Last week, I took myself on a date to see Blake Mycoskie, CEO of TOMS.
As an entrepreneur out there taking risks and doing leadership coaching, it was just what I needed to get clarity and confirmation on what I’m doing.
Blake’s talk “The Power of Giving: Conscious Capitalism and the Future of Business” gave me quite a few takeaways as someone who’s pioneering, leading and trying new things.
Some of the things I jotted down were:
You don’t have to have it all thought out. You just need to have a true North. This is something that comes up a lot as a coach. See, our brains think so linearly that oftentimes we don’t want to do that “crazy thing” because we don’t know the sequence of events. As a coach, I need to say, “Guys, it’s ok.” We start with the vision and work backwards. Hearing Blake, who’s had so much success with the same frame of thought, was really encouraging as a person who practices it.
One journey can start with a single question. Someone from a village Blake visited before founding TOMS asked (and I paraphrase), “It’s great that you helped all these women volunteer and gave all these people free shoes, but when you leave, what are these people going to do? There’s no one to replace you.” The wind came out of his sails at this valid question, and because he took the question to heart and thought about it, he created TOMS.
I love this because, in my experience, the thing that generates what’s next is not this big fancy bougie coaching. It’s one question that blows someone’s mind. That’s all it has to take. And, there’s opportunity everywhere: TOMS started with zero funds for marketing, but the company grew faster than its marketing could keep up with because of word of mouth. That’s the kind of thing that happens when you have an aligned life and business.
Hire people to do what you don’t want to do. Students from Queens University were at Blake’s talk, and one young woman asked what’s the biggest thing he learned as a leader in self-awareness. He said he hires people to do what he doesn’t want to do so he can be with people. That just lit my heart up because I love writing and social media, but I don’t want to do them. I want to be with people. His words were huge for me as someone who delegates out my social media and writing tasks. It reinforced following my path and supporting people who have their own businesses.
These are all key things to focus on this week as leaders in action.
