Welcome to SpeakUP! with Rita Burke and Elton Brown!
Rita Burke:It certainly is with enthusiasm, excitement, and a deep inspiration that I introduced George Anastasopoulos to our audience this morning. What do I need to tell people about George? First of all, George is the author of, I Love Mondays. Accomplish more, make a difference and create a culture shift. He also calls himself in a long time Toastmaster or long-term Toastmaster and is currently a member of Albany Club Toastmasters. George has talked to the University of Toronto and the Schulich Executive Education Centre is a professional certified coach. With the International Coach Federation is certified sales leader with the Canadian Professional Sales Association certified analyst with Thomas International on a variety of their assessment tools and veteran business operator with a 20 year corporate career in senior series. George a mouthful, fill about George. And this is not a smidgen of what I have on George at this point. George, I find your name, your surname, truly fascinating. When I looked at it, I thought what a mouthful, but you know what? The educator in me said to me. This is not bad. This is easy. Just look at it carefully. And I was able to pronounce it, I believe correctly, but I want you to explain a little bit about your last name for our audience
George Anastasopoulos:Oh, absolutely. Thank you, Rita for her, having me Elton for having me on the show here, I'm delighted to be a part of it. And thank you for that introduction. My name is certainly a mouthful. If you try to take it all in one big bite, but like eating an elephant, it is about one bite at a time Anastasopoulos, as you said, and there's a history and a meaning behind my name, the back half, second half of my name Pulos is the Greek word for the house of, or the clan of the first half of my name. Anastas means the resurrection. So technically my last name means the house of the risen sun. And so there's a great deal of magic and power in that and something to look forward to, and to appreciate in a last name like that. So I'm proud to carry it.
Rita Burke:I certainly feel the magic and the power. When you speak about the origin and significance of urinate, in addition to that, George we asked you to provide us with the quotation, with a quote that guides our grounds, your life. And you said it's not a quote, it's just three words. And I was reading really encouraged, curious, fascinated with that. And those three words are Enlightenment. Enhancement and Transformation. Walk us through those three words, please. And why they're significant for you.
George Anastasopoulos:Thank you, Rita. And by the way, I didn't come up with those words just casually and they didn't fall from the sky. It was a journey of discovery in my own life to appreciate what it is that drives, inspires and keeps me motivated and and engaged on a minute by minute, day by day basis. And I want to take them a bite at a time. Enlightenment. More than learning. As you mentioned in my bio and you introduced me, I have a history of teaching. I taught at the University of Toronto and at Schulich Executive Education Centre and I'm a trainer and a coach. And so there's a lot of teaching that goes on, but enlightenment is more than teaching enlightenment is when quite honestly, just as the name suggests the lights come on, we see things differently. Oh, I didn't know that was there. It wasn't just about knowledge. But about, oh, I didn't know that was there. And so in the lightened, mint is powerful for me, both in my becoming enlightened through me learnings. And there's the curiosity that I bring to the world, but that others might experience the same thing. Enhancement and have spent is on, unlike in enlightenment and transformation, these are three big words. Enhancement is about growth, progress and development. It's about betterment. It's about making a difference in the world. One of the parts of the subtitles of my book, I Love Mondays is about making a difference. And so enhancement is is the way we equip ourselves to in fact, be able to do that. And transformation is the creation of something beautiful from something that wasn't. And that's the way I see transformation in life. As we go through life, we become that much more powerful, more more beautiful, more radiant, more able to perform, more able to contribute at our highest. We transform into that. And that's the ultimate. If you would a destination place, once enlightenment and enhancement happened, this wonderful thing called transformation, ultimately.
Elton Brown:You wrote this a book? I Love Mondays. I love the title. I'd like to know a, what gave you the idea for the book and what inspired you to write it?
