The Secret to Sustainable High Performance with Max Martina

In this episode of Success Leaves Clues (formerly Career Coaching Secrets) our guest is Max Martina, entrepreneur, leadership advisor, and business strategist, who shares powerful insights on personal energy management, purpose-driven leadership, founder burnout, and building a business that aligns with your strengths. Max breaks down how entrepreneurs and high performers can identify their deepest sources of energy, conduct personal energy audits, delegate energy-draining tasks, and create sustainable long-term success without sacrificing fulfillment. This conversation is packed with practical strategies for founders, coaches, executives, and ambitious professionals looking to operate at their highest level while building meaningful work and stronger teams.

You can find him on:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-martina-41396715/
https://cambridge-leadership.com/

Transcript

Max Martina 0:00

Clients that work with us see significant progress in building learning organizations, which is the ground zero of being able to adapt to the complexities of the world. So teams that are not learning, teams that are not embracing the curiosity necessary to learn are DOA. They're dead on arrival. I mean, you look, look at digital equipment corporations, Sears, um, Kmart, any of the large companies, uh, Kodak, you know, changing technological landscapes, um, they are no more, right? They don't exist. Fundamentally, they don't exist because they did not learn.

Davis Nguyen 0:36

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets, the podcast where we talk with successful career coaches on how they built their success and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is Davis Wayne, and I'm the founder of Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, and even $100,000 weeks. Before Purple Circle, I've grown several seven and eight-figure career coaching businesses myself and have been a consultant at two career coaching businesses that are doing over $100 million each. Whether you're an established coach or building your practice for the first time, go discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Pedro Stein 1:07

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm Pedro, and today I'm joined by Max Martina, president of Cambridge Leadership Associates, the leading change leadership consultancy founded by the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and partner at executive consulting firm NufSinger Group. What makes Max's perspective invaluable is his work spanning multiple continents with Fortune 500 500 companies like PepsiCo, Microsoft, Pfizer, and Intel, plus major public organizations, including the United Nations and ComAd, North America's largest utility district. Max brings two decades of corporate management experience to his practice, working with C-suite and board-level executives, navigating complex change in both public and private sectors. His expertise has been featured across major media platforms, including CNN, NPR, and MSNBC, reflecting his deep understanding of how leadership must evolve to meet the challenges of our rapidly changing global business environment. Welcome to the show, Max.

Max Martina 2:22

Thanks, Pedro. What a pleasure to be with you. It's always strange to hear your own bio read back to you, but it's true. So I gotta acknowledge it. Great to be with you. Thanks for having me.

Pedro Stein 2:33

Great to have you. And I'll just say it out loud: you're the one to blame it. You know, you came up with all of that. Okay, so you're the one to blame it. No, all right. You know, I'm a comic book nerd, and I like to rewind a bit. Go back to the first edition, let's put it like that. The origin story, okay? Because every coach has that moment where they look at their life and say, Yeah, I guess this is what I'm doing now, right? So when was that for you, Max?

Max Martina 3:04

Yeah, wow. Well, how how far back do you really want to go? I mean, I'll I'll give you two vignettes without going too deep and personal. I grew up in a family system. I'm the I'm the third of four kids, uh, Italian-American family. Uh, a lot of lot of trauma experienced uh in my in my personal family. And I think anyone that encounters that is compelled to either either suppress it or or work through it. And in my case, um, understanding the the triggers and the layers that supported uh effective human behavior engagement and engagement was was really a puzzle piece for me that I carried through. But from a professional standpoint, the the real origin story for me, Pedro, is that I spent about 20 years in a family enterprise. And we had about 21 companies in the portfolio at the time. And I it was extraordinary for me, extraordinary opportunity to learn as an operator. So I was the CEO of several of those companies. It played a number of different roles from sales to operations to global HR. And I tell you what, the the compelling thread line for me in seeing the successes and failures in those enterprise enterprises was consistent. And it was always, in fact, I think I said this to you before, it was always the same thing. It was leadership. So you could take a very successful enterprise, put in terrible leadership and watch it tank, and vice versa. You could take a struggling enterprise, put in great leadership and watch it take off. So when I saw that, I went, wow, that connects the dots for me. The element of leadership is the is the common denominator between success or failure. And so that's when they let me into Harvard and I studied there for a little while. Um, some of the some of the more academic and behavioral components of how that actually works. Um, so uh, you know, I I'm really privileged to do this work. I I I consider it an honor. And the reason um it's so so insightful for me, and it's it's a it's a work of love and a practice of of years now, is that um people are sharing a lot of their own wisdom, deep wisdom in terms of how to actually convert organizations. And so uh yeah, it's it's a lifetime work for me. I've committed my life to it. I love what I get to do, and it's a real privilege.

