A good coach can help you change your game in your business, but a great coach can change your life and help you sustain business growth. In this episode, host Diane Hamilton talks with business growth strategist and worldwide leading authority on business and entrepreneurship, Carl Gould, about the importance of coaches and mentorship in building your own success. Carl has coauthored with Stephen Covey and Ken Blanchard and has done work with Tony Robbins. Sharing some of the biggest challenges he encountered in his entrepreneurship journey, he also talks about working with coaches and the most common issues they are dealing with in building their own practice. Stay tuned to this episode to learn more about choosing your mentors and how you can stand out for clients to choose you over your competitors in this gig economy.
Iâm glad you joined us because we have Carl Gould. He has written many successful books. He co-authored with Stephen Covey and Ken Blanchard. Heâs done work with Tony Robbins. The list of what heâs done, who he knows and his level of leadership experience is amazing. Heâs got an advisor group, a company that helps people to build these multimillion-dollar businesses. He created three of his own before he was 40 years old. Heâs a rock star and Iâm looking forward to it.
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Coaching, Mentorship, And Building Your Own Success With Carl Gould
Carl Gould is with me. He is a worldwide leading authority on business and entrepreneurship. His company, 7 Stage Advisors, helps an organization grow to the next level. He is an entrepreneur who built three multimillion-dollar business by the age of 40. Itâs exciting to have you here, Carl. Welcome.
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
I was looking forward to it. Youâve written some amazing books. You coauthored with Stephen Covey and Ken Blanchard. Iâm looking at some of the background on you and itâs hard to imagine what it takes to get to the level. Why donât you give me a little background just in case somebody doesnât know your back story? Would you mind giving us that foundation?
I got started in the coaching industry when coaching was in the early stages. That played a role in my career over the years. I started out as a student of Accounting and Finance at the University of Delaware. I had a serious leg injury that I had to leave school. Since I was paying my way through school and going back wasnât an option, I had to find a way to make some money. I knew landscaping and I grew up in the construction industry. I designed and built a landscape firm and I had that business for seven years. I grew that business, sold it and started a construction company. I grew that business and sold that business in 2004.
I went to a personal development seminar in 1990, looking for other ways to grow personally, but I fell in love with personal development. I loved helping people define what they wanted to be, set their goals, pursue their dreams, and love the process. It was great to be able to pursue that as a side hustle. Thatâs what it was for me. We were in a gig economy, but if there was one back then, my side hustle was coaching. All through the â90s, I was doing coaching with Tony Robbins, Ken Blanchard in situational leadership, Franklin Covey in planning and Dale Carnegie in leadership. I was doing that as my side gig. I mentioned all through the â90s.
In 1996, I hired a business coach for my construction company. If there were hashtags back then, my hashtag would have been #HangUpTheHammer. I love the process. For the next five years, we positioned the business for sale and I ultimately sold the business which was great. I started the company that I have now in 2002. For the last years, weâve helped the company grow to the next level. We worked with companies that are looking to launch, go to market and franchise. Weâve done business in over 35 countries at this point. It has been a tremendous ride.
Youâve done an amazing thing and Iâm sure it probably broke your heart to give up the Covey Planner when things changed if you get so invested in doing certain things. I was looking at some of your videos and some of the things youâve written. I love the yellow page ad story of when you were in the landscape business. Can you share that one? I thought that was a great story.
This is one of the first lessons that I learned in business and I was thankful for it. It helped me come up with the signature growth method. Itâs going to be my next book called The Obnoxious Author. What I did was I went out and broke my leg three days before Christmas. I spent the next three months in a cast and three months after that in physical therapy learning to bend my leg again. Here I am in the summertime not feeling all that good about myself. I go out on my first landscaping appointment. I decided to start my business. It was a referral. I went and gave the proposal and I got it. I’m like, âThat was great.â I got a lot of confidence and a little pep in my step. Iâm feeling good about myself. The next day, I went to my second appointment and I got that one also. I went, âThis isnât just luck. I must be good. Forget this financing and accounting thing. I am going to do landscaping. This is like shooting fish in a barrel.â
[bctt tweet=”There comes to a point that it is sexy to make people wait, but there comes a point where itâs bad.” username=””]Two days later, I go on my third appointment and I got that one also. Iâm now three for three and I figured, âAll you other aspiring landscapers, put your tools down. Donât even bother to go to work. I must have been blessed by the gods. Maybe I have the landscaping DNA. No need everybody. I got it.â I called my father up and said, âDad, youâre not going to believe it. Iâm three for three.â âCongratulations. Good job. Did you ask any of them why they said yes?â In my head, Iâm thinking, âWhy would I do that? I already got the check?â He was saying to me, âIf you know why they said yes, you can repeat the process.â I replied, âGood one, dad.â I got back to each of the three people that said yes.
