Change Your Mindset

“Learning how to listen effectively is a critical part of communication and building stronger connections.” Peter Margaritis  Being an active listener creates many advantages in life and work. However, mastering the art of active listening is easier said than done. Active listeners pay attention to what others are saying without thinking about how they will respond or how the conversation might affect them. They listen to a big difference in what the other person is saying – not what they hear. We can all become more active listeners. Here are three essential tips to consider as you work toward becoming a more active listener – and communicator! Listening = Communication Communication is an essential part of any relationship, whether personal or professional, so learning how to listen effectively is a critical part of communication and building stronger connections. Without communication, there would be no relationships. Active listening skills are learned, not innate The keys to becoming a great listener are

“If you are leveraging collective intelligence, respecting diversity, and inviting dissenting ideas, you are going to uncover the unknown unknowns more quickly and likely come up with better results.” Rod Collins My guest today is Rod Collins. Rod is a leading expert on digital transformation and the future of business. He's the host of the Thinking Differently podcast on the C suite Radio Network, where he explores how technological innovations continue to transform the rules of how successful businesses work. Rod is a regular blog contributor on Substack and the author of Wiki Management, a revolutionary new model for a rapidly changing and collaborative world, highlighting the innovative tools and practices used by a new breed of business leaders to sustain extraordinary performance in a world reshaped by digital disruption. Rod is a former Chief Operating Executive of the Blue Cross Blue Shield federal employee program, one of the nation's largest and most successful business alliances. Under his leadersh

“Everyone should be involved in developing solutions to customer problems.” Peter Margaritis The traditional hierarchy organizational structure has been around since the 1950s, and so have many of the strategies developed to make it work well. As time goes on though, some of these strategies are becoming less effective, while others are simply out of date.  A flat organization is a company that does not operate on strict hierarchies like most traditional businesses. In these companies, decisions are made at the operational level rather than from senior executives who have little contact with employees at work sites. One thing about flat organizations is that not all companies can be flat because not every business model is suited to a flat structure. However, if your company isn't in a tightly structured industry, using a flatter organization can help you become more agile and responsive to reducing hierarchy-related costs. Most companies have tried experimenting with flat organizational structures, but few h

“The type of person that we had to look for to be a virtual CFO is completely different than the type of person that we looked forward to being an accountant.” Jody Grunden My guest today is Jody Grunden. Jody is the CEO and co-founder of Summit CPA Group, a fully distributed virtual CFO firm. He has authored two books, Digital Dollars, Cents, and Building the Virtual CFO Firm in the Cloud. He won multiple awards, including recognition of Tony's Top Innovative Practitioner by cpa.com.  In today’s episode, Jody will discuss what he's done to position his organization in a way to compete in the accounting profession uniquely. Our accounting company was set up to do things differently from other accounting firms. We did the flat fee, which allowed us to get rid of the hourly billing entirely and significantly cut administrative costs. We created a subscription-based billing where our clients got a bill and got the money zapped out of their account every week. We started working remotely in 2013, and the business

Leaders need to remember that all eyes are on them at all times. They are being watched for how they manage pressure and conflict. Leadership in action is setting the fear, panic, negative and reactive emotions aside at the moment and responding with calm and confidence. When an organization hires you, you become part of that brand. In and out of the office, your actions, words, behavior, and attitude are seen, experienced, and judged by those who follow you. Also, note that your followers can make or break you. At any gathering, it is an opportunity to network, meet people and create new opportunities and possibilities with other people. But, unfortunately, when we forget this, we send out negative emotions and attitudes, seen from our body language. Body language is a powerful thing both negatively and positively, and it speaks loudly to everyone in the room. As leaders, it is part of our responsibility to recognize negative attitudes and behaviors and coach the person to do better. Our job is to address th

“Your clients will like you better if you just show that you know them, and you're listening to them more than telling them how much you are an expert.” Tom Wadelton My guest today is Tom Wadelton. He earned his bachelor's degree in computer technology from Purdue University and an MBA was a finance minor from Indiana University. He's a CPA who's licensed in the state of Indiana. Tom is a member of the association of international certified professional accountants AICPA as well as the Indiana CPA society. He was the chair of the Indiana CPA society in 2019 and began to turn on the AICPA Board of Governors in 2021. Tom held accounting roles in a Fortune 500 company prior to coming to summit CPA group as a virtual CFO. At summit CPA group, Tom has been advising clients using the concepts developed by the firm and ton of the virtual CFO playbook course. Tom and his wife Cindy live in Indianapolis, Indiana, they have three grown children and two grandchildren. The biggest continual challenge working as a virtual

