Unlocking the Leader With Yigal Adato

Leadership Mentor, Speaker, Influencer, and Business Owner – Yigal Adato

Here’s what you’ll learn from Yigal about Unlocking the Leader:

– The one thing you must do to unlock leadership potential inside you.
– How to find real life-work balance when everything depends on you!
– How to find the catalyst and really commit to greatness? BEFORE you hit rock bottom.
– Sure signs you’re prone to micromanaging even when you think you’re helping.
– How to get 100% clarity in all your communication with people around you? and how to LEARN to ask for help.

Tune in and listen: Unlocking the Leader With Yigal Adato

Yigal’s Website:

UnlockTheLeader.com

Transcript: Download

Video Transcription provided by GMR Transcription Services.

Jaime Masters:	Welcome to Eventual Millionaire. I'm Jaime Masters, and today on the show, I'm going to pronounce your name right. It's Yigal Adato. He runs a new podcast called Unlock the Leader, and you can check it out at UnlockTheLeader.com. And he's also sold a chain of pawnshops. So excited to have you on the show today. Thanks so much for coming on.

Yigal Adato:	It's my pleasure to be here, and you said my name perfectly.

Jaime Masters:	Yes! Everybody heard that. Okay, great, because I had to practice like seven times before we actually started recording. So, tell us a little bit about the podcast and the whole leadership bent, because you went off on amazing things, and I was like, "Don't say that yet. Let's wait till we record on the podcast," because you have a premise on unlocking the leader.

Yigal Adato:	Yeah. So, it started back in the day I was a leadership development director for a youth organization, and so, that's when I kinda picked up on all the leadership implementation things that I know. And so, I went into business after that and grew a pawnshop 16 years, three locations, and during that journey, two things happened. 

	One, my father, who is owner of like 13 stores, 150 employees, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's and dementia. So, a man who kept on saying, "I'm working now so that I can enjoy tomorrow. I'm working now so that I can enjoy my grandkids," now has six caregivers. You name the therapy - speech therapy, physical therapy. And when I saw that, I was like, "Okay, I need to do something differently."

	And I think the same week, my wife, who I had been married to for a year, sat me down and basically said, "Yigal, I didn't get married to be alone." And I was like, "Wait a second." I was like, "Nice life, nice cars, nice trips," but then, I just remembered I just was't present. I was working 6 days a week, 14 hours a day, and I was learning from my father what to do business-wise, but then he got sick.

	So, I said, okay, all of us business owners have leadership within us. So how do I unlock the true leadership? How do I unlock the true potential in people so they can make more money, some more profit, more power, more productivity while having peace and presence in their home?

	So, that's what I did. I went on a journey, and I learned, and then I implemented. I grew the company, and then I sold it, and I said this is exactly what I wanna do. I wanna show other business owners how to have that peace and to have that profitability while unlocking the leader within them.

Jaime Masters:	So, it's more than just being a "leader," like charging ahead and blah, blah, blah. It's more about you actually having that and enjoying an actual life, too, and having that peace and life. You don't normally hear that alongside of leadership, technically.

Yigal Adato:	I grew up in an entrepreneurial family. There was money, thank god. We were taken care of, but the men weren't around. They were working all the time. My uncles - heart surgeries, bypasses. My father - stints, Parkinson's, dementia. So, I thought to myself, "There's got to be a better way." I don't wanna become just successful.

	I have a baby daughter, 2 years old. When I was holding her, I thought to myself, "I don't want her to go through what I went through. I want her to have a happy father and a successful father, not either-or." So, that's what leadership is to me. It's not somebody who just is a CEO of a company, killing it, making tons of money. It's somebody who's killing it, making tons of money, has a great relationship if they're in one, is present with their children, has good health in their mind and body. That's leadership to me.

