Episode 66: Why I Became a Vistage Speaker (and Why I Work With Leaders)

After 18 months of work, Sam has some news: he's officially a Vistage speaker. But this episode isn't a victory lap — it's a look under the hood at why he works with leaders at all.

Sam walks through five reasons Vistage aligns with everything he does: being in a room matters more than being on a stage (the right room is like an airport moving walkway — it multiplies every step you take), facilitation beats performing (the same three-hour workshop was different every time he delivered it, because the room shapes the work), mentorship is a time machine (including the story of asking a four-time Vistage Speaker of the Year for help — and actually doing everything he suggested), immediate feedback keeps you honest, and the whole model concentrates what he already does: workshops, coaching, and original IP.

The through-line for you as a leader: if the leader improves, the whole organization improves. Find the right room, get a mentor, do what they tell you, and build a feedback loop into your speaking — because feedback is the breakfast of champions.

Key Takeaways:

• Being in a room matters more than being on a stage — find the room that multiplies your impact
• Facilitate, don't perform — the secret sauce is the discussion, not the slides
• A mentor will put wings on you — but only if you actually do what they suggest
• Build a feedback loop: record yourself, change one thing, write down one thing you liked (the Elevation Loop)

📅 Ready for your next level? Skip the quiz and book a conversation with Sam: calendly.com/sam-samuellinton

