In this spectacular episode, Brad Smith, CEO of Stellar Insight Inc., shares how his unique blend of expertise in strategic planning, innovation coaching, and cultural renovation makes him a sought-after partner for companies embarking on transformative journeys.
You will discover:
– The key to shifting from Founder to CEO
– The four things every CEO needs to achieve high-growth
– How to know how fast you should grow
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello Hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach and I have a great show and an absolutely great guest on deck for you here today it is the one and only Brad Smith, who is a seasoned business growth consultant renowned CEO and executive team coach passionate about igniting organizational transformational change. With a diverse skill set encompassing strategic planning, executive coaching and innovation catalysis. Brad has earned a reputation as a trusted adviser to CEOs and companies that are seeking to push the boundaries of success. Brad’s approach is marked by commitment to extracting maximum value with minimum effort resonating with CEOs and companies who share his ambition, curiosity and courage ethos. Brad continues to shape the future of business growth and executive leadership, one strategic initiative at a time and he’s here with us today, Brad, welcome to the show. You’ve been doing this for a minute or two. Now you’re not new to the coaching world. But if we rewind the tape, what were you doing before getting into coaching? And how did that ultimately lead you to make the leap?
Brad Smith
I was an analytical chemist. And it didn’t lead me anywhere except that were analytical chemists and a formulation chemist, right. So that means I took a concept, put it in a beaker, but already ingredients in in the right conditions, and then work to change one aspect at a time until I got the right result. Coaching is the same thing. So that was the story that started me but everything is measured. Everything is awareness was a part of it. And that’s part of the adventure. Thank you.
Scott Ritzheimer
Awesome. Awesome. What would you say then, is some of the most important work you do today with your clients?
Brad Smith
Well, I offer reason I named my company stellar insight is because what I sell, essentially what I offer my clients is insight, they can’t get to you on their own immediately. We all get to eventuate. But why? Why do all the hard learning, if you’ve got someone you can talk through things with brainstorm with so that you can go from point A to point Q if you would, in a shorter period of time. So what I offer my clients is the opportunity to reach the results they want, find and get the insights that they need in order to make the transformations faster.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah, you do a lot of work with CEOs. And I noticed as researching the episode, many entrepreneurial organizations as well, and, and one of the things that I see, particularly in that group is there are kind of founders and there are CEOs. And I’m wondering, do you see a distinction between those two, and does one lend itself to becoming the other.
Brad Smith
You can be a founder, it means you’ve got courage, and or maybe a wide optimism. And you’ve got the drive to accomplish that. So that’s the ambition part. You can use that same ambition to shift over to being a CEO. CEO then requires someone behind them to operations, because someone who’s a founder is the visionary. And they wagging themselves down to work people to do the delegate, if you would, the operations expert in great mechanics behind the vision happen.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. And, and working with CEOs, you know, different CEOs in different industries will have some unique characteristics to what they do, but what in your opinion, or in your experience, should every CEO do?
Brad Smith
Take time, I think they all need to meditate. Because all that is is awareness training. You can’t drive down the road if you don’t have your eyes open. Running in business is the same way. You’re driving a company down the road, if you would, you know, month to month, year to year, you have to be aware of the situation and the nuances around it. You were your peripheral vision. So I would have everybody that’s listening to this. Take the time to research the GA three good meditation methods beyond just counting breath and learn how to do that because it’s like if you are present, and then you lose focus just a little bit and then you bring yourself back present. What you’re doing is you’re exercising your presence muscle if you would your consciousness muscle to just be more aware, be every time there’s a bankruptcy in a company. It’s because people weren’t aware of the consequences that were gonna happen because of your decisions.
Scott Ritzheimer
Wow. Wow. One of the things that I saw again as those researching this episode is a drive to help organizations to double their growth rate. And beyond that, what would you say? You know, what would you say are some of the things that are holding CEOs back from achieving those types of results on their own?
Brad Smith
It’s a combination, you can’t do a million or a multi million dollar company on your own shoe, right? But you can’t do that. So you have to learn how to engage other people’s enthusiasm, right? And engaging, being a charismatic leader means if you’re aware, and you’re kind, so mired for replay or was for a client or have to be smart. Now words they have to be able to think through things. They have to be smart, ambitious, curious, which fields are open to other ideas, and kind, those allow us a person to then engage other people and motivate and inspire them. Leadership, I believe is about inspiring.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. One of the other things that I’ve come across, especially in situations where where organizations are growing very, very fast, it’s wonderful, but it’s not comfortable. What would you what would you say is, why is it uncomfortable? And is that a sign that we’re doing it wrong?
Brad Smith
No, actually, it’s not, it’s uncomfortable. Um, two things here, you can’t grow a company beyond the limitations of the leader. It means the unconscious limitations, the personality limitations, right. And so when you grow company fast, you can’t be comfortable all the time, because you’re constantly challenging both yourself and the organization and your customers to grow. Growth is about capacity changes, and constant research. Small companies can get by with an idea and grow into that big companies have to have research on a continual basis, pretty much into River in order to grow, and Searles. That’s how are you involved with company? Different sizes have different methods?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Where do you see that the that tipping point exists from being able to just kind of drive toward an idea of, versus having the data to support your strategy?
