understand that, something in your life.
Dr. William Attaway:
You are Michael Jordan-esque about. Recognizing that you do have a superpower is one of the things I think we're both passionate about. Helping our clients to discover that thing that they think is just normal, they think it's just part of well, that's just. Isn't everybody like that, and the fact of the matter is no not everybody's like that. You have that superpower and learning how to develop and execute on that in a Michael Jordan way. That's worth an investment of time and energy.
Atiba De Souza:
Absolutely, and that's the thing. And I got to take this jacket off. Man, it's getting hot in here, we having a great conversation, I'm starting to sweat and getting excited, so I had to do a little wardrobe change there y'all. But yeah, no, there's definitely something to get excited about, and that is the crux of the thing that is missing in society right now. Ok, OK, and hear me on this. We can talk about all sorts of things. This is me now. We can talk about all sorts of things that are wrong with society, right, right. But the biggest thing in my mind is this trending to the norm that everyone needs to be just normal I'm sorry, you're not normal. Yeah, you weren't created to be normal. Yeah, you were created to be you, right? Let us find our individuality, let's find our individualism, and then let's celebrate that and celebrate somebody else's. They don't have to be, they don't need to be like you, they don't have to wear a label for you to agree with them.
Dr. William Attaway:
Amen. I think that's so well said. So often I find that leaders, particularly at the beginning of their journey, copy other leaders that they admire and respect, and I think that's normal. I think all of us do that at the beginning. The problem is when you stay there and then, over time, all you become is a bad copy of a great leader and you lose the power of tapping into how you are wired, how you are designed. You are unique, your gifts, your passions, your talents, the things that make you as a leader those are unique.
Dr. William Attaway:
And until you learn how to lead from that place of authenticity, you will never achieve the Michael Jordan level of play.
Atiba De Souza:
You'll always be a fraud and you'll know it. You know, in some of my circles I talk about this and I call it self-sabotage yeah, okay, and real talk. So there is a gentleman that I know I'm not going to say his name, I'm going to say his profession but he is in his profession, he is Michael Jordan-esque and his business is suffering. However, he has all of these accolades from all of these different things that you'd be like, wow, he is one of the best hang gliders in the world. Wow, yeah, wow, yeah, okay. He has fought with a Navy SEAL team, like he's done, like amazing things, and you're just like wow, and you go and you accomplish. He's an amazing singer, he's an amazing guitar. He's got all of these accolades amazing guitar, he's got all of these accolades. But he's struggling at that one major thing that he was actually and he knows it created to do. And we had a little conversation. I told him you're self-sabotaging yourself.
Atiba De Souza:
I know it looks good yeah all this stuff looks good, but it's actually self-sabotage. It's no different than a drug addict. It's no different than someone who's gambling away. It's no different than someone who's drinking. It's no different than someone who's chasing after other people. It's no different, because it's keeping you from the thing that you are meant to do and keeping you from that Michael Jordan-esque superstardom and superhero that you're supposed to be.
Dr. William Attaway:
Timmy, you talk a lot about content. Yes, you talk a lot about this. The content Superman I read earlier, right. The content Superman I read earlier, right. This is a big deal and I think this is incredibly intimidating for a lot of people agency owners, business leaders, entrepreneurs because it feels like you get on that treadmill, you start running and it's never, ever going to stop.
Atiba De Souza:
Mm-hmm.
Dr. William Attaway:
Do you see that? Do you see this level?
Atiba De Souza:
of intimidation when you start to talk about this, absolutely. Hey, listen, let me not lie to you. Heck, I'm intimidated by content, and I'm the video content Superman. Like, come on, okay, no real talk. I was supposed to do to record five videos this week. This weekend I got through two. Okay, that's good, all right. So I get it. I totally, totally, totally get it.
Atiba De Souza:
I get the trepidation. I feel it too, and I've been doing this for 20 odd years. Yeah, okay, I feel it too. It's not unnatural. The challenge, though, is what we have to recognize is just like me, there was stuff that I needed to say in those three videos that someone needs to hear that I'm being selfish about that. I wasn't willing enough to get over my own self and my own whatever internally to create those three videos to affect someone else's life. Yeah, you see and I'm talking to you directly as an agency owner, because you're an agency owner who's helping a business, who helps multitudes of businesses, and so if you're not creating content, if you're not putting out the messages you're supposed to be putting out, then the ripple effect of your selfishness is massive.