🎯 Or take the free Communicator Style Audit: samuellinton.com/audit

Transcript

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It has been a minute. I have taken more time off in the last couple weeks than I have since beginning this, which I'm not a fan of, but also I want to make sure that I'm doing the best I can to tell you a little bit about where I am and try to tell you things that I'm working on to help you if you're listening to this. So I am going to shift gears a little bit today and be completely selfish in that I want to tell you why I spend time working in the kind of rooms that I work in. And I want to give you a bit of good news first, personal good news, because if you listen to this, you might somewhat care about what's going on with me, but you're going to see how this impacts you. So um over the last couple weeks, I had something really special happen to me that I've been working on for about 18 months, maybe a little bit longer. And that is I became a vestige speaker. Now you're saying, what the heck is Vistage? What's a vestige speaker? What does that even mean? Some of you that know, if you know, you know, but you might not know. So Vistage is an executive organization that essentially is a peer-level mastermind group that gets together. Several of these, there's there's tons of these all over the country and all over the world, actually. And they get together and they help each other solve their problems. It's high stress individuals, usually, high capacity individuals, executives, CEOs. And when a vistage group gets together, they workshop the problems, they bring accountability in, they bring solutions in. And honestly, I have fallen completely head over heels for this organization. I love the way they work. I love the way that the chairs work, those are the leaders of the groups and how they put groups together. It's phenomenal. So why become a vistage speaker? Well, because my ideal client lives in that room. That's who I aim for. So, and the person in that room, they already are bought into, because you have to pay to be a part of a vistage group. They're already bought into the idea of working on themselves, of accountability, of development, and it fits in line. So the title of this podcast today is why I became a vistage speaker, but really why I work with leaders. And I don't think I've ever talked about this from a speaking standpoint, like why I work with leaders. So, and I'll give you some examples as we go, and you'll see why this ties into you, I promise. So the first thing is being in a room matters more than being on a stage. Being in a room matters more than being on a stage. I built an entire career on the side being in rooms, not stages. So most of what I've done, few people can see. Now I have this other part of my life as a pastor where everything I've done you can see, from the church work to my teaching to books that I've written about God, and those things are all front-facing. But from a standpoint of a coach or an executive coach, all that stuff has happened in a room. Usually it's a hotel conference room or a recreational room of a hospital or a boardroom at a skyscraper. After years and years of working with leaders one-on-one, being in rooms impacts people more for me than being on stages. I'm not saying there isn't any impact on stages, and I have given keynotes and I can do all that and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but it's the rooms. And if you can find the right room, you can make a stupid amount of impact on that room. So in the vistage groups, and I spent, you know, I was invited to be a guest at one about, you know, almost two years ago now. I was in that room and I was able to facilitate for them. I made an impact on a small group of people. But that group in that room represents a larger group of employees, of new hires, of, of families. And what I believe, and you've heard me say this repeatedly, is if the leader improves, the whole organization improves. So right now, most people that are listening to this, you're leaders. And the best thing you can do for yourself is to be a better version of yourself because you're going to be better for your people. You're going to be better for your future hires. You're going to be more adjusted at home. So there is the sky, is the limit to what investment in you can bring in terms of an ROI. And that room that I'm in when I'm working with vestige groups, and I've had the privilege now working with five. I'm already scheduled for a couple more, already a couple in 2027. So it's filling up quickly, is really a lot of impact that I can get. It's like stepping on, like I liken it to, you know, there's if you're at the airport, you know, you're going to your gate and you walk to the gate, and let's say it's like a half a mile to the gate in an airport. Some airports are like that. Go to Atlanta and you'll see that airport is like the size of a city block. So now you can walk to the gate, but then you'll see these people movers where you get on and there's a little bit of a treadmill wheel, and you jump on that and you walk, and it's like you're walking in double, triple, if not quadruple, the speed of just walking the regular way. Well, that's what it's like being in the right room. Some of us, our careers are stagnant because we have not found the right room to be in. And it's my job with the time that I have on this earth to get in the right room to make that kind of an impact. So what I felt like when I walked into that first group where I facilitated in Vistage in Birmingham was there was 15 people there. And I thought if I could impact these people, I'm going to impact all of these companies in Birmingham. And it's incredible. Okay, so that's the first reason is the room to me matters more than the stage. And the room that you go in, if you're a leader, that matters more than your being on stages. Secondly, one of the reasons why I like vistage, and this is back to my philosophy. And if you've ever worked with me, you know this vestige is about teaching and not performing. Vistage is about teaching and not performing, meaning it's heavily facilitation-centered and not how good am I doing on that keynote. So when I worked for the gentleman in Birmingham and all of his vestige groups, there were four groups spread out over four days, three days actually, because we covered two groups in one day. And I delivered the same workshop that I have. It's a three-hour workshop called the Elevated Communicator. And I delivered it, but every single time it was different. Now you might say, well, why was it different? Did you write anything different in between? No. It was different because of who was in that room. I wasn't performing, I was interacting with those people, facilitating with them, hearing their