Jaime Masters:	I love this, especially because it's the premise of Eventual Millionaire. It's like life first and then money. And my mom was the same thing. She worked all the time, and I remember going, "I'm not gonna do that when I have kids," which makes it very difficult when you're trying to grow a business and do everything else, and trying to be "good" at all of it, because we judge ourselves. How do we do that? Give us some practical tips or what we can at least start with right now, with what you know of. So, that way, we can take some sort of action and see some sort of better result because I bet a lot of people are in that same position right now.

Yigal Adato:	So, one thing I didn't learn from all my years of being a leader, like the leadership development director in business, was the moment when my wife said, "I didn't get married to be alone." I had to look at myself and say, "Okay, what am I lying about? What am I not telling the truth about? What's really not happening that I'm pretending that's happening?"

Jaime Masters:	Ouch! That's a question. Man, okay.

Yigal Adato:	So, it's to have clarity. How is my relationship? So, my relationship was falling apart, one year into the wedding, one year. It's supposed to be the honeymoon stage, right? We went on our honeymoon, we came back, and I just went to go work the same exact way, and then I got that comment, like, "Dude, you're not around. I'm not happy." 

	So, I had to be honest with myself. I was 40 pounds overweight. I had to be honest with myself about that. Mentally, I wasn't okay because I was trying to run a business with - my brother was my partner, and we were just trying to micromanage and do everything ourselves. So, I had to be honest about where I am in my life, in my relationship, and in my business, and that was eye-opening to me.

Jaime Masters:	Isn't it a little overwhelming to be like, "Oh, wait. That sucks, that sucks, and that sucks also. Now what?"

Yigal Adato:	But that's the truth because that's the only way that you can get to the other side, which is where you want to go, like, "What is it that I want?" And I wanted to lose 40 pounds and be healthy, I wanted to have a passionate marriage, and I wanted to have a business where I had some freedom. I didn't wanna just sit there micromanaging and working six days a week.

Jaime Masters:	Okay, great. Now, I know that stuff. I remember getting out of debt and writing the number down, and being like, "Ooh, that really hurts," that, "Oh, shit, what did I" - I swore on my own show, darn it! Now, they're gonna have to beep me. So, it's tough, though. That moment is really visceral. You're like [deep indrawn breath], and then you need to have the capability to tap into that leadership stuff and move forward. Did you move on all those fronts at once? How did you start taking action on that?

Yigal Adato:	First of all, being a business owner, it's very hard for people to say no to you. I had 40 employees. Whatever I wanted to get done was done. If I wanted the filing cabinet to move 2 inches to the left, I just had to say it and, "Yes, boss." So, when somebody called me out to my face - my wife - I had to just sit back and say, "Okay, let's take this criticism and let's run with it. What do I do?" And that's when I started getting coaching myself, reading books, and then looking at the leadership I had learned from beforehand and implementing it step by step.

	So, first, I wrote down what sucks, what sucks, what sucks, and then I wrote down what is it that I want, what is it that I want, what is it that I want. And then, I had to look at myself. 

	Probably like eight years ago, I went skydiving, and when you're sitting at the edge of the plane, you've got the altimeter and the guy behind you, because I don't trust myself to jump out the first time, and everything in your body says, "Don't do it! Don't do it!" and you jump. And so, once I jumped, I screamed for three seconds. There was insane fear. And then, it got into a freefall. 

	So, there's fear, and then terminal velocity hits, and you're kind of floating, and you're like, "Wow, okay, this is awesome, yeah, but I'm still falling," and then the parachute opens, and that's when you hit freedom. You look around, and you're like, "This is the most beautiful thing." You might look up once and say, "Parachute is open," but there's total freedom.

	So, what I had to do, when all that happened, was become courageous and take the jump. So, I had to write down what's the one thing I had to do in each category, regardless of my fear, regardless of what was happening in my life, that I promised myself I would get done, just one thing in each one. 