Dr. William Attaway:
The ripples are something that you cannot anticipate. You don't know everywhere every ripple is going to touch. You only know that it will. Yes, I work a lot with leaders. I'm an executive coach. I work with leaders and entrepreneurs and agency owners because I believe that when you help a leader to get better, you don't just help one person. That's right, absolutely. I'm helping every person. They're ever going to serve every member of their team and multiply out Exactly Because that's going to ripple. That's going to ripple. That's the ripple I'm helping them. If they're married with their spouse, they've got kids with their kids, this is going to ripple generationally. Yes, and that's what you, their kids. This is going to ripple generationally. Yes, and that's what you're describing. And I love that because I think that's so important and most people don't think that way. No, and that's why most people don't operate at that Jordan-esque level.
Atiba De Souza:
And that's what we have to change. Yes, right, you see. So let's get back to the whole individualism thing. You're afraid of your individualism. That's why you don't create content. Let's call a spade a spade. Oh, that's good, okay, yeah, I'm going to pull my own card on that and say that's where I was this weekend. I knew I needed to create more videos and I was, oh no, and I thought. I literally thought about who was going to comment people, I don't know on my videos that I made. Like, seriously, okay, and we're doing a paid campaign. We don't do many paid campaigns Because I'm an organic guy, but we're doing a paid campaign for us, and this is one of our first paid campaign in years, and so I'm creating videos. I'm like, oh my gosh, it's a paid campaign. Oh, it's got to be so different. No, it doesn't. Oh, yeah, right, putting all that crap in my own way, keeping me from my own, jordan S destiny, that's going to create ripples in the world.
Dr. William Attaway:
Now let me also say this, william if you're listening to us right now and you don't think you're supposed to create ripples, please, please, turn off this podcast and stop wasting my time and yours. Well said, well said. The goal is to be catalytic, yes. To make a difference, yes. To incite or to accelerate significant change or action, yes. If that resonates with you, if you feel that at a core level, then this conversation is one you need to hear. This is one you need to be taking notes on. This is one you need to take action on. Yes.
Atiba De Souza:
And don't worry about measuring the ripple. That's not the goal. The goal is not to measure the ripple. That's not the goal. The goal is not to measure the ripple, that's right. Okay, the ripple will reverberate and measure back to you. If you ever, if you ever like, go go to your kitchen, go to a bathtub, go to a sink, right and, and fill it and take a pen. You'll take a pebble and throw it in and watch the ripples. The ripples are going to go all the way to the edge and then they're going to reverberate back in and you'll feel them. Let me tell you how that looks. Right, because so many of us try to measure the ripples that are going out and we're trying to see them and we're trying to measure, okay, and I'm telling you, don't do that. Here's what you're doing with your content. You're putting it out there. You're putting authentic content out there. You're creating and we could talk about the structure of all of that too, right, but we're creating this authentic content. Let me tell you how that place I was introduced to someone who, in this particular industry, is one of the seven godfathers of this industry.
Atiba De Souza:
Okay, wow, yeah, one of the original seven. Okay, okay, wow, yeah, one of the original seven, okay, and I had a call with him on Saturday. It was the first time meeting him, right, and it was kind of funny because he started to call with do you know who I am? And so when I had a chance to introduce myself, I said do you know who I am? Right, read a little tongue in cheek with him. And then, as I was introducing myself, he looked me up and he says oh, I know who you are. I've been listening to you for a while. That is the reverberation coming back.
Intro / Outro:
Yes, yes.
Atiba De Souza:
Love that. That is the reverberation coming back. Let me make it a little bit even more plain to you. Make it a little bit more plain to you. Okay, I get phone calls from people I don't know, and when I say phone calls, I really mean Zoom calendar meetings, you know in 2024, that's a phone call. I get Zoom meetings from people I don't know and I get on and they say hey, atiba, I've been listening to your stuff, I'm all on board. I want to sign up for your program. What is it? 9k a month. I'm all in. 30 minutes later they're in, ready to go. That's a reverberation coming back. That's right. If you measure your reverberations by how many people like my content, how many people shared it, how many oh oh, yo, wrong thing.
Dr. William Attaway:
Yep, yep, that's so good. You mentioned a minute ago that you typically focus on organic. Yes, help me understand the difference between organic video marketing and regular non-organic.