George Anastasopoulos:Thanks Alan. I appreciate it. The book itself, the title itself only came. No later on in the journey, as the book was being written, we had a different working title that is immaterial actually to this conversation. But what inspired me to write it was I was very interested in helping the world of work changed the way they dealt with the world of work, how people live, work, and play together. In my forties as a senior manager and a general manager, I had 300 people working for me in a job that had incredible amounts of pressure, overworked, overwhelmed, overstressed under appreciated, having to deal with competitive pressures. And I did not have the resources that we have today to be able to cope with and conquer those kinds of challenges I wanted out, but it was no different anywhere else. As it turns out I went into and started my own little business. I've been running my business ever since. However, I want to give people the opportunity to be able to say, I can change the world around me. I don't have to work in a place where I'm overworked overwhelmed over stressed under underappreciated, but in fact, I am the, I can make the difference. And so I wrote the book because I wanted people to embrace the concept of. You are the solution you meaning you the individual stop looking around you hoping somebody is going to change your world so that it's a better place for you that it will change. Change your workplace so you will enjoy it more. I want to give people belief, shifts and skills that will allow them to build competencies, to be able to interact and work together in ways that are more productive, but also more fulfilling at the same time where they can say, I love my work and I love who I do it with.
Elton Brown:I want to go back to your a one of your three words, which is a transformative. How does that word relate to your book I Love Mondays?
George Anastasopoulos:Well, Elton thank you for asking that the book itself is not written like a typical business book. A typical business book has a chapter per topic that the author wants to teach you about and so forth and has semantic notes in there and a couple of bullet points and maybe so to do lists and so forth. It's written. So I wrote the book. I love Mondays together with my co-author Dakota Lamar. We wrote it as a story. There's a hero. She has her challenges. She, somebody, everybody can relate to. She commutes into the city. She has a loving family home in the suburbs. But she's find herself on a gerbil wheel and the gerbil wheel is going faster and faster, and she's struggling with this. And it's a story of the ups and the downs and her journey of transformation from where she is, where she looks in the window and says to herself what happened to you? She says to herself, what happened to you and that, and she goes through a journey of transformation where she becomes the best version of herself possible and helps transform those around her and her organization in the process with the help of her coach, who happens to be a wise Sage nonhuman character that you'll meet when you read, I Love Mondays. So as you look at the world of, I Love Mondays. I wanted people to be able to get up and when, and say TGIM on Monday morning, not, oh my gosh, I've got a hundred meetings this week. I still have a to-do list from last week I haven't completed. I have a bunch of things that need attention today. I have people in their problems. I have to be the center of attention on everything. I've got to attend all these other meetings that I need to be a part of my I'm shorthanded in the process. Some of my people don't want to come to work. And statistics show, you don't have to go very far. Statistics show that two thirds of employees are disengaged in the workplace. Two thirds of employees are disengaged. That means they don't want to be there. And if they are, they're they're just, doing their thing and hoping to get the day over with 20, according to the American Institute of stress, 25%, one in five, one in four, one in four people are stressed and burned out and that one in five have been driven to tears at work. Let me repeat that. One in five have been driven to tears at work. This is the workplace that we're creating? The great resignation has been said to be the thing that most executives and managers are going to have to cope with and deal with. As we move our way through the 21st. The great resignation is happening all around us because people are no longer saying it's just the way it is. I'll have to suck it up. But in fact, I realizing they have a choice to say no in my book. And in my work, what I try to do is equip people with the enlightenment, the enhancement and their own transformation, so that they're able to. Deal with change their environment, create a culture shift, accomplish more, make a difference as is identified in the subtitle of the book.
Elton Brown:You are a Toastmaster and what better thing could you possibly be? And as a Toastmaster, we not only give speeches and we get positive feedback, but there is this other beneficial part that we also receive, which is coaching. What do you think, or how do you feel coaching comes into play with individuals within Toastmasters and outside?