	So, in my life, it was hitting the gym, and eating better, and losing weight. With my marriage, it was going to therapy for me and learning how to communicate because I just didn't know how to communicate. And then, in my business, it was sitting down with somebody to say, "Okay, we're micromanaging. I don't have the freedom. What can we do?" I sat down with our team and said, "What can we give to you so that we're not stressed the whole time?" We were running retail operations, pawnshops with millions of dollars of jewelry, tens of thousands of dollars of cash, so whenever the phone rang, we were like, "That's it. They broke in. We're done." 

	So, we had to fix that stuff and just be courageous, and that was the thing. So, I wrote down what sucked, wrote down where I wanted to go, and then, in between, I wrote down what's the one thing I need to be courageous enough and committed to to do.

Jaime Masters:	So, it's one thing to write that stuff down, and it's another thing to actually have the result. So, how does the leadership role play into actually getting that stuff done? Or are you just that type of guy that just gets everything done that you write down?

Yigal Adato:	Oh, man, I wish my wife just heard that, and maybe the answer would be different.

Jaime Masters:	She would be like, "Oh, my gosh, let me tell you stories."

Yigal Adato:	So, no, I'm not the type of guy that always gets everything done. I think that I just hit a moment in my life where I saw my father, I saw my wife, and I said, "If I don't get it done, I'm gonna lose my wife, and I'm gonna get sick like my father got sick." And so, I was afraid of that. And when I hit that bottom, my bottom wasn't sleeping on the couch. My bottom wasn't being homeless. My bottom was saying, "I'm going to become everything I promised myself I wasn't going to become. I'm gonna get sick. I'm going to not have time for myself or my family. I'm gonna let my ego take charge." And I was like, "That's it. I can't do that."

	And to be honest with you, when my wife said that to me, it was a big blow to the ego, to the gut, and I knew that my parents, at some point, didn't have the best relationship because my dad was always working, and I remember being a kid, just wanting my dad to come home so he can play. I didn't care what watch he wore, what car he drove. So, I said, "We're planning on having a child," which took us three in vitro fertilization cycles, which makes me even more grateful for my baby.

Jaime Masters:	And thank goodness you worked on your marriage beforehand because my best friend did that. I know what it does to a relationship, also. It's crazy.

Yigal Adato:	The brink of breaking the marriage. It's one of the hardest things I've ever done. I built a business. We were doing anywhere from, depending on the year, $6 to $8 million a year. The in vitro was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, ever.

	But I thought to myself, "How do I go through all this detriment, through all this emotional pain?" I had to shoot my wife with these -

Jaime Masters:	The needles, ugh!

Yigal Adato:	- superwoman needles, and for me to not be present for my daughter, like how I couldn't' And that's when I was like, "That's it." I had to make a change. So, that was my bottom. That was when I said, "That's it. I need to go out from here, change things," and I did. I sold my business to my brother. I cut all ties with it. I burned the bridge. He said, "Do you want to keep a portion?" I said, "I don't want anything because my mission is to grow this legion of leaders so that my daughter grows up in a world where people just are a little bit more honest, have more compassion, and lead."

	And what I mean by "lead," Jaime, business owners have a responsibility. Business owners who have employees have responsibility to their employees, and then the employees have families, and the families have employers. So, I was employing 50 people, but my responsibility was out to like 500 people.

Jaime Masters:	Yeah, a lot of responsibility.

Yigal Adato:	So, if I wasn't okay, everybody was affected, and that's what I wanna stop today.

Jaime Masters:	Okay, let's talk about that, then, too, because I actually have clients that don't want to take on employees because they're so afraid that now they have so many more mouths to feed. It's a lot of pressure, especially for somebody who's newer in business trying to start building their team, and they know they need help, but they're like, [deep indrawn breath], "But then - oh, no - the family," and so, it's a lot of pressure. So, how does somebody even deal with that or being at that point of having so many people and holding all that because that's what people do, and then they make themselves sick?

Yigal Adato:	Well, first and foremost, you hire so that people can take some work off of your plate. If you're gonna hire to micromanage, don't hire. Don't waste your time. It sucks for the employee. Can you imagine being micromanaged all the time?