Atiba De Souza:
Yeah, it's paid or organic, right, and so in the world of paid and this is any type of content really in the world of paid, what you're doing is you're creating a piece of content and you're going to a network and you're saying to that network, and the network can be Google. And you're going to a network and you're saying to that network, and the network can be Google, facebook, linkedin, instagram, TikTok, a network. You're going to a network and saying, hey, I have this piece of content and I want to put it in front of certain types of people. I'm willing to pay you to do that for me. And the network will say, okay, great, it's going to cost you X amount. Great, it's going to cost you X amount, and that's, I mean, oversimplification. But that's the relationship that's formed there. That's on the paid side. The organic side is very, very different, where now you're going to create a piece of content and you're going to put it on a network Could be the same networks. You're going to put it on a network, but you're putting it now on the network for free, on your account, and you're allowing the network's algorithm to show it to the right people.
Atiba De Souza:
Okay, and so sometimes it will, sometimes it won't. Sometimes it'll go up and sometimes it'll go down, okay, right. And every network is different on how their algorithms work. So what we specialize in is helping you with organic content. Now, there are reasons for both right. And, quite honestly, if you are a mature agency, you're in a place probably, where you need both organic and pay, because they complement each other. If you're in a place where you have more time than you have money, then you need to build an organic strategy. If you're in a place where you've got a lot of money and not a lot of time, then build a paid strategy. That's good.
Dr. William Attaway:
That's good, that's a fantastic explanation, and I think that everybody listening can put themselves in one of those places and say, okay, that's where I'm at, yes, and that's what you do. Yeah, right, hopefully, hopefully, and, and, and that's what you do. You come alongside and you help them to be very intentional, very purposeful, yes, and very strategic?
Atiba De Souza:
Yes, because we want. We want to help you create content that aligns with your customer. You see, the thing that that we, as business owners, have to understand is every single customer that comes to you has a journey to get there. And as you start to look at them and you start to look at your ideal customers, you'll start to realize they go through very similar journeys. Well, if we know the journey that they're going to go through, can we then ask the question what information content do they need at each stage of the journey? Well, if we can figure that out, why can't we create that content beforehand and help them along the journey? Love it. That's what we do for you.
Dr. William Attaway:
So you know, I imagine that there are folks listening who are thinking, well, that sounds great, that sounds perfect, but how on earth do I even get started in this video thing? I don't even know what to talk about. Do I have to have a team who's going to help me produce this? Like?
Atiba De Souza:
where do I begin Absolutely so real, simple, very, very simple. Okay, you have customers currently. Those customers have called you. You've had conversations with them and they've asked you questions. What you're going to do is stop and think. Now I want you to only think about the customers you like. Don't think about those customers you wish you didn't have anymore and the questions that they ask. Only think about the customers that you like and think about those customers and you like, and think about those customers and what questions that they ask. Write them down. Once you have them written down, I want you to pull out this thing here, this thing that we call a phone. I know you got one in your pocket. You might be listening to us on it right now.
Atiba De Souza:
Now, when you pull out this thing called a phone, there is an app, okay, on this device, and that app is called the camera. Okay, I want you to press on the camera, open it up, and it's going to have some options. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you're Android, apple or if you're one of those weird ones on Windows, doesn't matter. It has some options in here, and one of the options is photo or video. You want to click on video? Okay, then, once you click on video, you want to make sure that it's when you look at it, it's seeing you. If not, there's a little button that will change the camera and then you can see yourself.
Atiba De Souza:
Once you can see yourself here in the video, right, once you can see yourself, what I want you to do is go ahead and press the record button. You're going to press the record. That's a round button with a red dot in the middle. Okay, you're going to press that button. After you've pressed that button, you're going to say hi, my name is so-and-so and today I'm going to answer whatever the question was, and then you're going to answer the question. Okay, once you're done answering the question, you're going to hit the stop button. Okay, it's usually a little square button. You're going to hit the stop button as soon as you're done.
Atiba De Souza:
As soon as you're done hitting the stop button, then I want you to go to your all apps, whatever that looks like. There's another little app on here that you probably don't know exists, okay, and that app is called YouTube, youtube. Okay, I want you to open the YouTube app. Once you open the YouTube app, down in the bottom in the middle is a circle with a plus sign. You press that. The second option is upload a video. Upload a video. It will show you the video you just recorded. You press that. It will ask you for a title. The title will be the question that you answered Exactly. Don't change the wording Exactly as it is. Right click the title and hit upload. Welcome to video marketing.
Dr. William Attaway:
It's really that simple.
Atiba De Souza:
It's that simple to start Absolutely.
Dr. William Attaway:
You know you talk about how video helps to build thought leadership. Yes, and I know for a lot of people listening that's intriguing and something they're interested in. What would you?