I thought for sure they were going to say, âCarl, you captured what our vision for the product was and you had a clever way of proposing. You use great psychological triggers.â I thought thatâs what I was going to hear. I got back to them. One of the groups was a partnership and theyâre standing off, talking to the side. I asked, âWhy did you choose me?â They said, âShould we tell him?â âWhy not? We already gave him the job. It canât hurt now.â âGo ahead tell.â A guy walks up to me and heâs like, âYou were the only one who showed up.â I said, âWhat?â They said, âWe called five of you people. Three of you called back. You all promised a proposal. Youâre the only one who came back with a proposal. You seem like a nice kid. We can afford it. We need the job done. You look like youâll work hard for us so we gave you the job.â
I was deflated. I was like, âReally? I still suck in my life. Come on.â I got the job. I accept coaching. Maybe this is part of business, itâs getting there and beating the next guy or gal to the punch. I learned a good lesson on the hustle right there. The entire rest of the year, I kept hearing all these complaints. It got to the point where there were times when I would go to a prospect’s home, business, office or commercial building, and they would lecture me about the state of contracting. They would say, âWhatâs wrong with you people? I thought it was tough out there. Weâre trying to give you guys money. Why donât you call back? Why are you unresponsive?â I said, âIâm the guy who showed up. Iâm happy to go back to my competitors and teach them how to do their job better. Do you want to talk about the project?â They would say, âSorry, we didnât mean to unload on you. Itâs frustrating doing a project like this.â
I was in landscaping, itâs the last thing you do. There was a string of disappointing contracting relationships and experiences before I got there. I captured all the complaints and wrote them all down. One of the top ones was, âYou people donât call back.â I took out an ad in the yellow pages the next year because the guy was hounding me, âI see youâre in business. Do you want to advertise?â I called him back and said, âIâm ready.â Heâs like, âLetâs design the ad.â âItâs going to be easy. At the top, I want my name. In the middle, I want my phone number. On the bottom, I want to say, âAll phone calls returned.ââ âWhat about the rest of the copy?â âIâm not thinking that I need it. Thatâs all I need.â He convinced me to put a tree as a logo on there. âFine, put a tree. Thatâs all I want. Name, phone number and that promise.â I was overrun with leads. I had more than I can handle.
Itâs something so simple that you donât realize what it is. You say itâs what youâre selling versus what other people are buying. It is a lot about the things that we donât think to ask questions about. My research is in curiosity so I love that youâre curious to look at the data and see, âWhat is this thing that we are missing?â I donât think a lot of people ask those questions. We need to develop curiosity in people to get them to look outside the status quo thinking. Everybody else didnât think of what you were doing. What do you think it is about you that made you curious enough to look where other people would sell landscaping?
