5 Lessons to help you win in life and business with Brian Kavicky

Brian Kavicky [00:00:01]:

A goal is meant to say I am on track or I am off track because I can tell if I'm on the railroad track, but it is leading me to the destination or a path along the way. Because if you look at it as well, I'm off track on my goals, which means I'm failing. You don't ever correct to it and you throw the whole goal out based on that. And that's why it's not a mandate. The philosophy around this is that we measure inherently the gaps that we have as opposed to the gain.

Tiffany Sauder [00:00:32]:

I'm a small town kid born with a big city spirit. I choose to play a lot of.

Tiffany Sauder [00:00:36]:

Awesome roles in life.

Tiffany Sauder [00:00:37]:

Mom, wife, entrepreneur, CEO, board member, investor, and mentor. 17 years ago, I founded a marketing consultancy, and ever since, my husband, junior and I have been building our careers and our family on the exact same timeline. Yep, that means four kids, three businesses, two careers, all building towards one life we love. When I discovered I could purposefully embrace all of these ands in my life, it unlocked my world. And I want that for you, too. Im Tiffany Sauder and this is Scared Confident.

Tiffany Sauder [00:01:14]:

Im really excited about todays conversation. I have Brian Kovicki on the microphone with me, and if you were to stop me and ask me some of the most influential people in my life, that changed the trajectory of my business, my life, my understanding of the way the world works. Brian Kovicki would most certainly be on that list, for sure. He's been on the pod a couple of times, and every time he's here, these episodes do really, really well. And so over the last couple of months, I've been talking to him about being a more consistent voice on the podcast. And good news, he's agreed to be that. So I get a lot of questions about not just my life of and as it relates to, like, functionally, how do we do it, but the career circle inside of a life of and is a really big part of our lives. And there's leadership development, there's growth mindset.

Tiffany Sauder [00:02:09]:

There's like, how do you walk into the room and know that you can do and be the thing that you are supposed to do and be? And there's nobody who has had a more profound impact in my life in that circle. And so I'm excited to welcome Brian and have him be a more consistent voice on the show. So thanks for being here, Brian. I want to provide kind of a thoughtful backdrop to the seasons of Brian and I's relationship. We have worked together for 13 years and it's hard actually, I think to add value for that long into one person's life, like, just continue to grow with me, to grow with the business, to grow with the season of my relationship with the agency and the business and what that looks like. And so I see there's like three or four stages. I know exactly how long we've worked together because I was pregnant with Ainsley when we met, our second one, and she just turned 13 this week. So I was super pregnant.

Tiffany Sauder [00:03:08]:

I was really scared, but really couldn't say that out loud to anyone because I was supposed to know what I was doing, or I felt like I was supposed to know what I was doing. And you came in on a sales call and I was like, started out fairly guarded, as one does. I didn't know you from a hole in the wall. And my business was not even a million dollars in revenue. And the first time I'd had a baby, everything broke. I had to lay people off. It was the great recession, the financial recession. And so I had this connection in my head that when I have babies, my business breaks.

Tiffany Sauder [00:03:43]:

And there was this memory inside of my body that was being, I don't know, triggered. I hate that word. But pulled up in a way that it was just overwHelming. So that was really where our relationship started, and you called it. Do you remember what you said to me?

Brian Kavicky [00:04:02]:

I heard all the associations going on in your head of, this is what happened last time. This is WhAt happened this time. This is what I'm starting to think about. But it was. I am worried that if I take time off, if I spend time on this child, that as I walk away from the business, the business is going to flop because I am so needed here. And that was the thing you were worried about, was you were so integral and if you were out of it, but it wasn't really that. It was. The business wasn't performing, and that if you stepped away, you knew that it would get worse.

Tiffany Sauder [00:04:40]:

Yeah, totally. But I couldn't say that out loud.

Brian Kavicky [00:04:44]:

It's about the baby.

Tiffany Sauder [00:04:45]:

Yeah, totally. So that was really when we met, when we started working together. And I was like, if you're so good, fix this pile of crap, in so many words, like, you know, you've met your match, because this feels like a big mess to me and I don't know what to do. So that was like season one. Then we got through that season, and we really fixed the growth problem that we had, and I really learned how to sell. We started to get a ton of velocity in the business, and that was like, season two was, holy crap. The top line is growing like crazy. But what started to happen is I didn't have the maturity or sophistication to understand how the business needed to be built underneath it.