Jaime Masters:	How do we not do that though? Because that's the thing - a lot of entrepreneurs, especially at the beginning, they're not necessarily managers beforehand, and they have no idea what they're doing. And so, they don't realize, especially because - no offense - we're control freaks, so we're like, "But, no, I know how to do it, and I can do it better," and then, they get in it, thinking that they're helping, and don't even realize that they're micromanaging until it's not working.

Yigal Adato:	So, when I hired people before I left, we hired a new accounting firm to come on. I know accounting. I'll read your books, your profit and loss, your balance sheet. Am I an accountant? No. I'm just not great at that. And when you realize if you hire for the position somebody who's smarter than you, greater than you are, you're not gonna lose. All you're gonna do is win. That's it. You're just going to win. And so, the biggest fear sometime is like, 'Oh, I don't wanna hire. I don't want them to be smarter. I don't want them to learn everything. I don't want them to learn and leave to my competition.' But hire the best so that you can just say, "They got it handled. They know what they're doing."

Jaime Masters:	So, that's the problem, though, too, that if they're not good at hiring, then they hire somebody that isn't the best, or they think they're the best, and then they don't perform, but then they're micromanaging. So, it's the chicken or the egg at that point, too, like maybe they would be better if you weren't freaking micromanaging them. 

	That's the thing that's so tough is because entrepreneurs, in general - I mean, some are freaking amazing at this side of things, which is great, and I see people lean on that a little bit too much, "Sure, I'll hire. I'm really good at hiring,'" and then their cash flows aren't there. Okay, that's not good, either. But on the opposite side, a lot of the times, it's not their sweet spot, and yet, we want to be able to find those utterly amazing people, but we aren't good at it yet. So, do you have any tips on that to make sure that we can either vet them or make sure that they're a good right hire so we can be the leader that we need to be?

Yigal Adato:	I would hire somebody that you want to hang out with, somebody that you're willing to go to lunch with or talk to every single day. I'll give you a great example. We fired one of our top salespeople before I left. No. 1 sales guy, was doing like 30 percent of overall company sales, and we let him go. We let him go because he was a bully. He was a bully, he wasn't fitting into the culture, and he was just rude. So, my brother was like, "No, let's not fire him." I said, "Listen. I guarantee if we fire him, everyone's gonna pick up the slack." 

	So, just hire nice people, people that you would hang out with. Take time to hire. Don't hire right away the first person because then you don't have time to really get to know what you want and what you need. So, that's what I would do. Just take time to hire. Hire somebody that you would hang out with and that you can stand because they're gonna be talking to you every single day.

	And know that, at first, it's okay to micromanage because you're training. There's a difference between micromanaging and training. You can train somebody, and they'll ask you questions, and you ask them questions. Micromanaging is being up all in their face all the time, asking them every single, "What did you do today? How did it go today? What's going on? I want a report. What happened with this? Let me see the email that you send out." That's not leading. That's managing, and they're gonna either leave, make mistakes, or just go home stressed and not work the best for you.

Jaime Masters:	Yeah. And it's funny, too, because entrepreneurs, I have clients that are like, "Go do this whole project. Oh, wait, you weren't fast enough. I'll take it back." I'm like, "Guys, don't do that!" But it's so innate in them to just bully ahead and do it all themselves, and this is typically going from being a solopreneur for a first couple employees or like having a handful. So, as soon as you get bigger and bigger and bigger, most likely you do a lot of not-so-great hiring and you learn, but I'm trying to preempt a lot of this stuff, too, so we can become the leaders faster than we would by banging our head against the wall. So, what tips do you have for us to really unlock that?

Yigal Adato:	Courageous communication. So, in business, in retail, they say, "Location, location, location." In leadership, it's, "Clarity, clarity, clarity in your communication." If you think they understood, ask them, like, "Hey, here's this project. Okay, wait a second. Let's go over what you thought I want you to do, so I can hear back and I can say, "You got it," or, "No, you missed this point," or, "You didn't hear me here.?"