Pedro Stein 5:18

Okay, so you were a leader, right? You were a CEO and the family and businesses and all of that, and then you got curious about the subject, which is leadership, yes, and then you ended up studying, right? And then coaching came to play, right? So I went to understand one thing because there's a shift that happens from the CEO hat to the coaching hat sometimes. From I'm helping people, this is a passion-driven project to you know what, I'm building a real business around coaching, right? So, when did that play out for you?

Max Martina 5:54

Yeah, actually, okay, great. So we're getting granular here. Um, I had done a lot of uh just by virtue of being in a large ecosystem, I found myself at the intersection of several successful companies and individuals who uh, for whatever reason, over some some predetermined trend line, were asking me for advice. And what happens with a lot of folks in that context is they become consultants, um, which is effectively what coaching is as well. Um, but uh, you know, I was clearly adding some value that I didn't know I was adding. Um and um my current partner, who is a PhD in organizational psychology, actually drafted me into his company and he said, Hey, we do this executive coaching work at very high levels. Why don't you come do it with us? Um and at the time I was busy selling and sold the company and a lot of work with that. So finally, after about a two-year courting process, he he and I I went into the full-time coaching practice and he and I uh supported building his business. Um and so I've been doing that on the Knof Singer side for now almost 15 years. Um, and and it's interesting because his approach was much more structured and codified, uh, leaning into the critical behavioral science components of uh of deep psychology and behavioral analysis. And that for me was this brilliant marriage of all of the pragmatic, applied uh operational experience in the business with really the how the sausage is made from the standpoint of behavioral analysis and and effective communication with with executives. So yeah, I I think many people they're brought into this work um from different backgrounds. And mine um fortunately has been this I think helpful marriage of pragmatic experience with the the underlying psychological uh and behavioral components that support really effective coaching.

Pedro Stein 7:53

Hmm. You know, I want to understand one thing because you mentioned you feel honored to work with this today, right? And then you also mentioned one thing that caught my attention, which is if the the leadership, the importance of the import how important the leader is in the organization, right? If you can if you you take out the leader, it it falls apart and all that. You mentioned that. So after you got rolling, right, in your coaching days, and you realized uh the importance of the leader and the coaching itself, you know. What I want to understand is who are the people that kept showing up, you know, the ones who realize, okay, this is my tribe. And the reason I asked this is because when you're first, you know, you you you have the realization, you might end up thinking, I need to help everyone because this could change the world, you know.

Max Martina 8:47

Yes, yeah, that inspire inspirational moment for most coaches. They go, Oh, this work is compelling. Yeah, right.

Pedro Stein 8:54

So, what who was your tribe, you know, that you eventually niched down, or even if you you went there, you know?

Max Martina 8:59

Yeah. Well, in this process, I I left this out of my bio, but I actually had done some um executive coaching work at Georgetown University. And I what I found there was um uh a lot of them were born from kind of two cohorts. One was theoretical and one was applied. And I and I wanted to marry those two, but a lot of the folks in that cohort that were studying the best practices of executive advising and coaching were really aspirational people. And I found that the ones that were the most effective in their own practice were the ones that could combine you know the aspirational qualities of what we what we feel and experience when people are transforming themselves and their organizations with the very real requirements of business of businesses today, which is fundamentally growth, right? If we're not growing, then by definition, we're contracting when you factor in inflation. So organizations have to grow. Um, and to do that, very often they have to innovate. And the reality is, right, for most of us that have been in business, um, that process of growth and innovation is incredibly disruptive and it's very difficult. So uh I think the ones that I most resonated with in the in the actual coaching side, that tribe, were the ones that had a deep empathy for uh the extreme pressures that executives are under under today. And they're only growing, right? The amount of um of change that's happening in the world is just massive. So if you don't have empathy in this work, if you don't have uh or at least sympathy, um, then you really can't do the work well. That's my been been my experience.