In the beginning, it was mostly out of necessity. I was broke. I was a sponge at the time because I just turned nineteen years old. I didnât know a lot about business. I had jobs in high school. I was asked at times to go and present proposals so I knew a little bit about selling. I knew the work pretty well because I had done it as a kid. I didnât think about it at the time, but I thought about it when I got into my business. Iâm in a truck. I was sixteen years old. I was driving down the road with my boss at that time. His name is Wes. I said to him, âWes, how do you get customers? How does that work? How do people know to talk to you about landscaping?â He was like, âThatâs a good question, Carl. See this road weâre driving down? How many buildings on this road as we pass them, you call them out, need landscaping or some form of work?â âThat one, maybe not that one, that one.â
When we got to the red light, he looks at me and goes, âThe question isnât about who needs us. The question is what are you willing to do to go get them?â I remember thinking, âThatâs a good point and Iâve never tried.â I didnât think about it after that because I was an employee talking to his boss at the moment. When I became a business owner, Iâll drive from a proposal or quo, driving home, driving to get a cup of coffee, going to eat or whatever, and I still do it. Iâm an advisor now, but I developed this radar for, âI know what I do. I know what problems I solve. Who looks like they have that problem?â When I go into a restaurant and they bring me out the wrong food or no one can figure out how to sit me down or there are an hour and a half wait. There comes to a point that it is sexy to make people wait, but there comes a point where itâs bad. You canât manage yourself if these many people are showing up at the same time and you are totally overwhelmed.
What that little lesson gave me was to have a radar for people who will likely have the problem I can solve. After that, I validated over and over again that if I hone in the problem and I am in the places where most people would be open to talking about how to solve that problem, my opportunity for work shot up exponentially. With that line of thinking, I used to end up marketing myself in places that seemed totally counter-intuitive yet were productive. I took out a booth at the Sussex County Farm and Horse Show. You would say, âYou build homes. What are you doing there?â I remember the first year, on the left was the lady who does palm reading. On the right was the family farm who won the best pig in show. There was me between those two, selling contracting services. I said, âWhat venues would be worthwhile where people would be willing to talk about that issue? Who comes to these types of shows?â Families. âWhat do families own?â Home and businesses. âWould I be the only contractor there to talk to?â I would be among the few.
For novelty reasons alone, I might be a popular choice. I used to write so much business at that show every year. I was there for ten years. Everyoneâs going, âWhy do you keep going to this?â Iâll go, âIâm not telling you my secret. You have to figure that out on your own.â Iâm killing it at these shows. I would go to these places where I didnât even have to talk a lot about business. Since I was the only game in town, it just came up and they usually brought it up. I would come from that standpoint, âWho likely has the challenge or opportunity I can help with and where would they be likely willing to talk about something?â
I found it was almost always in the normal places of industries, events and in locations or venues where peopleâs passion would be on display. For example, golf shows, boating shows, hunting shows, country clubs, walking clubs, city touring groups. These people when they get out they start doing what they love, they start asking the people around them, âWhat are you doing? How do you do it? Why do you do it? Whatâs that for you? Whatâs new? Whatâs challenging?â It was a natural place for this to come out. Once I got a little taste of it, I seem to be able to latch on to where the right places would be.
Youâve obviously found the right place and did the right things if youâve built three multimillion-dollar businesses by the age of 40. I found your discussion about intangibles interesting. You learned about what people buy that itâs more intangible that we think about. Is that what you think that led to your success?
It was helpful. I was always asking myself the question early on in my career, âWhy are they choosing me?â I didnât think I was anything special. I knew I was hustling, that part I knew. When my friends in other companies were like, âIâm 9 to 5. When I punch the clock and Iâm out.â I’m like, âItâs great for me that you do that. Thank you because Iâm hustling at the time that youâre not. Iâm thinning the herd with my actions.â What I start to learn was that people are hiring me not because of the landscape, the home I built, or the coaching that I did. There were other reasons why.
For example, people would like to be our clients because they know that we connect our clients a lot. When somebody becomes our client, you can say, âThe coaching is good, but I see his client list and I want a shot at that.â It is one of the first things we do is we say, âYouâre a marketing agency. We know three of our clients that are interested in that. Let me make the connection right away.â One of our clients said, âI feel so bad about the Bahamas and what happened with the hurricane. Thatâs my happy place. I vacation there. I want to get involved. How do I do it?â I said, âIt so happens that one of our clients is leading a relief effort in the Bahamas. Let me put two of you together.â That saved him all the research time, âWho should I go with? Whatâs the best way? I want to be personally involved. Will they let me?â By connecting the two immediately they were able to take advantage of that. We have our clients doing business with other clients all the time. These are intangibles that I learn are equally if not important to our clients as exactly what we do. What we do is the commodity, but our relationship with the client and how we do what we do, why we do what we do, those are equally as important to some of our clients as just what we do.