George Anastasopoulos:Of that's a great question. Elton coaching as a profession. And I'll start with a bigger picture before getting a little more granular. Coaching as a profession is now starting to be better understood by the world at large. Not many of us have had coaches or work in the coaching profession, but it is now being better understood that there is this mechanism of teaching, low learning growth, fulfillment and and so forth that that is available. And it's called coaching. As, and I've been a coach for many years, as a matter of fact, I'll share a quick anecdote. If you'll allow me on coaching. I was many years ago, probably about a dozen or so. Doesn't 15 years ago, I had just completed a training session with some managers at a packaged goods company here in Toronto. As I completed it, I had was debriefing with the vice president of sales and we were talking about the impact of the training and next steps and so forth. George my people love you. You did a great job. We've got an action plan and it's all terrific. Yeah. But he had this furled brow and he was worried about something. And I asked him about it. I said, you seem to be concerned about something. He goes George, he says, you got to know I'm from Jersey. And I'm up here in Canada as the vice president of the sales as there as a developmental job for me. But I got to tell you, I feel like a fish out of water. Can you like, do you do any coaching? Cause I could really use a coach. I'm an entrepreneur. I do training. I really. Been hired to do coaching by anyone before him and S but I know what an opportunity when it shows up. And so I said, of course I do, is this terrific. Send me a proposal. Let's get started. And by our third meeting, we had a dozen meetings scheduled in our contract, but by our third meeting, he made an interesting comment. He said, George, I've worked with other coaches before, but there's something about you. You're changing my life. I thought, oh my gosh, I better figure out what it is I'm doing because this is powerful. As it turns out, I then went on to become an associate certified coach with the International Coach Federation. I'm currently a professional certified coach within the associates within the Federation and is credentialed in that capacity and in the world of Toastmasters, within a world of Toastmasters where there's a, where a meeting takes place, when people interact, we're coaching them. We're giving them evaluations. We call them evaluations when an evaluator gets up and delivers an evaluation of a given speaker, but they are really feedback opportunities. And that candor a feedback opportunity, but opportunities in a constructive way where the evaluator says things that are both complimentary of what worked in the speech, content delivery, mannerisms, facial expressions, and or gesturing As well as suggested improvements are part of coaching that person in a nonthreatening trust-based environment that allows that other person to grow and become the better version of themselves as a communicator and as a leader. And that's part of why I think Toastmasters is such an incredible place to be for personal development.
Rita Burke:I like that response that you give them in terms of how you became a coach, but there's something else that Toastmasters tout that they create and they enhance leadership skills. Speak to us about your experience as a leader or being lead In Toastmasters.
George Anastasopoulos:Thank you. Rita leadership is about who management is about it. And when I say it, the tasks, the duties, the responsibilities, the processes, the issues, the functional technical things that happen as part of a it work, whether you're an engineer or an accountant, a salesperson, a marketer, you name it. There's a bunch of it work. That we do as employees and as managers leadership though is about who and Toastmasters is about who being able to shift our beliefs and our focus to a who focus as part of what Toastmasters do. We don't spend a lot of time talking about the specific things. That the speaker speaks about. We make a reference to the content in terms of its organization and its impact and how it was communicated and delivered. But it's all about the hoop, our focus in Toastmasters, just to help the person get better. That's what a leader does. When people go to work as employees who may not have a managerial role, when people go to work as employees, they go to work most of the time. And generally what the following belief I got to do good work, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's a decent belief, but that's the belief I got to do. Good work. When managers go to work managers who have people responsible. When managers go to work, they go to work with a very similar belief and it goes something like this."I got to make sure work gets done. I got to make sure work gets done right" by the way, Peter Drucker, who is the management guru of all time and has written half dozen books on the topic who has set it as plainly as that manager's role is to do things right. Leaders. Have a different belief. Their belief is I make people better and that's what Toastmasters is all about. And that's what my book is all about. And that's what leadership is all about. It's about making people better, helping them be the best version of themselves.
Elton Brown:So where can we pick up your book? How can we access it through a bookstore online tell us?
George Anastasopoulos:Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for asking Elton. It's carried at Amazon. It's available in hardcover paperback electronic forum through Amazon audio Audible through Amazon as well. It's carried at indigo. I don't think indigo has decided to carry the paperback or the hardcover. So they have it only an electronic and audible version. We have it's available in a variety of audio book formats, quite honestly. Go to my website, leadershipfundamentals.com, click on my book and they will direct you to the various sites and you can decide where to purchase it yourself. And in fact, if you'll allow me, I'd like to make an offer to everybody listening to this podcast. If they go to leadership fund, if you go to leadership, fundamentals.com and you want a free digital version PDF format of my book, just send me an email through the contact us format, and I will send you a free. Digital copy just for you, but please buy it nonetheless, because I could really use the revenue.
Elton Brown:You're a Toastmaster you are a professor. You have all of these things that you're juggling in the air when you're not juggling. What do you do? What do you like to do to relax? Your personal passions.
