Leo & Randy On Conferences

Leo was recently asked to pinch hit as a keynote speaker at a conference in San Diego for a highly specialized audience.  Realizing his “power of peers” message had little to do with what the conference was all about, he understood it had everything to do with why they were there – to learn, connect and grow.  This inspired him to create a new keynote titled, Maximizing the Value of Your Conference Experience.  During our conversation today, we talk about how to tap into the greatest resource at these kind of events – your fellow attendees.

We also touch on the Washington Nationals sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals and the value of the special people who make a difference in our lives.

Useful links:

Leo’s updated speaking page is here

Keep up with Leo’s latest writings in CEO WORLD Magazine

Leo’s books – The Power of Peers and What Anyone Can Do

The Peer Advantage – Randy’s online/virtual peer advisory group for SMB owners (currently accepting applications)

Subscribe to the YouTube channel

Connect with Leo on Linkedin | Twitter | Instagram

Connect with Randy on Linkedin | Twitter | Instagram

Leo & Randy On Working Together

Today, Leo and Randy discuss working together. This conversation was prompted by Leo’s upcoming trip to Oslo, Norway where he’ll speak, then serve on a panel discussion at the Executive Growth Alliance.

Helpful links:

Chris Kutarna (one of the speakers at the Executive Growth Alliance and author of Age of Discovery )

William Ury’s TED Talk – The Walk From No To Yes

Craig Weber – author of Conversational Capacity: The Secret To Building Successful Teams That Perform When The Pressure Is On (and a new book, Influence In Action: How To Build Your Conversational Capacity, Do Meaningful Work, and Make A Powerful Difference)

Leo’s books – The Power of Peers and What Anyone Can Do

Leo’s speaking and workshops

The Peer Advantage – Randy’s SMB online peer advisory group*
*Currently accepting applications – apply today

Subscribe to the YouTube channel

Connect with Leo on Linkedin | Twitter | Instagram

Connect with Randy on Linkedin | Twitter | Instagram

Leo & Randy On CEOs and Peers

Leo wrote a piece for CEOWORLD Magazine titled, How Great CEOs Maximize Peer Relationships. Today, we talk about the natural progression of business relationships and how we engage with others: we connect, network, optimize and accelerate.

Whether we’re part of a team or a group, we can all learn how to take greater advantage of our opportunities with others. That’s the point of the work we do at Peernovation and it’s the point of this podcast – doing the things anyone can do, but the things most of us never will.

Leo will be keynoting in Oslo, Norway on August 28th at the 2019 Executive Growth Alliance Summit

Leo’s books – The Power of Peers and What Anyone Can Do

Leo’s speaking and workshops

The Peer Advantage – Randy’s SMB peer advisory group (ONLY TWO SPOTS LEFT)

Subscribe to the YouTube channel

Connect with Leo on Linkedin | Twitter | Instagram

Connect with Randy on Linkedin | Twitter | Instagram

Leo & Randy On Peernovation

On today’s show, we make a BIG announcement!

Leo is launching Peernovation, LLC. You can read the full press release here at Yahoo! Finance.

Peernovation will address two major challenges for companies today: 1) The lack of ROI for employee learning and development programs; and, 2) the problem of alignment and employee engagement when implementing strategic initiatives. Bottary, who will serve as managing partner, will be joined by peer advantage group facilitator and podcaster, Randy Cantrell.

And…

Peernovation will also assist organizations that assemble and facilitate peer groups for business leaders by helping members maximize their collaborative experiences to achieve more impactful outcomes.  Bottary added, “When business leaders participate in high performing peer groups, they tend to be more adept at understanding the power of peers and creating more collaborative environments at their companies.”

Leo’s books – The Power of Peers and What Anyone Can Do

Leo’s speaking and workshops

Randy’s small business owner peer advisory group, The Peer Advantage

Subscribe to the YouTube channel

Connect with Leo on Linkedin | Twitter

Connect with Randy on Linkedin | Twitter

Leo & Randy On Great Groups

Today’s show is a discussion on Leo’s latest CEOWORLD column, Ten Attributes of a Great CEO Peer Group. They are:

  1. Having the right people in the room 
  2. Being truly committed to their fellow members 
  3. “Leveraging” their safe environment
  4. Being prepared to play 
  5. Being relentlessly patient with asking questions 
  6. Bringing important topics to the conversation 
  7. Understanding how to get the most from the group
  8. Being willing to challenge one another from a place of caring
  9. Accepting personal responsibility for your role
  10. Outstanding leadership

Leo will be keynoting in Oslo, Norway on August 28th at the 2019 Executive Growth Alliance Summit

Leo’s books – The Power of Peers and What Anyone Can Do

Leo’s speaking and workshops

Randy’s small business owner peer advisory group, The Peer Advantage

Subscribe to the YouTube channel

Connect with Leo on Linkedin | Twitter

Connect with Randy on Linkedin | Twitter

Leo & Randy On Podcasting

Today’s show was prompted by Leo’s participation in the C-Suite Network Thought Summit in San Francisco. He was on a panel about podcasting. Today we extend the conversation here on the WHAT ANYONE CAN DO PODCAST and discuss a few questions about podcasting.