Atiba De Souza:
share about that. So, number one, video does build thought leadership. But I want to be clear here, okay, because in order to be a thought leader number one, you have to have a proprietary process. You've got to have figured out something that you're Michael Jordan-esque at that you've gotten great results with right. If you've never done it, you can't be a thought leader on it. That's true. If you don't have success behind you, you can't be a thought leader on it. That's true. If you don't have success behind you, you can't be a thought leader.
Atiba De Souza:
Okay, right, I can talk about video marketing, because for some of my clients, I've gotten them 18% view to click-through rate, which you can't get anywhere else. We do this repeatedly, and so I've got the process in the system, so I've got a proprietary process. That's the one thing you have to have. You've got to have a proprietary process, okay, then the next thing that you have to do is you have to be willing to teach, and teach openly. You see, gone are the days when you say, oh, I got a proprietary process, I ain't going to tell anybody anything about it. I'm going to hide all the secret sauce. Listen, I tell my clients all the time. Listen, you pay me and you pay me a lot of money and we get you great results, but, truthfully, there's nothing that we do that isn't on my YouTube or some other social channel. I publish everything we do and the way we do it so you can go do it yourself if you actually cared. But guess what? You don't, which is why you hired me.
Atiba De Souza:
That's right, right, but as a thought leader, you have to be willing to actually share your thoughts and your opinions and you have to be willing to stand on them. You, you have to be willing to stand on them. You've got to be willing to stand on them, okay. And lastly, you have to care more about your customer and your potential customers than you do about making a buck.
Atiba De Souza:
I've helped more people get into video marketing. I got one guy actually two people, there are two people in the last month who have come up to me and said your advice, we're not getting hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube and we are crushing it. We are generating so much money off of our YouTube channel. Neither one of them is a client has ever paid me a penny, wow, okay. You've got to be willing to give like that and recognize yeah, not everybody's going to be your client and it's okay. They'll take it, they'll go off, they'll have great success. Let them go do it. You need to care more about their success than your bank account. If you care more about their success, believe me, your bank account will grow again. That's the reverberation of ripples.
Dr. William Attaway:
So good. I believe your business needs you to lead at a different level today than it did three, four, five years ago, without question. And I believe that three, four, five years from now it's going to need you to lead at an even higher level than where you are today. So let me ask you how do you stay on top of your game? How? Are you leveling up with new leadership skills that you're going to need and your team is going to need you to have.
Atiba De Souza:
That's such a vital question. That's such a vital question. Okay, I'm going to answer this in two ways, if I could, please. All right. So first I want to take you back. I want to take you back to about three years ago and you know, we were in the middle of the pandemic, we were just coming out and I was just I was just going to my first in-person event, like conference event, coming out of the pandemic three years ago and I was gone for a week in San Diego and I talked to the team at the beginning of the week and back then the team was small, right, it was six people. I had four core and two of them who were like super brand new, so really four core people, right, and I talked to the four core at the beginning of the week and then I talked to the four core at the end of the week and I was looking for an update on what. What you know, tell me what happened this week, and the answer was nothing.
Atiba De Souza:
We were waiting on you and if you're listening to me right now, you've probably had this moment and you know that feeling. You know that sinking, stinking feeling, right, and oftentimes with that stinking feeling comes statements like. I need better people. I need to fire them. How can I? You know, why don't my burden with such crappy people? And and that's where your thinking kind of naturally goes Mine did, too, a little while it did, but then I had to hold up the mirror to myself and realize the real problem was me.
Atiba De Souza:
Okay, the real problem was me Because I was sitting in that room and I had just done our next three-year goals, when I wanted us to grow to. And I'm sitting there and that's why I was frustrated in that moment. But I realized, in order to get to where I wanted to go in these next three years, I couldn't be the same person that I was. That's right. Okay, in order to get there, I had to realize that, yeah, there are things that I might be Michael Jordan-esque, like SEO research one of the best in the world but in order to get to our ultimate goals, I can't do that on a daily basis, right, right, one of the things I've done over the last three years is fix that problem. I've done a lot of study, lots of study on it, and fixed that problem and created something I call the case method, and the case method has allowed me, and I've taught tons of other people how to do this too, allowed me to take my genius and train other people to do my genius, and now they're better at my genius than I was, and so now I'm free to be able to say I can go do other things, because now I know I can trust you because I've trained the system and the process has trained you and you iterate through and you keep getting better and better and better and amazing me. I'm like, yeah, awesome, okay, so that's, that's where I've been. Now, where, where are you going? And? And so I'm gonna tell you, in case you couldn't tell you, I'm a bit of a storyteller.