George Anastasopoulos:Thank you for asking Elton it's a my philosophy. And what's built into, I Love Mondays is this concept of accomplishing more while doing less. And so this isn't all about a flurry of busy because asking someone, how are you and them saying busy is like saying I'm breathing because if you're not busy, you're probably dead in the 21st century. Myself what I do to relax is a combination of things. It's reading, it's exercise, it's walks. It's just the ability to unwind and connect the thing that inspires me the most about my non-work time, whatever work non-work time I do is that I either spend it with people. I love. Where we share, we interact, we support each other. We hold each other accountable for things that are important in our lives. It's either I spend time with my family and interacting with them and spending time together and hugging my grandkids. I'm allowed to hug hugger grandkids with COVID and everything else calls around crazy times. So that's really important to me being with my family, being with myself. Just me time. That's where exercise comes in and reading and just being with myself. In fact, one of the things I've often missed during the time of COVID is driving. Cause I don't really drive to too many places anymore. Most of us don't have to go to clients because most everything is virtual. As a consequence I drive so little, well driving was my me. Where I could disconnect and just let my brain unwind, unpack, digest, reflect on whatever's going on, wherever it wanted to go and allow me to get grounded again. So I miss that to a certain extent. So I try to make time for that. I spend time in my Bible and I spend time with God. And that's a way to build my spiritual strengthen and keeps me grounded as well, because you can't, we can't do our best for other people. We're here to serve. Unless we are the best versions of ourselves, unless we feel good about ourselves and we're confident. And I don't mean arrogance. Just playing confidence, a sense of self-esteem that says, I think I'm in pretty good shape here, and I can do this and I can't do that as I need help on that. And so when we do and are able to perform at our best, because we are in our, a good place, we're playing off our front foot, not. Metaphorically speaking and Rita, you had a question you wanted to ask or something you wanted to say before you got unfortunately tossed out by technology.
Rita Burke:I don't know what technologies do not to me today, but I'm determined to ask my question. And here we go again, you made a statement about one in five in tears in the workplace, and that is settling on my heart, on my mind, on my school. Tell us a little bit more about that. Where is the research to support that? How did you find that information?
George Anastasopoulos:Thank you, Rita. I appreciate you asking that American Institute of Stress, American Institute of Stress, one in five, and they have a considerable amount of research data that they've accumulated. This is recent data. I think it was 20, 21. It's very recent data. And they have their information includes like twenty-five percent of are either burnt out or have been burned out 80% go home after work or. Closed down after work with either some form of physical or psychological symptoms related to stress in the workplace and 20% I have been driven to tears at work, and that is, and so this is I'm quoting their numbers, not mine. I didn't make this up. And there's considerable more research by other organizations, Deloitte and Touche heaven forever not have research on the web. That's publicly available. That talks about workplace. Challenges and what people face. And quite honestly, I want to change that world. I want to change that world where people are, they want to go to work. Like when I say I Love Mondays, people think I'm like on bad drugs or something because they go what, how can that possibly be? Like, what is your problem? I can't wait to fry for Friday is how most people think, because Monday to Friday brings such pressures and challenges and stresses and so forth. And through my many years of experience, both in a corporate environment. And then since then training, coaching, and working with people that have workplace jobs, we I've come to realize that you are the solution don't look around. You don't expect the CEO and their executive team to come up with some magic solution. That'll create a culture shift. That'll make life wonderful around here, you're it. And you can do it. And that can help you do that through a combination of. Belief shifts from manager, thinking to leader, thinking, practicing some simple skills, seven of which are showcased in I Love Mondays. Which, produce six core competencies that will allow you to work more effectively with other people and have them say about you. I love working with you!
Rita Burke:Sounds to me as if you have a passion sounds to me as if you are in this world. For a purpose to make a dent in people's lives. Just speaking with you today, George has shifted me. I wouldn't say transformed but given me a sense of what your passion is and why you exist. And I thank you so very much for indulging us to the, by speaking with us about, I Love Mondays and I know that it will be successful. And that you will certainly have an impact on people's lives on leaders, lives on followers lives on influences lives, George. I, thank you so much!
George Anastasopoulos:Thank you so much for that and I appreciate the opportunity you and Elton have given me Elton thank you. Thank you to be here and to share some of my thoughts and to engage in this conversation with you. It's been such a pleasure and hopefully at some point we can do it again. Cause I look forward to that as well.
Elton Brown:Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to SpeakUP! To discover upcoming podcasts. Please go to www. dot Toastmasters 60 six zero dot come under news and events. Look for the District 60 newsletter to locate the schedule.