stories, seeing their examples, coaching them on what they needed. And that is what I do. That's exactly what I do. I do more workshop stuff than keynotes. Again, I'm I would do keynotes. I'm I love doing that. But getting in a room where people could interact with me and help me to see how I can serve them, I prefer facilitation over presentation. I'm wired like that. Dale Carnegie, a lot of people say, well, you teach Dale Carnegie. I've never taught anything for Dale Carnegie. I don't teach anything for Dale Carnegie because it's facilitation. It's the room, it's Dale's principles, the 30 human relations principles and the how to win friends and the core curriculum and the high-impact presentations and all of that. That's stuff is all set. It's my job to care about the participants. So every of the hundreds of times I've was in a Dale facilitation situation was never the same. There weren't two alike because the group largely determines how it's going to be. So I like vestige because it's not about performing, it's about teaching and facilitating. And it's how I'm wired. So when I was speaking to those vestige groups, the high point wasn't when I landed the close or when I got the final slide and I had that dramatic close or whatever you want to say. The high point was the discussion between the members and things that they had, questions they had about upcoming facilitation opportunities they had, questions they had about shortcomings in their facilit in their speaking roles at their jobs. That is where the secret sauce is. And I live in that zone. That's my jam. And leaders, when you work with leaders, you get to learn more from the leaders than you ever will teach them. You learn because you are listening to them, hearing their problems, and you're learning. And God uses this is where I what I believe, God uses you because you care about them to help them to uncover the solution that is right there in front of them. It's not about slides, it's about that discussion, it's about that connection, and it's about how I could most help. So it's teaching, not performing in a vistage group. I love that. Um third of all, I had a wonderful experience working with mentors in the past. Now, you have heard me talk about this. I have been blessed beyond measure to be mentored by some phenomenal people. So my main mentor is like my father. He's like the pastor of the church. He showed me how to run a church. He showed me how to preach, he showed me how to counsel, he showed me how to run a business, he showed me how to have a marriage, like that mentorship. I thrive under that kind of environment. When I started working for Dale Carnegie over 11 years ago, well, 12 years ago, close to 12, when I first got into the system, I hooked up with a longtime Dale Carnegie facilitator. And he mentored me. He showed me, he brought me into his class, he let me help him with the upcoming session. He let me take some parts of it. He told me why this works, why this didn't work. When I became a Dale Carnegie trainer, I went and I connected with one of the Dale Carnegie masters who was the number one communications coach in the Dale Carnegie system. And I flew to Boston just to take his program. And he mentored me, showed me how to do it. He again let me kind of look behind the curtain, encouraged me to take steps. And he wasn't ongoing mentoring. It was just one person coming in. And mentoring, getting mentoring from someone, getting coaching from someone is like getting into a time machine. I have somebody right now that's working with me, and I'll I'll tell you his name. And maybe one at point, maybe at one point you'll hear us work together on podcasts. Um, his name is Michael Alasso, and he is an extremely well-known vistage speaker. And one of the people that was trying to help me get into Vistage, he she said, if you want to be like any vistage speaker, you want to be like this guy. And she showed me his program and she showed me what his business was like. So I did something crazy. I asked him for help. I said, Hey, you don't know me. And I started a dialogue with him. I said, What can I do for you? Is there anything I could help you with? And I said, anything you tell me to do, I'll do. And I did something crazy that people that are being mentored sometimes fail to do. I actually did the things that he suggested I do because that's half the battle. Sometimes you'll ask someone advice and you say, Would you help me? And then they tell you what to do. And you go, okay, and then you don't do it. Well, what are you saying? So I did literally, he gave me four things to do. I did every single one of those things. Like two of them were really helpful. Two of them I struggled with and they didn't work out. And I came back to him. I said, Here's what I did. And he said, Wow, you did it. And then he helped me again, and then he helped me again. So getting a mentor is super, super influential in your life. And I want to encourage you as a leader, if you do not have a coach, or if you don't have a mentor or somebody that you're looking to that's a little bit further down the road than you, you might be leaving some opportunity on the table. And vistage is all about mentoring. Vistage is all about coaching. It's about being self-evaluating, it's about being candid about where you are. And when you find something that works well, especially in business, you want to study who is doing it better. Success, this is something I've heard over and over again. Success doesn't have a formula, but it leaves clues. And if you're willing to do the arduous work of picking up the clues and putting them in a breadbasket and challenging yourself, that's the case. I right now, um, and I've told you this before, just to show you how I practice what I preach, pun moderately intended. I there's a writer that I, you know, I write fiction on the side. I have like three on the sides, but this is something I've done as a hobby. And I've made some, I probably have made more money than most people in my fiction writing, but it hasn't been conventional from writing books. I did some freelance writing for a company and some writing for a technical cryptocurrency company. I did some of that, and I made really, really good money doing that. But I've written five novels, and I haven't gotten to the point where I have like a system where I'm plowing through and I've done the right things. And I know there's I could figure it out on my own, and there's a bazillion videos, and AI can help me and blah, blah, blah. And I've written all these books and it's fun, but I know that I'm missing something when it comes to how I do what I do, from process all the way down to production and publication. So I reached, there was a guy that I respect. I've worked with him on some things. In my opinion, a man