Pedro Stein 10:35

So it's a mix, right? There is the business acumen, the the KPIs, the growth mindset, and all that, but it there's also a component of intentional growth, like a reason to a meaning to do something. Is that like a fine balance between that?

Max Martina 10:49

Some like yeah, yeah, well said. You could you could refer to the work of Arthur Brooks, who talks about um, you know, human happiness and the research of that in this context. Uh while businesses, I don't think fundamentally are in the in the work of human happiness. What we know is that senior executives that are fulfilled in their work, um, by which I mean that they're connecting to at least one leg of the three-legged stool of human happiness, which is purpose and meaning. If they're connected to that, if they're grounded in that, if they're clear on that, then they can they can draw that out of their companies, right? So this is not this is not touchy-feely, you know, what is your purpose work? This is really understanding at a core genetic level why you're here and how does that connect to the critical work of the enterprise? And linking those and then therefore leveraging the behavior to support that becomes really powerful. Yeah, agreed.

Pedro Stein 11:42

Okay, okay. Now, let me ask you this because you're the president of Cambridge Leadership Associates, right? So I want to do an exercise here. So, marketing-wise, how do people usually find you?

unknown 11:55

Max.

Max Martina 11:56

Well, that's a great question. So we have we have really two streams. The first is where we benefit from my mentor, Ron Heifetz, uh, and Marty Linsky, guys who developed the original tools and frameworks from Harvard Kennedy School called adaptive leadership. And that and that, while 20 years old, it's still very current in the marketplace, maybe even more current today. Um, and so we benefit from the platform that generates enthusiasm and interest. And we get inbound all the time from organizations that are looking to do the difficult work of transformation and innovation. And they say, give us a pointers, how do we do this? So that that's one. And I think the second, which many executive coaches and advisors listening to this will resonate with, um, is that when they do good work, you know, you you tend to build clients for life. Um, and and what is that work? Well, that that work is adding value to do what's necessary for both the individual and the business, but most importantly for the business. And so I think that's the other thread that that connects people to us when we're fortunate enough to have the opportunity to work with individuals or or enterprises. Um, usually the work is is well regarded and they come back, right? And and for us, you know, maybe the bigger business challenges um that we face are really scaling that human-centric work. Because it takes a really, as you know, Pedro, it takes a really unique person to do this work, both in terms of skill set, disposition, personality, uh, interest level, uh, education, all of these things. So it's it's it's a rare person that we look for to help us uh in that in that work. But yeah, it's it's the road we walk is uh I think for many service providers, it's uh it's privilege because we have platform, which many don't, but it's also it it also benefits from the legacy of of those that came before me.

Pedro Stein 13:48

Yes, okay, so inbound and also I would put it like referrals too, right? Like people that work with you and your business, and they're like, hey, you should talk to these guys, they're great. Now, this is the second part of the exercise, okay? Yeah, let's pretend um I was referred to your business, okay? And I'm your ICP, I'm your ideal client profile. That's dialed in. I went through the sales process. There's alignment to it, okay. Let's say you guys can help me, I can see you guys can help me and all of that. So that's done. And I understand that you may have different offers, so you can run with the main one, okay? So walk me through the process, the point of view of a client, right? Of being on boarded. How does it look like to work with your company and also the potential outcomes I could expect?