You do a lot because youâve mentored and launched 5,000 businesses. Is that correct?
We have.
How do you have the time to do that and cohost Quit and Get Rich podcast? You have all these things that you do. Are you working 24/7? What is your life like?
[bctt tweet=”Coaches, by and large, are heart-led servants and they want to help.” username=””]From the outside, it sure does appear that way. Iâd love to say it was all me, but I must say that we have a great team. The secret sauce to our business is that early on in the coaching industry I became a coach. There werenât a lot of systems at that time and there werenât a lot of methodologies to latch on to. I found it somewhat frustrating that I couldnât find someone who would tell me, âHereâs the binder. Hereâs the bible that you use to run a coaching engagement and a coaching session. Here is how you make an impact and here are tools to help your clients grow.â I started to document what I was doing. At least I would leave a trail of popcorn so I can find my way back. What I didnât realize that I was doing was writing an entire methodology.
In the early 2000s, I published it and started to train coaches or those who wanted to be coaches on my methodology. Over the years, weâve trained somewhere in the neighborhood about 7,000 coaches. Since I have met them and Iâve known them, I can cherry-pick the ones that are the best pick for our firm and clients. We have a great team. It appears that I am in all places at all times, but itâs 7 Stage Advisors. Thatâs in all places at all times because of our team. I have been able to leverage those relationships over the years and be able to service clients because of the expertise we have. I was able to duplicate myself from that standpoint.
Iâm curious about when you are dealing with these coaches. What are they looking for? What do they need most from you? What are they not doing right? Whatâs their biggest issue you think thatâs holding back?
Coaches by in large are the species, if I can say so affectionately, they are heart-led servants and they want to help. At the end of the day, the number one thing is they want to help people. Someone in my life helped me and I want to help them. They are very admirable and all that. They will oftentimes help others in their own detriment. In other words, they wonât charge enough or not at all. Theyâll be doing the work for free. The first thing that coaches sometimes struggle with is the business model, âWhat do I charge? How much do you charge? How often do I change it? What do I do if that becomes negotiated?â The second one is, I need a system and a model that meets my brand level meaning these are former C-Suite executives from mid to large-sized businesses and entrepreneurs that have sold out of their companies. These are people that have operated the highest level of business and they need a model that aligns with that. Meaning it has the top tools and top strategies and helps them be positioned as a high-level advisor to their clients.
Our methodology does that and I think they feel as though they are getting access to some of the best clients, to some of the best tools in order to work with us. Even more so, one of the things that we do with them is we show them how to build their private business. We use a network of subcontractors and they carve out a percentage of their business life for 7 Stage Advisors, but they also have their own clientele because they have their own practice. By helping them build their practice they are interested in working with us. We help them on two fronts. One, protecting themselves from themselves in their business models and helping them build their own practice
I am interested in the ability of them to have a financial background to be a coach. Some of these you said were former CEOs, but a lot of them arenât. They want the culture experts that type of thing. When they are coaching, do they have to read balance sheets and financial statements and have that ability or is this something different? Is this more coaching in terms of people skills?
In an ideal world if I can wave my magic wand, yes they would be all financially savvy, but thatâs not realistic. Not because they are financially savvy or they donât understand finance. Itâs more because thatâs not been their area of focus in their career. They may have been an HR person, operations expert, sales, marketing or strategy. Finance may not have been their area of focus and thatâs cool. Quite frankly nobody is going to be an expert in all areas. However, we believe in being functional in your blind spot areas and at least functional enough that you know what good looks like and bad looks like because you can recognize that you can ask the right questions and bring in the right resources.
Do you have them deal with personality assessment at all or are they dealing with another realm of interaction?
We do. Everyone is pretty well-schooled on DISC assessments. Most of our clients take the assessments on some level and our growth model is inspired by the DISC theory. Our team is familiar with that.
Are you a D?
If you know the numbers, I am 100 D, 100 I, 11 S and 6 C.
