Be a Leader for Your Audience [Cross Cast Interview]

Leadership is defined simply as influence (John C Maxwell). If you want other people to look to you as an authority and listen to your message, you have to step up and be a leader for other people.

This week I’m sharing with you my interview on the Intentional Optimists Podcast where I share my experience leading teams for the last decade to help you show up as a leader for your audience.

EPISODE  SHOW NOTES👇

➡️ https://heathersager.com/episode96/

Transcript

0:00  
People who listen, they're going to do something with it. I have to light a spark in other people. In order for that to happen, I have to be a spark.

Well, hey friend Welcome to another episode of the Heather Sager Show. It's me Heather Sager and I'm honored to be your speaking coach here today in this episode. I've spent the last 15 years studying and building my communication skills to inspire and teach business owners and their teams from stages around the world. I've had the honor of speaking on more than a thousand stages on topics of leadership, premium brand positioning, sales, and of course communication. And now my focus is helping fellow online entrepreneurs become magnetic speakers, so they can make a bigger impact in the world while growing their income. This show right here was designed to give you a dedicated space each and every week to grow your skills, and keep your big goals front and center. And if you like today's episode, be sure to grab a screenshot and share it on Instagram and tag me at the Heather Sager so I can give you a shout-out and celebrate the work you're doing. Alright, let's dive in, friend, it's gonna be a good one.

Well, hey friend, welcome back to another episode of the Heather SagerShow. Today we are talking about leadership and your role as a business owner is to be a leader. Now quick before you run away and you're like, I'm not a leader. I don't have a team. I don't have desire to grow this giant team business. I am proudly a solopreneur trying to build this online business so we don't have to work around the freaking clock. Maybe you have a virtual assistant, maybe you have a couple contractors, whatever your thing. What I found is when most people think of the term leadership, they really are thinking of management and managing people and that is not the case. 

John Maxwell, who's the like, OG leadership. I mean, he published a bajillion books. He's an incredible speaker, an author, and he's a leadership guy. He talks about leadership is simply defined as influence, and I know that you are familiar with the term influence or influencer. Now it's often categorized as someone who talks about beauty products and their Instapot, or air fryer, or whatever else on Instagram, or they're selling that latest version of a shamwow and some other form, and no, we're not talking about that today. If you're growing your online business, you're a coach, your course creator, whatever that looks like you are growing an audience, and it requires you to have something worth following, you as a person. If you want people to follow you because you post pictures of your cat or your air fryer, that's cool. But most likely, that's not you if you're listening to my show. You're here because you have a message to share. 

If you want other people to listen to your message, you have to be a leader for other people, a leader of ideas, a leader of a way of life, a way of business, a way of whatever it is that you teach. If you want other people to look to you as an authority, you have to step up as a leader. This is really, really, really important. One of the gifts I would love to give you today is this idea that for a moment, if you think about I think a lot of times we struggle with what skills do we need to work on in the online space, and void of that we focus on buying a bunch of courses and things that teach us how to build a funnel, or how to build one of those tiny $37 offers, or how to get our nurture sequence up, or how to do high ticket sales and no side on all those things. If you have courses with that, good for you. They're all awesome. I probably bought all of those things, too. 

But a lot of times what we're missing is we're buying courses, we're consuming information to learn tactical strategies, but we're not really building skills. Some of you are gonna hear me talk a lot about the show, you've probably heard me talk a lot about is we have to make sure that we have really strong skills as entrepreneurs so we can do more than just deploy tactics. We have to uplevel our thinking. We have to be able to like ebb and flow as the industry changes, as the world changes, hello, last 18 months. We have to be nimble and we have to develop competencies that will grow with us. I'm a firm believer that communication competencies ie., speaking is one of the fundamental skills that we all must be in pursuit of mastery. Hello, that's what I teach. But leadership is also not this big fluffy idea that has its own dedicated section at Barnes and Noble. Leadership is a skill and you can actually study it. Picking up a leadership book can be very, very valuable for you as a solopreneur. Think about leadership as a skill that you can develop. And when you start working that skill of leadership, incredible things start happening because first and foremost, you have to lead yourself effectively before you can lead other people whether those other people are your team or your audience. You have to first be able to lead and manage yourself. 

Now today's episode, we're going to do something a little bit different. I do this from time to time. I'd like to give you examples of me actually showing up on stages speaking so you can see what it looks like to actually step up to the microphone in other people's platforms to share your message with confidence and get yourself out there. And so we're going to do that by way of my guest interview I did on The Intentional Optimist podcast. I finished the interview and I'm like, damn, that was good. No, that sounds terrible outside. It's okay to say those things out loud to yourself, people. When you do a good job, you say, man, that was so good. I want you to be proud of that. I'm getting more comfortable doing that for myself. But this was really, really good. One really specific reason today and it was because I was talking about a topic that I don't get to talk about a lot anymore. You see I used to travel around the country and around the world talking about leadership, talking about culture, talking about team development with entrepreneurs and since I left my former position, what I talk about all the time now is marketing and speaking which I love. But to be honest, I miss a lot of the leadership and team culture style things so I was able to talk about this today and make it really applicable to the online business entrepreneur. I want you to listen to this episode, I think you're going to find so many things that resonate with you. But first and foremost, I really want you to own the fact that you are a leader and you are here to lead your audience, and the more that you step up into that role, the more you will see your influence have a positive ripple effect. So I'll turn it over to Andrea to kick us off on the Intentional Optimist replay. We'll call it or a cross cast as my friend Krystal shared with me, that's what it's called. I hope you enjoy. 

And hey, if you do, would you reach out on Instagram? You know, it's one of those things that I thought it was a great interview but I'd love to hear from you too. If you get find value in this episode, if you're like man, that really resonated with me, shoot me a message on Instagram @theheathersager. I love hearing from you. You can even do better if you take a screenshot of the episode and share what you loved about it. That will help get the word out about this show and also give a high five to Andrea's show because it's so incredible. I want to make sure that I give her a big kudos to. All right, friends, I'll see you on the other side of the interview.

8:09  
Hi, there everybody. You all have heard me say this plenty of times. But the purpose of the interviews on this podcast is to talk to women who are living the tenants of intentional optimism. Women who are leading in their own carved out space and somehow making the lives of other people better. That looks just as different for every single one of you out there as it does for every woman whose story I bring to you from in here. Some are driven by a cause or a principle and leadership is just something they grow into. Others find that leadership is their passion, which then shows up in and fuels everything they do. 

