In this episode of Training Unleashed, Evan speaks with Dr. Dennis Rebelo, professor and author of Story Like You Mean It, about developing your personal story to illustrate your individual value and worth.

Dr. Rebelo explained that people story by nature. Think about kids in kindergarten. They tell stories automatically—without even thinking about it. But as we grow up we lose our story telling muscle.

Dr. Rebelo shared how his Peak Storytelling model helps us flex that muscle again. During the interview, he explained how we can use the model to create a story about ourselves to help answer the “tell me about yourself” questions we get asked in job interviews or when we’re in a networking situation.

Evan shared the story he tells people that ask him how he became the CEO of Tortal Training, and asked Dr. Rebelo if he could tweak it… on-the-spot. Dr. Rebelo asked him a couple of questions. The result was an updated story for Evan, that went deeper into his history and really illustrated Evan’s passion for training using Dr. Rebelo’s Peak Storytelling model.

Enjoy the interview, and remember to listen to the end to hear Dr. Rebelo’s BIG tip and giveaways available on his website.

Dr. Rebelo’s Giveaway

Training Unleashed listeners can visit www.drdennisrebelo.com to download a FREE CHAPTER of Dr. Dennis Rebelo’s new book Story Like You Mean It. And, also available on his website, you can sign up for four (4) emails that will give you four secrets to becoming a storytelling hero.

About Our Guest

Dr. Dennis Rebelo is a professor, speaker, career coach, and author of Story Like You Mean It. He is the creator of the Peak Storytelling model, his research-based method for crafting the narrative of who you are and what drives you and why, utilized by former professional athletes turned nonprofit leaders as well as entrepreneurs, CEOs, guidance professionals, and advisers throughout the world.

Dr. Rebelo, former president of Alex and Ani University and co-founder of the Sports Mind Institute, recently received the 2020 Thomas J. Carroll Award for Teaching Excellence at Roger Williams University. He currently resides in Rhode Island.

In this episode of Training Unleashed, Evan speaks with Jacqueline Throop-Robinson, best-selling author, professional speaker and founder of Spark Engagement, about employee engagement and the importance of loving what you do—a passion that Evan and Jacqueline both share.

Jacqueline breaks down the importance of having an internal feeling of passion so that you love what you’re doing. She explained that people need an extremely high sense of meaning in the work they do (the day-to-day tasks) and in the career they have (the what I do). But, meaning alone isn’t enough.

The second ingredient Jacqueline says you need to create passion in yourself is progress: you need to be taking action that gives you forward movement and momentum.

According to Jacqueline, people have a tendency to look for what went wrong and what we have to do next. Progress isn’t always obvious, so you need scan our environment for signals of progress—then mark it and celebrate it.

At work, you can find progress in meaningful feedback—not just the what it is, but the why I’m giving it to you and how you can use it. But you can’t always rely on other people to help you mark your progress. Jacqueline notes that when you start to look at things for yourself, and start to see where there is value and what you do appreciate, you will find that you can make that work experience definitely better.

Jacqueline and Evan have a great conversation about how you can look for these signals of progress in the workplace, and how to incorporate the concept of having the internal feeling of passion into training programs.

Enjoy the interview, and remember to listen to the end to hear Jacqueline’s BIG tip.

Jacqueline’s Giveaway

Jacqueline is offering Training Unleashed listeners an opportunity to get their own individual engagement profile for FREE. Go to https://tryspark.ca/unleashed to access their Spark Engagement Index.

This is a very powerful tool. In just 6 minutes (and 30 questions) you will get an emotional profile that will tell you how you’re feeling about your current work experience, and give you loads of ideas and strategies to action.

About Our Guest

Jacqueline Throop-Robinson is the founder of Spark Engagement as well as a founding partner of Breakthrough Learning, PassionWorks! and 360traction. Her work focuses on inspiring individuals and groups to achieve those goals that matter most by connecting people to purpose and meaning, infusing a love of learning, especially from mis-takes, and showing how to mark and celebrate progress to keep people uplifted and motivated. Her keynotes, workshops, and consulting always support both individual and organizational needs and goals. When aligned, engagement, momentum and results will follow.

Jacqueline holds a BA, BFA, and MA as well as qualifications in adult education. She has numerous accreditations in a wide variety of learning tools and practices. Jacqueline has worked in the learning and development field as well as corporate management for over 25 years. Her clients have included a wide-range of industries around the world from Australia to Singapore to Bermuda to Romania.

Her clients describe her as a “superb facilitator” who is “trustworthy”, “energetic”, and “creative”.

In this episode of Training Unleashed, Evan speaks with Mark Morey, executive coach, culture developer and founder of A Connected Leader about creating a sense of belonging and strong culture with a remote workforce. A timely and important topic to discuss as the pandemic continues, and employees continue to be isolated from the workforce.

Mark noted that there have been so many changes in the past year and that people are suffering from a variety of crises, including working from home, home schooling or online schooling, people are losing their jobs.

“We’re also in the middle of a mental health crisis and we’re not talking about it.” People are being removed from their social circles, their community. Children are more isolated. And, employees are more isolated from their workforce.

Evan asked for Mark’s opinion on how you create a sense of belonging and strong culture with a remote workforce? Mark answered, “I’m not sure belonging existed in the workforce before the pandemic.” Mark noted that it might look like belonging is being facilitated, but the true aspects of what human beings need to connect and thrive was not present.

During the interview, Evan and Mark discussed this and other very interesting topics, and Mark shared some great tips with listeners, including how managers can

• connect more deeply
• be a good, deeper listener
• stay awake with their employees
• create a level playing field
• and, be deliberate

Even with all of the great tips Mark shared during the interview, remember to stay to the end to hear his BIG tip.

