Returning Guest, Mike Irving - Resistance Removal - Leadership Development Accelerated

In 3, 2, 1.

Welcome back to Becoming Preferred, the show where we deconstruct the strategies that help you become the preferred choice in a crowded marketplace.

Now, we've all seen it.

Companies spending thousands on leadership retreats that

result in a high for three days

and then total stagnation.

The missing piece isn't talent.

It's resistance.

Today, we are welcoming back Mike Irving.

Mike is the founder of advanced business abilities, and he's cracked the code on resistance removal, a framework that delivers tangible leadership results in weeks, not years.

Today, Mike is pulling back the curtain on his three pillars for success and revealing why communication is the ultimate foundation for developing a team of leaders rather than a team of followers.

Whether you're looking to sharpen your own edge or scale your team's performance, this episode is your roadmap.

Join me now for my conversation with Mike Irving.

Well, hey, Mike.

Welcome to the program.

We're excited to have you back again, Michael.

Thanks for having me, mate.

I'm glad to be here.

Now, where are we speaking to you from today?

Right now I'm in Mendoza, Argentina.

And if you've not been here before, I 100% recommend that you put it on your bucket list for three reasons.

Number one, some of the best wine in the world.

Number two, definitively the best steaks in the world.

And number three, surprise, the best ice cream I've ever had in my life.

And I'm not an ice cream guy, but man, the ice cream here is next level.

Wow.

Well, I know Malbecs are, I think, come out of Argentina, and I've heard that they're Mendoza, and that's interesting.

And I know from what I've been looking from a global perspective is Argentina is well posed to be a big leader in that whole southern hemisphere.

And so I think I'm glad we have a good relationship with.

Well, glad to have you.

Wherever you've been traveling, I know you've been all over the globe.

Let's talk about your new project.

And we're going to be talking today about unblocking our paths to success, removing the obstacles that stop us from moving forward.

And I really like your approach to it.

You've developed a number of what we would call pillars, and you have three pillars for development, success that apply to individuals and to teams.

Can you walk us through those pillars and why they got to be followed in a specific order?

Because there is a recipe that you've developed to this.

Let's talk about that.

Yeah, 100%.

I think that a lot of most people listening will Be familiar with the idea that we often know the things that would be the best things for us to do, but we often feel like, man, I'm just not able to do that consistently.

For whatever reason, we know the things that we should be doing.

We just don't always do them.

And every business is based on a specific set of successful actions.

The three pillars that we help the members of our community implement are based on removing the resistance that stops them from being able to do those things.

So pillar number one, we're talking about radical awareness, like making sure you're aware of your blind spots.

And they're called blind spots because we're generally not aware of them.

Yeah.

Pillar number two, taking absolute responsibility.

So fundamentally seeing and acknowledging that, hey, I create my own reality.

And so if something's happening in my life, the source of it is something about me.

And then the third pillar is moving into conscious, intentional creation.

And we achieve that by removing this resistance that actually stops us from being able to do the things we know we want to do.

It's an interesting approach, and I know you have a great analogy, and I want to talk about it and bring it in when you talk about aviation and about a helicopter.

I've been a pilot for most of my adult life, and one of the first things that we teach in pilot school when we're flying is what we call awareness, situational awareness.

What's my situation?

Where am I?

Where am I going?

What's my altitude?

Where am I in the right direction?

Do I know what's going on?

So that's kind of like your first analogy that you use in this is we have a blind spot, and we don't know that we're even.

We don't even know what we don't know.

All right, so how do you get there?

How do you approach it with it?

And where does a person have to be where they're going?

Okay, I'm willing to look at my blind spots, but.

But how do I find out what they are?

Because we are all, you know, we're successful.

We all work in our worlds.

We're all doing great job.

How important is that?

And how do I get there?

Yeah, and that's an awesome question, man.

I have found that a lot of the times, people aren't really willing to look at how they are reaching down and grabbing the rug and yanking it right out from underneath their own feet without knowing they're doing it right.

That's.

It takes bravery to do that.