Max Martina 14:36

You know, yeah. Wow, you go straight to the point. That's fantastic. Well, I I think um I might back up just slightly because um, and particularly for your listeners, wherever they are in their in their journey on the coaching business, either individually or with a platform, um, one of the critical questions that that comes is from that ideal client profile, how do you respond? Because for some individuals and organizations, that ideal client profile is, let's say, emerging leaders for folks that have not done this before. For others, it's um high-level management at large companies. For still others, they have a niche in venture capital or private equity-backed driven work. And so our particular niche on that, and this maybe is more to your point around ideal client profile, is really senior level executives and at the CLA level, uh typically at large companies where the complexity is is massive, the change is consistent, and the problems are innumerable and vast. So our our clients, the ones that we tend to work with consistently are the ones that um really are uh quite lonely in that leadership journey because they're they're frankly, while they're surrounded by many thousands of people in some cases, um, they have no real thought partner. Um and so oftentimes the folks that come in in that ideal client profile are folks that um are very seasoned executives. Um, they're not looking for basic, you know, strategy kind of uh support help. They're not looking for, you know, even the lighter stuff around how do I maintain the self-care practice in the context of this of this difficult journey. It's it's different. It's really about what muscles have I not engaged to shift the enterprise or the team in the productive ways where they're essentially a learning organization. And so our work when we engage through that sales process, I think it would feel casual. And and I don't mean simple, but casual, uh, I hope comfortable, I hope deeply connected. And and I see a lot of mistakes that that people will make on the coaching side, they they become too formal, they're too scripted. And when you're working at a high level, right, you you have to approach um the problems at the level of of the clients, which are also high level, they're highly strategic. And you know, it doesn't mean that little things aren't important, just the opposite. Little things are extremely important, right? So if a CEO says to me, for example, Max, um, I heard from someone on my team that it didn't go well. Well, what he's really saying is we've got a major problem, right? And I have to read that code, I have to understand that code um to be able to operate at this level. So um I think maybe to part two of I'm I may have been talking too long here, but the part two of your question is then therefore, what does that journey look like? What is the process and what is the outcome? There's a lot of different pieces to that, depending on the context, but I would say fundamentally at the highest level, clients that work with us see significant progress in building learning organizations, which is the ground zero of being able to adapt to the complexities of the world. So teams that are not learning, teams that are not embracing the curiosity necessary to learn are DOA. They're dead on arrival. I mean, you look, look at digital equipment corporations, Sears, um, Kmart, any of the large companies, uh, Kodak, you know, changing technological landscapes, um, they are no more, right? They don't exist. Fundamentally, they don't exist because they did not learn, they did not scale their capacity for innovation. So so crucial, right? And so what does that look like? How does it how does it evolve? How does it emerge? There's a lot of nuance to that, which we could talk about, but but fundamentally, I think that's where that's where organizations end up after they work with us. At least that's the hope. Yeah.

Pedro Stein 18:25

Here comes the first curveball. Okay, okay, great.

Max Martina 18:27

Love it. Love curveballs.

Pedro Stein 18:28

I have two, but I'm gonna get first one, which is you mentioned teams that are not learning, right? Yeah, you mentioned that. What happens when you're hired by someone? Your business is hired by someone, right? And the person says that my team is not working, and then you realize the problem is leadership, actually, right? How do you navigate that conversation? Because that's a pink client, Max.

Max Martina 18:54

Yes, it is. You got it. That's a great that's a that's a common problem, um, not an easy problem. And so usually in those cases, Pedro, uh, my experience, and and I'll I'll share it, you know, a little insider ball knowledge, but um, we leverage a lot of thinking that is is really about stage, behavior stage, connected to adult development frameworks. So usually when we encounter a situation where the problem is the executive, uh one of two things happens. Either either number one, they're actually working with us because they want to work with us, and there's readiness there to begin to make that shift, which is a much more palatable and and productive situation, or they're there because they're forced to be there, either by a board, um, you know, a venture uh partner or a private equity-backed company insisting that they go through this. And um, the the actual remedy in terms of helping that individual do the learning necessary to scale their team, um, I would say it follows one of two tracks. One is intention, so they're actually willing to put in the work. They're like a professional athlete that trains every day and they do the work. Or um it requires crisis, and that might be a two by four swat across the head induced by us, right? Speaking truth to power, where that actually is disarming and and and and confronting. Um, or it's a crisis born of their own limitations, including maybe loss of career, loss of job, problematic feedback from the board or the team, you know, turnover, uh departures from teams, hemorrhaging cash, the financials could be could be some version of crisis on this. But I'll tell you what, we've seen we've seen it all. And and while while we want to avoid individually and collectively, while we like to think we want to avoid crisis, it is a really powerful motivator for behavior. It can be. Um and and frankly, I mean, I'm sure you've seen this too. There is no growth without stretch. So uh by definition, whether you're in the gym, right, whether you're talking about individual development, whether you're talking about organizational growth, culture growth, um, gotta have stretch. So do we stretch so much that we you know we tear our muscle fibers or or or you know hurt ourselves? Or do we tear just enough, which is so it's deeply uncomfortable, but we grow from it. Um, and that becomes the fine line in the in the arts of coaching and the and the uh improvisational work of leadership, which is in many cases required.