	So, you have to consistently communicate, be courageous in your communication, which basically means speak your mind. Don't hold it in. A lot of owners, they are so afraid of confrontation that they don't wanna fire, they don't wanna rock the boat, so they don't wanna say anything to somebody. They don't wanna hurt someone's feelings, which is the worst thing you can think about doing. And then, they think that, "Oh, I communicated, so the other person got it."

	In my marriage, if I think I communicate, I've failed. Until my wife says, "Okay, this is what you said. I got you. We're good," I say, "Okay, wait a second. So, you heard me say?" because I wanna make sure, like with my wife, we're on the same page.

Jaime Masters:	Been there, done that. I know the lesson.

Yigal Adato:	So, it's the same thing with an employee. You have to clearly communicate what you want, and for you to expect for them to do it exactly the way you'd do it is ludicrous. Ludicrous. There's only one of you out there. And if you expect them to do your job, then pay them more money than you.

Jaime Masters:	We just need clones. If I just had a bazillion of me, it would be perfect.

Yigal Adato:	I don't know. If I had a bazillion of me, things wouldn't be organized.

Jaime Masters:	Seriously. Wait, I'm good at everything. You don't know me, but - No, I'm kidding. Definitely not true. So not true. But that's the thing that's really tough, too, is that we - I say this because, A.) past experience for me, or probably currently experience, too. I feel like I say something and people get it, but you're right. It's one of those things where, unless they can repeat it back in the way that it's supposed to be, that's your fault, technically.

Yigal Adato:	Yeah. I'll give you a great example. I was at a meeting yesterday. I'm a president of a community organization, and we're having this big event. 200 people are gonna show up. And one of the ladies said something about parking, and then I started to ask a question, and more, and more, and her answer at the end was, "Let me get back to you because I don't know the answer," when at first, it was, "Hey, just go do this." So, in her mind, she had it all figured out, but the truth was, when I started to ask questions and go deeper, she got a little bit confused.

	And so, that's what you need to do is communicate to the point where there's a little bit of confusion and you say, "Okay, now let's solve this confusion, and so we can go ahead forward."

Jaime Masters:	What's funny is if you're going down the path of "confusion," so you're opening that space up, so that way you know what is unknown, then this makes a lot of sense. What's difficult is we're running so fast, and we're like, "Oh, and then we have this thing, and then we have this thing, and you kind of got that, right?" And then, we're going here, and then we're going there. Especially how fast we move, what helps in the slowing down and the looking for the confusion, especially on a daily basis because sometimes things are urgent and crazy and nutso in business?

Yigal Adato:	So, slowing down, I don't speak on the same speed that you do sometimes. My wife doesn't speak the same speed that I do. If I'm compassionate enough to understand that, then I'll be okay with slowing down. And if I want the things to be done correctly and not quickly, that's when I understand I have to slow down.

	Now, you've got entrepreneurs listening to this show, and people are thinking, "I can't slow down. I gotta do, do, do - productivity, efficiency, effectiveness." Slowing down doesn't mean taking more time to do something. It just means taking that millisecond to ask one more question to yourself or to the person, to look at the project and say, "What is this missing?" so that, in the future, you don't take hours fixing up the crap that was laid out because you didn't slow down for a minute.

Jaime Masters:	How do you know what to ask, though, too? Is it just something that you get better and better at? Is it innate in some people? Tell me more about that.

Yigal Adato:	So, you get better and better at asking questions because you get asked the questions. So, what does that mean? So, when I had employees and I taught this, I stood up. I did a training about clarity and communication, "I want full clarity. Ask as many questions as possible," and then I'd walk out and, "Okay, next Friday, sale 40 percent off. Put everything up," and go into my office, and shut the door. And management would walk in like, "Wait a second, bro. Hold up. Let me ask you these ten questions," and I was like, "Okay. I got it. Got the question."

