Lead To Win With Michael Hyatt

Leaders are achievers. But nobody bats 1.000. We all experience failure eventually. That can be discouraging—even humiliating! That’s why most of us react in one of two ways. Either we globalize our failure by thinking we won’t ever succeed. Or we sweep the loss away quickly and forget it. But what if there was a better way to fail? Failure doesn’t have to be fatal, and it should never be ignored. We know because we’ve been there! Your failures can make you a better leader if you take the time to examine them non-defensively, learn some lessons, and then move on with confidence. Based on years of business experience, including our share of ups and downs, we’ve identified six specific actions you can take to get every bit of value you can from an experience—even failure. Here’s a preview of this episode: The most recent failure we experienced, and what we learned from it. The obvious—and difficult—first step in learning from failure. How ignoring your own failure undermines your confidence. How avoidin

Good leaders want to do the right thing. But sometimes we can be our own worst enemy. Have you ever made a really dumb choice that cost you a relationship or an opportunity? It’s so discouraging to realize you’ve made an avoidable mistake. It can even make you question your decision making ability. But you can recover. When we see people who seem to always make the best decision, it’s tempting to believe that they’re just smarter than we are, or maybe have a unique gift. Not true! Nobody is born wise. The good news is that wisdom is a trait you can acquire. Over a lifetime of practice (and the mistakes to go with it) we’ve distilled our learning into 3 habits that wise leaders consistently practice. Put these habits to work for you, and you’ll begin to see a huge difference. You’ll avoid the regret and disappointment that come with repeated failure. Your decision making will improve, you’ll make better choices, and you’ll become the respected leader you aspire to be. Once you’ve listened to this episo

What do you do when you have a customer you just can’t seem to satisfy? Or a team member who seems resistant to coaching? What about someone in a personal relationship who seems to suck the life out of you? Sometimes it seems like you’re investing all your energy in the wrong people. What can you do about it? Good leaders develop people. The problem is that not all employees or customers are created equal. Some can fail to develop despite hours of time and energy. It’s maddening to pour your resources into a person who provides no return on the investment. But there’s a better way. We’ve identified five steps to ensure that you’re not wasting resources on the wrong people. We can help you multiply your effectiveness by identifying and investing in the people who really want to grow and improve. Finally, you can escape from life-draining clients, customers, and relationships and discover the freedom to work with people who energize you. Does it sound callous to talk about ending unproductive relationshi

As a leader, you probably have a huge goal in mind. It’s the heartbeat of your ambition, the reason you get out of bed in the morning. Chances are good that you’ve thought about it long and hard, and you may even have a timetable and specific objectives for reaching it. The problem is that distractions, interruptions, and “business as usual” cause us to loose sight of our goals. Before long, another month, another quarter, maybe even another year has gone by with no progress. It’s disheartening. We know. We’ve been there. But there’s hope! Over the years, we’ve developed a killer strategy to ensure you keep making progress on your goals. And it works! In this episode, we’ll give you the simple system we call the 3x3 Goal Achievement Strategy. If you’re tired of watching your biggest goals slip through your fingers while you’re busy putting out brush fires, this episode is for you! Here’s the system that will give you laser focus on the things that matter most every day. Here’s what’s coming inside the episo

Leaders must motivate people. The problem is that everybody’s different, so what inspires one team member may demotivate another. It can be confusing to lead a diverse team.  But personality is not an unsolvable puzzle. And we’ve got three powerful tools to help you put it all together.  We’ve identified three personality assessments that give you a clear understanding of how your team members think, feel, and work. Use these in your business, and you’ll never wonder how to motivate your team again. You’ll gain an engaged, focused workforce that will bring their best energy to work.   Here’s a peek this episode: We reveal our own journey with using personality assessments. Why we use personality assessments in our business.  Why it’s more productive to focus on strengths than weaknesses.  How it affects a team member to be free to focus on strengths. We reveal our top five strengths.  How knowing a teammate’s strengths helps your working relationship.  A clear, concise description of the Enneagram. How knowi