Pedro Stein 21:28

Okay. That answers the question because it sounds like there's a very custom way of doing things, very nuanced. You gotta understand the dynamics, it's not easy work, right? Now, your work seems pretty hands on. We were talking about you know, 21 companies in your family uh era the age that you are doing. I mean, that's a comp that's a lot, and also right now, I know you have a team behind you that helps you and all of that, but I and and here's a curveball, right? It's because I see a lot of coaches out there, they're advocating against burnout. And sometimes they're burning out themselves because that that's a very passion-driven job, right? Profession. It also sometimes they're wearing a lot of hats, right? In different positions. So how do you think about capacity? So you don't stretch yourself too thin, you know? Yeah.

Max Martina 22:21

Yeah. Yeah. And is that question? Are you curious really in terms of my philosophical approach with clients or my own application in the work that I do?

Pedro Stein 22:30

I would say your own, which eventually impacts in the clients, right?

Max Martina 22:34

Yeah, it does. Yeah, it does. Um it's a great question. And I think probably if I'm being honest, we're all at different stages of that journey. Um, I had a period of my life where I was, you know, I would run myself ragged and I, you know, I would, I would do whatever high achievement mindset, and I would do whatever it would take to succeed. Um, but what I found over the years in my work is that um I actually have more success when I'm triangulating and doing the most important things, right? When I'm deploying my highest and best use against against the right use cases, which are most resonant with the work that I want to do. So on the one hand, it's it's a great question, but we, you know, I say part of the privilege that we have is that we can often say no to the clients that we don't want to work with. And not everyone has that chance, that luxury, right? Some some clients that I know are going to be that are developmentally not ready, but don't have the resources uh to engage in the right work or don't have the commitment, I'm gonna say to them very clearly, I can diagnose that and say, hey, this is not a this is not a right fit. Because when I when I've made the mistake of taking those clients, the it's twice as much work. It's three or four times as much work in some cases. Um, and it's just not the return, the the cost benefit for me and the return for the client isn't great. So as I've as I've gotten older in terms of my own perspective on this, there there really is, I don't like the word balance. I don't like this work-life balance concept. I I think that I think that whatever you focus on one uh on one area, whenever you focus on one area, you're by definition impoverishing the other. So it's pretty disingenuous to say that you know, just just create balance. No, you need to make very intentional decisions about where to deploy your energy. Um, I have three kids, um, an 18-year-old, a 15-year-old, and a 12-year-old. And you know, it's different now. They they're not in diapers. Um, and so it takes a little different level of care in some cases more, more intention. But I'm prioritizing that. That's really important to me. And, you know, running two companies. And it's yes, is it exhausting? Yes. But there's this, there's this thing that we think about, certainly in adaptive leadership, called holding steady. How can you find the internal fortitude and the resilient capacity to do what's needed to do without um deep deeply personal uh interruption to your life? Can you be in the mess, but not of the mess, so to speak, right? Can you exist in the professional world, do the things that are required, but also get to the balcony and have the perspective to see what's really important. So this is, I don't, I don't presume to have it all figured out, but I do work on it. I I do work on it consistently. And actually, I have a lot of uh accountability partners in my life. My my business partner, who I mentioned before, you know, he he calls me to task. He'll he'll question, you know, whether I'm doing the right things for both myself and the business. And that's really, I think for all of us, to have a thought partner that can say, hey, double-click on this, question this. Are you sure that's right? And I and and then to have the honesty and reflective capacity to say, hmm, maybe it's not, right? Or or no, it's not, and I need to redirect. So I I do that. I do that consistently. Maybe not always well. You'll have to ask my team. Um, but by and large, it's it's a work in progress. I think that's true for all of us, don't you think?