Mark’s Giveaway

Mark is offering access to his five-day course “Thrive on Demand” that you can put your entire team into for FREE. Go to https://www.aconnectedleader.com/thrive to learn more.

About Our Guest

Mark Morey is the founder of A Connected Leader, a consulting firm specializing in evolving executive leadership and company culture. Mark’s goal is to transform outdated and struggling work environments into living systems of learning and growth.

As an artist, he realized that the culture of school was outdated, dropped out and took education into his own hands. His journey has led him to working at Outward Bound, leading the executive MBA off-site program at the INSEAD School of Business in Paris. After that he went further off-trail and apprenticed to the deeper aspects of being human with cultural elders and teachers around the world.

From there he spent 20 years building an international network of cultural and organizational leaders, evolving new systems of education to meet the ecological and social imperatives of our times. Today he works closely with a limited number of Fortune 100 executives at companies such as NIKE, evolving strategic thinking, talent development, and cultures of innovation that shift the game entirely.

In this episode of Training Unleashed, Evan speaks with Chris Fuller, president and CEO of Influence Leadership, Inc. and RightPath Resources, and self-proclaimed experiential, adventure-seeking guy. Chris says that adventure opens his eyes to illustrations he can speak to and he uses real-life adventure metaphors when he’s working with clients because they carry through into business. And, don’t worry, they do talk about Chris’ unique approach to leadership in the interview.

Chris believes that leadership isn’t an “or,” that it’s about building an “and” culture.

Chris explained that, “it’s about being intentional and executing with excellence. About being service oriented AND passionate in your pursuit of what you’re doing. And, so I think without the skillset and the baseline of managerial excellence, of operation excellence, [that] leadership is just a pipedream that will discourage and diminish your organizational hope.

“Leadership is that icing on the cake, if you will.” Chris continues, “Leadership is engagement. Leadership is vision and strategy. There are a lot of components that would go into the leadership competency. But, again, without the fundamentals of the management aspects… you know, we need both ends of the spectrum. We need Tony Robbins and Peter Drucker. So how do we have an ‘and’ not an ‘or.’ “

Chris shares some of his stories about dog sledding in the Iditarod and being at Mt. Everest Base Camp to see the top of the world. Chris said that adventure opens his eyes to illustrations that he can speak to. So that when he goes into a business he’s not teaching to something that he’s read in a book, he’s teaching with real-life adventure metaphors that carry through into business.

Make sure you listen to the entire episode to get into the meat of Chris’ ideas on leadership and his new book InSPIRED Leadership, and (of course) to hear his BIG tip.

Chris’ Giveaway

Chris is offering a free download of his RACE methodology cheat sheet. Go to influenceleadership.com, enter your information in the pop up and you’ll get access to the document.

About Our Guest

Chris Fuller, CSP™ is an International Leadership Speaker, Author, and Consultant with over 25 years of experience in many aspects of business and organizational effectiveness.

Chris is President and CEO of Influence Leadership and RightPath Resources, serving businesses and leaders through the strategic development of their people.

A born adventurer, from SCUBA, sailing, fishing, motorsports, skydiving, Alaskan dog mushing, hiking the Great Wall and even Mt. Everest Base Camp, Chris loves leveraging tales of real-life adventure to bring critical leadership lessons to life.

In this episode of Training Unleashed, Evan has an interesting conversation with John Saunders, founder of Forward Advisory Solutions, about creating trust in the workplace. John notes that trust is required to help co-workers and employees unleash their talents and enable change and innovation.

At the beginning of the interview John spoke briefly about his new book, The Optimizer: Building and Leading a Team of Serial Innovators, and noted that what stops people from unleashing their gifts is fear – emotional fear – and the need to create a trusting environment to enable people to unleash those gifts and deliver results.

Evan asked John, how do you create that trust that’s required for change?

John started with an interesting story that people tend to think the bias toward change is a recent phenomenon. In writing his book, he dug very deep to find a case in 1636 where a gentleman by the name of Henry Burton was jailed for being deemed an innovator by the King of England. John said, “this happened 400 years ago. A guy was jailed for creating change!”

He went on to explain that, “when you think about building trust there’s a number of levels to it. And certainly, first is creating a personal connection with your team members. The thing I can’t stress here enough is this is not a one-time event, right. People send a note to their team member, a note saying, ‘hey, I hope you had a great weekend…or wasn’t that a fun event.’ That’s one touch, right? You build from there. It has to become part of your process.”

John continued, “It’s getting their feedback. How many times in your career has someone come to you and said, ‘hey Evan you work for me, or you’ve been on my team for a number of years, what’s it like working for me? How can I improve this circumstance?’ More than 10? More than 1? It’s not a common occurrence.

John has a very powerful story that he shares in his interview to illustrate this point. Make sure you listen to the interview to hear it and remember to listen until the end to hear John’s BIG idea!

John’s Giveaway

John is offering a 30-minute free consultation to see if it makes sense for you to work together. Go to johncsaunders.com and click on the green “30 Minute Consult” button in the top right corner.

About Our Guest

John Saunders spent many years as a Wall Street Senior Vice President, sales team leader, and award-winning sales executive. He followed his passion for helping others grow and founded a coaching and consulting company, Forward Advisory Solutions. He holds a BS from the University of Wisconsin and an MBA from Georgetown University. Additionally, Saunders is a member of Georgetown McDonough’s MBA Alumni Advisory Council, an active angel investor and is a formal Executive MBA mentor.

As a lifelong learner, Saunders asserts that change is necessary in today’s business world and believes in empowering those he works with. In addition to writing, mentoring, and coaching, Saunders enjoys spending time with his family, traveling, and exploring the outdoors.