Tiffany Sauder [00:05:25]:

And so Tiffany, the rock star showed up. I overindexed on my confidence and my ego, and we grew and tripped through that season of life.

Brian Kavicky [00:05:35]:

Yes. There was even a moment where you said, we know how to grow so well that if I lose clients, it's okay.

Tiffany Sauder [00:05:43]:

Yeah, and we'll talk a little later. That was a tragic flaw. But we did fix the growth problem, and we started to figure that out. I started to be like, okay, yes, I know how to sell, but what if I don't want to do this and be this exact thing for the rest of my life? How do I build the business, get the leadership team around me, get the organization to be in a sales mindset, not because we're trying to take things that don't matter to the marketplace, but because we want to help in a genuine, thoughtful, and growth filled way. So how do we do that? Well, and so then it was about really taking, I feel like, what I had learned and you helping me pull it all the way into the organization so that I have the opportunity to be and do what my life looks like now, which is, yes, element three is a part of the pie, but my life of and has a lot of different projects and things in it, including this podcast investment in other businesses that you also support and work with. And so it's allowed me to take what I know across a much bigger denominator of things, to be able to expand my impact, my growth, my abilities, and that journey that I've been on from, like this kind of more like a little chicken, you know, this little chick that was like, wanting to grow into something big, but I didn't know how to do it. And you've been a really important partner in that journey. So.

Tiffany Sauder [00:07:07]:

So what I thought we would do together in this first episode, I think the subsequent episodes will most likely be really fueled from audience questions, things I already have in queue, but I thought I'd start with my own kind of lessons and journey with you. And I pulled out five, I'm saying, lessons that have helped me win at business and in life, five lessons that have helped me win in my life of and and we'll kind of pick through what was the vignette in my own life that was going on in that season. And then maybe you can add some just broader perspective because you work with I mean, how many businesses have you worked with over your 25 years of doing this? Hundreds.

Brian Kavicky [00:07:45]:

Yes.

Tiffany Sauder [00:07:46]:

And I think what's unique about you is that you over index actually on female CEO's and entrepreneurs. Why do you think that is? And what about what percentage of your business is women?

Brian Kavicky [00:07:57]:

It's probably 70% of the CEO's are women. I have no idea. It was never intentional. It kind of just happened. But I don't know. I've asked the question several times and I haven't gotten great answers. But I think it's the. You understand, you listen, you hear, you don't make me feel dumb.

Brian Kavicky [00:08:18]:

I think those are critical things. And I think people are looking for mentors and somebody that's going to give them the wisdom but not leverage that wisdom in any way. And I don't leverage it.

Tiffany Sauder [00:08:29]:

What does that mean to leverage it?

Brian Kavicky [00:08:31]:

One of the motivators people have, like, if you think about ego things, your ego says, I want to achieve something. I am going to achieve that thing because I am the main ingredient. And so when you seek out a mentor, sometimes that mentor says, I want to be the one to take credit for your success, which means I'm going to leverage my wisdom for what your success is. I want something out of that.

Tiffany Sauder [00:08:57]:

I think that's true. I also think that there's this, I don't know this particular being female, but there is this expectation that I feel like you had of me that made me stand up straighter in my chair of like. Yeah, that's right. Like your image of what I could achieve and what I could do and my potential in seasons was like, even more than I could see. And that I feel like drew me towards where I was going, like, even faster. I don't know. I don't know if you hear that as well, but I think that's true for me.

Brian Kavicky [00:09:29]:

Yes. And I think it comes from my belief. If you look in history and you go back in historical and major historical events, there were always women who were significant in those events. And I think when you look at the world, whether it's the glass ceiling or somebody saying, you shouldn't be doing this, it's all this idea of, let's suppress this because the capability and the ability is so high, because the emotional intelligence there, the. I can understand people. I'm doing things for the right reasons. Those types of things propel women.

Tiffany Sauder [00:10:05]:

You know what story just came to me when you were saying that is, I don't always say your name when I attribute the story, but when I had again, just after I had Ainsley and I was coming back to work and I was going to training at your office every single week at butt crack zero four in the morning as it is. And I was saying, I feel so guilty about being a working mom. And I think it was you that asked me, do you really feel guilty? This, like, potential of, like, you talk about this, seeing this potential and capacity in women and, like, calling out that emotion. Cause I know that a lot of women you work with are all working moms. And so they kind of walk this tightrope of like, where is the line right now in the season of life for my family, about what percentage of my time is mom time? What percentage of my time is working mom time? What percentage of time is, like, I just gotta go pursue these goals right now because it's in the best interest of me and my family. But that means making some real sacrifices. How do you think about coach women through that? Cause I'm sure that is on the docket a lot.

