Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit and it is always refreshing, challenging and recharging for me. Easily the best leadership material in a conference that is out there. I try to share some of the highlights I took from each session.

Here are some thoughts from the session with Jo Saxton on leveling up your leadership:

• Who were you before anyone told you who you were supposed to be?
• Too many of us struggle with impostor syndrome.
• We believe we are a fake and don’t deserve to be in the room.
• Many of our stories create limits for us as a leader.
• What we think is who we’re becoming.
• The way you think about yourself is shaping your leadership.
• The story we tell ourselves matter.
• If your body could talk to you, what would it want to say?
• If we don’t listen to our bodies, eventually it will speak loud enough that we won’t be able to ignore it.
• You have one body and your leadership lives in it.
• Who are your people?
• Half of all CEO’s reported feeling lonely.
• 60% of leaders say loneliness is affecting their performance.
• There is loneliness when everyone wants an answer but you don’t have it.
• Who are you leveling up as a leader? Who are you investing in to help them become great leaders?

Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit and it is always refreshing, challenging and recharging for me. Easily the best leadership material in a conference that is out there. I try to share some of the highlights I took from each session.

Here are some thoughts from the session with Dr. Krish Kandiah on Vision and Seeing Things Differently:

• Leadership is about seeing things differently than other people.
• A visionary leader helps other people to see things differently.
• Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others. -Jonathan Swift
• Leaders are called to see potential where others see trouble.
• Leaders see hope where others see chaos.
• You and I are more than the worst thing we’ve ever done or the worst thing that was ever done to us.
• The opposite of prejudice is hospitality.
• What legacy would be passed on to your children if you brought kids into your home that were in need?
• Investment in people leads to loyalty.
• The kitchen table is the most valuable part of your house because of the stories that are shared around them.

Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit and it is always refreshing, challenging and recharging for me. Easily the best leadership material in a conference that is out there. I try to share some of the highlights I took from each session.

Here are some thoughts from the session with Todd Henry on Leading Creative Teams:

• We should aim to be prolific, brilliant and healthy.
• Creative people need a challenge.
• Creative people need stability.
• A leader needs to speak courage into the people who follow them.
• If you have low stability and low challenge, your team is lost.
• A leader needs to know how much stability and challenge each person on their team needs.
• Never assume that your people are with you.
• Trust is the currency of creative teams.
• It is the little things we do that cause us to lose trust in the big moments.
• Leaders need to declare undeclarables. 
• We breach trust by pretending to be a superhero.
• We fail as leaders when we push people away.
• Insecurity is at the center of so many poor leadership decisions and actions.
• The place of your insecurity is the place you have the potential to do the most damage to the people around you.
• Your job as a leader isn’t to do the work or control the work, but to get the work done.
• We have to transition from leading by control to leading by influence.
• Leaders, you have to take care of #1.
• If you are not inspired, you cannot inspire.
• If you don’t take time to fill your well, you won’t have any overflow for your team.
• You owe it to your team to know what prolific, brilliant and healthy look like.

Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit and it is always refreshing, challenging and recharging for me. Easily the best leadership material in a conference that is out there. I try to share some of the highlights I took from each session.

Here are some thoughts from the session with Jia Jiang on rejection:

• Rejection is a numbers game.
• Someone will say yes to us at some point.
• Rejection is an opinion.
• We think rejection is all about us, but it isn’t.
• Rejection is just someone’s opinion.
• Rejection is growth.

Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit and it is always refreshing, challenging and recharging for me. Easily the best leadership material in a conference that is out there. I try to share some of the highlights I took from each session.

Here are some thoughts from the session with Chris Voss on Negotiation in relationships:

• Any time the words “I want” or “I need” enter your head or a conversation, you are in a negotiation.
• The commodity in all negotiations is time.
• The first move in a negotiation is to listen, to hear them out. 
• You will be shocked how far you will get if you connect with people.
• Every time someone says “that’s right” they feel more connected to you.
• People want empathy, to be understood. What the FBI calls tactical empathy. 
• Empathy is not compassion, it is a step towards compassion. It is understanding where someone is coming from, even the parts you might not like.
• Call the elephant in the room out, don’t deny it.
• You can manipulate people, but you will pay for it down the road.
• The second move is mirroring. 
• Repeating the last couple of words of what the other person just said.
• It is inviting people to expand.
• Mirroring is the conversation swiss army knife.
• If someone says “no” then they feel safe and protected.
• A calibrated “no” is worth at least five “yeses.”
• The third move is if you remove barriers to agreements first, you get to agreement faster. 
• The fourth move is effective pauses. 
• Be comfortable with silence. 2 out of 3 are uncomfortable with silences.
• We can break people up into groups: fight, flight, make friends.
• The fifth move is to be likable. 
• You are six times more likely to make a deal with someone you like.
• The sixth move is don’t say “I understand.”
• The seventh move is to figure out why not what. 
• The word “why” makes people defensive.
• Ask “what makes you want that” not “why do you want that.”
• The eighth move is to ask open-ended questions. 
• Ask “how.”
• How triggers slow thinking, in-depth thinking. It helps us to shape someone’s thinking.
• Negotiation is about what’s happening in the future. 
• In negotiation, leave the selfish stuff out.
• Fear is part of every negotiation because we’re hardwired to be afraid. 
• The quickest hack against fear is to be genuinely curious.

Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit and it is always refreshing, challenging and recharging for me. Easily the best leadership material in a conference that is out there. I try to share some of the highlights I took from each session.

Here are some thoughts from the session with Patrick Lencioni on Motivation and how it Shapes our Leadership:

• I think a lot fewer people should become a leader. 
• Don’t be a leader unless you’re doing it for the right reason.
• There are two kinds of leadership: responsible and reward.
• Responsible leadership is comparable to servant leadership.
• Many of the things you do as leaders don’t have a reward.
• You have to understand your leadership motive if you’re going to be a good leader. 