And for a lot of people, that bravery only comes Once there's been enough pain to actually be willing to look at it right, it's like, I want this to change.

I'm a big advocate for, hey, don't wait till the pain is there.

Because the blind spots exist.

Whether you like it or not, they do exist.

Find out about them as early as possible and then go and take action because all that's going to do is speed up your progression.

Now, I was one of the people who.

I didn't do that.

I got to a place where there was enough pain that I was going, man, I don't know what to do.

I don't know who to turn to.

I'd hired business coaches to help me and I found that all they did was fundamentally create more stress for me.

Not that there was anything wrong with them, but they were tempting to get me to implement all these systems every week and that was creating more stress on top of what I already had.

The stress I was dealing with was created by my own resistance.

Now, you can attempt to work through this on your own.

There's things you can do.

You can read books, you can intentionally sit and be an observer of yourself.

And by doing that, just by observing your own behaviors, you will automatically begin to be more aware of them and to change them.

We've created a process that just helps speed that up exponentially.

So we've got a diagnostic tool that I call the predictor profiles.

It was created by somebody who spent 45 years of his life developing them.

He has since passed away.

I first took these Predictor profiles in 2005.

Let's just say that they were very revealing.

They highlighted a few things where I had some problems in my life.

Strengths.

Well, and we do SWOT analysis from a business perspective.

What's my competition?

What do they do?

Well, what's our unique sum?

What?

We fail to do that on ourselves.

And so I like the idea you're looking at yourself first.

And it's hard because we don't know always our strong points.

I'll give you an example.

I'm not detail oriented.

I the details.

I'm never going to be amazing at details.

So I have systems for details.

I have people to help me with the details.

I'm really good at strategy.

I'm good at 30,000ft.

I'm good at seeing how the whole picture goes together.

So I focus more on that and try and avoid the chasing shiny objects and, and getting chased up because then, you know, you don't master any of them.

So it's staying focused.

It's Maintaining clarity.

So what your diagnostic tool seems like it does is it provides some clarity as to what.

Here's my strong points, here's my weak points.

So let's say I've got an inventory now of pros and cons, you know, things that are blind spots.

So what now?

What?

Yeah, well that's, I guess that's where the real value of the last 20 years of my life comes into play.

Where, yeah, we use this assessment.

It's very good, it's very accurate, it shows us the ways that you're creating your own problems.

But the real value in our organization is in our ability to help you alter those results, which in turn then changes the results you get in real life.

So that's exactly right.

It's like it becomes a.

So we measure 49 success factors.

There's 49 traits that we measure.

They cover areas of attitude and character, general competency, aptitudes, and then skills and abilities, particularly around the subject of communication.

Now when it highlights an area that shows up as a potential problem.

And remember, we're not working with my opinion.

You've answered the questions and this is what it says about you.

And we get comparative data of what successful people really look like.

So it's kind of like, well, this is it.

Did you want to have some help to change this?

Our function becomes to work with that person over a 6, 12, 24, 36 month period to help them alter those results.

And we use the diagnostic as a measuring stick.

So you start, this is what it says.

Hey, 12 months later, what have we changed?

Take the test again.

Let's, let's do an evaluation and that way we can track progress over time.

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And now back to my conversation with Mike Irving.

Are there things that we should focus on?

I went through Dan Sullivan's Strategic Coach program back in the 80s, late 80s, when it was just getting started.

And one thing Dan, phenomenal program.

And it's been around for, you know, 30, 40 years.

It's finding clarity and then finding your unique ability.

Everybody has a unique ability, something they do, they're exceptionally well.

And what Dan maintains is focus more on what you do well, your unique ability that makes you different.

Focus less on what you don't because you're never going to be amazing at it.

After I've taken my diagnostic tool, if there's some critical areas, you say they're mostly around communication or maybe around skill sets and then it goes, I need to work and improve on this, or is there, hey, don't even bother going down this road, get someone else to do that.

How does it segment that?

Or in other words, it's going to try and make me better and work on an area that I'm probably never going to get excited about.

Because we have to link behavior to motivation, right?