Today's guest is a perfect example of the ladder. Heather Sager is a speaking coach who teaches entrepreneurs how to best communicate their passion in order to grow their business. But when I asked her to come to have a conversation about her own leadership story, she got really excited and confessed, I love this topic. I rarely get to talk specifically about leadership. Well, right then, welcome to Episode 34, everybody. I can't wait for you to meet my friend, Heather Sager. So hey, Heather, welcome to the show. 

9:20  
Hey, Andrea, I am thrilled. thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me. 

9:24  
You know, we were chatting beforehand in hand. And I remember when we first met, you were scooting around with your foot in the cast and we were at the RISE conference in Charleston, I live in Charlottesville. And we were at a special luncheon for those of us who had attended Digital Course Academy. And you spoke up and automatically offered me free advice which was the perfect role model. And I thought, oh my goodness, I need to know this woman. So tell us, I've already given a small intro to you but why don't you go ahead and tell everybody a little bit about who you are, why you're here, what you do the whole you know, why you, why now?

10:08  
Yeah, okay, this is always the story that could take five hours or I can make this short so I'll give you the modified short version. I guess you could call me a speaking coach. I guess that's technically what I do. I specifically work with entrepreneurs and leaders to help them refine their communication skills so they can better connect with their audience. So when I work with entrepreneurs, it's how do they communicate with their ideal audience and attract customers. And when I work with business leaders, usually their person they're talking to is their team. I find the principles of communication really hold true for both. And so for me, my background comes from corporate. I always say I'm a recovering corporate executive turned entrepreneur. 

10:50  
So many of us have that description, right? 

10:53  
Yes, yes. And I have kind of an interesting corporate experience because the company that I worked with, it started by an entrepreneur and it was a very, very small company from the start. In the 10 years I was there, we grew that company. We had more than 200 employees. We had thousands of clients all over North America and we grew that company and sold it to a really large company based out of Denmark, sold it for like $151 million. And it was Wow, incredible to take a small company in that small entrepreneurial spirit and grow it to a large corporate company. Once I realized it was going to be this giant, global corporate thing. I'm like, I'm out. The heart of the entrepreneur is where I'm at. But that's where I really discovered, like a leadership position technically and so I was able to serve as the VP of learning and development for quite a long time running a team of trainers, recruiters, teaching people how to be better leaders in their businesses. We did a lot of things from sales, communication, all the fun stuff. And man, it was just a fun journey but now I gotta bring those things to what I do now but without a boss.

12:00  
You have a boss, your own boss. When you're a solopreneur, it's like, is it the best boss I've ever had or the worst boss I've ever had, right? So again, we met through Digital Course Academy and so you have, you teach courses, and you have a podcast and you have a Facebook group but why do you do exactly what you do? Because you've taken all of that experience and you've really channeled it into something very specific. What is it about working with the entrepreneur that just really kind of lights your fire?

12:35  
If I'm being really honest, it comes from this one simple thing. So I worked in corporate so the unique thing about our company is we were a company that was a management firm for entrepreneurs in the medical space all over the country so I worked with independent business owners. The entrepreneurial spirit was always there. And so as the company grew as we became more and more corporate, I would travel around teaching, speaking, managing teams, I realized that I hated all of the political BS that lives inside a corporate company having to like, oh, my gosh, the miles and miles deep of emails every day. Secretly, I would just delete them all and go email bankrupt and just be like, start over every quarter. I was just sick of the back-to-back meetings, I was sick of the pace at which people expect you to reply, and what I love doing with connecting with real people in classrooms, in their offices. Seeing light bulbs go on when somebody clicked with something and they were able to better care for their patients or better to connect with their team. So people started asking me like, hey, Heather, I don't understand how you're able to go from inspiring an auditorium of 2000 people to teaching and coaching a group of three people like on a dime and you don't seem to get tired. Like, how do you have such energy for this? People started asking me a lot of questions around how I did what I did. And I didn't really think it was that brilliant of a thing. But the more questions they asked well, I have to teach people how to speak. So it started with me helping other corporate leaders but what I realized pretty quickly was when my clients were primarily corporate, I was still in that world of having to reply to emails, having to be available for their meetings and all those things and I left that, because I want to pick up my kid from school, I want to wear sweatpants all day, and maybe put on a blazer near. I didn't want to be part of that world. So for me, the only solution was to make sure that I was serving people who have the same values, similar lifestyle, similar ideas of what they wanted to do. And the beautiful thing was, entrepreneurs are the best spokespeople for their companies but they don't have the confidence to do it. So I'm like, oh I can help them and that's kind of when the clouds parted and I'm like, that's who I have to work with because I can bring the communication skills. I can work with people who are my people.

14:58  
So when you talk about being on stage and working with all these people 2000 down to three, but it still gives you energy. What do you think that energy comes from? Where's that come from for you? Is it just the connection?

15:13  
You know, a lot of people I hear, especially in this last year where we move virtually people are like, oh, I can't do the virtual thing because I feed my energy off the audience. And this is where I always have to go, oh, man, if you are looking to other people to find energy, you're setting yourself up to be drained at the end. Energy comes from within. One of my biggest mentors, Brendon Burchard. I'm a Certified High Performance Coach. I've done a lot of learning under him.

15:39  
 I didn't know that until I heard it you recently say that. And I'm like, oh, that makes so much sense.

15:44  
I love it. I love it. I am a lifelong learner, a lifelong student, huge into professional development. We probably talk about that a lot today. Personal Development is huge in leadership. But one of the things that Brendon always says is he likens his energy to a power plant where a power plant doesn't go find, like they create and generate their own energy. I see that the same in me. I have to bring energy to anything that I do.  Sure, I drink coffee but I also work out. We were joking, I went for a run right before this interview today because I'm like, I got a long day of interviews. I have to make sure that everybody gets me at my best. So for me, it's my attitude. It's my enthusiasm knowing that people who listen, they're gonna do something with it, I have to light a spark in other people. In order for that to happen, I have to be a spark. Energy for me is a mindset piece. It's a physical body piece. I totally have to bring my own energy, and I find as surprisingly an introvert, I have to be really intentional with it. Otherwise, I will be totally wiped out. But when I'm on stages, like I'm on fire. I can teach for five days straight, nine-hour days. And I will be so happy with it. I will be just as peppy on day five, maybe a little loopy but  I'm just as energized on day five as I am on our one-day ones.

