In this vision-clearing episode, Jim Ballidis, author of Vision Maker: Three Weeks to Creating a Powerful Directive That Will Inspire Your Team and Ignite Your Business shares his expertise and advises his clients on clarifying their vision to take their game to the next level.
You will discover:
– Three simple steps to creating a magnetic vision for your organization (not matter what industry you’re in)
– The dramatic difference between vision and goals
– How to identify and disarm the vision killer(s) in your life
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello, and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast. And I am here with yet another high demand coach. And that is the one the only Jim Ballidis. Now, he is a best selling author, author. He’s a lawyer and an entrepreneur all in one. There’s very few people who can say they’ve done all three of those things. And Dunham as well, as Jim has. He also mentors and CEOs and business leaders at Pinnacle Global Network, an organization that helps CEOs who are stuck at seven figures, and he’s helped over 100 CEOs find their vision, scale their business, and double and even triple their revenue, while highlighting their inspiration to excel in reengaging to build multimillion dollar companies. So with his unique blend of business expertise, he can guide his clients to identify what’s killing their vision, and help them find their zone of genius. Well, Jim, I’m so excited about this conversation. Can’t wait to dive in here. I’m just wondering, add a little color to the story. How do you move from being you know, lawyer, entrepreneur, author to stepping into the role you’re now in mentoring other CEOs and business leaders.
Jim Ballidis
Completely by accident, and to be honest with you. So my wife said Visionaire by she just really is good at I’m excellent at implementation. I’m an implementer. I’m very, very good. It’s my superpower. If you look, give me a problem, I can solve it. It’s there’s a difficulty though there’s a disconnect between the visionary and the implementer. Or many of us as CEOs or as entrepreneurs, we deal with that where we can’t get anybody to hear us, or to do what we’re asking them to do. And we get a lot of pushback. What I found out was I was vision killing, I was vision killing her did what she wanted to do, she wanted to serve a million and a half babies, my advice wasn’t bad advice. It just was untimely. It wasn’t the time for it. And so I went on this quest to solve this problem for myself. And as I did, I started to see remarkable results. That led me into sharing it with other CEOs. Pretty soon people were saying, Well, you shouldn’t do this, you know, are CEOs and that I did that for five years. Now, I haven’t been pressing it in this book, The Vision maker. So clearly was not on my radar, seven, eight years ago.
Scott Ritzheimer
Well, so you mentioned it here. And I’d love to just hear a little bit more about it. But you’ve got a book out now. It’s just came out in February. And it’s called Vision maker three weeks to creating a powerful directive that will inspire your team and ignite your business. So get what’s the big idea in the book? What are you hoping that readers will get out of it?
Jim Ballidis
Three things that I think are crucial to how often do we create a vision nowadays, that we put it in the drawer someplace? We don’t feel connected to it. What I have CEOs oftentimes say, Well, I have a vision and I say, Well, what is it and they give me a whole bunch of words that have no heart to it. They’re not connected to it. If I ask their employees, they have no clue. Or they have a general vague idea. Or it’s a social cause they don’t believe it. And so what we really want to do is we want to become very, very honed in on making a compelling vision. One that attracts people act like a magnet pulls us along, pulls our clients along, and then gets people even they don’t do business with us to refer to us. employees want to work with us. And so we’re no longer having to deal with employee problems. These are the features of the book, and I give it in three simple steps. First, a vision has to be bigger than you. If it’s only about you, nobody else cares. It’s got to be bigger than Well, I want to make a million bucks, or my guess is 10 million. Now that’s the new number, right? Or I want to do this, you know, our I want to I want to serve my client, well, that’s about you doing something for your client, while the client may benefit for it. It’s not really like a big vision. The second is, and this is the key component that we miss in our society right now. Collaboration, not collaboration, how to do it, but on collaboration on what that vision is in the first place. We enroll people, when we collaborate, they get excited about it, and they start owning it themselves. That’s crucial. And then third is to express it out to the world consistently in an ongoing fashion.
Scott Ritzheimer
It’s fantastic. So we’ll make sure folks know how to get a copy of it here toward the end of the show. But I want to dive into this a little bit. And first off, you talked about used to be a million dollars nuts, $10 million, whatever that number is there tends to be this kind of arbitrary line that each entrepreneur has that if I can get to that line, I will be successful, my business will be okay. I’ll be happy that there’s some kind of and tell me if your experience differs, but I found that most folks once they get there, there’s the the elite Should have having accomplished it. And it doesn’t last long, and they find out that businesses get bigger, they don’t really get better. So what is it? How is it that vision can carry us through that challenge of what ended up becoming false finish lines?