Brian Kavicky [00:11:09]:

It's that they realize that it all has to work together. And even when you're setting goals and objectives, and this is what the business needs to do, it's through that lens of, this is what it needs to allow me to do with my family. When we're going through a goal and we're saying, okay, let's set ten or less goals for this year. It's things like, we have dinner together every night that I'm able to go to every event my kids have. My revenue needs to be up by this much, and my people need to be running this so I can escape. But those are the important things. It's how do we align it all versus. It's a sacrifice mindset, which is something has to fall instead of nothing has to fall.

Brian Kavicky [00:11:50]:

We just need to construct the world to what you need it to be.

Tiffany Sauder [00:11:54]:

I think the genesis of the life of ant actually came from me being around that mindset for so long, because it is true. So many times when you look at what you want, you first go to something you love that I'm like, I'm gonna have to give this up to go get that. And you would always say, why? Why do you have to give that up? That might be the first thing that you've identified that you could solve it with, but you like that. Why would you give that up? That's, like, silly. And I would be like, oh, shoot, you're right. And just forcing you back to be like, how do I make both true in my life? How do I grow the business 50% and make sure that I'm home for every single kids event. And I think you're. You're just, like, commit.

Tiffany Sauder [00:12:34]:

That is just the way you see the world. You never have to remind yourself to think like that.

Brian Kavicky [00:12:38]:

That's not totally true.

Tiffany Sauder [00:12:39]:

It's not. Okay.

Brian Kavicky [00:12:40]:

No, no. I think everybody go. When you're in it, in life, you don't see what's in front of you sometimes, and I will find myself guilty of certain things where you go, I'm doing the same thing that everybody else is, because you do recognize it, but you don't always see, oh, this is that I have this habit that is not helping me in this direction, or I have this priority that isn't really a priority that I'm allowing to take over. Yeah. I am not perfect.

Tiffany Sauder [00:13:10]:

You're not perfect. Def lot on that. Okay, so let's move into these five life lessons that I've learned. This is just the way my brain works. It, like, synthesizes things into groupings. So the first one I wrote down is, if it's all your fault, then you can fix it.

Brian Kavicky [00:13:26]:

Yes.

Tiffany Sauder [00:13:27]:

You want to talk about what that is? And then I can say that the life lesson is, if it's all your fault, then you can fix it.

Brian Kavicky [00:13:32]:

So it's first taking the responsibility that it is your fault. And responsibility is, everything that is good is my fault. Everything is bad is my fault, and they're equally mine because you can't have one without the other. You can't say, oh, only the good stuff. I should take credit for the bad stuffs, not me. That's an excuse maker. So, then, if you follow the rule in your head of the business is performing consistent with how I've designed it, then you can say, well, I made a mistake in my design, or, I did the wrong things to this. But if you did, that means you can fix it.

Brian Kavicky [00:14:08]:

So it's very easy to fix the problem. And I think people get discouraged that if they think, oh, my gosh, this broke. This is not good. This is what. I lost a customer. This happened. I lost a key employee. Well, something that you did caused that to happen or didn't allow for the emergency of.

Brian Kavicky [00:14:28]:

Well, we didn't have the fire trucks rolling, ready to go when that happened, and it's right there in front of you of, oh, it's a simple fix. You're good to go, but you can't see it, especially when you're in it.

Tiffany Sauder [00:14:40]:

Mm hmm. So, my vignette of this is when we were in the recession of 0809. And I had had my first daughter in January of that year of 2009. That December, the year before, was our best month ever. And I was like, oh, my word. We totally have it figured out. And then all this stuff happened with the financial crisis, Lehman brothers, all the stuff. And I was five years into the journey.

Tiffany Sauder [00:15:04]:

We had $0.05 in the bank, and I, five clients. It was just a very fragile time in my life. Personally, I felt very vulnerable, and, like, having your first kid and all the changes you're going through that you just don't know what to do. And so, personally, I felt like, oh, my gosh, my life has just been, like, thrown up in the air, and all the pieces are all over the place. And then professionally, I was still so early in the journey, and I was like, you read the news, and it's like, hey, the financial crisis happened. And I was like, that is what caused my business to have a terrible year in 2009. And then we spent the next several years paying back, you know, the people that we owed money to. And just the shit show that we'd made, I had made for us in my lack of decisions early in that season of life.