17:03  
Well, and I completely relate to that. We talked earlier about how I love to highlight women who embody the intentional optimist and number three is energy. It kind of folds dovetails perfectly in with that and part of that is because I have also learned from Brendon Burchard. I am not a High Performance Certified coach. But I have been through High Performance Coaching with somebody from his team. But for me, when I hear somebody talk about that, I automatically know they've got their values in alignment, they know what they want, they know where they're going, therefore they can create their own energy so I loved how you put all that together. And I love the fact that you're highlighting that you're an introvert, and you're doing all of these things. So speak to that really quick before we get into the full leadership stuff. But that can be a piece of it because people think that you have to be an extrovert to be able to talk on stage or even just do a podcast or interviews and that's not really the case.

18:02  
No, it's not. In fact, I know a lot of introverts who shine on stage. I don't know, this is maybe a weird analogy but I like to think that all of us have this really, we have this brilliance within us and we have to figure out a way to channel it. So for those of us who are super introverted, like, we could channel it all in like one heavy dose. We go live on video or we're in front of an audience. But the other time if you find me in my peer mastermind, they always laugh because I will join and I will sit there quietly for 47 minutes of a 60-minute thing and somebody will find they go, Heather, what's going on with you? And then I'll talk, but I am not a like, I was always the quiet kid in the classroom and I think part of it was I hate when people speak out just to hear the sound of their own voice. One of my biggest pet peeves is when somebody would say something to the class and then somebody else would literally say the same thing. And I'm like, why are you saying? Like, you don't need to add. So I only add to the conversation if I have something unique or if I see something happening that nobody else seems to be pointed it out. And so yeah, so I've been on the dividing line of every personality test I've ever taken. So I'm a very confused, I don't know if I'm like high energy, low energy. I don't know, on the DISC assessment, I'm right in on all the quadrants. Myers Briggs, I'm right in the middle. It's kind of like I got multiple personalities happening but I don't know, you've got to figure out what works for you but you have to change the narrative. If you think because I'm an introvert, I can't do x. You can do whatever the heck you want to do but you have to change the way you talk about it to yourself,

19:37  
Right. And you and I have joked about the fact that we both have done DISC stuff. I'm a certified DISC consultant, you did a lot of DISC and John Maxwell teaching when you were doing corporate training and we also joked about the fact that I am right in the middle. I'm an IE on the Myers Briggs and maybe that's part of what just makes us unique, but before we get into your earliest leadership because I love talking about that kind of thing. You have an extremely unique story so I'm excited for people to hear it. Well, at least the people that haven't heard it yet because you tell it often, but I wanted to share how you and I actually have this a little bit of a you didn't, It's like a mentor by proxy because I was listening to when the pandemic hit and we were all working remotely. I was listening to your podcast which is quite good and it's called the Heather Sager show. But if you go back further, it was called something else. That's a story you can share if you want, but I remember hearing you say, I think you were you were talking to Krystal Proffitt, probably. I remember hearing you say, is podcasting your next stage? And I was outside, finally, done working from home cleaning the weeds out of the garden around my pool. I thought I just stood up with my earbuds on talking to nobody and said, yes, actually.

19:50  
That's my vision. When you're speaking to someone on a podcast, you're like, I hope someone is giving me an amen somewhere.

21:04  
You know, it never really occurred to me. But part of being a leader is helping other people see that vision, right? Part of being courageous is when you have a vision, sharing it, whether or not you know where it's going to land, we don't. It's our job to share the information and let the fertile soil pick it up where it's supposed to, right. So I remember thinking I do and then you follow it up, of course, with an email, which I haven't followed too in that just yet. My email list is still languishing, but you know, one step at a time. But you followed it up with an email and I just responded. And I said, you bet this, I'm doing this. I love to talk, right? You can hear me. I just enjoy it. I'm comfortable. I was never the quiet kid, right? And what's odd is that I actually test out on the introvert scale as well too but I was never the one that wasn't talking. I was the one whose seventh-grade science teacher through one of those erasers across the room at me saying, would you please just stop talking? And it hit like the elemental, the whatever that thing is called, you know, periodic table. That's it. It hit the periodic table on the wall and I thought, gosh. But I've always been told, stop talking, be quiet. And so finally, to have a place where I said, oh, this could be where I could actually share my thoughts, where I could share my vision, where I could share my philosophy which is turning into a personal growth plan. So I emailed you and I had just finished watching a funny movie. It was the kid we do family movie night every week, and it had this big humongous dog in and this little girl actually called this big, massive dog. They renamed it because it was a John Cena movie which tells you something and she renamed it Sparkle Pony. I thought to myself because you had put like a little unicorn icon in there. And I said, yeah, thankfully, you know, like almost the sparkle pony. You know, just kind of like Dear Abby kind of letter. And you were so encouraging, you email me back immediately. You have been an encourager and a mentor to me. So publicly, I acknowledge, thank you. But at the same time, I want to point out how that's leadership in itself, right? You are actually leading by example doing those things. So I don't know what you remember about that.

23:29  
Let me say something because this gets me thinking. I see a lot of conversations with specifically entrepreneurs but I think this applies to anyone who's a leader. I think a lot of times we're ingrained to think in the business setting, get the results. We're thinking outcomes, get the results, get the revenue, hit the numbers, whatever it is, right? We're ingrained to think that way. And what I find, especially with entrepreneurs in the coaching space in the education space, everyone's thinking about how can I capture the sales. I do the podcast because I want to grow my audience so I can sell. I want to have a Facebook group so I can get an engaged audience so I can sell. I want, like, we're always thinking about what's the conversion rate. And for me, first and foremost, I am a leader here to serve and make an impact in the world. By doing so I know I will make money. I'm confident in that. Sure, I set targets and numbers, but I think what you just described like it touches my heart so much when you send that email and then you relive it. Thank you so much for sharing that because I think so often we forget the impact of our work. And something in that, let's just put it for the record here, Andrea has never bought anything from me. She's not one of my clients. She's one of the people in my audience that I serve, and I love up and serve and encourage her just as much as I do my private clients. I think that's one of the things we have to think about what's how can we show up and give and be of service and have heart and care for people without this expectation that they're going to like convert into something. Never once was I thinking ooh, I'm going to get Andrea to get a podcast and then I'm going to pitch her my product. No, because I think when you're a true leader, you figure out how do you help other people grow, how do you do what's best for them, and then have the confidence that when the time is right your paths will cross and you'll figure out how to make money together. I think that needs to be said because I think so many people are driving their decisions, driving their behaviors with other people with this objective of something. Double-check your objective and make sure it's a service-oriented one, not a revenue-generated one. 