Otherwise, yeah, people fall off.

It's like they go to the gym in January and by February they're canceling their memberships because it's hard work, it's not fun, it's the habit's not there.

You got to be saying the same things.

Well, it's really interesting that you raised that.

So the experience I've had over the last 20 years in particular shows me that changing behavior and changing attitudes and changing aptitudes, most people think that what's involved in doing that is hard work.

So they tend to think that if you were to graph the change, the graph does this over time.

But in my experience that's not true.

In my experience, what happens is the graph does this.

It stays totally level until you hit a moment and then bang, there's a jump up and then it stays totally level until another moment and jumps up again and then stays totally level and jumps up again.

Now the reason I say that is because when we go to help someone change, we're not giving them techniques and practices to go and work hard at in order to be different.

We're actually identifying the real source resistance that's causing the problem.

And when we remove the resistance, that's the moment that the graph Jumps up.

Interesting.

So it's.

It doesn't have to be all this hard work.

And I don't recommend that somebody.

If somebody's got.

You've raised attention to detail.

So that's one of the traits that we measure in our assessment.

If someone's attention to detail is, let's say, 10 out of 100.

And by the way, when I first took the test, mine was zero.

So, like, I know what that feels like, right?

Somewhere in there.

Yeah.

Okay.

If somebody's score is 0 or 10 out of 100, then what that's actually measuring is it's measuring their willingness and interest to pay attention to detail, their willingness and interest to check the fine details of the work, recheck their work, make sure it's accurate, and pay attention to that.

It's not measuring ability.

It's measuring willingness and interest.

So if willingness and interest is low, all that means is that there's resistance that's restricting it.

So isolate the resistance.

And we've developed processes and ways of helping people to do that.

When the resistance comes off, that trait just jumps up.

Now, mine was zero.

Three years later, when I took the test for a, I don't know, fourth or fifth time, mine was 85.

What was the resistance levels for you?

What was identified for you from a resistance point of view?

If you don't mind sharing and then,

no, I don't mind at all.

That's a good example.

What did you do differently and how did it.

What was the outcome of that transformation?

If I can, I'll say that's probably not the question.

That would be the best question to ask.

So the question is probably what was I experiencing in moments where it was necessary to pay attention to detail?

And what I would experience was, bloody hell, this is annoying.

I just want to go and look at the high level.

Let's go, blue sky.

This.

Come on, somebody else can.

And I would feel this emotion of impatience and frustration and annoyance, and I'd rather be doing something else.

Yeah, well, when you isolate those emotions down, that's all based in resistance.

And that then meant that there was something that had happened, a couple of things that had happened earlier in my life that meant that the way I survived those things was details, just irrelevant.

Come on.

You know, I'm just gonna go and do this.

Worked in the past.

Yeah, yeah.

And so when I.

When I.

When my attention was put on those things and a couple of really smart questions were presented to me, I all of a sudden went, oh.

And it was like I could feel that Weight, lift off my shoulders, Light bulbs.

Yeah.

And that didn't mean that I then became the researcher, chartered accountant.

Attention to detail, to the nines.

And that's all I spend my time doing.

All it meant is that I became much more willing to.

To pay attention to detail when it matters.

And that has made such an enormous impact on my life.

You know another example, while I had a zero attention to detail, I also had a zero on patience.

On patience.

That's probably not a good combination, is it?

And then with that, I also had a 100 on competitive.

And there's five traits that we measure attitudinally.

And one of those traits is a trait called critical, which is your tendency to be critical of others, be judgmental, and see faults when they don't necessarily exist.

And my critical score was up at 80.

So, I mean, put that together, I was an absolute pain in the ass.

Right?

Right.

That's the reality.

In my 20s, man, I was at that.

I can look back at plenty of things and go, geez, what was I thinking?

But I now know that, hey, those things were really holding me back.

And identifying them was.

While it was very confronting, it was also very freeing because those things combined with a bunch of other things I saw on my results, I went, okay, hold on a second.

I'm the one who answered these questions, and this is what my answers are reporting about me now.