Pedro Stein 26:02

Yeah, I do, man. You know, this is a I feel like it's a me problem sometimes, right? For example, yeah, I worked in corporate, right? I work at banking here in Brazil, I worked at Ernest and Young here in Brazil consulting firm, and that always felt like work, right? It's work. I clock in, I clock out, that's done. And then I move to this, which I'm doing right now for years, which is coaching. I'm also a coach, right? And also a podcast host. So, but the thing is, it doesn't feel like work, right, Max? But it burns me out, right? So I'm kind of trapped because it's fun. And then uh people tell me tell me, hey, you should do something that didn't feel like fun, and then my wife, like, she's telling me, uh, hey, why are you laughing so much at work? That doesn't that doesn't sound like work, and that's the tricky part for me. It's because the only boundary I can set up for myself is performance. If I can sense that I'm not being able to deliver, because if it's not that, I'm just going, you know, like yeah, I'm not I'm not I'm not sure if you feel like that, but the the this setting up the boundary when when you don't feel like work, yeah, sometimes it's kind of tricky, right?

Max Martina 27:15

Oh wow, yeah, that's a great call out. And I mean, what a testament to the fact that you're in work that that you is yours to do. I mean, if you love what you do and it feels like play, um, it doesn't mean we're immune from from the need to set boundaries. So it's in some cases it's harder for for for those of us that are doing work we love because the need to set boundaries is greater, particularly when the world says, hey, you shouldn't be laughing at work. This shouldn't be so much fun. Well, I'd like to differ, right? Um exactly. That's so true. That's so true. Yeah, so that go ahead.

Pedro Stein 27:50

No, uh please go ahead. And your your your process thinking.

Max Martina 27:54

No, I was just I was thinking about this this um this nuanced work of boundary setting. I I don't I don't think it's a one and done thing, it's it's an evolving multi-episodic decision matrix that changes based on. I mean, for example, I have an aging mother, right? Um, who's AB2 and challenged with some health issues. And so maybe two years ago, my my perspective or take would be different. My oldest is graduating high school and heading to college. So A, that frees up time, but it also means I want to be around more often. So how do you right? So so as the seasons change in our lives, I think we're constantly reevaluating that. And the nuance of that is um you have to be a I'll tell I'll tell you this. When I was a kid, I I felt I suffered from the condition of of being too sensitive. And uh, and I maybe maybe many that are coaches or advisors have that empathic capacity. And what I realized over the years, going off topic here, is that that sensitivity is a deep gift. It's a little bit like an instrument, like an earthquake meter, right? If you have a really sensitive radar, then it means the gift of that is you can detect things from a mile away. So you have to use that. If you've got that, particularly in your own life and and the boundaries are on work, you gotta use that sensitivity to to address boundaries before they become issues, before you feel burnt out. One of the things that I've started doing is I schedule beyond traditional vacations, I schedule one day every two months off. I just I I skipped block it out, and my calendar is always crazy. I I I ask my assistant, don't schedule me every two months on a Friday. And then if I feel burnt out, I take the day. And if I don't, then maybe I'll use it for uh visionary work or inspirational writing time or or business uh strategy and thinking about that. So I might relinquish the time, but I've realized that for me, structurally, if I don't create the context or the or the or the structures to support that, man, I I've had years where I'll I'll go seven or eight months and then realize too late that I'm burnt out. And you know, by that point you're fried. Then it's a four-week catch-up process and you get sick or whatever, right? That's not fun.

Pedro Stein 30:05

Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what happens. I'm right there with you. Okay. Now I want to shift gears for a second. Okay, talk about future a little bit. Now, I'm curious where you're taking all this, right? Looking ahead. Where do you see the business going? Are you thinking about hiring, scaling, or is there a next step you're excited about?

Max Martina 30:24

Yeah, it's so interesting. If you look at the macroeconomic landscape with the war in Iran and so many of the pressures that are hitting the world, um, a very strong case could be made for global recession or contraction. And and that may yet happen. It may be happening in some parts of the world. In our business, we're not experiencing that. And I suspect it's because the world, the work that we do in the world is probably more desperately needed now than ever before, which is how do organizations do the complex work of change in evolving landscapes? And so we've seen your question's timely for me because we've seen you know significant growth in the business and a need for services to the point where we have to walk the talk as well. We have to scale our own business. We have to think about how to meet the need and do the work. A lot of folks in our space, Pedro, correct me if I'm wrong based on your experience, but they they don't really have interest in scaling an enterprise. They they have interest in doing the work, right? Which which is admirable and wonderful. Um, I've taken maybe the harder path, certainly the harder path, of wanting to do both. And the scaling of the company is no joke. I mean, it is it is real. And um, you know, it's it's uh it's a labor of love. You have to be engaged for the right reasons. But so we confront these questions every day. Who are we hiring? How do we hire? How do we find the right people to hire? It's the approach to hire, what markets do we need to work in? Um, and so we use primarily the European model uh of associates, where we've got trunk contractors in select markets that we've worked with, where we've developed a history of trust, um, where the capacity's been proven, where the both experiential and academic track records match. But when you grow, when you're in growth mode, you know, sometimes you need more people than you have. And so, how do you do that? And so we're we're we're we're constantly looking at at that and evaluating talent in the marketplace. And and frankly, given our profile, we we're privileged because we get inbound often to say, Hey, can I work with you? And most folks, we just are not a fit um for various reasons, which we could talk about. But yeah, like I said, it takes a takes a unique person to do this work, right?