Atiba De Souza:
Um, I'm gonna tell you another story. Um, and this is, um, uh, a story from from a friend of mine, and we were having breakfast and he's won the Ferrari Open and we were talking about, you know, that drive to be greatness, right, and that drive to win a major race like that in a major car like that, right. And he said to me he said you know that the reality is when we start off in the race two people racing around a track after the first lap you can't tell who's in the lead. It's indistinguishable to the naked eye who's in the lead. If you've got two good drivers, if you're at that elite level, you're not going to be able to tell, because we're both trying to get around this track and we've both been practicing and we both know what the times are and we've both been working. And then he handed me his phone and he said he had the stopwatch on his phone and he said I want you to press and stop the stopwatch as fast as possible. So I did it and it was 0.16 seconds. He said yeah, exactly.
Atiba De Souza:
So every day, while I was preparing for the race, I was working to get 0.16 seconds faster on every lap. That's the goal. The goal is I'm doing the same lap, the lap doesn't change, but I want to get 0.16 seconds faster. So if I'm 0.16 seconds faster than my competition on lap one, you can't notice that. But guess what? By lap 30, all of a sudden now, now I'm two and a half seconds ahead of them. Now you see that. Now you see that. And so that's how I approach leadership. Listen, it's about that 0.16, that boom, boom it's.
Atiba De Souza:
How do I get better every single day? What are the books that I'm reading? How am I? What am I taking in? What am I challenging myself on? What are the questions that I'm reading? What am I taking in? What am I challenging myself on? What are the questions that I'm asking? Yes, that's my 0.16. Ask better questions every single day. That's your boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And that's how you get to the place where you look back and you say, wow, look, how far we've come in six months. Wow, look, how far we've come in three years. Wow, far we've come in six months. Wow, look, how far we've come in three years. Wow, I never thought I could. But it's not that you made, and that's the big problem. We all think we got to make this huge, gigantic leap. No, no, no, it's a boom, boom. That 0.16 every single day. Boom, boom. Get better every day.
Dr. William Attaway:
I think people listening might look at you and say, wow, I mean you know. I think people listening might look at you and say, wow, I mean Atina. His journey is just up and to the right. Like he's never dealt with the challenges that I deal with. He's never had to struggle like I do.
Atiba De Souza:
OK, let me just. Let me. Let me get that one right there. So I have been three hundred thousand dollars in debt. I have faced being sued by a franchise or I have filed bankruptcy. I've had multiple cars repossessed. I've almost lost a house. I've been divorced. Do I need to keep going? Okay, I got more. Yeah, right, listen, the same wind blows on all of us and this is why, going back to the beginning, we talk about individualism. Okay, my history is what allows me to make the next step that I need to make.
Atiba De Souza:
When we talk about you now seeing someone else and copying them and saying maybe you could do that for a little while, really and truly, it's really, really hard, because their history is what causes them to make the next step that they make, you're denying your own history. You're looking at your own history and saying it's baggage. It's not, it's your strength. Your history is what you stand on to go to that next level. It's not the thing that's weighing you back, it's not the thing that's holding you back. You've felt held back by it forever, but it is not holding you back.
Dr. William Attaway:
There is no such thing as a wasted experience.
Atiba De Souza:
None.
Dr. William Attaway:
Every experience you and I have had, and everyone listening every experience we've had has contributed to make us into the person we are today. Yes, and they can be leveraged for the benefit of the people around us if we choose for that to be so.
Atiba De Souza:
So true, and it's a choice. And that's the thing. You're making a choice right now to allow your history to be the thing that defines you. You're making a choice right now to allow the rules to be the thing that defines you. And I'm not saying go out and become a criminal. That's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying go break the rules. But what I am saying is there are artificial rules that man has placed on man that you have allowed your thumb to be under. You're under its thumb, yes, and you don't need to be yes, you don't.
Intro / Outro:
So, good.
Atiba De Souza:
Again, I am not saying go break the laws. Right, right I'm also not saying that if your field requires licensure and you don't have it, to go do it. That's not what I'm saying.
Dr. William Attaway:
Yeah, and I appreciate that. That's a good thing. I do think you're spot on in that so often we erect these invisible barriers, these beliefs, these limiting beliefs that hold us back from what our capacity is, from what our potential can lead us into. And we are the ones who erected those invisible barriers, yeah, and we are the ones who can take those down. And if you are listening to this and you were looking for permission to take those barriers down, I'm fairly confident. I just heard Atiba give that to you.