25:30  
Great. 

25:33  
I'm very passionate about that, right?

25:35  
Because you're right, I mean, and I've attended quite a few masterclasses and you have a lot of, there are several entrepreneurs that I pay close attention to and they're the ones who are, and Brendan teaches this as well. But they're the ones who have just really high value and every time I get value, I then turn around and give, right? It inspires me to turn around and give. I think that that's the perfect segue way into leadership because like I said, I have ladies on here that are leading, like an intentional optimist, and you just hit on like four of the different. I know. When we put this on YouTube, y'all can see but I talk with my hands all the time. But you hit on four of the main tenets of intentional optimism and one of those is service. And you know, so it's thank you very much for sharing that.

26:25  
That's why we're each other's people.

26:27  
That's right. So let's go back to your earliest leadership memory. I've heard your story several times and I'm not sure exactly where you're going to land with what is your earliest leadership memory, but

26:39  
I'm going to share one that you've actually never heard before. Yeah, so when I was reading, I was thinking through when you sent me this note, like, hey, I really want you to think back to this. There is a very clear memory that I have as a child. I think I was in like third or fourth grade. And so mind you, I was an extremely shy child. I'm the youngest of six kids and everybody else talked for me. At home, I was like a clown character but as soon as we left the house, I would hide behind my mom's butt. I would just stand behind her. And I remember, terrible, I feel bad for my mom. But I always be like, Mom, you have a flat butt and I would always like spank it behind her. Sounds so terrible as a mom now. I'm like, oh, I was the worst. Anyways, I remember, my mom was a seamstress. I did a lot of sewing. She taught me how to sew when I was three years old so I learned how to sew and that was a big part of my childhood. In the third grade, in art class, their the crafts we were doing that week was we were making these pillowcases. And of the pillowcases, they had brought in these special crayons that you would color the white fabric and then you would take it over and transfer it with an iron over or you color the paper and then it would be transferred with an iron. I remember sitting around the table with a couple of my best friends in the third grade and I was carefully taking my time, drawing the scene with clouds and you know the trees, when you were little, you'd always draw a tree with like a hole in it. Like that was like the classic drawing with a hole in it, with a brown trunk. I was drawing that. And my friend next to me was also drawing this like this scene of a horizon. I remember she finished first and took her drawing over the teacher. And the teacher goes, hmm, you have to color in every inch of that piece of paper to transfer the work. She was so disappointed because she drew a horizon. She don't want to color the sky, like it was gonna mess with her things. So she came back she was super upset so she had a coloring in. She hated it. It looked terrible so she went back. She hated her pillow. I remember sitting there and I told her, I was like, you don't have to do that. She's like, well, the teacher said I did. And I go I'm sorry, but the teacher is wrong. I do this all the time at home with my mom. You do not have to fill in every inch of the piece of paper. That's just wrong. And she's like, well, it's what she said so I told her that before she colored in. She colored it, ruin her dry. So I went up with my piece of paper which was not following the quote-unquote instructions teacher to which she tells me I'm sorry, you have to go back and do it. I asked her and I go, I appreciate that you think that but actually I don't. It'll work just fine. And she goes, no, like you have to. So I don't love confrontation but I've learned as a leader, I'm actually really good in confrontation. But like you get this quickening of your heart, right, where your throat starts like going up and you feel like you're red, drives down your chest. You start like, whew, shaking a bit but you're like, I have to say it anyways. So I remember like shaking, I was a tiny little stick kid. Remember shaking and just going I'm sorry, but no, I will not do that. It will be fine. Watch. And I'm like, oh, ballsy kid, but this tiny little thing. I remember I stood off with her. And at this point, it's like that movie moment with the rest of the classroom is quiet. Watching it and they're like, oh, it's about to go down. I could tell this teacher was like flustered. She did it and it was totally fine. Pillow was totally fine which I knew it would be because I did this all the time with my mom. But I remember walking back to the desk and like sitting down with this quiet like smug confidence about me. But I was like when you know, you have to trust yourself and follow your gut even when you're gonna make somebody else uncomfortable. I remember that as my earliest memory of going, you know what, I have something within me that tells me when I believe was to have something I need to listen, and not let somebody else's opinion influence it. And I attribute that to be the very first moment when I discovered that I was a leader because I knew I had something within me that I was willing to listen to even when I made other people uncomfortable, even with like, everybody else would do what the experts or the teacher said. I knew that even though it was uncomfortable and make me sweaty, and shake, and even like cry, when I would get uncomfortable, I had to do it anyways. That is the earliest memory I have of really speaking up or standing out. I always think of that moment. And anytime I feel nervous, I'm like, if third grade Heather can do it. I too, can do hard things.

30:54  
That's amazing. I mean, to think that you can actually go back to that and feel those feelings and the way you described it to I'm thinking, oh, yeah, I feel that all the time. I also don't like confrontation but I love the lesson you took from it. I can see that confidence in you. I see that throughout your story and some of the other things that you've done. But the whole trusting yourself, is that a big piece of who Heather has become as a leader? does that play all the way through? Is that the thread that kind of goes through some of your other story? Do you mind sharing just a little bit of that?