Jim Ballidis
That’s a great question. It is the fundamental difference between a goal and I achieved a goal and a vision where I feel like I’m really doing something with purpose. So we can set a goal, I want to make that $10 million, I want to have a company when it’s 600 employees, I want to have, you know, whatever your number is, and you achieve that goal. And you Okay, now, we have a vision of something that you really want to accomplish in your life, you really want to put that, you know, that legacy. And some people refer to that on your tombstone, what you want, that shrink inside of you that that, that craving inside of you to do something important that you really want to do, then suddenly, when you achieve it, it’s so big, by the way, that you may not achieve it for a years, but you can see incrementally each change each goal is achieved, you’re going yes, I’m getting closer to that vision. When you can do that. It’s magical. It is honestly magical, how it generates the revenue you need. And the and it helps you to overcome all of the problems of operating the business allows you to grow. And then people start getting involved with your company. And by the way, they’d be done with any company. I mean, I I gave this idea to a painting contractor Volpe was employee issues, because it was hard to keep and maintain employees, especially back east when it’s snowing, right, you’re trying to paint the outside of house was no way. And yet he was able to double and triple revenue within one year, just by thinking in this bigger way. So that’s the incredible part about it. And it doesn’t feel hollow when you’re getting there. It’s because all of a sudden you’re feeling like even more elated. You want to go even bigger than Yeah. Right?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, it reminds me of a story of a conversation I had with a gentleman who was leading a financial services business. And I had asked him what his vision was. And long story short, he comes back to me and says, You keep talking about this word vision. I don’t know what that means. He said, My dad started this company. And when I started working for him, he told me that I have to have 10 appointments booked for next week. And that’s what drives success in this industry. Every week since then, I’ve had 10 appointments booked for next week, I’ve sold three and five times what anybody else does. sounds super successful. But the reason why we’re having the conversation is he was totally burned out. His team was frustrating him like crazy. They all felt stuck, they couldn’t move forward. And he could not wrap his mind around this idea of vision. So someone who’s there and they’re like, Yeah, that sounds so wonderful. I can barely even think about what I’m going to do by the end of today. Right? Let alone what I’m going to do decades from now, how do we how do we? Is it that you have to create margin? What are those first steps to just giving yourself the room to dream again?
Jim Ballidis
Well, I think that’s you summed it perfectly, give yourself the room to start dreaming bigger. Oftentimes, I want to do 10 appointments a day still do that that’s successful, there’s no question about it, you got to, you got to implement the steps in order to accomplish the goal. The goal is I need a certain amount of revenue per per month, per year per whatever, right? But when you start putting meaning to it, that is you start attaching relevance to something deep inside of you, the burnout goes away, and you’re actually excited and it becomes easier. Your 10 appoints becomes four because your conversion rate is higher. Because people want to do business with you, your 10 that you went out and look for are now six because the other four are calling you because they want to do business with you. Financial Services business is a perfect example. Why does somebody want to do business with you? Is your unique selling proposition that you do better? You provide better information, you have better rates, you have this you have that none of that’s fulfilling, that’s just handling. Who wants to handle your whole life? Right? So what we want to try and do is we want to try and find something that that connects us. The first step is to is to recognize your vision killer if you’re in that space, he was me. When I started to realize I’m vision killing everything that I had, I went to how am I going to get that done? Let’s be pragmatic Jim, how am I going to get that done instead of well? What am I just start talking about it and start collaborating with people around me for the ideas that really are bigger. But for me, for instance, it was I want to want to be a lawyer. I want to own another business maybe too. I want to have streams of income. As a lawyer, when I was working 4050 hours a week, no chance, I got too much to do. When I started opening this door, and started thinking bigger and talking with people sooner enough an opportunity came my way. I said, Oh, yeah, okay, let’s do that. And it was perfect. It was perfect. And that company went from three to 10 to $23 million in three years. That’s my company. And the reason it went there is because we had the vision, in no less computer hardware, who has a vision and computer hardware we did. That’s when it starts to become something where it’s magnetic, where it’s powerful. That’s the first step is recognize I’m vision killing. And so here, here’s a trick. All vision killing is in how you’re going to get it done. Actually, nothing. And you’ve got plenty of time on your drive to and from work, to dream, to actually start thinking about what does I really want to do? And why do I want to do it? And then make it bigger than you just keep thinking about it? And it doesn’t it’s there’s no timeframe? Just a list to check off? I’m done. Okay, I think I figured it out. Just start recognizing that inside of you, and you’re burned out or burning out. There’s something more that you want, and you’re just you’re suppressing it, because it doesn’t seem feasible right now.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. So you got have mentioned in your book that this idea of a vision killer, you’ve brought it up a couple of times, what is the vision killer? Or who is the vision killer? And and maybe even once you’ve identified it, what do you do about it?