How should you start your own podcast?

What makes a perfect podcast?

Leave us a comment below on how we can improve this podcast. You can also use the Contact page or hit us up on social media.

If you want to connect with somebody who is a professional podcast coach, then let us introduce you to Dave Jackson, owner of the School of Podcasting. His site has tons of free resources and he even has a live YouTube streaming show most every Saturday morning where he’ll answer your podcast questions – Ask The Podcast Coach.

Here are the panelists who appeared with Leo at the C-Suite Network Thought Summit.  Check out their profiles and their podcasts:

Audrey Strong, Josh Felber, Joyce Cordi, Chickie Fitzgerald

Useful links related to today’s show:

What Anyone Can Do Podcast on C-Suite Network

The book: Power of Peers: How the Company You Keep Drives Leadership, Growth, and Success by Leon Shapiro and Leo Bottary

The book: What Anyone Can Do: How Surrounding Yourself with the Right People Will Drive Change, Opportunity, and Personal Growth by Leo Bottary

Subscribe to the YouTube channel

Connect with Leo on Linkedin | Twitter

Connect with Randy on Linkedin | Twitter

Rich Karlgaard On Late Bloomers

Our guest today is Rich Karlgaard, publisher and futurist for Forbes and author of a new book, Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement.

Are all high achievers early achievers?

Can mature individuals with life experience add value to a workplace?

Does personal and professional growth have an expiration date?

Helpful links from today’s show:

Buy the book: Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement by Rich Karlgaard

Connect with Rich via his website: RichKarlgaard.com

Jennifer Vessels On The Big Picture

Meet Jennifer Vessels, CEO of Next Step.  Her latest initiative, called Executive Growth Alliance (EGA), works to assemble and facilitate groups of peers who are part of a common ecosystem (transportation, health, etc.).  Jennifer’s proactive, systems thinking approach to future-readiness is among the topics of our conversation today!

For information about the Executive Growth Alliance Summit in Oslo (late August, 2019), you can contact Jennifer directly at jvessels@nextstepgrowth.com and 1 650 218 0902 or 47 90230982.

For additional  info: check out Leadership: Who You Surround Yourself With Matters at CEOWORLD

How Will Doing What Anyone Can Do Possibly Help Me?

Great question.  One I’ve been asked many times.

In Joe Henderson’s 1976 book The Long Run Solution, he suggested that becoming truly accomplished at running (or at anything, for that matter) doesn’t typically require us to perform superhuman feats. We don’t have to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Success doesn’t ask us to do what no one else can do.  All too often, success and happiness find those who have the discipline to do the everyday things, the things anyone can do that most of us never will.

To keep it in Joe Henderson terms, let’s say you want to run a marathon. Until the 1980s, and well before IRONMAN competitions and ultra-marathons were part of the public consciousness, marathon running was considered extreme. It wasn’t something most people would even attempt. Only a freak, or someone who lacked any other mode of transportation, would choose to run 26.2 miles. With the advent of Team in Training, which has raised more than $1 billion for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society since 1988, marathon training programs for the average person became more prevalent.

In 1994, Oprah Winfrey showed the world that if you surround yourself with the right people and follow a training program, you, too, could run a marathon. (She also lost seventy-two pounds). The real challenge, of course, is sticking to the strict regimen required to get you ready for race day. Those of you who have done it know that the race is the easy part, relative to what it takes to prepare for it—sixteen to twenty-four weeks (depending on the program) of the daily discipline to do what anyone can do on a given day.

The wonderful part is that when you do the things anyone can do every day for four to five months, you can accomplish something almost no one can do. That’s the magic. The task is no different, whether you want to be an artist, a scholar, or a business leader. The question is: Are you willing to do the things anyone can do on a daily basis to achieve what you want in life? Because most people aren’t willing, doing what anyone can do puts you a step ahead of the rest.

How Can We Do Things Anyone Can Do More Often?

Surround Ourselves With the Right People.

Wanting something is one thing. Being committed to doing what it takes to make it happen is quite another. Left to our own devices, we all too often don’t do the work—or we don’t do it over a sustained period of time. We might get off to a good start, but we eventually succumb to whatever rationale we can conjure that explains why we stopped.

Even the most disciplined among us can benefit from involving our friends, family members, and colleagues in helping us achieve our goals. While we all know that no successful person in the history of the world ever accomplished anything totally by him- or herself, we see self-help as by-your-self-help.  As a result, we view our goals as solitary pursuits, and we don’t do the things anyone can do nearly often enough. This is why we fall short.

One thing we can do is seek out people who can play a positive role in our success and enlist their support. When we invite others to be our partners in success, they tend to help us do all those things anyone can.  And when we do, we give ourselves the best chance to achieve our goals whatever they may be.  That’s why doing what anyone can do help you HUGE!

*Includes excerpts from the book, What Anyone Can Do: How Surrounding Yourself With the Right People Will Drive Change, Opportunity, and Personal Growth.

Leo’s Workshops in the UK

Leo stops down in Kenilworth, England, as he nears the end of a two-week swing leading workshops for Vistage Groups in the UK.  In this podcast, Randy talks with Leo about what he’s learned and explores the implications for building higher performing teams in our organizations.