Pedro Stein 32:36

You know, that is so true, and you know, especially in the coaching space, right? I see a lot of coaches out there, they they're passionate about the work. I would call it almost like a they would love to have like a dentist model, right? It's just they sit down in the chair, they have the assistant in the front desk, everything is handled, you know, they just sit down, do the coaching, go to sleep. But it doesn't work like that in reality for most coaches. And the thing is, and here's the the catch, the catch, the catch 22, I would say it's like if you're really passionate about impact, if you really, really want to help people, scaling is a necessity, not an option. If you really want to do that, impact more people, okay? That's one thing, but it comes with a price, and the price, and I'm not sure if you agree with me, it part of it is letting it's letting go, right? It's not gonna be you, so there's quality control, there's certain uh trade-offs you gotta understand you're eventually going to make, or if you're happy with where you're at at a one-on-one level and just doing that, totally fine. But understand the impact is not going to be as big as it could potentially be. Did that make sense?

Max Martina 33:57

Oh, I'm 100% with you. In fact, one of our models is this process of letting go where um the most effective senior executives have to do that. And uh, we call it, we actually call it the terror of letting go. And and that's because it's terrorizing because the the very things for most of us that made us great in our careers early on are not the things that are required to scale and build businesses later on. Meaning, you know, if you were a high performer and an effective contributor and really great at coaching, well, later on, building a business to house a stable of coaches and support the work at scale means doing different work. And all the things that we were good at are now no longer as relevant. And so, spot on, the terror of letting go is real. And also, I think, you know, I mean you've seen this as well, depending on the level at which coaches have coaches engage. You can make a great living for yourself, particularly at higher levels of the organization, just by individual, no problem, right? Like you could do that, many people can do that well. Many people, some people can do that well. The space that we want to play in maybe is a little bleeding heart aspirational, where we can work with both the private enterprises, for-profit enterprises, but also with governmental entities, with nonprofits, with with organizations like the UN that are doing deeply difficult and fraught work. For example, we had a call from UNICEF, which uh UNICEF East East Asia, um, which is ostensibly responsible, responsible for uh a quarter of the world's children. And many of these kids uh are living in impoverished uh zones and they're thinking broadly and deeply about how do we help these kids with limited resources? How do we engage in this work? How do we at UNICEF do this learning work to scale capacity? And I mean, talk about a fraught, complex, multi-scalar issue over time that needs that needs help. So if we can have success in the private sector, then that actually gives us the option to work, you know, in the public sector or the nonprofit sector too. We can we can meet the need both ways. And so for our business model, that's really important is to be able to do well-paying work that also helps us, you know, give back um to the world in that way. That's that's the dream, anyway.

Pedro Stein 36:14

Yeah, yeah, it's about the trade-offs at the end of the day, right? Like, for example, if you have a great one-on-one uh component and it's you gotta accept the fact that it relies on your time, right? That's the trading time for dollars eventually. And you cannot take like two months out or a break because it will affect revenue directly. So if you don't want to deal with X, Y, and Z, accept the outcome. That's basically it, right? Yes, and also I've yeah, I had talk, I talk with people in the space, like for example, I that reminds me of a guy who's actually in our community. Uh, he's got like what three him and two people, and he's got like in the seven figures because he created like a success feat model, so it is him, but it according to milestones, he can get a cut and all of that. So that's way one way of doing it. There are multiple ways of doing stuff in the coaching space, right? It's like creative creativity is like the ceiling, and it there is no ceiling at the end of the day, so it it always ends up with with you talking with someone and uh ending up coming to agreement. Now that makes perfect sense, and I love that. Now, if someone listening wants to connect with you or follow your work, Max, and we're gonna have all the links in the description, right? Oh, great. Where where what's the best one? Where can people can find you and connect with you?