Every leader is motivated by a compelling vision for the future. There’s something you want to achieve. You know where you’re headed. The problem is that it’s hard to keep that vision real for your team. They’re busy and easily distracted. Before long, another quarter has slipped by and you haven’t made real progress on the big outcome you’re after. How discouraging!  But there’s hope! We’ve got a compelling formula for communicating your vision to every single member of your team.  Based on decades of corporate experience, we’ve distilled vision casting into a series of four steps. Follow them, and you’ll see your team transformed. They’ll go from being mired in the busy work of Monday to Friday and become motivated partners in helping make your vision a reality. This really works! Shout-out! Here’s a shout-out to listeners BenJoeM2, who left this review of the podcast on iTunes: “Been listening since day one and have loved it! Really is great advice for any leader in work, home, or church." Thanks friend. W

Do you ever have enough hours in the day to do all you need to do? If we’re honest, most of us would say no. Work, family, friends, rest, exercise, reading, relationships—something’s got to give. For most of us, that something is self-care. The result? We give more and more to work and others, and less and less to ourselves. It’s a recipe for burnout. But you deserve more than life on a treadmill. And there’s no need for you to throttle back your dreams. You can have the double win: win at work and succeed at life! In this episode, you’ll hear the three key benefits of prioritizing self-care. And? We’ll give you tips for how to do that. This episode of Lead to Win is brought to you by The Focused Leader 1-Day Intensive. To focus your leadership, claim your ticket to our November 12 intensive before July 15, when our early-bird pricing expires. Find out more at leadto.win/intensive.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-inf

Here’s the situation: one of your most lucrative clients has admitted to unethical behavior and is entirely unwilling to change. Do you keep the account and tie your name to their misdealings? Or do you terminate the relationship and lose over a million dollars in sunk cost? What about this: your top salesman is accused of inappropriate behavior toward team members of the opposite sex. You believe the complaints, but the top-performer denies them. Do you fire the salesman and lose your “rainmaker”? Or do you tolerate the behavior regardless of the effect on morale? In this episode, we’ll give you five steps for dealing with a high-performing but bad-behaving employee. Those weren’t just case studies. They were real workplace dilemmas we’ve faced. You may have a tough personnel decision sitting on your desk right now. That produces a lot of stress and anxiety. You may feel like you’re forced to choose between your integrity and the future of your business. But you don’t have to. We believe you can run a highly

Has this ever happened to you? You get in the car and pull out of the driveway, just like you do every day. Then it dawns on you: “This is Saturday!” You’re halfway to the office when you realize you were headed to the store. Oops. It’s easy to drift along in the wrong direction. That happens in life. And it happens in business. That phenomenon is called the drift. Just like the current in a river, life has unseen forces that pull you along in a given direction. Lifestage, busyness, culture, obligations —all of that forms a draft that pulls you forward, whether you realize it or not. If you’re not careful, you can wake up to find that your business and personal life have drifted to a destination you never intended. We’ll show you how to avoid that by living your life with intention. We share three simple, powerful questions that will help you avoid the drift and navigate against the subtle forces of busyness and distraction. You can live your life on purpose if you pause long enough to answer these three prof

Feeling overwhelmed? Wow, do we know what that’s like! When you’re caught in that whirlwind of tasks, it feels like you’re downrange at Top Golf! You’re pelted with a new to-do item every few seconds. It’s even worse when you don’t have a staff. With no one to delegate to, you just fall further and further behind. But there’s another way! Though we have a good-sized staff now, it wasn’t always that way. We know what it’s like to work alone or with limited help. And we can tell you that it is possible to delegate even if you don’t have a staff! The first thing you have to do is change your mindset. Once you begin to see the possibilities, you’ll find nearly endless opportunities to offload work. Believe it or not, even as a line-level staffer or solopreneur, you have options! Here’s a Peek Inside the Episode How to overcome the hurdle of “I need to do it myself.” How the Eisenhower Matrix can triage your to-do list. Solid definitions of “fake work” and “downhill work.” How to use AI to delegate routine tasks