31:31  
Yeah, 100%. So I think about okay, so when I was sitting as an executive with C suite executives from multi billion dollar companies. I remember sitting there and I would sit at that table and I would hear the group things are happening. I would hear people like obsessing over the profit and loss statement trying to figure out where things went wrong or what the solutions were. Some people have an idea and they all go down this rabbit hole. I would see these highly paid, highly educated smart people, mostly men, sit at the table and go down these rabbit holes that were in the opposite direction of what we were actually there to do. That same feeling would come up and be like, at the time, who am I am a 29 year old kid, like little girl in this room which is just a screwed up to be thinking that in general, but it's how you sit when you're a woman at a table, especially a younger woman at a table filled with middle aged white men. I remember sitting there. Early in my career, when I first got at that table, I was quiet. And then that feeling would eat at me for days of going, ah, I should speak up because we're going down the wrong path. I was always the person who then go, I'm not going to be the liked person, but I was sure as hell will be respected. I would always raise my hand and say, I would put a caveat on it and be like, I know we're going down this path here. But I want to ask the question, is this conversation still in alignment with why we're here for the meeting? And just posing the question and going like, I can't help but think that maybe we veered off course or I can't help but think but something's here. And even if it was interrupting the CEO of the company, even like even if it was going to make somebody else embarrassed because oh my gosh, yeah, they were caught red handed doing a weird side tangent, I would always do that. I remember the CFO of our company, him pulling me aside and going, you know, Heather, the one thing that I really respect most for you is you speak up even when it's against the grain and you always speak up for the better of the company. And I'm like, had to do that. I don't just speak up to have my voice or like I speak up when something's happening that is out of alignment with a goal. I think that's one of those things, you have to listen to your voice and go, is that voice telling me what's going to make me uncomfortable or is that voice the thing that's going to tell us what's actually right, or the thing that needs to be voiced that nobody quite yet is brave enough to do? You have to step up and be that brave person.

33:46  
You know, that's something that most of us have to learn and not many of us are courageous enough to do that. I'm wondering, personally, how do you determine the difference between those things?

34:02  
So let me share with your audience the story that I think you were wanting me to share around that because I think it goes back to having perspective around what the  motivator is behind something. Another another childhood thing. Part of my story I mentioned my mom earlier was a seamstress. I say was because she passed away when I was in high school. My mom died of breast cancer when I was 17 years old just before my 18th birthday. I remember that last few months we had with her when she was in hospice care in our house. We decided for her very last Christmas present that we were going to start a nonprofit organization in her name. We called it the Clara Jean Foundation which was my mom's name. We started that nonprofit. I won't get into details of it, but it was essentially around how to help women who were fighting breast cancer find alternative treatments to help with their conventional plan so this was before alternative or holistic medicine was really mainstream and we thought it was cool. This was when it was like heck no you follow your oncologist word. My mom went a little bit of a different path after years and years of fighting cancer, but we wanted to help women find a voice. So we started this nonprofit, my six siblings and I, we co-founded it. We hosted our first fundraising event. It was like three weeks after my mom died. We needed to start fundraising. I remember we booked this, we booked like a 10 minute talk at a charity event a few months later, 18 years old me not even graduated high school yet. My brothers and sisters, their kids all call me the fancy aunt which makes me laugh. But they like shoved me and said, Heather, you're going to be the spokesperson. And I'm like, I'm a child. My oldest sister was 30, 12 year gap. There's so many people, why would I speak? I'm 18 years old, still in high school. And that's when I realized they knew within me that I could articulate myself and I was super nervous, I was still a really shy kid despite the incident from the third grade. I was still super nervous. I was still super shaky, I would still cry when I'm getting comfortable in front of people. But I realized it's really important lesson that when it comes to speaking to other people, speaking up and using your voice, some people are drawn to that spotlight. They want to be heard, others are called into it. And that called in to it is that deeper knowing that there's something that you need to share a different perspective that you have, something that someone else isn't quite brave or ready enough to share but you are and you're feeling that pull for that. The question is, are you going to allow yourself to be uncomfortable and do it anyways. I think the more you do it, it's like a muscle. You have to exercise doing that. But I've learned speaking up and sharing and adding the caveat of, I'm super nervous right now, I don't quite know how to say this but, that's allowed me to get more and more comfortable. But I always can get really, really quiet and I feel this deep need to share because it's going to be helpful to other people. I know I have to speak up. But if I'm like, oh, I think this, it's not quite a deep pull that I need to share. It's more of a word vomit that has to come out and that's more of like an opposite problem, right? It's like, put it back. So that for me, it's like, you know, when there's something that is, whether it's racial injustice, or there's something happening, or somebody else is being treated unfairly, or the business is going in a different direction, and you can see the train crash coming but nobody else seems to see it. You know deep down when those moments happen, it's just whether or not you're going to be brave enough to actually speak up because if you don't, who else will? You can't rely on other people's courage, but you can rely on your own, you just have to step up and do it.

37:40  
That's great. Yeah, and part of that, too, it may not be just that they don't have courage. It may be that they don't see it, right?

37:47  
100% with that. I think that's one of those things. It's the whether it's timing, whether it's the perspective shift, or some reason that you're the one getting that pull so you have to make the decision, are you going to go against the grain? I had to learn very clearly. You have to choose, do you want to be liked or do you want to be respected? And I think that's a really important decision as a leader you have to make because if you just want to be liked by people, that's not leadership. It's not leadership. A leader has to be willing to be unliked. Not all the time. If you were a hated leader, I would argue you're doing something wrong. You have to be willing to have moments just like parenting, you have to be willing to toe the line and make your child angry, because you're doing something that's for their best interest in the long term. 

38:30  
Yeah, that's really good. So as we kind of pivot more into how you truly live out leadership which I feel like you've been telling us this all along. Do you have, a lot of people do have a principle that they live by and some people don't articulate it well. But do you have one principle that you would say other than like the speaking up or stepping up and courage, is there an underlying principle for that, that really just kind of guides you in everything that you do?

39:00  
I think the word intention comes to mind which is perfect for this platform. That word has stuck with me for a really, really long time. I think so often, we lead our lives in reaction mode, especially when you're a leader with a lot of burning fires in a company, in your own business. There's always going to be tasks and demands of other people to do. A good leader, how I show up is going how do I be more intentional in my relationships, in my energy, in my attitude, in how I treat others, and the strategy. The word intention to me goes hand in hand with leadership. I think if we were all just like 5% more intentional, we would be so much more fulfilled and happier with how our lives were lived. So for me 100% intentionality.