Tiffany Sauder [00:15:55]:

And you said to me, you know, that's all your fault. And I was so mad that you said that to me, and I was like, what do you mean? Look, do you not see the headlines? Do you not see everything that's happening in our economy? This is, like, once in a lifetime financial event. What do you mean it's my fault? And it was true that there was an outside force that had disrupted my plan. But what I couldn't admit to myself at the time is I didn't have a plan for what to do if my plan wasn't the only plan. And I remember you saying to me, like, growth is not possible. Like, there's no way that we can. You're like, well, somebody spends money in every economy, and so your job is to figure out where that is, who's doing well in this new environment, and who's going to need marketing support as a result. It might not be your current clients.

Tiffany Sauder [00:16:45]:

It might not be who's in your field of play right now, but if you're fast and smart and strategic and focused, you can still get towards your goals instead, I, like, I kind of shut down. I went underground mentally because I didn't know what to do, and I was super afraid. And that became such an important training ground and lesson going into Covid, which we navigated a few years ago, because we were like a frickin stealth bomber. Like, we knew exactly what to do. But it probably took me three or four years to really be able to get all the lessons I needed to from the financial crisis of 0809.

Brian Kavicky [00:17:24]:

I was actually thinking about that timeframe. So the way that you'd structured your business at that time is that you were heavily reliant on other people who had more experience than you did. And because of that, it was very difficult for you to see that those people who were subject matter experts were not business experts and that you were left with those decisions on your own. Because if I have this great person who is going to make sure that the account is going well and that this relationship is going well and all that stuff, then I don't have to mess with that. But this was a different problem for you. And what you, I think you actually learned is, I have to fix this. I have to get in front of this. I can't rely on other people to do this.

Brian Kavicky [00:18:11]:

And you figured out that that was the, oh, I'm finally an entrepreneur, because I'm going to figure out what I need to do. And that period of time led to those significant changes where you said, I need a way to track marketing results and to use data so that our customers aren't always asking if it works. And then you went down that path because you were in figure it out mode, as opposed to looking at everybody going, just tell me what to do, and just being a part of the business. And then the 2020 thing. I remember that day I came in here for something else, and you're like, what do you think of all this Covid stuff? This is gonna be bad. This is gonna be bad. I was like, nah, it's fine. I mean, it was bad, but as far as the business, it was, nope, you're fine.

Brian Kavicky [00:18:58]:

People will need this more. You're good.

Tiffany Sauder [00:19:00]:

Yeah. And we did need to adjust, but we ended up. Yeah. Accelerating through. Covid. We were such a better company. 18 months after it kind of all passed. We made decisions quickly, assertively.

Tiffany Sauder [00:19:12]:

We were on top of communication with our people and our clients. Like, the posture of it all was so different, and I felt like it was, yeah, my redemption round. And you're exactly right. I was like, oh, this is the moment where I lead. This is the moment where I decide. I get intelligence, but I am driving what's happening, and I'm on top of it. You're exactly right.

Brian Kavicky [00:19:34]:

And everybody followed. Yeah.

Tiffany Sauder [00:19:36]:

Yeah. So that's lesson number one. If it's all your fault. Then you can fix it. The second one I wrote, and you can see, you can tell me what words you would use for this, but my summary of it was, goals are guides, not mandates. What phrase would you use for this? And I can.

Brian Kavicky [00:19:53]:

So if you take that of goals are guides, not mandates. Think of it as a railroad track. You see the railroad track and you say, okay, I can tell if a train is on the track or off the track, but the railroad track is not the destination. It is the path to something. So if you think in terms of goals, the goal is meant to say, I am on track or I am off track, because I can tell if I'm on the railroad track, but it is leading me to the destination or a path along the way. Cause if you look at it as well, I'm off track on my goals, which means I'm failing. You don't ever correct to it, and you throw the whole goal out based on that. And that's why it's not a mandate.

Brian Kavicky [00:20:36]:

The philosophy around this is that we measure inherently the gaps that we have as opposed to the gain. So we look at something and we say, okay, here's the goal that I set out to have. I fell short. Well, a lot of times, that's a timing issue. Like, if you gave it two more months, you would have hit it. And if you throw it all out and say, well, I didn't hit it, that means I failed. You don't recognize your progress. You don't recognize where you could be, and you miss out on the whole benefit of why you set the goal.