Somebody with those results would probably have these sorts of problems.

I've got those sorts of problems, and those are my results.

Okay?

I can't ignore this.

This is really important.

If I don't change this about me, I'm not going to achieve what I want to achieve in the next 20, 30, 40 years of my life.

Do you think you'll need a little maturity in order to figure that one out?

Meaning, like, you know, I remember in my 20s, too, I can do everything.

Our egos are raging.

Pick the scale.

Yeah.

An example that comes to mind just from awareness.

You know, I'm in my 60s now, and I measure my sleep.

I use the Apple Watch.

I measure blood pressure.

I measure those things.

And, you know, last summer I actually went through the process and my blood pressure was too high and it was not coming down.

And I'm checking and I work out regularly, but found out that my grandmother and my mother have hypertension.

I'm going, oh, okay.

So awareness, all right, that there's this issue exists and.

And I'm doing all that I can, but I'm not getting the results that I'm looking for.

And so by going in through some testing, through diagnostics, it's oh yeah, this is the issue.

And hey, if you take this little low dose weight pill and take this regularly, it'll knock this thing down in a month.

And it did.

And now it's okay.

I now have to take this little white pill that controls the blood pressure and keeps me into that 120, 78 range.

I feel the same.

Nothing changed.

Except now that metric, that KPI, that thing I look in the dashboard is now changed.

So same thing.

From a speaking point of view, there's things that are comments as speakers.

You and I get comments from the audience and we go, okay, it's good feedback.

We could get defensive or we can embrace and go, actually you know what, good point, That's a good point.

If you have kids, they're really good at helping you doing this.

You know, I've told my kids the statute of limitations on blaming us and how your life turns out is 30.

After 30 you got to be accountable.

All right, which actually might be a good transition.

Well, so I'll get you to finish up this point, but then we'll talk about radical accountability as well because I know that's another pillar so we can find out the awareness.

We then have a path, we know what we do well, unblock the friction, unblock the resistance that's doing it.

And I kind of get that.

And just sidebar on that, I've changed my mindset.

Like for instance, recording, I'm recording a new book and it's work for a half hour recording.

You'll spend an hour and a half because of all the takes and retakes and to keep your energy up.

It's exhausting.

And so I had a negative like, oh God, I gotta go do a recording.

And so I shifted my mindset on that to it, Hey, I get to go do a recording.

I get to spend an hour and a half free working with this, my content, making this amazing for an audience and do whatever.

And just that simple frame, reframe.

I now approach it differently and my results are different.

I'm still tired when it's done, but woohoo, it's a big accomplishment and schedule it done.

So I schedule it.

If I leave it open, I need to do this today, but my tool is, it's scheduled and if it's scheduled, I'm doing it.

So that was how I get past the resistance.

So any final comments on that part?

And then let's move into accountability.

Yeah, I really like, I like the topic.

You've raised there.

And the only thing that I can say to that topic is I hear a lot of people that will change something and go.

Because it can feel like I got do that today.

It's a chore.

It's a burden.

It's something that I'm not necessarily looking forward to and I need to do it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What I hear is that a lot of people will change that and say to themselves, I get to.

Now, what I find is that a percentage of the time, and I find it's not a small percentage.

It still lurks in the back of my mind that I need to.

Yeah.

And so I still will feel that degree of pressure.

So the.

One of the principles that I teach as an analogy is, hey, you are the king or the queen on the throne.

In your world, you are the sovereign being, meaning you are the king.

You always have choice.

So anytime you tell yourself that you have to or you need to, you're actually lying to yourself because you don't.

It's your choice.

Yeah.

So instead of I get to do this, it can be as simple as I'm choosing to do this.

Choosing has intent behind it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

And so that for me, you know.

Have you read.

You've probably read Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

Yeah, yeah.

One of the first.

Okay, cool.

Have you read his book called Outwitting the Devil?

No.

My strong recommendation, Outwitting the Devil, in my opinion, is the best book Napoleon Hill ever wrote.

And in it, what he talks about is the risk of drifting.