	So, it takes a little bit of time to learn to ask the questions and how to ask them. At the same time, don't fear the questions. I feel like a lot of people are afraid to ask too many questions. Unlock the Leader is all about taking away their fear from asking who I am, what do I need, what does the other person need, who am I being - all those questions that you ask yourself. And I think it's something that entrepreneurs and business owners have an issue with is just taking that moment to ask, "Where am I right now? Am I okay? Do I need to take a break?" without thinking to myself, "Oh, I'm gonna fail."

	There are a lot of these clubs and these groups who pat you on the back and say, "Yeah, you're making more money. You're working seven days a week. Yeah!" but the truth is that's hurtful.

Jaime Masters:	Well, it's funny. When I do coaching, I go, on my sales calls, "I want your husband or wife to love me more, so instead of just doubling the hours you work, which we can double your business - tada! - it's like how can we do that in the same timeframe or less so that way they actually like me because otherwise you're screwed." But it's easier said than done, especially when it's just yourself. When you have somebody slapping you around going, "Don't do that. Do this," it's easy to just follow.

	But when you're sitting there by yourself going and asking these harder questions, "Am I okay? Do I need a break?" that's something for me that was super hard. I was a "keep going." I have a mug that my friend sent me that says, "Do less," and you laugh at that, especially me a long time ago, "Oh, that's funny. Ha ha ha." Asking if I'm okay was never a thing. You just keep moving forward because that's what you do. So, how do you have enough awareness to ask yourself those questions during the times when you actually need to ask those questions? Does that make sense?

Yigal Adato:	Yeah. So, you need to want it, first of all. There's entrepreneurs who are listening to this, and if you're listening to this and there's overwhelm, and you're working 14, 15 hours a day, and your partner isn't happy with you, and you're getting overweight, and you have stress, anxiety, if you're popping pills, if you're drinking alcohol to change your mood, that's a clear sign that you need to do something. It's a clear sign to say, "What is going on with me?"

	I have a friend, Jaime, who his wife called me and said, "Yigal, I need you to rush to the house, and he's not answering his phone," and when I walked in screaming his name, I walk upstairs, and he's got two shoes in his hand, and it's like he's weighing the two shoes. I said, "What are you doing?" and he says, "I feel like the right is heavier than the left." I was like, "Okay, something's wrong." Ends up he was addicted to pain medication. That's why his business was going down the drain.

	So, if you don't want to get there, you need to ask for help. You can't do this on your own. You're a business coach, right? That's what I do as well. If you want to lead, if you want to grow your business, if you wanna stop the overwhelm, the anxiety, the depression, the unhappiness, and if you're ready to stop lying that nothing's wrong, that's when it happens. That's when you say, "Enough is enough. I'm done hurting myself. I'm done hurting my family, my employees, my business, my future, all so I can say I'm this entrepreneur who's hustling so many hours a day."

	But what I want from you is for you not to get sick. What I want from you is for you to have that time with your daughter, your son, with your kids because they need you. They don't need your money. I promise you I'd give every penny back, every single one that my father made, just to have him healthy. It's not like he enjoyed it, and then he would say, "Oh, it's for you. I'm working for you." 

	For me? If I tell you the amount of stress that my family goes through today to organize the six caregivers and to make sure his medications are on point, you know what? Take that money back. I would have rather lived in a two-bedroom apartment than a six-bedroom house, take one or two less vacations a year, than have you deal with that.

	So, I'm not saying don't be successful. I'm saying don't break yourself to be successful.

Jaime Masters:	Priorities first, right? One of the things that's tough, though, listening to your story, you had a huge catalyst, and some people don't have that as a catalyst, or they're too stubborn to recognize things. So, I love the fact that you brought those lists up, like, "Okay, you're drinking too much. Did you not notice that'" because of course, they're not going like, "Oh, well, I'm not doing very well," because we don't look at that stuff because we're trying to cover it up because it's shameful, or whatever those emotions are that come up.

	So, what do we do if that pain hasn't been so great where it makes a big difference? There's no catalyst. Do we ask those questions anyway, or do they fall flat? Do you know what I mean?