Brad Smith
I’m not quite sure I understand the question.
Scott Ritzheimer
So you talked about small companies can Can, can you have a vision and just kind of rally behind it, but research is needed for large organizations? Where’s that tipping point?
Brad Smith
Ah, I’m somewhere in the range between, let’s say 500 million a year and a billion. Somewhere in that range, it’ll pop up, and you can get to that level. But also, it’s the number of employees you have added the reach you have into the market. So if you’re a number one and a white sizable market, you got to do research in order to grow your number four, that’s even better, you need more research.
Scott Ritzheimer
One of the things that I know a lot of, particularly founders and CEOs face is how, how fast should we go grow? Right? How hard should we push? How do you coach CEOs through just how much growth is the right amount of growth for them in their organization?
Brad Smith
There are limitations of hiring the right people, and you have wooded limitations of your profit. You can’t grow a company beyond your profit margin on a continual basis. You can do it for short spirit, spurts of time if you would, with borrowed money. Like you can’t grow it beyond your profit margin, and the people attraction process. Well, and your training process. Every time you bring someone in, you’re going to train them into the culture, you’re going to train them into that specific job, right, and then draw out of them their best. And that drawing out of them their best is part of the evolutionary process, if you will.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. And what would you say? Because that again, that’s different from smaller organizations, where it’s just kind of you and you wrap some folks around you to, like you said, being able to inspire others, or capture their enthusiasm. Is that something that folks are naturally wired to do? Is it a skill set that we learn, you know, how can someone really get to the bottom of whether or not that’s a leap that they can make.
Brad Smith
Some people are wired and some people aren’t, so people are good with people and some people aren’t. But everything is wonderful. Literally, everything is learnable. If you look at a human being as a pile of habits that they started the moment they were born And pile on the habits, many of them are nonverbal before we get verbal at about age one, if you would, or before. So all of that is in their unconscious memory, and not available. Who you are can grow in any way, shape or form. Just take something on a repeated often enough, you will grow into it. How long does it take to teach someone to be honest? That’s a two and a half year project. Right? I want does it take to teach someone to be kind? About the same amount of time? But they have to want it?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah, it’s so true. It’s so true. So there’s a question I like to ask all my guests. And it is this, what is the biggest secret you just wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Brad Smith
There are no victims. Every painting that we do in life, everything that recreating life, Congress from inside us out into the world, and then it comes back. So synchronicity doesn’t need to be a secret, watch your own life. Watch the results that come and opportunities come that come to you. And as you watch those, then recognize that you cause all of those things in one way or another in how you thought or the beliefs that you hold.
Scott Ritzheimer
Wow. Yeah, there’s so much power behind that. And it takes away so many of our excuses at the same time. Yeah, so if one more question for you, and then I want to make sure folks know how they can get in touch with you, because I know that this is resonating with with folks. Let’s say CEOs sitting there listening today. Do they want to take that next step toward being smarter, being more ambitious, being more curious are kind, what would you say is one simple step that they can take starting today?
Brad Smith
I’m going to be well to get a hold of me. That’s a half hour or an hour conversation. And they come in we have weeks, I believe that are going to be available. Read! I gonna hold up a book, I want everybody to read it. This book right here, I got about halfway through, it talks about half the stuff that I would have done learn on their own, it’s just validating almost everything I’ve learned in the last decade or two.
Scott Ritzheimer
Wow, fantastic. So those of you who are listening, it’s called CEO excellence. It’s couldn’t read who it was by Brad, Brad, who’s the author,
Brad Smith
There’s three authors. I’ll put it back up again.
Scott Ritzheimer
There you go. Fantastic. We’ll, we’ll we’ll get that in the show notes for everybody. So you can just click on it and get a copy. And Brad will also get the links to your consultation website in the show notes as well. Thanks so much for being here. What a fascinating conversation. I love the depth in the simplicity of the answers. There’s so much in there. I tell folks this every once in a while, but we’ll have guests that come on and I’ll have to say hey, go back and listen to the episode again because I’m sure you missed about half of what Brad was saying. There’s there’s just so much in there. There’s gold to be had. And Brad, I appreciate that. I appreciate your willingness and generosity and being on the show. Thank you so much. And for those for those of you watching, listening you know your time and attention means 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 Brad Smith
Brad Smith is a seasoned business growth consultant, renowned CEO, and executive team coach passionate about igniting organizational transformational change. With a diverse skill set encompassing strategic planning, executive coaching, and innovation catalysis, Brad has earned a reputation as a trusted advisor to CEOs and companies seeking to push the boundaries of success. Brad’s approach is marked by a commitment to extracting maximum value with minimal effort, resonating with CEOs and companies who share his ambition, curiosity, and courage ethos. Brad continues to shape the future of business growth and executive leadership, one strategic initiative at a time.
Want to learn more about Brad Smith’s work at Stellar Insight Inc.? Check out his website at https://www.stellarinsightinc.com/
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