39:47  
And it resonates 100%. People ask me like which of the six tenets is most naturally you and I'm like intentional is because you know, and I love the way Brendon Burchard says the best time to have a map is before you run into the woods and so just having even just a little bit of a plan, just having a little bit of when you look at your values and you look at your strengths, and you say these things are what I have, how am I going to live them, right? So I love that. When you apply that intention to the way you run your business and the way, because we joked kind of earlier about how you teach other people to speak but you don't always get to talk about leadership. So when you and I joke that solopreneurs are the ultimate leaders because they're leading absolutely everyone they talk to you and they're leading themselves. How do you apply that to your life and work when you did talk about your energy, in your relationships, in your attitudes? What are some tips maybe that you or some habits that you have that kind of help you play that out every day?

40:49  
Yeah. Okay. So with the intention piece, specifically, a few of the things that I focus on is, I think a lot of times people think intention means planning, right? It means I'm gonna plan out everything on my schedule, I'm gonna plan on my project. That's like one aspect of it. For me, I plan like with intention, feelings so how do I want to feel, but most importantly, especially when it comes to me engaging with other people. If I have a team meeting, if I have like, after we're done with this, I have office hours inside my program, Speak Up to Level Up. I always get really present. The one intention that is a requirement habitually in my life, is every time I do a video, a meeting on anything, live interaction with another person, I go, what's the goal here? What do I want people to feel and who needs me to be at my best in this moment? Those are questions that I'm always asking because even if I haven't prepped, even if I don't have the outline or even know the questions in advance, I know that if I focus on how I want other people to feel, everything will be okay, right? Because what happens, I think a lot of time, this is a random side tangent, but I'll say this because a lot of people get caught up in this talking about speaking, people get so nervous. It's because they're totally focused on their own feeling. So when you just go, how do I want other people to feel the energy shifts, and you can no longer be nervous and focused on yourself. So I think for me, the most practical habit is set your intentions of how you want to feel, how you want other people to feel. I do that every morning and I do that throughout the day, every time I set up a conversation with the person.

42:20  
Did you teach yourself to ask that question? 

42:22  
Yeah. 

42:24  
I mean, how did how did you teach it? I mean, because that's not something automatically do. We automatically think about ourselves, right? Does that make sense?

42:34  
Okay, so this is as simple as it comes. So in my old world, we talked a lot about personal development, but there really wasn't a lot of personal development available to us as like, we were the ones teaching it, right. So I learned really early in my career, that my limiting factor was going to be myself. That I'm like, okay, I have to do something different. So I was hungry, I found John Maxwell which he was a big person we talked about but I started consuming his books going, how does this apply to me. I started listening to Michael Hyatt, his old-school podcast, that was amazing. I loved it. I started listening to him all the time. What I would start doing is bringing personal development into my team. I would start doing a book club with my team and sharing what I was learning, asking them how they would learn. I would foster this environment. How I learned how to be more intentional was when I would have a conversation, so I have this problem, RBF, resting not so nice person face. I have a very narrow face. I have an intense voice. I have a lower voice for a female so it can be a little intense. What I found is sometimes when I'd have conversations even when I had the biggest heart, if somebody didn't quite receive something as intended, I go all crap, what I do wrong here and it's always in the reflection after that you realize what you could have done better. So I just said, what if instead of me regretting or running the play real after and for the first time going, how can I do it better next time? What if I flip the script and said, what if I took two minutes on the front end and ask the same questions, got more intentional and then still reflect it. And I just tried it and it worked really, really well. That for me was just it was primarily out of how do people feel it's on the inside which is compassionate and warm. You hear that in my voice now but it took me a long time to really practice that. It was after some really hard reflection that maybe I'm not coming across as compassionate and warm as I thought I was. Well, that's how I learned that.

44:30  
And that's brilliant, right? I mean, that was the necessity the mother of invention so whatever we whatever we need, usually we come up with the answer if we're willing to look for it, right? I love the flip the scripts. And you know, I'm a John Maxwell team certified speaker trainer coach, so that resonates with me. But what I really liked was you said, you reflected and then you said how can I do it better? Well, why don't I just do it better beforehand, right? People a lot of times don't want to eat it. They just want the experience. They don't necessarily want the reflected experience. They don't necessarily want to do that. But that goes into the whole proactive thing, and proactivity is part of intentionality. It just has to be when you think ahead, that's how you change your behavior. I love that principle and I love that you were sharing it, because here's the thing, Heather, your smile is like, you have these gorgeous red lipstick but your smile is huge. Anybody that goes to see like your picture will be on the podcast page and that kind of stuff but you have this amazing smile. And for me to think that you had this kind of resting not so friendly face is amazing because I've never seen it. You've managed to like completely remove that and I have it too. I remember back in grad school. I was in seminary and I remember going to a church and sitting because I sit on the front row because I get very distracted. I noticed everybody else doing everything else so I learned long ago to sit on the front row. I was way up in the front on one side and friends of mine that I didn't realize were there were way up in the front on the other side. And after church, they said you looked kind of like angry. And I'm like I did? You know, I really enjoyed, this was really good. I loved it. It was good teaching. That's when I realized I have a really intense face. This is something I really didn't see well. It is the thinking, definitely the thinking face. Okay, is that your habit or ritual? Is that the thing that actually gets you exactly where you want to be?

46:35  
I think here's the thing, there's a lot of habits and of all the things I've learned in the last year with all the schedule changes with the pandemic, we can go on and on with that. I've learned to be less precious with my habits. I've learned that I cannot be so rigid and focused with I'm going to have to have the perfect morning routine or I have to have this but what I can commit to is being intentional with how I show up for other people and that to me is a non-negotiable. So the other habits ebb and flow, my workouts, my journaling, and my meditation, when and if I do that like all those things have been flow. But for me if I can stick with being intentional, here's the thing, I think all of us at our core we're wicked smart. We know deep down how to treat other people. We know what we need to do. It's just we don't do it because we're not thinking about it. So if we can develop the habit of just thinking before acting, that one habit can change your world. So for me, yeah, that's the one habit I'm gonna stand on all day long.