I remember being a D, but I canât remember my numbers exactly, but mine were close I think to it. I find it all fascinating. I wrote my dissertation on emotional intelligence, so I got interested in personality development based on doing some of that. There is some research out there I know, Travis Bradberry posts some of it about how some CEOs have a lower emotional intelligence level as they go up in ranks. Sometimes they have fewer people skills because they are dealing more with numbers. Are you running into that at all?
In the studies that I have done, as a generality, the more somebody is outwardly successful meaning materially or financially or status and outward goals, it does point to develop a lesser development in terms of internally. Because they are less internally developed, they push for external rewards. They become goal-focused, career-focused and successful in the outside world. They often struggle with technically speaking, with the relationship with themselves.
Have you ever worked with a leader who has issues similar to Steve Jobs where they have a lot of genius, but yet people skills not so much?
All the time.
Whatâs the biggest challenge with somebody like that? Do they recognize it or they donât care? Probably both.
[bctt tweet=”Those who are less internally developed tend push for external rewards.” username=””]Almost always they will recognize it and say to me, âI know I am not the most patient person. I know Iâm not the most tolerant person. I know I should be spending more time.â They have gotten to where they are because of how they are and, âUnless you can show me a better way, Carl, I am not changing.â If I cherry-pick talking to Steve Jobs, he would say, âCarl, I grew Apple. I donât know if you noticed, but itâs a pretty big company. Unless you havenât noticed I got here because of how I am.â He did. I donât know Steve Jobs personally. I didnât know him. I read about him, but I have yet to read anything about him where he talks about how nice of a guy he was. Everything I heard and read is how ruthless and how not nice of a guy he was. I canât say I know firsthand, but I do know people who know him and have said, âWhat you are reading is not far from the truth.â Fair enough, but the point being is he had been rewarded for that in his entire career. He might go down in history as this centuryâs Thomas Edison and one of the greatest inventors of our time. Heâs sitting there open to the idea, but you better bring it.
I know this is a frustration I have, I believe in coaching, I believe in mentoring so I seek out coaches and mentors. Nine out of ten times I become their mentor, not necessarily financially or formally, but Iâll go to a doctor and Iâll say, âI am looking for high-level strategies here.â At the end of the conversation, they are asking me questions and I am their coach or personal trainer, itâs the same thing. Nutritionist, same thing. Yoga instructor, same thing. When you are dealing with somebody at that level who has been successful, the number of people who have the strategies to meet that level is sparse. Almost everyone that I have spoken to have used an advisor already and theyâll tell me about the great and not so great experience they have, but almost universally they said, âI feel like I graduated from that person. Not only their style, but I felt like they taught me all they can teach me. They challenge me and Iâm grateful that they brought me to this level, but they canât take me to the next level.â I hear that all the time. The CEOs to me have a huge thirst and hunger for learning and they know even if they arenât self-aware, they know theyâre not the most whatever in that area. You have to convince them that the juice is worth the squeeze when it comes to changing.
I had Guy Kawasaki on the show and heâs known how it was working with Steve Jobs when he was there. A lot of people wonât tell the bad stories and he was funny and went, âIâm old. I donât care anymore.â It was interesting to me that Steve embraced the biography they wrote on him. He knew what he was and it fascinates me to see the people who make it big as he did in spite of his personality of things that he did. Others like, I had Keith Krach on my show who was the genius behind all the IPO of DocuSign and he was the Chairman and CEO there. I have had amazing people Doug Conant who turned around Campbell Soup and all these people who have these humble personalities. It fascinates me what works.
I am on board with Global Mentor Network which is a brainchild of Keith Krach. Iâve had David Novak on the show. He was the former CEO of Yum! Foods who has a similar mentoring network. You talked about mentorship and the importance in some of that, how many mentors have you had? You said you worked with these people. I know youâve written books with Covey and Blanchard and you worked around Tony Robbins on and all these people. How do you choose your mentors and which one has impacted you the most?
If I am looking for a mentor I am looking for somebody who has what I already have in the area that I want. One of the top lessons that I learned, and itâs a lesson gets reinforced a lot when you watch entertainment and sports. You might idolize a sports figure and they do something unscrupulous off the field or you might admire a film star or an industry titan of some sort and they do something in another part of their life that you donât like. The reality is, your mentors are good in the area that you need them and they might not be good in other areas. You do have to separate what you are looking for and to the extent that you can compartmentalize the other parts.