Atiba De Souza:
Indeed, and listen let me also say this real quick because we sit here and we can say these things and you listening to us, you're probably that's probably hitting you in a really weird place. And I get that. I totally do, because this is a very emotional process and this isn't just a oh okay, process. Right, because you do have to stare down some history, you do have to forgive yourselves for some things, you do have to forgive some others for some things. You do have to realize that all things do work together and they are working together and you have to accept that. Yes, you have to accept that. And and let me say this even in the crux of what I'm saying here society is going to tell you it's a journey and a process, and it's a journey and a process to make a decision. Yeah, the question is why can't you just make the decision?
Dr. William Attaway:
The only thing holding you back is you. Yeah, you are always learning, and we've come across that several times since we've been talking. I'm curious is there a podcast that you would recommend or a book that has made a big difference in your journey, one that you think every leader listening? Man, if you haven't read or listened to this, you need to go do that.
Atiba De Souza:
Well, I got to start where I started the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. Okay, you know one of the books that and I read this simultaneously with the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, which was good to great Love that book, love it. I'm talking 2000 when I was reading those two, and then it was 2001 when I started reading E-Myth, revisited by Michael Gerber. Those have served as bedrock foundation. Those have served as bedrock foundation. The understanding of getting the right people on the bus, the understanding that greatness is the enemy of good. It isn't the next step, that's right. Right. The understanding that your lid, your leadership lid, determines how far your organization will grow, and that's up to you to increase the lid. Right, you know. And all of that stuff all combined. And so I would say start there Now.
Atiba De Souza:
One of the things that people say to me because I recommend these books is like, oh my gosh, those books are so old. Yes, listen, stop looking for newfangled and look for principle. Okay, I live on principle. I don't live on tactic good. Okay, I don't live on cool, I live on principle. Yeah, and that's what you have to do. And so, yes, go back. Go back, because they're going to force you to think because a lot of the newer books and I'm not poopooing any of the newer books because I read all of them, right, but because they're technologically wise and so they know about Facebook and Instagram you get caught up in the lameness of likes and followers and all that other crap as well, whereas when you go back and listen to those books where they had none of that, all you can hear, if you're listening, is principles. And now you learn the principles and you apply them forward.
Dr. William Attaway:
You know, often people will walk away from a conversation like this with one big idea. If you could define what you want people to walk away with with that one big idea, what would that idea be?
Atiba De Souza:
My one big idea for you coming out of this conversation right now is it's time to stop being selfish. Embrace the individual, the superhero that you are. Embrace that, you see, because when you embrace that, it's going to affect so much, not just content creation. It goes so far beyond. It goes so far beyond, but it's not until you embrace that will you actually start to have a feeling like you belong. See, and that's one of the interesting things here because in everything that we're talking about, the reason that you're selfish, the reason that you're self-sabotage, because you don't feel like you fit in and you don't Be yourself.
Dr. William Attaway:
Yeah, but that's brilliant. This has been such a fascinating conversation with you. I've so enjoyed this and I so appreciate your generosity in sharing so freely from what you've learned so far, and I can't wait to see what's next for you. I know people are going to want to stay connected with you and continue to learn from you. What is the best way for them to do that?
Atiba De Souza:
Yeah, absolutely and honestly. I'm not going to say there's any lead magnet or any crap like that. I want to talk to you Seriously, let's talk. So what I want you to do is go to meetatibacom. That's meetatibacom. That's going to take you directly to my LinkedIn. When you get to my LinkedIn, hit the connect button. Tell me you saw me here on the show, heard me here on the show with William Ask me your question. Let's have a real conversation, human to human.
Dr. William Attaway:
Brilliant Atiba. Thank you again. What a fantastic, fantastic conversation this has been. Thank you, appreciate you. Thanks for joining me for this episode today.
Dr. William Attaway:
As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, if you don't have a copy of my newest book, catalytic Leadership, I'd love to put a copy in your hands. If you go to catalyticleadershipbookcom, you can get a copy for free. Just pay the shipping so I can get it to you and we'll get one right out.
Dr. William Attaway:
My goal is to put this into the hands of as many leaders as possible. This book captures principles that I've learned in 20 plus years of coaching leaders in the entrepreneurial space, in business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take a next step with a coach to help you intentionally grow and thrive as a leader, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to catalyticleadershipnet to book a call with me Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, leaders choose to be catalytic.
Intro / Outro:
Thanks for listening to Catalytic Leadership with Dr William Attaway. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode. Want more? Go to catalyticleadershipnet.