A leader who is reward centered won’t do is:

• They don’t like to have an uncomfortable, difficult conversation.
• They avoid them and push them off to others. And people suffer.
• To be a leader, you have to have awkward conversations.
• They don’t like to manage their direct reports. 
• A good leader knows what their people are working on, coaches them and keeps them aligned.
• If people aren’t managed, they lose motivation.
• They don’t like to run great meetings. 
• A leader can’t abdicate meetings or delegate them to someone else.
• Bad leaders don’t like to do things that are tedious or boring.
• Bad meetings lead to bad decisions.
• They don’t like to talk about how they interact with each other because it’s difficult. 
• They don’t like to repeat themselves and overcommunicate. 
• Great leaders never get tired of reminding people what they do as a church or company.
• Leaders don’t entertain, they keep people focused.
• Our people suffer because of poor leadership.

Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit and it is always refreshing, challenging and recharging for me. Easily the best leadership material in a conference that is out there. I try to share some of the highlights I took from each session.

Here are some thoughts from the session with DeVon Franklin (who is a walking motivational poster):

• Too often we try to become like someone else instead of being ourselves.
• Too often we think we need to compromise to open a door to your destiny.
• Stop letting people limit you.
• Own your difference by using your voice.
• Questions you should ask: What makes me different? What makes me unique? What gives me a different worldview? And why do I think differently?
• Don’t exchange what makes you different for what makes you common.
• Why do you give “they” so much power in your life?
• Leaders are addicted to the sequel instead of asking how to find something new.
• Too often we try to be a repeat of what someone else did.
• Don’t repeat what you saw someone else do.
• We make sequels to avoid risk.
• My difference will ultimately become my destiny.
• Discomfort is a sign that you are on the right path.
• Our discipline is our destiny.
• Your difference is powerful.
• Hang with people who encourage your difference and push you.
• Don’t mistake popularity with purpose.

Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit and it is always refreshing, challenging and recharging for me. Easily the best leadership material in a conference that is out there. I try to share some of the highlights I took from each session.

Here are some thoughts from the session with Danielle Strickland:

• If you want to change things, you have to change the right things.
• To find what needs to be changed, you must dig underneath the surface, to the roots.
• Disruption is not a threat, but an invitation.
• There is no changing the future without disturbing the present. -Catherine Booth
• Leaders leave behind everything that is normal and everything that is comfortable to find the new normal.
• Leaders know that changing things doesn’t matter as much as changing the right things.
• One encounter can change everything.

Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit and it is always refreshing, challenging and recharging for me. Easily the best leadership material in a conference that is out there. I try to share some of the highlights I took from each session.

Here are some thoughts from the session with Jason Dorsey on understanding generational differences:

• The #1 trend that shapes generations is parenting. 
• Parents shape their kids more than any other group.
• Entitlement is a learned behavior.
• Generations are driven by clues.
• The #2 trend has a natural relationship with technology that is driven by our age. 
• Our beliefs about technology shape if we think something works.
• Technology is only new if you remember what is was before, otherwise it what you have always known.
• You will see the difference in generations across location and geography. 

What do you need to know about millennials?

• The largest generation in the workforce.
• Millennials hit markers later than boomers and it changes how they look at stability, benefits, work/life balance.
• The millennial generations are splitting into two generations.
• At age 30, you split and don’t relate to your generation.
• Millennials aren’t tech-savvy, we are tech-dependent and it changes everything we do.

What do you need to know about Gen X?

• Gen X is taking care of their parents and their kids.
• Gen X is naturally skeptical.
• Gen X is the glue in the organization.

What do you need to know about baby boomers?

• Baby boomers measure work ethic in hours per week.
• If they can’t see you, you aren’t working.
• There are no shortcuts to success. You must pay your dues. They believe in policies and protocol.

What do you need to know about Gen Z?

• Gen Z’s parents are older millennials or Gen X.
• Gen Z saw their parents struggle through the recession, so they are very wise about their money.
• Some of Gen Z will leapfrog some millennials in the workforce.

What to do as a leader?

• Provide specific examples of the performance you expect.
• Most leaders message in a linear format. Millennials and Gen Z do not think linear, they are outcome-driven. Show them the end first.
• You have to provide quick hit feedback.

Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit and it is always refreshing, challenging and recharging for me. Easily the best leadership material in a conference that is out there. I try to share some of the highlights I took from each session.

Here are some thoughts from the session with Ben Sherwood on how to lead in a time of change and disruption:

• To be a great leader in a crisis, you must be able to see things differently.
• To win in crisis and disruption, you must fight the unorthodox way. You must lead like you have nothing to lose.
• The best ideas and most ideas win in change and disruption. 
• A leader must constantly be looking for ideas.
• Leaders who make change believe in the power of magic, the impossible. 
• The way to move forward is to quit talking and start doing. 
• Theory 10-80-10: in an emergency 10% of the people in the emergency emerge as leaders (they know what to do, where to go, they lead others to safety), 80% of the people in an emergency do nothing (they freeze and wait for someone to tell them what to do), 10% engage in counter-productive or negative behavior.
• 10% of leaders are ones who emerge at the moment that leadership is needed.
• In a crisis, maintain your point of reference. Know which way is up, which way is the way out. Where you are. 
• If you lose your point of reference as a leader, you get off course and get lost.
• In a crisis, wait for things to stop, to slow down.
• In a crisis, practice realistic optimism. 
• Realistic optimists are someone who has an unflinching sense of their surroundings. ruthlessly honest about the situations they face.
• Faith is the most powerful survival tool and leadership tool we have.
• If you want to increase your influence…connect.