It is tricky. A lot of times someone is your mentor because you like them personally and you go, âI get pretty close to them. I donât like him all at much,â but do they have what you want? If you are trying to have a better intimate relationship and you find a mentor in that area. You find out that there is a financial train wreck and finance is important to you. They can still be their relationship mentor, but do not go for them for financial advice. If somebody is your financial mentor and you have a terrible relationship, then do not go for them for relationship guidance.
Your mentors are going to be good in certain areas, but they are not going to be good in other areas. We breakout mentors, coaches, advisors and consultants into four district quadrants. A consultant is a subject matter expert who sees it, diagnoses it and does it for you. They are a doer. A mentor is somebody who has walked the path you are about to walk and their area of expertise is to share what worked for them. They might, but they might not able to share everything else except for what worked for me. They are going to share what worked for them. Anything else you say, âWhat are four other ways?â âI donât know I only took this way.â An advisor is someone who has been successful in many areas in their life. They might not be the smartest person in the room, but they are usually the most important person in the room and they were the best in marshaling the resources to get something done. There is the coach. The coach is somebody who knows the right questions to ask and will help you process through so you can come to your conclusions.
When I think mentor, I had a definition where I put them in a lane of, âYou have done what I am about to do. While I would love support from you what I need is a direction.â I remember I was going to give a speech in the Middle East and I was doing a speaking tour. I was going to Oman, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Emirates and Pakistan. I found somebody who I thought was a mentor and what I asked them was, âWhat should I say and not say? You know me, you know my style. What words should I use? What should I?â and they gave me support. They said, âCarl, you are going to be great.â I preceded to go in and insult half of the audience in my first night by saying something. I said, âCan I say this word and youâre okay with that?â âYouâll be fine. Theyâll love you.â âThey would love me and they would love me more if I said the right thing. I donât need your support right now. I need direction and guidance.â
If I need to drive my team and get people inspired and overcome the competition, I would use Steve Jobs as a mentor. He was brilliant. If I wanted to learn about the ergonomics of a product and what people liked to buy and how they like to buy, he was fantastic. If I was looking for other areas of my life, âI donât need to hear from you, Steve.â Those are areas that I think you can bring to the table for me, but it doesnât belittle what you can bring to the table. When you are choosing a mentor, to the best of you can, you have to be able to be okay with the other things that went on in that personâs life.
In an interview, Jerry Seinfeld was asked about Bill Cosby and he said, âThis is a hard one for me because he was one of my early idols. He was the top comedian at the time I was looking up to comedians. I still think he is funny, but the rest of his life is so bad. I canât count him as a mentor anymore, but this is hard for me. Itâs easy in a memorial standpoint what he did was abominable. However, as a comic, he was good as they came. The rest of his life has gotten so bad that I canât follow. You can tell he was struggling with it because he was trying to separate the message and the man from what he did.â It is tricky, you have to be okay with compartmentalizing it. If you canât, you have to find a new mentor.
I am curious what the word was you said that was offensive in Oman or wherever you were.
In one case, I did this thing at the beginning of the talk where I tell them to look at each other and give each other a high five, say this funny expression, and at the end of it you say, âI find that quite sexy.â One group was an Israeli group and they were Habbad which the men and women are forbidden from doing that. I knew that but I said to somebody that I thought knew more about it than I and said, âWhat are the parameters here?â They went, âCarl, they look at you as a professional. Theyâll do it because it is in the spirit of whatever.â When I said it and nobody did it I went, âGreat advice.â They werenât offended in any way, but were, âCarl, we donât do that and you probably didnât know that.â âI didnât know that. I should have.â
You can almost do self-deprecating humor sometimes at that point, âThank you for that one person in the back of the room clapping at the question.â
âThank you for the feedback. Iâll take your silence as.â
You share so much great information. Iâm curious because Iâve taught Covey in so many classes. How did you get connected to him and some of the other people youâve written books with that youâve done so many works with?