And if I talk about sovereignty and you're the king or queen on the throne, when you step off the throne, you're drifting.

That's really dangerous.

You're no longer intentional.

And often when we've stepped off the throne, resistance has taken over, and so we drift.

And what he spoke about in that book is it's about developing your invisible muscles.

These are not his words.

These are my words.

What are your invisible muscles?

For me, invisible muscles are things like awareness, intention, interest.

You get to choose what you're interested in.

Intuition.

And the more that you develop those four, that gives you a greater ability to direct your attention to where you want it to go instead of drifting.

So what Napoleon Hill wrote about in Think and Grow Rich and Outwitting the Devil, that's exactly what we help the members of our community to develop within themselves so that they are more intentional.

They're able to do the things that they say they're going to do consistently.

That resistance gets removed.

It's interesting you know, how you characterize it and frame it.

And that's why I love getting to meet people like yourselves, because you'll have a different angle or perspective on it.

Like you were talking about change, you know, And I agree with you.

People don't change unless the pain's so great they have to fear God's put into them or the pleasure so good they want to, right?

So they have to do that.

I see so many people operating their boats on the water without a rudder and they're blown by the winds, wherever the winds are going, they're just not intentional with where they're going.

They got their job, somebody introduced them.

They get their next job versus going after and getting it.

And it's a very hard thing to teach people that you can actually get to a destination if you set and chart your course, have a plan B.

So you know, as a pilot, when I'm going from say Calgary to Phoenix, I have a flight plan.

I know which way I'm going.

But if I get down by Salt Lake and I know I'm going to run into bad weather in the mountains or whatever, I know I can go through Las Vegas or the California route, then cut back across.

I have a plan B to it, even a plan C. And every commercial flight people take, there's plan B.

Always.

There's always an extra hour of fuel just in case we storm out and things don't go according to plan.

What's your plan B?

But most people don't even have plan B, let alone a plan A.

So they're reactive instead of proactive.

So what I hear you saying, get your awareness, find out where the resistance are, find out more about you.

So it's kind of think of it as a, a horoscope on steroids or you're getting a look into yourself, but scientifically, say metaphysically based or historically based, how it's done, get a look at it like your engine light coming on like a medical diagnostic from the best Mayo Clinic in the planet.

So you know what's going on, what are your genetic predispositions, how are you thinking about things?

Because this all came from our programming, right?

If we look at our programming and what you're doing is you're adjusting, programming you as a butt head, 20 year old as you're going same.

And we're all kind of butt head, but it was our environment.

So I grew up with parents who were immigrants.

England, world second World War.

Children should be seen and not heard.

Private school, boarding schools, like sent away.

Don't you know, and you got smacked.

If you did something right, you got smacked.

Those all factor in.

And then the new generation where, no, you don't smack your kids anymore, at least publicly, but you got to.

Do you find that a lot of that's environmental?

How people grow up is why they have that initial programming?

Or is it a problem with our education system?

Or where do you see it stemming from?

Or you probably see a lot of similar things.

Yeah, I do.

And, man, you just raised a topic that I could talk for hours about.

When it comes to the education system, the education system that we've been through does not teach an individual how to think.

It teaches an individual how to memorize and regurgitate.

And that does not create understanding.

I could talk about that for hours.

But the other side of what you just asked, where does it come from?

Yeah, it comes from our experiences.

And so our experiences include being raised by our parents, the relationship we had with our grandparents, everything that happened in life from zero to, you know, 20, 28, really.

And as we go through those experiences, we create survival mechanisms.

We create ways of surviving the moments that we were unwilling to experience.

Yeah.

And there's where resistance sits.

Resistance fundamentally sits in moments that we're unwilling to experience.

That's when resistance gets created.

We then create a survival mechanism in order to cope with and deal with that resistance.

And.

And a survival mechanism we created when we were 10, whether we like it or not, it still is there when we're 30 and 40 and 50, unless we do something about it.

And a perfect example of that.

I'm sure you can relate to this.

I know I do.

Is that we will have things that happen in life and they happen, and we react to them, and then three or four hours later, we find ourselves going, I wish I dealt with that differently.