Ugh, another meeting! Do you know the feeling? We sure do. We’ve sat through our share of bad meetings. But would you believe we actually love meetings now? It’s true. We got so sick of lousy meetings that we decided to do something about it. When we founded this company, we determined that meetings were going to be something more than a necessary evil. We wanted to make meetings productive and engaging, like they were meant to be. So we created a meeting rhythm and cadence that ensures we have just the right number of meetings, that they all have a clear purpose, and that they don’t get bogged down or pulled off track. And it works! Our meetings are enjoyable because we all know why we’re there, that the outcome is important, and it’ll be worth our time. We love meetings—and you can too! In this episode, we show you how to structure your meetings for maximum engagement and results. We’ve also got two free tools that will make it much easier to structure your meetings. (See the links below.) This episode of L

To build a winning company, you need a winning team. A-players can skyrocket your success, and nothing will tank momentum faster than adding a B- or C-level player to the mix. We all seem to know that at some level. But when it’s time to hire, we always seem to be in a hurry. We feel some unstated urgency to keep the seats filled and the machine running. That almost always leads to a bad hire, as we’ve learned the hard way! But there is a way to make recruiting easier, and we’ll tell you about it on today’s episode. We really like this episode because it’s a chance to showcase some of the initiatives we’ve created around recruiting and retention. More than that, it’s a subject we’re really passionate about. We love our team, and we believe they are the secret to our success. After listening to this episode, we hope you’ll agree that your people truly are your number-one asset. And? You’ll have the insight you need to begin gathering a top team of your own.   If you’re ready to get off the turnover treadmill a

Has this ever happened to you? You land what you think will be your dream job. But after a few months, you realize . . . you really don’t like it. Aargh! That’s happened to us, more than once. Sometimes the job wasn’t what you thought. Sometimes the role changes as the company grows (or downsizes). And sometimes you just realize you’re in the wrong career. Either way, it kind of makes you feel stuck. It’s demotivating to wake up every day and realize the job you have is not the one you want. But there’s hope! Together, we’ve held dozens of jobs in the business world. We know better than anyone that it’s easy to wind up in a role that just doesn’t fit. Over the years, we’ve reshaped our responsibilities, switched jobs, and even changed careers. It can be done! You don’t have to feel stuck in a job, or even a career, that no longer fits your passion and proficiency. In this episode, we’ll give you three possible actions you can take. One of them is sure to lead to a role that fits you. We’re also joined by Ken

Have you ever worked for a really bad boss? The kind that kind that makes you want to tear your hear out, or quit, or maybe both? Nearly everybody has at some point, including us! In fact, we’ve got a few of our best bad boss stories to share today—plus some from our listeners. So what do you do when your boss is really insufferable? In our experience a bad boss can do incredible damage to morale, productivity, and even the emotional health of the team. The good news is that there are ways to do more than just cope with the situation. We’ve got tips to share that can help you thrive even in a less-than-ideal work team environment. Oh, and if you are a boss, as many of our listeners are, there’s something here for you too. You can use these insights to reverse-engineer your leadership and be sure you’re not exhibiting any “bad boss” behaviors. This episode of Lead to Win is brought to you by The LeaderScore Assessment, a simple tool to evaluate the health of your leadership. Find out more at leadto.win/leaders

What’s your biggest roadblock to productivity? Many people would say, “Interruptions and distractions! I can’t get anything done because I keep getting interrupted!” If that’s you, we’re going to solve that problem for you right now. First, a little celebration. We are so excited that Free to Focus made 4 major, national best-seller lists! That includes number one spots at the Wall Street Journal business list and the Amazon.com list for personal time management. We’re so excited! To celebrate, we’re releasing a second free audio chapter in this bonus episode of Lead to Win. (The first chapter is here.) Today’s episode is “Activate: Beat Interruptions and Distractions.” And we promise it’ll help you slam the door on time stealers like email, social media, drop-in visitors, electronic notifications, and more. Put the techniques we reveal here into practice, and you’ll be amazed at how your productivity skyrockets! Here’s a peek at what’s inside the episode— Learn how to limit instant communications so you ca