47:32  
Yes, it's a very important one. It's always the one that's learned after the fact, right? Yeah. Okay, so you have a very specific career and you do very specific things. So in a minute, I want you to tell us a little bit about where people can find you. And you know, what kind of programs you have because that's incredibly important. But if somebody wanted to get into the kind of work that you're doing, even if it's just working with entrepreneurs, or if it's specific to leadership you choose. But you know, a lot of people we look back and we say, oh, I wish I'd seen those red flags. I would never have done that thing. Here in the Intentional Optimist podcast, we'd like to talk about green flags that point the direction to something because I think those are just as invisible to us sometimes. We talk about the fact that we don't realize we have an inspirational story until we start telling it and other people tell us that it resonates with them. So what maybe are some green flags that you can share with our audience to say, if you have these things that kind of resonate in your core, you might want to try this stuff.

48:40  
Okay, my brain goes in so many different ways because I'm like green flags towards becoming an entrepreneur, green flags towards becoming a coach. I'm going to go with something as simple as a green flag in terms of sharing your story to help people because I think I get a lot of questions, I have some interesting stories that I share whether that's the death of my mom and what I've learned from it. I have hearing loss. I talk often about that. I think a lot of people ask me, hey, Heather, how do you take things that have happened to you and share it for good and not just not expressing it for therapy. I think therapy is important but sometimes you want to share a message for a bigger purpose. If you've ever had a thought, where you've endured something and somebody has talked to you about it and said, I can so relate with that. You might have a story that resonates with other people. If you have ever had a moment where you've heard someone speaking on a podcast or a stage and you're nodding your head and you go, I feel exactly like that. If that moment has happened to you, you could be the person to make that moment happen for other people. You see, I think a lot of times people think that I don't have a big enough story to share, or nobody's interested in my story, they just want me to get to the like, teach me how to do something, teach me the steps, teach me the process, teach me the report, whatever it is. I'm a huge advocate of storytelling because at the end of the day, we're all human and we all crave connection. I think if we get better at telling pieces of our story or telling stories in general, we become better leaders. We become better connectors with people. We inspire people in a different way that isn't just do this thing and you'll get this result, or meet this objective, let's all rally around this vision. When you can use stories, particularly your stories to rally people around the vision that matters. So that's what I would say green flags, if you've ever had those feelings were something that you shared have made people laugh, connect with them, you should do more of that but you do not have to be a keynote speaker, you do not have to be a professional speaker. You don't have to go out and do a podcast tour. You can be a speaker in your own life. You talk to people every day, you may as well do it on purpose. You might as well incorporate things like storytelling to inspire people in a different way. So maybe a little roundabout way to answer that question but that's what kind of came to mind for me when I was thinking about the green flags. 

50:58  
No, that's great. I love it and that's the one thing that constantly comes up even, you know, just sitting in my office and a staff member would come in. I'm just one of those touchy-feely, listen, you know, I do tell my story. I'm one of those. When you look at the Strengths Finder, it says, tell your story all the time. And I'm like, I know people tell me, people tell me to stop. But no, the ones that really resonate are the ones that come back and say I remember that time when you shared your story like for, you know, for me, it's infertility and adoption, or gastric bypass surgery, or those kinds of things that I don't or growing up on the mission field overseas, you know, that people didn't necessarily know and they feel seen, right? It's sharing your story that gives them the opportunity to say, oh, I'm not alone. This is not just me going through this so that's really good. Now, pieces of advice, if you're going to say the green flags are for story, what advice would you give somebody who was interested in kind of leading in the same way that you do?

52:03  
There are so many things that come to mind. So lead in the same way, okay. I think clarity is the first thing that we have to think about. Is clarity in terms of what are we trying to do? I'm gonna go business perspective, right? So whether you run your own business or you have a team, I think a lot of times, I'm speaking from experience in a fast-growing company. We were building the plane as we were flying it. And I think most companies if we're perfectly honest move in that way, but I think as leaders, sometimes we're sitting there like, we don't quite know what we're doing because we're moving so quickly. So finding space in quiet for you to sit down and going, what's the intention here. Set the intention for your team, both from the numbers objectives, but then also the feelings, values, and how you want things to operate perspective. That for me, you have to set those non-negotiables around what things are about. That's number one. And then number two, I think we all need to do a better job at eliciting other people or enlisting other people into that plan and having them help create it. One of the things that I did often as a leader was I would meet with my team and I would state the objective, get their buy-in with it, but then an ask them helping me paint the picture. How are we going to do this? What are some of the non-negotiables? What are some of the things we need to create? I would pull them into it. I had to make the shift from thinking I had to be the idea person because I love to be the idea person. I had to move and go, it doesn't matter if I have the most brilliant idea. If I don't empower my team to be the idea people, they're not going to be fully invested. So what you have to do is work as a leader to shut your mouth. You start by opening. Set the pace but make it short, and then get better at asking questions. And not just formality questions to get the yes or no or check the boxes but ask questions and genuinely want to hear from your team, so asking questions to pull people in. If you're a solopreneur sometimes those questions are going to be questions to your audience, not know better than your audience. And the moment you start thinking that is the moment your business is going to start going downhill and you're not going to get traction. So getting really, setting clarity, getting intentional. There's that word again. And then asking good questions to figure out how you enlist others, whether it's your audience or your team, those are two really, really important things. I think I'll just leave it at that. 

54:24  
Just leave it at that. 

54:27  
A whole workshops on their own, but those to me have been instrumental both in my corporate days but also as an entrepreneur.

54:34  
Really good. So for sure, I want to make sure that people know where to find you. Of course, we're gonna put all that in the show notes. But tell us what you've got going on because you have a lot going on.

54:45  
It sure seems that way because I've gotten really good at online marketing. I think you got to make people feel like you're busy and you're aware but also it's an intentional thing to create the life that you want, so I'm not actually working as much as people I think I am and that's by design, coming back to intentionality. But we do have some pretty fun things happening over in my company. If the idea of speaking of the idea of personal growth and communication is something of interest to you, Andrea mentioned my podcast, that's a great place to land on. So The Heather Sager show, you can find all about it at heather sager.com/podcast. But one of the episodes that came top of mind as we were talking that might be valuable for your audience, is I don't remember the episode number. So, Andrea, I'll send it to you so you can link it, I have an episode around how to come up with stories that you can use. So when we were talking earlier about share more stories as leaders, we all think they have to be big stories but actually the everyday little micro-moments, those are the ones that your audience and team need to hear. So I have an episode around how do you actually extract those stories and start keeping a little archive of them so you can use them in your team meetings or if you do speak in corporate settings or on stages? I think that would be a great place to start. But that's where we jam out on all things, how do you become more magnetic, how do you communicate your intentions more effectively. That's a great place to be. And then I'm on all the social media platforms. So I'm @theheathersager everywhere so find me there if you want to connect, I love hearing from people how my story resonates with them so send me a message and let me know what you loved about today's episode.