Jim Ballidis
So when we’re children, our parents are our vision killers, aren’t they? Let’s think about it for a second. How often do we see a child say, Well, I’m gonna be the president United States. And that’s good. You know, you’ll get there someday, or, Hey, I want to be a dancer or you need to do something that makes money. Or hey, you know, I want to be an artist, or I want to be a writer. No, no, you can’t be a writer, you need to be aware, like, like your dad is. We start vision killing, because we start talking about what’s feasible, what’s reasonable, what you need to do now. And so it’s our friends, it’s our family, it’s our co workers. It’s our CFO, if you’re a CEO, I guarantee you, your CFO, unless they’re on board with a great vision, are saying to you, Well, you got to limit this, she’s all spend that make sure you hear make sure we have this financial things. They’re they’re challenged to protect you. It’s people that protect you, or want to protect you that are your vision killers. So here’s here’s the way to handle that. When a vision killer starts to pee on your rainbow, as my wife says, what you can do is you can say hey, listen sounds to me, like you’re in execution, how to get it done. Play with me for a little bit, envision, just play with me. There’s three things in that phrase that is very powerful. First of all, when you say the word play, you give permission for them to take off their I got to protect you, and play with you. Like a child plays with an adult on the floor with blocks. Right? No purpose, just play. The second thing is it provides a very clear understanding of what is execution? And what is vision, or this dreaming, or this expectation of how big can we go. And the third is, it provides excitement, because you are now the leader, rather than the follower. When you say, hey, it sounds like you’re an execution, you’re helping them to understand and communicate with you in a level that allows you to lead the conversation into what you really want to try and achieve here. And then it’s just it just works.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. And yeah, I love that. I mean, you’ve shared it over and over again, the word embeddings. Chronically short on play, right? We, as we’ve actually contrasted work and play as there are different things. That is such a powerful point. And I also just want to repeat this idea that the people who are are tasked with protecting you tend to be the ones who are most likely to kill your vision, they become the vision killers, and and it’s not because they’re doing something wrong. You mentioned this from the very getgo. It’s because they do it at the wrong time. And let’s go. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, so I’ve gotten I’m just wondering, how do we navigate that right? How do you how do you know let’s say there’s someone who’s implement who’s an implementer. And they know that there’s this big dream, but we’re heading off the rails if we’re not careful. How do they know when it’s time to bring that critical insight to ask the question how versus time to just play and explore the dream without popping bubbles.
Jim Ballidis
The more that you collaborate, the more that the doer starts to realize that other people have pieces of a puzzle. And then they start to see it put together. me give you an example. Suppose I say, hey, let’s feed the world. Oh, I can just seen a rib. Half the people are gonna love it. Oh, no, you know, here’s a little one of those guys. You know, I don’t know who he is. I don’t know anything about him. I’m not sure he had it done. Yeah, okay. And then I say, Oh, and by the way, I talked with Elon Musk yesterday, he’s gonna give me a billion dollars to get us started. Oh, all the sudden is like, wait a minute, okay. So the more we collaborate with other people, on our vision, not on how to do it on the vision itself, and get them excited, the more resources that bring to play. And then by bringing those resources together, the doer is so motivated, because they Oh my gosh, I see that I see that person, we can contact them, we can utilize them, they volunteered to give us this piece of the puzzle. And they can put the pieces together seamlessly, without them having to say, Okay, we’re envisioning. Let’s set the ball. Now let’s start working on the walls. Because then you start going into this sort of, I don’t know. It’s true fun. It’s not fun to, to just go okay. You know, for the visionary, it’s not okay. You know, we had this great vision, let’s feed the world. Okay. Now, first thing, you got to make 100 calls. Second thing, you got to have five events got an in your in this parade of stuff that you didn’t want to do, necessarily. Yep. But if you met the right person who loves doing the events, and the other person who really is good at just making the phone calls, and you’re that little visionary leader, then you can see how just, it just works. So much more pour, get your superpowers.
Scott Ritzheimer
I would say one of the things you’re dialing in on is the difference between what I would call a natural visionary and a skilled visionary. Right, there are lots of people who are naturally inclined toward vision, that doesn’t make them skilled at it. And and when you look at an unskilled visionary, they tend to they tend to be thinking about their vision, they tend to be thinking about what they want in the world. But you’re bringing this piece you’re leveling us up and saying, hey, now it’s about it’s about bringing others into collaborate on that. And to do that, you just have to communicate differently, right? You have to think a little bit differently. But you’re right. It’s the it’s what brings the power for a team to really move toward those results together. So I’ve got a question I’d love to ask you ask all my guests. And it’s this. What is the biggest secret you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening to they knew?