My first speaking coach was one of the people who ghostwrote Tony Robbinsâ first book. I was working with the speaking coach, the ghostwriter and they turned me on to a publisher. Iâm working on with that publisher and that publisher happened to be doing a book project with Ken Blanchard and Stephen Covey. The publisher called me up and said that the authors were looking for a growth synopsis, a blueprint, and a bit of a road map on how do you define success and my model is the 7 Stages of Scaling your business and growing your business. Iâve got the graph. Iâve got the seven steps and what you would do in every step and where will you put your major and minor focus. They said, âThat would be super. Would you be willing to contribute a summary of that?â I said, âSummary is going to be ten pages.â They said, âThatâs fine. We are willing to give you a room there. Go for it. If we get approval, are you interested?â I replied, âAre you kidding? I need four seconds. Three seconds to catch my breath and one second to tell you yes. As long as it was cool with them itâs cool with me.â Thatâs how I got involved in that book project.
[bctt tweet=”The juice is worth the squeeze when it comes to changing.” username=””]Youâve done some amazing things and I know that some of the big companies youâve worked with Walgreens, Walmart, American Idol, USA Olympic Track, IBM, McGraw-Hill and US Army. I was looking at this going, âYou really have done some amazing work and I think so many people could benefit from your work, Carl.â I was hoping you can share how they can reach you, to find out more about what you do.
At CarlGould.com is a gateway to learn all about me and whatâs going on. Carl@CarlGould.com is my email address. My business website is 7StageAdvisors.com and for your readers, we offer a free business analysis. It is an opportunity to spend up to two hours with a growth advisor. It is one of our givebacks to the entrepreneurial company. Anybody looking to take their business to the next level or getting started, we do a few hundreds of every year as our giveback. I would be delighted to offer that to your readers. Go to those websites, contact us, put business analysis in the subject line and weâll make sure you get a time with a growth advisor. Weâll show you how to take your business to the next level.
Thank you, Carl thatâs nice and this was fun. I appreciate you being on the show.
Thank you. We need more time next time. This was too much fun for the time we have.
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I would like to thank Carl for being a guest on my show. Heâs fascinating and I knew he would be. I could list the things heâs done, but we would never get off the show. He has an amazing background. There are not too many courses I teach where I donât touch on Stephen Coveyâs work or Ken Blanchard. I had his name associated with one of the universities where I work. A lot of the names he is associated with show you the level of what he is able to do. It is fascinating to see all these guests have their own radio shows and their own other things that they do. How we are helping people to learn more, to be better as an entrepreneur and business leader. There are so many people on the show that every time I talk to somebody I think, âI learned from every single person on the show.â
Iâm fascinated that I got a chance to talk to him about it. Heâs a visiting lecturer at MIT, Rutgers Business School and the Wits Business School in Johannesburg. The list goes on and on. I donât know how he finds the time to do it all. A lot of the guests touch on the topics that I am fascinated by myself. A lot of it ties into my work with curiosity and with perception. I think that we know that businesses canât do things the way they do things. As Marshall Goldsmith said, âWhat got you here wonât get you there. We know that and a lot of people get stuck in that status quo, âI have to do things because it worked for me in the past.â Think of thinking. Thatâs why I like to talk to people who do advising and see what they do to get people to the next level because it could be challenging. A lot of leaders develop an innovative workplace right now and that can be hard because we know the AIs are going to change things. We know that innovations will be completely different.
Itâs fascinating to look a few years ahead at what skills are we going to need for people. That was something that was challenging when I was the MBA program chair and when Iâve done different business aspect of training in an organization especially in education trying to figure out what degree programs if any would be applicable in the future or what skills are we going to need in our people. No matter what we see with education or with technology and everything that takes advances in the world, having curiosity and building it is only going to make it better. No matter whoâs on the show, no matter what their specialty if you ask them what comes first, curiosity or creativity, curiosity or motivation, curiosity or whatever, itâs always curiosity comes first. Itâs soul key for leaders to develop these skills and thatâs what I am doing with the Curiosity Code Index.