56:18  
Absolutely. And I'm I've actually heard the episode you're referencing, it's actually quite good. It's one of the things that has helped me go back and find stories from my own past that I was kind of discounting, right? I mean, especially somebody who grew up as a missionary kid, I think how many people can relate to that? Here's the interesting thing. There's part of the novelty of that, that they can't relate directly to but they actually find fascinating so there are all kinds of ways to pull our stories. But definitely, I can also attest to the fact that as we shared at the very beginning, that Heather responds to emails. It's really her as a matter of fact, she even responded with a loom video. She's like I do better talking which I'm totally the same way. So are there any like, I know you have some freebies, I've taken advantage of them myself and we'll link to those. Is there anything that you want to share specifically right now?

57:15  
Yeah. So I think a lot of times people ask me, Heather, how do you do what you do? How do you show up so confidently and share your message seemingly off the cuff on podcast interviews and other things? We just put together my team, I just put together a free training around how to confidently nail your message on podcasts, virtual summits, any kind of virtual stage that might come to mind. So that might be of interest to you if you're trying to figure out how do I show up with more intention? There's that word, to talk about the things that matter especially if you're trying to articulate yourself as a business owner so that's available right now. We'll give you the link to that. It's heathersager.com/speak. By the time this airs, there'll be an on-demand training that you can just watch, go watch it on your phone, you can watch it on your computer, wherever you want. You can do it on demand and binge it like Netflix.

58:01  
And that is so timely right now. The idea to that we've all had to pivot from any kind of in-person speaking because when we first met, I was getting literally, it was November of 2019. Nope, 2018? 

58:16  
2019

58:18  
The years they just kind of run together right now. It was in November. And I told you I had a speaking engagement in December. You specifically asked me, are you using that to actually build your business, or are you just sharing for information? It made me think, right, but where was on, it was in person. And then I had another one in January in person, and of course, I've been listening to you ever since. And as soon as, of course, March, a year ago hit, we all had to transfer completely to virtual. I think that the way you share the information on how we show up, these are all stages, every single one of them are stages, whether or not you're standing in front of 2000 people to know that your podcast has you know, 1500 downloads means that's 1500 people you've spoken to, right? Whether or not a Facebook Live has two people on it at the moment but when you go back and look at it, it has 130 views. That's 130 people you've spoken to so this is really the training. It's a lot of fun. And Heather, you always are very engaging and I love that you're just extremely, you're 100% yourself and you love joking and I think the fact that you make speaking and being yourself the norm rather than trying to be some kind of specific polished robot. So anybody who wants good training on just how to show up as you, Heather, doesn't try to make you as anybody else. I mean, granted, I've not actually taken the program, but everything that I have sat through with you, Heather, you are really good about making sure that we actually do that. Before we get to the last bit. Is there anything else that I didn't ask you that you would want to share?

59:58  
You nailed it and thank you by the way, for the really, really kind words. I think that piece when you're talking about the virtual stages are all around us. For anyone who's listening who is going, I don't really consider myself a speaker, or oh, I don't, you know, I don't really plan on being on podcast. I really encourage you to think about this idea that anyone who is a leader which I would argue we're all leaders, we start with leading ourselves before we lead other people. We have to be more intentional with the words that we use and how we communicate with other people. And by that, we are all speakers, whether or not we get paid to do it or we use it to grow our business or marketers, none of that really matters. We're all speakers. And the number one skill that helped me go from starting my career as an events coordinator to running all the events in my company and running an entire department of that company that sold for $151 million. I attribute that number one thing that catapults me there was my ability to communicate and not just communicate my ideas, but communicate with other people and help them draw their ideas. So don't just discount yourself for a second, if you are scared to speak to other people or even worse, if you like we were joking, if you like to talk and you talk for a long time, then you also need to work on speaking because I bet maybe you word vomit a little too much on the table. So speaking is an instrumental skill, being able to communicate effectively, that is one of the top skills a leader needs. If you're listening to this, you might want to go back and relisten or go binging to those episodes. and whether you learn from me or someone else. I don't care if you buy my programs, that might not be a fit. But I hope that you today go you know what of the skills I need to grow, communication is one of them. And you go pick up a book or you listen to a podcast or you do something because if you can better communicate oh that is the domino that will start tipping other things in your life and I'm just so passionate about that. So that's my mission is more people being able to communicate effectively, I think will make our world a better place. 

1:02:05  
Right. 100% agree. Applause. Whoo, clapping hands. Okay, so before we close out the one thing that I love to ask and I've gotten all kinds of answers is, what is the one thing that you, Heather Sager, can always be optimistic about even when other people think you're totally crazy.

1:02:26  
This is gonna be a really weird answer but my ability to dream, my ability to dream. I've always been a dreamer, a storyteller. Even as a little kid, we'd always tell ghost stories on our trampoline with a fire next to it in the backyard. We've always told stories. And the one thing even when I'm feeling defeated, when I'm feeling frustrated, when I'm teaching people how to speak on live stages in the entire world cancels every stage for the foreseeable future. I can still dream. And I dreamed by saying oh stage is just a platform to share your message. We pivot. We help people with podcasts. I know that when, the generic thing when one door closes another one opens. I know that to be true in my core because I know my imagination and creativity will always be there even if it feels like everything is falling apart for me. At any moment, I can change the world around me by changing my thoughts. And for me, I can always be optimistic on that even in my life's hardest moments. I always know my imagination and my ability to dream is there and then I can go out and create it.

1:03:28  
Fantastic. Well, thank you. Thank you for dreaming and sharing with us. Thank you for challenging me personally and you didn't even know you were doing it is. So I thank you for your message. I thank you for being here. This has been delightful. I knew this was going to be a fun conversation. And I know that we have a lot of really great stuff for people to take away. So again, thank you so much, Heather. It has been a real pleasure having you on the show.

1:03:52  
You're welcome, Andrea, you're doing an incredible thing here and your audience is so lucky to have you. You really exhibit everything that you teach. Thanks so much for putting me.

1:03:59  
Thank you so much.