Yigal Adato:	So, first of all, I did a keynote speech about two months ago in Vegas, and I was looking up some stats, and it said that - I think that something of the Psychology Association, some booklet, some brochure or something said like a third of all entrepreneurs are depressed, and 60 percent of those are taking something.

	So, I dare everybody who's listening to this to ask people, "What's not okay with me? What do you think I'm lacking? What am I good at? What am I not so good at?" I had a client of mine just do this, and he emailed me the results, and it was shocking. He's like, "I had no idea. I had no idea I was unorganized. I had no idea I was out of integrity, not keeping my word. I had no idea that I was blaming and I was angry with people." He's like, "It opened up my eyes."

	So, you don't have to ask yourself. Don't ask yourself, but I dare you to ask those around you, "How do you see me? Do you see me at peace? Do you see me okay?" and then go from there.

Jaime Masters:	And they're like, "Ouch, yes, thank you," and it's gonna push you out of your comfort zone. Hey, you can just deal with it because -

[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	Go ahead.

Yigal Adato:	It's being courageous, right? That's what entrepreneurship is about. You gotta be courageous.

Jaime Masters:	Definitely. And you can't change unless you have the wherewithal and that push in order to do it because otherwise we're just gonna stay in our little hole. And you never know when something - especially a health scare. I've had a couple of clients that ' or previous clients; they're not current clients - tell me about a health scare, and I was like, "That's what I was worried about for you!" And it was not a big deal, but it was enough to get them out of it. And in my head, I don't want people to have to go through that.

	So, the exercise that you've got is a great one for them to actually realize because, unfortunately, we can't see that, especially if we're failing because we don't want to admit that we're working our butt off, being overwhelmed, "We're doing it for you!" or whatever the hell the other excuse is, and then be like, "Oh, and I'm failing at that, too. Awesome."

	So, tell me more, because I know we have to start wrapping up in just a second, but tell me more, in general, about stepping up into the leadership role on the higher level. So, let's say they've got entrepreneurs. They feel like they're doing well. They feel that there's no "big problem" catalyst that needs to happen. They feel like they're on a good, solid track, but they wanna get better. So, what do those people need to work on'

Yigal Adato:	So, leading with baggage is misleading. So, what does that mean' It means that you might be on a great track business-wise. You need to take care of everything else in your life right now. Go apologize to people that you've done wrong. Go speak to somebody you haven't spoken to in a while and forgive them. Forgive dead parents. Just go do something so out of your comfort zone that's been a monkey on your back and get it off your chest because you walk into every situation as a leader with that stuff on your back.

	So, if you want to be courageous, you say, "Oh, business is going great" - I like to dare people to do things, as you can tell. I dare you to go forgive somebody. I dare you to make a phone call and say, "Hey, man, you did this to me. I forgive you for it. We're cool," because I promise you that stuff just lurks there, and it's going to mislead the way you lead. That's the truth. 

	If you wanna lead with clarity, you have to get that stuff off your mind, and it's there. There are traumatic events that happened. And I'm not a psychologist, but I know for myself that I still go to therapy sometimes to work stuff out. I have coaches to walk me through things that they might say, "You're ridiculous, Yigal. That's not the case."

	So, if you want to grow as a leader, take care of yourself first. There's all these charts, leader versus manager, inspiring people, and motivate people, and be humble. You can't do any of that stuff until you take care of yourself, until you unlock the leader in you. That's why it's called that. Until you learn how to get rid of those chains, things holding you back - traumatic events in your past; ex-boyfriends, girlfriends who broke up with you - whatever that stuff is, it's time to let it go.

Jaime Masters:	We need like a checklist for all this. I'm going, "I don't think there's anyone that I have to forgive." I'm pretty forgiving in general. I'm going through my list. We need like a little checklist, so I can be like, "Nope, done. Yep, good." You should make one as an opt-in. That would be great.

Yigal Adato:	I like it.