Max Martina 37:34

LinkedIn is great. Um, LinkedIn is great, although I frankly I don't check it as much as I as I should. Um, so bear with me if you use that. Um, our website, direct website, is great, CambridgeHyphenleadership.com, which would be a good, a good avenue. And then if it's really for the coaching side, our Knopsinger platform also works well. I want to make a quick mention of of something you just said though, which I find to be very true. And and I I love models like that. We'll even do sometimes um, you know, very small equity stake in startup enterprises for for long-term success. But the interesting thing about the journey that we're on in the coaching world is that you know, fundamentally it's not a really good business model. We're selling our time, and there's there's a limited amount of time. So there's a whole maybe a separate conversation around how coaching is confronting AI and using you know agentic uh tools to support multiplying the coaching efforts through through bots. And that that's a like we've even looked at that um as well, and it's a it's a different space. But I I actually think that going forward in the in the tech landscape, the really effective executive coaches and advisors will will be largely insulated from the AI changes that we're seeing. Not not completely, but we're in the business of human-centric behavior, right? Which AI models are touching, but they're not fully replacing. So interesting dynamic, very compelling conversations that could be had on the coaching business model um and how to how to leverage good ones that support success for everyone and create opportunity for everyone, right? But I love what you said. Those trade-offs really are real, those trade-offs are real, and you got to accept the consequences of those. Yeah.

Pedro Stein 39:14

100%. You know, there were a few moments from this chat that really stayed with me. Okay. Well, first of all, I I love the fact how how the coaching came up in your world, right? How it was brought up to your world. It was like basically curiosity around leadership and the impact of leadership into businesses. And then you went to study, and then you're like, okay, this is something that really makes sense. And eventually people are asking for advice, right? And you're like, you know what? Uh you're just connecting the dots at this point, and so it just makes sense becoming a coach and having that coaching business and all of that. So that that really stood out to me because I think the organic and natural processes are way powerful of just me, hey, I'm gonna do X, Y, and Z tomorrow, right? It's just something that was already there. You start developing, so that's one thing. Um, the other thing that I think it's very, very important reminder is the work-life balance myth that for me is a myth, right? Um, and like we mentioned, if you love what you do, and and I think to be candid, Max, it this is something that it's I'm 39, you're older than me, a little bit, right? A little bit, a lot of starting your kind, yeah. But we have this misconception, as it seems like, of our understanding of having separate lives, right? This is my work life, this is my relationship life, this is my I don't know, hobby life, whatever you want to call it. But at the end of the day, it's just one whole person, right? It's a myth to pretend that if I work 11 hours a day, this is not gonna impact my life in the personal level, my marriage or whatever, right? Now, yeah, Max, this is my long-winded way of saying that I appreciate what you do, and I appreciate you being here and sharing so openly today. Okay, great having you on, man.

Max Martina 41:09

Thank you, Pedro. It's uh I completely agree with you. This idea that um the separation of our lives is is a thing, it's a fiction, particularly in the 21st century, where integration is the hallmark of of the complete individual, right? I mean, yeah, I I actually had a mentor once take tell me that here's Max. This is 20 years ago. He's here's a success for life. Here's the successful advice I can offer you. Life is like a filing cabinet. You've got your family in one, your occupation in another, your hobbies in another. He said, keep them separate, never pull out a file from one folder from one file and mix it in with the other. And it's total bunk. It does, it's the worst advice you can give because in today's day and age where we're hyper connected, integration becomes a really powerful skill set. So I'm with you. Um thank you for thank you for having me. Uh what a pleasure. Loved your questions. Uh, and I hope to stay in touch here as you as you move this forward. Great, great conversations, Pedro. Thanks.

Pedro Stein 42:06

Appreciate you.

Davis Nguyen 42:07

That's it for this episode of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe to YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes. This conversation was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to seven and eight figures without burning out. To learn more about Purple Circle, our community, and how we can help you grow your business, visit joinpurplecircle.com.