Why did I do that?

Yeah.

And kids will do that.

And I don't have children, but I've got a harem of godson.

Yeah.

That's resistance in action.

And that same concept happens with our work relationships.

It happens with our relationships with our significant others.

We have buttons that get pressed.

Yeah.

Triggers.

The source of those buttons and triggers is the resistance within us.

Life is so much more enjoyable when we remove that resistance because the buttons and the triggers are no longer there.

Do you see patterns?

Do you see the similar patterns, though, as people come back with the assessments?

So your approach, you have a number of ways to address the issue, but based on the individual.

So the solutions might not be standard, but you're seeing similar issues.

So you're working within that framework first of all and then growing that individual so that through awareness, they can then take accountability for their outcome.

Right.

Is that a good place for us to segue into at this point?

Yeah, it's essential.

What I've actually created is a framework that supports the implementation of the three pillars we spoke about earlier.

Now, this framework, I call the framework the Foundations of Successful Self Leadership.

One of the main points of that is taking extreme or absolute responsibility, which is accountability.

Right, yeah.

The framework is based on my first 12 years of coaching people one on one.

So working with CEOs, founders and senior execs.

And I saw a pattern and the pattern was that I was able to help that person get the change that they wanted after they understood these things.

And I went, okay, well that's important, don't ignore that, Mike.

Those things became the framework that I call the Foundations of Successful Self Leadership.

And it's very simple, but it's not easy to implement and think with.

Once you can implement it and think with it, it then creates a framework that you can use to develop leaders on your team.

Because our number one function as leaders is develop more leaders.

Yeah, replace ourselves.

It's much easier to do that when you have a framework to work with.

Yeah, yeah.

And so you've seen lots of transformations, obviously.

And like I say, I think people want to blame something with we've got AI coming out.

I want to talk about that and how you've applied it to your models, because I think it accelerates things and helps things.

So for instance, I mentioned I'm not good at the details now.

I record all of our conversations.

So all my client conversations get recorded automatically get put into a transcript.

All the action items get pulled out of it, all with AI and I get a summary of it.

And then every day I get a push from our project management stuff saying, here's essential things that have to be done today that I diagnose and they're there and I just have to check them off and then it schedules them.

So for me, if my to DOS or action items tasks are scheduled, I do them.

If they aren't, well, then I don't see them.

You know, it's kind of like if I don't open the email and I process emails now that was one distraction.

I don't respond to a ding.

I process a couple times a day and when I'm done with the email, I'm done with the email and I'm just simplifying it all the time.

So I can keep clarity and maintain that.

So how can we add that responsibility?

Where do you see?

People don't want to take responsibility because a lot of people want to go, hey, it's not me, it's them.

What?

Or hey, technology is ruining my life right now.

Or hey, this new tech, it doesn't matter what, there's always a disruption.

How do you get people to start taking responsibility for their outcomes and results in life?

Yeah, again, there's the golden question.

Right?

You could do a day on this one, I know you can.

Or days.

Yeah, easily.

It's amazing.

I mean, look, it's much easier to blame somebody else or to blame something else.

Right?

That's easy.

So if you are the sovereign being, if you're the king or the queen on the throne, let's not forget that.

Yeah, well, let's not forget that it was actually your birthright to take that position.

You were born to be in that role.

Right.

And your parents did the best job they could to raise you to take that position in your life.

Now taking that position, hey man, remember, the buck stops with you.

You create the realm.

All of your decisions and ways of thinking create the realm that you live in.

It creates your kingdom.

Now that structure works really well as long as you stay on the throne.

Right.

But it's pretty easy to jump off the throne into abdication or get knocked off.

We've all seen Game of Thrones or the Knights of the seven King, we're watching those and you got to watch your back.

But yeah, this is self inflicted, is what you're saying.

It is.

Because if you drop down into abdication.

Yeah.

Fundamentally you do not feel okay.

And if you do not feel okay, your goal becomes to feel okay.

Now the only real way to feel okay is to take absolute responsibility and jump back up on the throne and go, okay, how did I create this?