Tiffany Sauder [00:21:07]:

So I struggled mightily with this idea of goals, which I think is surprising, probably to people, because I'm very achievement oriented, and I like to see things move forward. But when we were figuring out things, like, very rudimentary sales stuff of, like, what's my sales cookbook? And how many calls do I need to make and how many meetings do I need to have in a month? I would sort of yell at you, like, how do you know? Like, what do you mean seven? Where it's like, how much are we gonna grow next year? I would, like, collaborate with you on that because you would help lead my thinking, and you'd be like, I think you can get another $1.2 million. And I'm like, how do you know that? And then, because I was so fixated on it being perfectly that, and you walked me through just exactly what you said, which was like, let's say you do all the behavior towards $1.2 million, and you get 1,000,050. Directionally, it's putting. I felt like it was almost like an intensity monitor on the train. I'll just stay with your analogy of, like, if the train is moving on the tracks. The goal was like an intensity monitor. If we were going to try to quadruple the company, then the intensity monitor was going to have to be different.

Tiffany Sauder [00:22:14]:

So, no, we didn't know exactly if the rpm was perfectly calibrated, but we at least knew directionally, that's where we were headed. And if we got closer, then that was expedient to the destination. That was the point. And that mindset for me was very disruptive, actually, because I felt like I didn't win if I didn't stick the landing. And I've started to see, like, even silly things like losing weight. I don't actually get to decide how quickly my body loses weight, even though it is, in fact, me.

Brian Kavicky [00:22:48]:

Right.

Tiffany Sauder [00:22:49]:

But you can put behaviors in place and you can put a goal of, like, I want to lose four pounds in a month. Well, that's going to put an intensity monitor on your behavior. And it might be 3.25 pounds, it might be 5.1, but again, you're directionally closer to where you want it to be. And that was a great release for me. I think there can be, like, I can get obsessive in my head and almost like, this weird perfectionist mindset that just doesn't serve the broader picture when I get like that. And this, this idea of, like, goal is a guide. It's a train track. It's moving you towards where you're going.

Tiffany Sauder [00:23:26]:

And it might get messed up by a surprise boulder or a surprise event. And it's like, that's okay. Just keep the train moving in that direction.

Brian Kavicky [00:23:35]:

You think of your reaction, of how do you know? And being angry about that. That actually comes from a place of arrogance. The whole.

Tiffany Sauder [00:23:45]:

Thank you.

Brian Kavicky [00:23:46]:

Well, but that's the stage that you were in.

Tiffany Sauder [00:23:49]:

Yeah.

Brian Kavicky [00:23:49]:

Tell me, is that people go, I want a perfect plan. And then they sit down and make this plan, and they don't do anything on the plan until they go, oh, this is right. This is right. This is right. Well, that arrogance of I'm gonna make a plan that is going to work is a little bit ridiculous. The whole point of all that was get moving in the direction and say, this is where we want to go. This is where we see it. This is the intensity that we're going to take, but let's get moving, as opposed to that freeze of, I got to get everything right before I start because you don't know what's going to happen.

Brian Kavicky [00:24:24]:

You don't know how to adjust. You don't know what's right or wrong until you get moving, get the momentum going.

Tiffany Sauder [00:24:30]:

Well, the other question you would ask me, I'm going back to this visual cookbook of like this. So many calls that we're going to do, you would be like, can you make that happen? It was this capacity question of like, even if it took 400 in person meetings to get the goal, that's not practical. So you'd be like, you think you can do that? Can you stick the landing on the behavior that you've committed to, which, again, I think is an important ingredient to any area of our life? Like, can you do the thing? Hey there, podcast listeners. It is no exaggeration to say that the work my companies and I have done with Brian and his team at Lucien have been absolutely game changing. I would not be where I am today without their experience and guidance. If you're struggling to grow your business, your profits, or grow your people, or maybe your business is growing, but it just isn't getting you personally to where you want to be. You have got to schedule time. Give Brian 1 hour of your life and I promise that you will see the way forward a little bit more clearly.

Tiffany Sauder [00:25:30]:

If you're interested in scheduling, there's a link in show notes. I promise it will help. Now back to the show. Okay, number three, your mindset determines your outcomes.

Brian Kavicky [00:25:44]:

So I think everyone views their life through a filter, and your filter is, what was your background? What was your story? What have you gone through in life? And you see the world as you are, not the way the world is. And what happens is with that filter is you start to try to make everything fit into the filter of how you want to see things. And that mindset is going to drive where your actions, your behaviors, your objectives are. And one of the biggest things is in people's language, if somebody says, well, that's impossible, they're not thinking about how to make it possible. If they're saying you can't do that, they're not thinking about how you can. They shut down their brains. And so if your mindset is aligned to the right things, you start to notice and see and perceive some possibility where you might have not seen it before.