Do you have a really big dream or far-out goal that you’ve never told anybody about? We’ll bet you do because we’ve had them too. What’s sad is that most of those dreams  get buried under a huge mound of fear and insecurity. It doesn’t have to be that way! We’ve felt that same fear of acting on our deepest desires. And we’ve learned from experience that when you do take the risk of sharing your dream, people usually tell you “get real” or “be practical.” It’s discouraging. After a while, it’s just easier to play it safe. Here’s the thing: nothing good in our lives has come from thinking small. All the breakthroughs—every single one—have come as a result of dreaming big and nurturing those dreams to reality. Thinking big is a skill, just like anything else. You can train yourself to it, and we’ll show you how. I (Megan) had to learn that lesson to overcome my lifelong fear of public speaking. To do that, I had to envision a bigger future for myself. In this episode, I share that journey and how it transformed

Do you know why Steve Jobs insisted that the original iPhone have only one button? Because nothing succeeds like simplicity. Take out your iPhone, if you have one, and compare it to a Comcast remote. See the difference? Sleek simplicity versus mind-boggling complexity. We all know that simplicity increases speed and fuels business growth. But we seem to be stuck with clunky, cumbersome business systems. And they multiply like rabbits! Hiring, project approval, communication tools, and even expense reporting can be numbingly complex and tedious. We feel that too, which is why we recently simplified one of the main aspects of our business, our software solutions. We now use a combination of only four products to run our business: G-suite, Slack, Spark, and Asana. Are they the best tools out there? We don’t know, but they’re the simplest ones that meet our needs. We’re collaborating faster and better than ever before. And our team loves it. Simplicity always wins. In this episode, we show you how to simplify you

If you could make a single hire that would revolutionize your productivity, would you do it? Of course we all would say yes. But we’ve found that most leaders procrastinate when it comes to hiring an executive assistant. That’s right, an EA is the most important hire you’ll ever make. Having a good assistant makes you incredibly productive by taking on your low-leverage tasks and helping you channel your time and energy where you can be most effective. That creates an instant boost in productivity! But lots of us put off hiring an EA out of fear. We’re afraid we can’t afford it, or we’ll lose control of important tasks, or there won’t be enough for them to do. We’re here to tell you that simply isn’t true! In fact, we’re so convinced that hiring an EA will skyrocket your productivity that we’re devoting the entire episode to showing you how and why to do it.   Plus? We have a visit from Jim Kelly and Jamie Hess, our executive assistants, who give a behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like to work with us. Her

As business owners, we’ve learned that we can’t do our best work sandwiched between meetings and phone calls. We need focused time for strategizing, writing, and working out difficult problems. You probably do too. But how many times do you get distracted in a typical day? Ten? Fifty? A hundred? Research indicates that the average worker is distracted once every three minutes. We’re swimming upstream against a flood of emails, notifications, texts, and drop-in visitors. You just can’t be productive in that environment. The good news is that regaining your focus is easier than you think. Just a few simple practices can slam the door on distractions and interruptions and give you the focused time you need for high-leverage work. I’m talking about things you can start doing right now, today. Here’s happening in this episode— You’ll get practical tips for getting in the “alone zone” so you’re not interrupted. You’ll learn about “meeting free Thursdays” and how that’s boosted our business. You’ll learn how to fig

We are so excited to announce the release of my (Michael’s) latest book, Free to Focus: A Total PRoductivity System to Achieve More by Doing Less! In fact, we’re having a party! You can read the first chapter of Free to Focus here. Here’s what’s happening inside the episode— We outline the 3-part system of productivity: Stop, Cut, Act. We tell what makes this system different from the many other task- and time-management approaches. You’ll hear from actual users of the Free to Focus method, who talk about the transformation it made in their lives and businesses. We show you the surprising power of getting more done by focusing on just three tasks per day. You’ll hear how to claim up to $798-worth of free bonuses by ordering the book this week. We announce the winners of our free giveaway of all Michael’s books from among  those who shared this podcast on social media last week. Resources Mentioned in This Episode Free to Focus: A Total PRoductivity System to Achieve More by Doing Less Free bonuses for buyi