How did I create this problem?

And what am I going to do to change it?

But that's not easy to do.

So what we do instead is we drop down into resignation.

And in resignation we will lie, lay blame, rationalize, justify, make excuses, tell stories we'll look for and come up with reasons why, which are often lies and blames.

And we do all of that in order to feel okay.

Does it work?

No.

So then we drop down into another state called ambivalence.

I've done that too.

And we've.

I'm guilty of that myself, so I understand that.

Me too.

Me too.

This was one of the most significant lessons that I had when I was in that late 20s, early 30s is like, wow.

Ambivalence is where we take on a role and we act in a certain way in order to hide or cover how we really feel.

Yeah.

So we put on a Persona and all that stems from stepping off the throne.

Yeah, Makes sense.

No, I love the analogy.

It's a perfect analogy.

You're the king or queen of your kingdom.

You get to design it.

You get to say, what does this realm look like?

And own it.

But like I say, it's awareness and identify the blind spots.

So time always moves so fast when we do this.

What's the best way?

If I want to come in and take that, the website's advancedbusinessabilities.com but if I want to do that audit, check that out and go through that.

I believe you offer that.

Yeah, look, we, we've actually set up a short audit.

We can call it an executive effectiveness audit or benchmark.

People can do that completely free of charge if they go to audit.advancedbusinessabilities.com this 15 questions you'll respond to.

What you'll get from that is a report with the benchmark that tells you the areas that would be wise for you to put your attention on over the next 90 days.

And it gives you a degree of a 90 day plan.

You can do that for free.

And if you want to discuss it or you want to discuss getting some support, then after you've done that, you could book a call with us free of charge and we'll have a chat to see how much of a good fit we are and whether or not you're the type of person that will really respond well to our approach.

And if I have a leader, because I know you, Max, you focus on maximizing team performance, so you work with teams.

So if I'm a leader and I have a team, and particularly going into tougher times, we got global uncertainty, economic uncertainty.

It's important to know who my team players are and have workups and profiles on them.

They can approach you, talk to you and they can bring you in house or, and you can advise to that or like I say, run assessments, give them a 100%.

The way that we tend to structure, that is we will work with an organization as long as the leader is involved.

So if the leader wants us to just work with their team, we're not for you.

I work with the leader, the CEO, the senior exec, and then I have a team that will work with that person's team so that we get a bit of separation, and we'll do as much or as little as they want us to in order to help identify the potential future leaders and then help to develop those people.

Fantastic.

Well, if you're looking to maximize your team's performance, you're looking for measurable coaching, personalized for professionals, and you want to unblock your path to success.

Advancedbusinessabilities.com and Mike Irving.

Mike, this is a pleasure.

Always glad to have you back again.

And I know you got a new book coming out, so please come back when you get your new book out.

And do you want to tell us a little teaser on that one?

Yeah, absolutely.

So Unseen Leadership is the title and it fundamentally is the basis of, hey, what is Unseen Leadership?

And for me, it's very much related to Outwitting the Devil with Napoleon Hill.

Unseen Leadership is the work that you do on yourself as a leader to remove the resistance that gets in the way.

And the book is about, hey, what's the approach?

How do you do that?

And we're not far off from launching it.

I'll let you know when it's ready.

It'll still be another month or two.

Yeah, no problem.

Thanks, Mike.

Thanks for having me.

No, it's my pleasure.

As you are listening to this episode, what is one idea that you've heard that's caught your attention and why does it matter so much to you?

And who is one person who you can share that with, either sharing this episode or just sharing that insight that occurred to you while you were listening?

Perhaps it is the idea that removing resistance, not just adding more effort, is the secret to rapid growth.

Or perhaps it is the realization that our blind spots are often the very things yanking the rug from out under our feet without us knowing it.

Thank you for listening, for learning, and for investing in yourself so that you can become the best version of you.

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Until next time.

This podcast is created and associated with Summit Media.

My executive producer is Beth Smith and

Director of Research Search Tori Smith.

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Goodbye.