Tiffany Sauder [00:26:40]:

I feel like you would ask me the question, well, how could you just take constraints off from, and how could you if. And then you would be like, well, just go do that. But changing the question was a really big part of seeing the world in the abundant way. And I think I remember just in the, just the growth process of element three being like, I need $10 million of revenue, I need $3 million of new business this year, I need. And just believing it was out there was an important beginning to the like behavior that was going to be required to do that. And even things like where were mindsets in your journey of working with me were you saw things move to a more abundant versus scarcity place.

Brian Kavicky [00:27:29]:

I think the biggest area was in how you leveraged your time. When we started focusing on where you, like, you talk about the cookbook, was, you have the capacity for this to do the time. Because if somebody said, well, I want you to make 25 calls to CEO's of companies that are your targets, do you have time to do that? And you're like, no. Well, if I told you it'd take you 30 minutes, could you do it? Oh, yeah. I didn't know that. So it was putting some things in your head of this is what it actually is, instead of this, I can't do that or it's too much, or any of those. So that time, focus and understanding how to leverage time was one. I think the biggest was people who built this company around people.

Brian Kavicky [00:28:14]:

And there were times where you'd say, well, I need volume of people, as opposed to good people. Well, that's an abundance thing of that there are good people out there, that there are strong people, that there are capable people, and I don't need to say there's not, which means I need bodies instead. That was a big shift for you.

Tiffany Sauder [00:28:34]:

The other thing I was thinking of as you were talking is there was a season where it was important to me that I was important to the business. And that was a mindset shift that had to happen before my behavior was going to follow. Meaning, what does it look like for my life if I'm not important to the business? And what does it look like for the business if I'm not important to the business?

Brian Kavicky [00:28:57]:

But what have you learned now?

Tiffany Sauder [00:28:59]:

They're so much better without me.

Brian Kavicky [00:29:01]:

I'm teasing. That is not true. Yeah, I think if you ask them, how important is Tiffany to the business today, they would say more than ever, but it's a different importance than what you thought it was. Like. They're pulling you in significant moments because they need that. But you're not driving some of the things you used to drive before they are.

Tiffany Sauder [00:29:25]:

Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think I started to see, my superpower was when I started to see, my superpower is not going into a client room and giving a ten out of ten presentation and experiencing this shared adrenaline moment of like, holy crap, we just did it. We wowed them. We got the signature. They're so excited. Like, I am very good at that. But there's other people who can do that. My real superpower is creating opportunity for superstars and finding people who have enormous potential.

Tiffany Sauder [00:30:04]:

And all they need is the opportunity to practice that in a way that they believe they're safe. Like, I'm gonna let you try and experiment and grow. Cause I know you're good, and I know you're gonna get there and give them the space to be able to do that. And then they, like, go on and do amazing things. And when I started to see, that's my superpower, I'm an exponent to things, I was more comfortable being on the sidelines in the day to day business because I started to see, like, oh, that's my actual gifting. And sometimes that means I'm going to be hearkened and pulled into things, and two hands are not on the steering wheel every second of the day. And I had to detach from what was my original rockstar moments and be kind of lost for a little bit to be able to have the perspective of how do I really add value in a way that is super. Maybe this is still ego filled, but just, like, purposeful.

Tiffany Sauder [00:31:02]:

I want to have purpose. It's not about how does my ego get fulfilled, but it's like, I want to know that my life is impactful, and significance is a huge part of what drives me, and I want to be significant to people. And allowing myself to feel pretty untethered for a while helped me see it differently. Okay, so, number four, your success and dysfunction in life follows you. And maybe this is the same as the first one, which is like, the things that you're winning at are yours as much as the things that you're losing out. But you were with me in that season of life in 2018 period where everything in my life broke at the same time. And you were like, yep, I knew this had to happen. I've been watching the Jenga tower be built, and at some point, I knew this was going to come down, but you had to let it happen in a lot of ways, because I needed to learn.

Tiffany Sauder [00:32:00]:

I'm putting words in your mouth. But the fact that it came was not a surprise to you. It was to me. What did you see playing out? And maybe I'm mischaracterizing this a little bit, but the places where I had faulty, I'll call it like, ideologies or faulty ways that I believe the world worked, they played out across every area of my life. It wasn't just professional.