If anybody is giving assessments like emotional intelligence test or DISC, you go to these organizations and you want to be relevant. You want to make sure you are offering them something that can be useful to them to develop and engage in innovative workplaces. That can be challenging and I realized that a lot of people donât want to take another test. They donât want to do another this or that, but this is something so unique. I am training consultants and HR professionals and weâve got all kinds of programs we are offering to get people certified. If you get certified to get the CCI the Curiosity Code Index at CuriosityCode.com, youâll get five hours of certification credit and thatâs a big deal for anybody in HR or wanting to keep up with their credits.
Itâs an important training course in so many respects. People who learn how to give the CCI, learn how to give the training to develop personal action plans and overall corporate action plans. That alone is important to develop a curiosity-based workplace. Especially when you are working with the leadership route, the second report that I mentioned for the organization. We are focusing on how do you improve engagement? How do you do innovation and prove leadership and all the issues that everybody is talking about with communication and soft skills? Everything you are hired to talk about with your consultant, thatâs what we are covering in the second exercise of the program.
It’s so great because you are right into the horseâs mouth. You are going to employees in this training program and saying, âHow can we make this better for you?â They are giving you the content that you need to give leadership, their report of what they need to get better. It seems simple and nobody is using that to develop curiosity. I think that itâs the key to unlocking human potential. It was a few people who reviewed my work who have said that. This could be the next big movement in human potential. What we saw in human intelligence and some of the things that took off the importance of it, I think curiosity is right at the top. There is plenty of research out there about the value of curiosity but what wasnât out there was how to improve it, how to measure the things that keep people from being curious. Thatâs what I did with the Curiosity Code Index.
It is 36 questions. You can take it in a few minutes and get a report similar to what you would see if you took a DISC or an emotional intelligence test, any of those where you get your PDF report of all the things you can work on and ways to improve. A lot of people are doing and finding that itâs helpful for organizations. If you want to give a bulk of amounts to entire organizations, I have people contacting me through my site which is DrDianeHamilton.com or CuriosityCode.com. It all comes to me. You can reach me also at Diane@Dr.DianeHamilton.com. I’m happy to answer any of your questions, but I’m happy about the work thatâs going on. Itâs all tying into the work that I have going with perception as well and the work is getting focused on the Curiosity Code Index and The Curiosity Code. All that is in universities around the globe and the Forbes Business School has added it and a University in Zambia has added it.
We are going to see quite a bit of similar editions when our books come out. Iâm co-writing it with Jeff Bordes and Dr. Maja Zelihic who have both been guests on the show. We are writing about perception and we have an assessment about that. All of this is to help organizations tie in EQ and IQ, CQ for Cultural Quotient and CQ for Curiosity Quotient and realizing that this is important for building leaders of the future. I wanted to make sure if you enjoyed this episode, please check out other episodes. They are all in DrDianeHamilton.com. If you go to the top of the site you can see the radio link. You can find us at Echo and Google Play. Weâre on iHeart, Roku, iTunes and anywhere you listen, at AM/FM stations. We are on it everywhere. You canât miss it. I hope you enjoyed the episode and I hope you join us on the next episode of Take The Lead Radio.
Important Links:
- Carl Gould
- 7 Stage Advisors
- Quit and Get Rich
- Keith Krach â Previous episode
- Doug Conant â Previous episode
- David Novak
- CarlGould.com
- Carl@CarlGould.com
- CuriosityCode.com
- Diane@Dr.DianeHamilton.com
- The Curiosity Code
- Curiosity Code Index
- Jeff Bordes and Dr. Maja Zelihic – Previous episode
- iHeart – Take The Lead
- iTunes – Take The Lead
About Carl Gould
Carl Gould is a worldwide leading authority on business and entrepreneurship. His company, 7 Stage Advisors helps organizations grow to the next level. He is an entrepreneur who built three multi-million dollar businesses by age 40. 7 Stage Advisors, has mentored the launch of over five thousand businesses.
He has advised over 100 of the Inc. 500/5000 Fastest-Growing Companies. Some of the companies heâs helped are companies like Walgreens, Walmart, American Idol, USA Olympic Track, IBM, McGraw-Hill and the US Army.
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