Jim Ballidis
That soon AI is going to make the idea of making things performed better. By a human obsolete, it will do it faster and better. If it’s already been created, what I would love is for us to recognize sort of a new coming of idea, we need to be the creator, create from nothingness, the computer AI cannot create from nothing. It has to have a point of reference and build from the point of reference. This is our zone of genius. This is where we need to go. This is where I think as a world we want this is the promotion, the big vision of my book, it’s not to sell books or to tell people, hey, you know, go out and become a visionary. It’s to change our world. Imagine if we had more leadership and vision in our country right now. I don’t think anybody would disagree. We’re feeling a little lost here. Or in some of the major social issues that are facing us. Environmental issues, all the things that are coming to bear. So the intention is here that we need to we’ve been 6070 years here making things better. Wouldn’t it be great? If we started just creating from nothing the things that we only dream about? At this moment? Yes. That would be a great message and one that I’m trying to tell as many people as I can.
Scott Ritzheimer
I loveit. It is it is the distinctly human thing about us and our you’re right it’s something AI can never compete with. I absolutely love that. And you even if you take AI out out of the picture, let’s take our our financial services friend right, it is the thing that separates him from the 19 other people on the same street who do the same thing. It is what makes us distinctly human and it is our unique selling proposition is us and it’s our ability like you’re saying to go from zero to one absolutely love that. Now I want to shift gears a little bit on you I want to have you take off your your mentor advisor and coach hat I want you know put on your your CEO hat of gym Inc, if you will. And what’s the niche next stage of growth look like for you and your business and what challenge will you have to overcome to get there?
Jim Ballidis
I have to get on the stage, I think and speak to larger audiences. For the next year, I discontinued coaching for a year, for the purpose of just getting this message out and getting it heard. And seeing if people resonate with it want to join in the concept. And imagine in two years, we have a conference strictly devoted to vision, where you come to the conference, you hear other people speaking about vision, I would love to have like a database or a social media platform or a meeting place where people could come and talk about their vision and find other people that have similar vision interests, and they want to collaborate together, wouldn’t that be powerful? And I would love to have like a, a bank of visions that people could say, hey, you know what, I’m kind of bored. I’d like to really start supporting something. But it I don’t want to just give donation, I want to do something, you know, this meaningful to me. Yeah, whose vision can I jump onto? Those are the kinds of things that I’m thinking that, you know, are way over how and I’m going to get that done this year. With what I have no clue. But that’s the vision. And that’s what I’m, that’s where I’m headed.
Scott Ritzheimer
I love that there’s always time for the house, right? There’s always never feels like there’s ever time for the house. But there’s always time for the house. And I love that you’re modeling what you’ve been talking about all along, it’s just stepping into that dream, stepping into that vision and allowing the resources to come?
Jim Ballidis
And, and don’t think it doesn’t come without the vision killer speaking by me in my head saying, hey, hey, who are you? What? You’re gonna create a conference? visioneers? I don’t I don’t know these people. You know, I don’t hang out in that $250 billion group meeting room. And, you know, this is what we’re gonna give this month. I’m not that person. So how do I do that is so easy to fall into? Well, then I guess really, I shouldn’t do it. You can’t, you can’t let it hold you back from what you want to do. There’s one little thing that I give a lot of examples in the book that we’re precluded from here, right, because a time constraint. But the idea is, if you need some idea, like somehow, how do I figure out even what I want to start thinking about as a vision, that’s what the book is for? I take you through a process over three weeks. And the process is the same as I’ve used for the CEOs I’ve mentored. So you will come out of that with something powerful. And who knows. I mean, maybe you’ll be calling me and saying, Hey, and uh, what? I love your vision, too. And let’s do it together.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s fantastic. Well, Jim, just awesome. having me here. How can folks get a copy of your book? And or where can they find it?
Jim Ballidis
You can go to visionmakerbook.com. And you’ll, you’ll, how you can use that. The quickest and easiest is Amazon. You can just order Vision Maker book on Amazon. You’ll find the link there and it’ll be shipped out to you quickly. And if you reach out to me at [email protected] And that’s a vision dash maker.net I’m always respond to and you know, who knows, you might get a signed copy.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic. Well, Jim, thank you so much for being on the show. It’s absolute privilege having you here folks. If you’re listening, head on over to Vision Maker Book or to Amazon get a copy of his book Vision Maker three weeks to creating a powerful directive that will inspire your team and ignite your business. Jim, thanks so much for being here. For those of you watching and listening you know your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact James Ballidis
James Ballidis is a best-selling author, lawyer, and entrepreneur. He mentors CEOs and business leaders at Pinnacle Global Network, an organization that helps CEOs who are stuck at seven figures. He has helped over 100 CEOs find their vision, scale their business, and double and triple revenue while highlighting their inspiration to excel in re-engaging to build multimillion-dollar companies. With his unique blend of business expertise, he can guide his clients to identify what’s killing their vision and find their zone of genius.
Want to get a copy of Jim new book Vision Maker:Three Weeks to Creating a Powerful Directive That Will Inspire Your Team and Ignite Your Business? You can get a copy at visionmakerbook.com or at other major bookseller.
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