Brian Kavicky [00:32:24]:

Yes. At the core is you didn't want to see it. And I think that comes from the everything is going well. Like, when things are going well, we don't look for what's not going well. We want to ride the wave of wow. Cause think of all the cycles you've been through of things that didn't go well. You're finally doing well, you're finally being recognized, you have great things happening, and you're not going okay. Where does this all fall apart? Especially when you're looking through your life from a positive mindset of, hey, this is I finally doing something, things are coming together.

Brian Kavicky [00:33:00]:

And the only real issue that made it difficult to navigate is that you took credit for it all. And you said, well, this is me, and I'm doing this. And that's where the strong people around you started to look at you and said, no, what about me and what we're doing and all those things? And that's where stuff starts to crash, is that they became invisible.

Tiffany Sauder [00:33:26]:

Where do you think that came from? Cause you've known me for a long time. It's not really who I am. Why was that? I don't know, like a shield I needed to wear.

Brian Kavicky [00:33:35]:

I think you're very good at studying people and figuring out people, and you see role models and success, and you see these things and you say, I'm supposed to be like that. And to a degree, I think you lost part of your identity because you didn't go, well, I don't have to be anything like that, and I can still be who I am, and that means I'll have greater success. I think that's the trap that you fell into, is I'm supposed to look like this. I'm supposed to be like this. These are the things that are supposed to happen, and you just fell into that. And a lot of people do. It's the recognition, it's the reward, it's the kudos and your personality. If somebody says, you did a great job, you're like, yes, I did.

Brian Kavicky [00:34:19]:

It's finally happening, and you just fell into that trap. But we have to have the struggles to know how to make the achievements, and we have to have the failures to know what not failing looks like. So, yeah, you did need it, but there was no purposeful withholding of, let's cause this failure. It was, hey, it finally broke. There you go.

Tiffany Sauder [00:34:46]:

Which is helpful, actually, when you like, I think you have this way of looking at things as not catastrophic. Like when it's. And I guess when it's not you, it's maybe easier, but it's like those things felt. Yeah, catastrophic. And you were like, well, let's look at it. You've got some new choices to make, and you probably need to make some different decisions. But this isn't catastrophic.

Brian Kavicky [00:35:07]:

I think it's even more than that. It's not only not catastrophic, look back at how much stronger other things are because those things happen. So the only reason that I go, yeah, this isn't that bad, is because I've seen the other side of those things to go, oh, it's going to be fine. It's going to be so much better because this happened. If all you see is, oh, my gosh, this is terrible. And you never look at what's at the other end of the tunnel. Yeah, you're going to feel like it's catastrophic.

Tiffany Sauder [00:35:39]:

Okay, last one, which I think is like a first cousin of what we were just talking about. But if everything is a big deal, nothing ever becomes a big deal.

Brian Kavicky [00:35:47]:

I think we overreact to things that trigger us emotionally. So a customer calls you up and says, hey, we need to have a meeting. We've got some serious things to talk about. And you freak out and you overreact to that instead of going, I wonder what this is about. And what happens when you overreact or make all the insignificant things more significant that they are, or vice versa, is you never really focus on what's important. And part of that is not having a rudder at all to go. This is what matters. And you don't have your priorities order, you don't have your boundaries set, so everything becomes a big issue, or you're immune and numb.

Tiffany Sauder [00:36:31]:

So the other place that I think this has come up in our conversations is there's times when, let's say you have an employee and I don't know, let's say you're, I don't know, in a client presentation, and the place, like, says something, you're like, that feels a little off and you're like, I don't know, just like, kind of ignore it. And like, these little things that suddenly escalate to become this really big issue. I'm not even thinking of anything specifically right now, but you've taught me that if you make a really big deal out of that first time that you hear something that's a little bit weird, it will never escalate to become this great big thing that gets out of hand because you made a really big deal. Like meaning like, hey, I want to connect on this. Can you tell me exactly what you meant? Can we get aligned on your reaction there? Because I want to make sure that we're on the same page. And an overreaction I'm kind of using in quotes to what seemed like a little bit mundane keeps a really big thing from happening. Like you're not super far apart even in your like marriage and stuff. Like, hey, your reaction to that was really different than I was expecting.