Jaime Masters:	I know. That way, everybody would be like, "Okay," because it's hard to go back through your own history. Even if it's subconscious, there could be a lot of stuff in there, and you're trying to push it down, and it's hard to bring up. At least it is for me. I don't know that it is for everyone else. But I'm going through, as you're saying this, going, "Ooh, okay, what is the thing that I can do?" because I get a lot out of these also.

Yigal Adato:	You just said something awesome. You said that we push it down as entrepreneurs, right? All that's gonna happen is you're gonna keep stacking that. At some point, you're gonna throw up. It's like eating too much food. You're just gonna keep eating and keep eating. Then, that's simple. You're gonna get sick. It's gonna come up. It's gonna be ugly. You're gonna have to clean up the mess. So, if you wanna move forward, you gotta take care of those small things that have been affecting you, issues that you haven't dealt with, relationships that aren't awesome.

	If I was to try to grow this business without my relationship with my wife being - not perfect, because that doesn't exist - on a good space, it wouldn't work.

Jaime Masters:	As a business coach, you're a life-person coach because if stuff is crappy in one area, it affects everything in your business, which is annoying as all heck. Not that I'm a marriage counselor, but I'm like, "Okay, you should go see someone, and then you should do this," because it makes all the difference in the world.

	And as you were telling the story, I remember feeling like I was a martyr, especially way back when, and, "I'm doing all this for everyone else, and I'm unhappy," and then it's like my own gosh darn fault. "But I'm doing it for you! Oh, wait, you don't care." It's the same thing as you were saying with your dad, and what sucks is that, sometimes when you're that person, you don't realize that you are and you're doing it that way, and I made myself sick, too.

Yigal Adato:	And some people say, "It's never too late to change." Then, when I look at my dad, it's too late to change sometimes. There comes a point where my father got sick, and that's when he said, "I wish I wouldn't have done this because I was about to retire. I was about to just go on vacations and enjoy, and now I'm sick." It makes me emotional just saying that, and I don't wanna get there. I don't want you to get there. I don't want the listeners to get there.

	So, some people say, "Oh, Yigal, you're a business coach, but you're not teaching me marketing." I promise you this will make you more money than a marketing dollar. I promise you this will make you happier than any vacation that you take.

Jaime Masters:	Change your life.

Yigal Adato:	Yeah, exactly. Just to unlock all that crap that you've got in there and finally lead, lead for real.

Jaime Masters:	I love this. I know we have to start wrapping up, so I'm gonna ask you one question. What's one action that listeners can take this week to help move them forward towards their goal of a million?

Yigal Adato:	We'll go back to the beginning. Be honest. Stop lying to yourself. Write down what's not working and see it on a piece of paper. It's scary, but see what's not working, and go from there.

Jaime Masters:	Everybody that's listening, if you're driving and/or running or something like that, you can't do that, but otherwise, take out a piece of paper and do it right now because if you don't do it right now, you probably won't, and then what was the point, guys? You have to actually do the stuff in order to get the results that you want.

	Thank you so much for coming on the show, Yigal, and can you tell us where we can find more about you, sign up for the podcast, all that fun stuff?

Yigal Adato:	Sure. Go to UnlockTheLeader.com. Check out the podcast, and I've got some cool information on there that you can download and check out for free. And it's been a pleasure speaking with you.

Jaime Masters:	You, too. Have an amazing day. Thanks so much for coming on.

Yigal Adato:	Thanks, my pleasure.

Tags: business goals, communication, communication strategies, Effective coaching, entrepreneur podcast, Executive Coach, how to be a leader, jaime masters, Leader, Leadership, leadership development, Mentor, Micromanaging, millionaire entrepreneurs, Public Speaker, top entrepreneurs, Work Life Balance, Yigal Adato

Categories: All, Featured Millionaire Interview, Leadership, Millionaire Interviews

Hi I’m Jaime. Each and every week I bring you the top business advice from the people who know best.

Learn More