who's done more for independent authors than anyone out there. He is extremely generous. He posted, hey, I'm looking for a co-author and I'm taking applications and I'll show you how I work, I'll show you how I put a book together, I will show you how I run ads. Well, I applied immediately. Now I have other books and I've written, and I'm a little down the road in experience from people that have never written a book. But I would give up all the money to be able to work with somebody like that because mentoring has changed my life. And a mentor will literally put wings on you and let you fly because they will show you all the lessons that you are going to learn the hard way in advance so that you don't have to learn them the hard way. And so I'm hoping that works out. I don't know if it will. I don't, I don't care if it will, in a, in a sense. Like I'm just glad I applied and I gave him my story idea. I'm, I'm, I'm hoping, but I'm just glad to know somebody like that that's willing to mentor and care about people. And that's where my success is, is like being connected to people like that. So a mentor gives you that ability. And if you're a leader, yes, you still need a mentor. I run a very large organization and I have my own business. Yes, I still rely on mentors. I will until I die. Okay. So that's why I like Vistage because they are really big into that mentorship, that coaching. And I am a mentor to many people, and I would love to be a mentor to you and the way you speak, if that is what you're in the market for. Next, Vistage offers immediate feedback. Every vistage group that you facilitate, every time you facilitate something, you get scored on your performance. And I wasn't, I'm not averse to this at all. Dale Carnegie scored us on everything. Uh, this is how I was able to win a lot of awards because Dale Carnegie has a very specific way that they score people based on participants and quality of training and different things. Well, I haven't been evaluated in a while. I've been doing my own thing. So all the material that I used in the vistage group was mine. And immediately the members will take a survey and you know within a couple days if it was good or not. Well, out of a five, I scored average 4.7 in the groups, 4.7 out of all of the groups, which is a great first at bat. So I was really thrilled to know that I was on the right track. And I had some conversations with people after. I had a 97 or 98% recommended rate, meaning that of all the people, 98% get, you know, of all the those that recommend me, I think there was a scale. I have a 98% recommendation from all of the vistage participants. And to me, that accountability, I welcome that. Because if I was at 20% and two out of five, I would know that my material isn't tracking, I'm not helping. And that immediate feedback, because one of the things that leaders have a problem with is we will put stuff into the universe and we don't know if it's hitting. We have no, we don't know. Is this helpful? Is it good? Is it making an impact? And vistage gives feedback. So feedback is the breakfast of champions. And feedback, like being mentored, is a shortcut for you to evaluate what you should be spending your time on and what you should ultimately be avoiding. As a vistage speaker, I know now that I'm on the right track. So now it's just a matter of getting the reps in, fine-tuning, and then adding more programs to my repertoire to help serve these executives to and their companies in the best way that I can. So one of the things that I encourage with my clients is a lot of times we don't do well speaking because we have no feedback loop sewn into our speaking system. We know how to write a talk, we know how to build slides, we know how to deliver, but we don't really get feedback. We don't look at it on camera. We don't evaluate how we're doing. And there's no feedback. So in my programs, I talk to them about the elevation loop, which is how you record yourself, change one thing, write down something you like. And it's a process that I show them that gets them to evaluate themselves, not just me evaluating them. Of course, I'm glad to, but where you could evaluate yourself even in the absence of a coach. So feedback is so, so vital to your success as a leader. And Vistage offers that. And the last thing and the last reason why I uh uh decided to become a Vistage speaker and why I work with leaders is because it completely aligns with everything I do. Workshops, coaching, frameworks, original IP, which is mine. Vistage is not a pivot for me. Vistage is a concentration of what I'm already doing. Vistage gives me the opportunity to get access to more businesses than I'd ever thought that I could get to, and really the leaders of those businesses. And for that, I'm hugely grateful. And I am very, very, very excited. So it aligns with everything I already do. That's why I like leaders. That's why I like working with them. I love being around leaders. I love hearing their stories. I love hearing their frustrations. I have my own frustrations. And I I have as many shortcomings as the next leader, but I have learned a lot over the 20-some years that I've been an executive leadership for the church. And the 10 plus, 11 plus, 12 plus years that I've been doing executive development and coaching and leading, I've learned a lot. And so the beautiful thing about working with leaders is you know you're never done learning and it's never going to stop. So that's why I became a vistage speaker. That's why I work with leaders. And I hope that this gives you an insight as to why I care about you. Because if I can help you to speak better, your sales team is going to sell more. Your employees are going to become more agile when it comes to the directives you have. Your team is going to become more aligned. Your life and your confidence is going to improve because you're going to feel comfortable in your own skin as a communicator because you know that you're on the right track. That's why I work with leaders. That's why I want to work with you. That's why I do what I do. So, with that said, we will see you next week. Uh, email me, reach out to me if you would like to work with me. Uh, you could find the calendar Callendly link in the show notes that you can make an appointment with me. I'm I'm tired of you know offering quizzes, I'm tired of giving different things. Of course, you could take a quiz that we have, the samuellinton.com slash audit for your communicator style, or just shortcut that and talk to me. There's something you think I could help you with. I want to help you. And I think that the next level of growth that you have in you in your personal life and in your business is one conversation away. So let me unlock that for you. Thank you for tuning in, and we will see you soon.