Tiffany Sauder [00:37:34]:

Can we chat about that for a second instead of letting 5678 times go by and it becomes this really, really big deal? I feel like you've taught me that even with clients, like I want to follow the daylight. I am energized by positive things in life. I want to win. I want things to be happy. I want people to be at parties. That's the sandbox I want to play in full time. So the idea of pulling issues proactively to the surface of the water was a learned behavior for me. If it's a roaring lion, I will deal with it.

Tiffany Sauder [00:38:09]:

But other than that, I'm just going to assume things are good. I wrote down, like you said, your job as a leader is to find problems. I want there to be a day where suddenly I am like frolicking through a field of daisies. That is what I'm working towards. And you were like, oh my gosh, that day does not exist. If you want to be a leader, because leaders job is to find, manage, solve, get ahead of problems. That's your job. That does not mean that it can't be fun, but find courage in your foresight, in your wisdom and your pattern recognition, in your ability to solve because your job is to solve problems.

Tiffany Sauder [00:38:47]:

It is other people's jobs to like hang the banners, so to speak.

Brian Kavicky [00:38:52]:

That's a pretty big shift. And I think we talked about mindset. The mindset of not accepting mediocrity is what leads you to that. When you decide we're going to have high quality conversations with customers, we're not going to make these silly mistakes of saying the wrong thing in meetings, we're going to make this a big deal because we're going to raise the floor of our expectations in order to raise the bar of the experience that people have. That's what leads to that. But the behavior change that you had to go through and all of that was accepting that it was okay for you to go. I'm going to raise the standard and expect more out of people than what they might be delivering today. That's a big shift for you, totally.

Tiffany Sauder [00:39:41]:

And culturally, getting people warmed up to like, this is the way that we're going to behave. Like it's going to be quick, constant feedback. That was a big cultural shift because early 1.0 Tiffany was waiting for formal one to ones and these big dumps and elaborate presentations of, so to speak, of issues and resolution instead of just this really quick. No, this is the way that we're going to spin this plate and we're going to just interrogate things a lot more quickly. And getting comfortable with my high quick start in that environment was a real shift for my leadership and I think a big pivot in our company and how we just started to get everybody involved in the work that you were doing with me, and I started to become more cultural, for sure. So. Okay, any parting thoughts? Brian, as we wrap up these five things, I'm gonna recap them real quick and then you can be thinking about if there's any closing thoughts, okay. If not, it'll be awkward.

Tiffany Sauder [00:40:38]:

Okay. Number one is if it's all your fault, then you can fix it. Number two is goals are guides, not mandates. Number three that we talked about was your mindset determines your outcomes. Number four, your success and dysfunction in life follows you. And number five, if everything is a big deal, then nothing ever becomes a big deal.

Brian Kavicky [00:40:58]:

If you look at all these collectively, they're all about responsibility and stuff that goes wrong. And I think we do as leaders, is we see the world around us having struggles and all these things, and we go, I don't know what to do. I don't know how to do it. I don't know how to fix it. It. And we avoid it or we get really insecure and we start entering command and control mode. And right there in front of you is this is how to address it. This is the little thing that you do.

Brian Kavicky [00:41:30]:

This is the small move you make and all those things that this whole idea of everything's my fault is not a big thing. It's a small thing to accept to go, okay, then I can fix it. There's a positive to that side of, and I think we look at one side of the coin and not the other to go, okay, if things are bad or things are rough or things are tough, that there is a good side that I'm going to get to this, and it's not that far away from where I am today. And we don't have to feel that overwhelmed.

Tiffany Sauder [00:41:59]:

Well, if you are at a place in your business where you are struggling with your profits, with growth, you're struggling to get your people clipped into your vision, or your business is growing, but you personally are like stuck in a life that you are not loving, I would encourage you to give Brian a call, schedule an hour with him. This is the types of things that he has helped me unstick in my own life. My claim of a life of and is due in no small part to the work that you have done with me over the years, Brian. So thank you for the gift of the life that I get to live. Our relationship and just the way that you've poured into the things and people that I care about is a real gift in my life. So thanks for being on the podcast today. And Brian's going to be dropping episodes with me monthly and we're going to be answering your questions. I've got a queue of them, but if there's things that you want Brian to talk about in the next episode, send them to me in my DM's on Instagram or you can email tiffanyiffaniesouder.com and we will do our best to cover those.

Tiffany Sauder [00:43:01]:

So thanks, Brian, for being on.

Tiffany Sauder [00:43:05]:

Thank you for joining me on another episode of Scared Confident. Until next time, keep telling fear. You will not decide what happens in my life.

Tiffany Sauder [00:43:14]:

I will.