Sometimes we have a hard time defining what good or great leadership is, but we also know what bad leadership is. I believe in Improv leadership, which is more about the team and less about an individual. No matter what business we are in, people are our most important asset and we need to begin to treat them better. The firing of 900 employees by the CEO of better.com via a zoom call is a tragic example of how not to manage people. How do you inspire when you are leading a large number of people and can't interact with them individually? You can by tone and attitude. Being in a toxic environment where you are ridiculed when you make comments or question will lead to either choosing to keep your job and silencing yourself or choosing to leave and finding another job. Intimidation is not a form of management and this type of leadership needs to go away and be replaced with some type of leadership that has compassion. One that looks at their people who are productive as an ethical part of the organization and s

"When we have compassion and empathy for ourselves, we will radiate that to other people." Kathy Klotz Kathy Klotz-Guest is a speaker, author, comedian, and founder of Keeping It Human. Kathy started Keeping It Human after 15 years leading tech marketing and communications. Her mission is to help leaders, teams and companies use Improv and humor principles to be happier, healthier, and more creative all the while having more fun. Cathy has worked for global brands such as Amazon, Dow Jones and Deloitte and has spoken internationally on company and conference stages, including South by Southwest, Inbound and coming soon, TEDx salon. In addition, Kathy studied and performed Improv at Comedy Sports and Sketch at the second city La. Kathy still performs and teaches Improv and stand up. Kathy is a graduate of Stanford University and UC Berkeley with an MBA and a Masters of Arts. She is currently working on her third book and still barely makes her teen kids laugh. The challenges that organizations have today stems

For the first time since I launched Change Your Mindset in 2016, I’ve decided to take the month of December off to pause and reflect. This podcast is very near and dear to me, and I want to put the time and care necessary into making the next evolution of it with intentionality. From podcast length to formatting, I spend this episode rehashing the past and brainstorming what’s to come. This podcast has reached people all over the world in 136 countries and all 50 U.S. states. I am continually blown away by the power of this exciting medium. It has only grown to what it is today through consistency, commitment, and patience. See you all in 2022! To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: petermargaritis.com Resources: Read: Off Script: Mastering the Art of Business Improv Change Your Mindset is a production of Crate Media Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“When you see a turtle on top of a fence post, chances are he did not get there on his own.” Joey Haven starts off a recent blog post with this old saying to illustrate how leaders only get to where they are because others helped them get there. Joey serves as the managing partner of strategic growth for the CPA firm HORNE, writes the beBetter blog, and is an active member of CPA Practice Advisor’s Top 30 Thought Leaders. He talks about the power of building a firm with a strong foundation of culture. To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: petermargaritis.com Resources: LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/joeyhavens Blog: blog.hornellp.com/bebetter hornellp.com Change Your Mindset is a production of Crate Media Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Growing up, I worked in a family restaurant – I am Greek American, after all. My father took a different approach and purchased a liquor store. In both cases, providing excellent customer service was the standard because that is the formula to success in business. But if that’s true, what the hell happened to excellent customer service? You want to be the firm that everyone raves about because you offer the kind of excellent customer service that everyone deserves – especially as it becomes harder to come by. To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: petermargaritis.com Change Your Mindset is a production of Crate Media Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kon Apostolopoulos is the founder and CEO of Fresh Biz Solutions, a human capital management consulting group that provides performance improvement and training solutions to help organizations develop people, improve business results, and benefit from a comprehensive talent management strategy. He’s also the co-author of the timely book, 7 Keys to Navigating a Crisis, and a regular contributor to Thrive Global and Achievers Engagement Blog. We talk about how the global crisis of the pandemic has affected our views of leadership and personal happiness. To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: petermargaritis.com Resources: freshbizsolutions.com Read: 7 Keys to Navigating a Crisis LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/coachkon Change Your Mindset is a production of Crate Media Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today’s guest is… Peter Margaritis! Huh? That’s right, we’re turning the mic around with a special guest host, Kate Colbert, President of Silver Tree Publishing, to celebrate the release of “Off Script: Mastering the Art of Business Improv.” I’ve documented much of the journey of writing this book directly through the podcast, and today we’re going to wrap things up to talk about the whole story: Why I wrote this book, what it means to go off script, and how you can use improv to sharpen your business and leadership skills. To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: petermargaritis.com Resources: Read: Off Script: Mastering the Art of Business Improv Change Your Mindset is a production of Crate Media Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky is the CEO of Disaster Avoidance Experts and the author of several books, including Returning to the Office and Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams: A Manual on Benchmarking to Best Practices for Competitive Advantage. He joins the show to lay out just why we can’t rely on our guts to tell us how to approach bringing workforces back to the office. Through confirmation bias and the disconnect between higher management and their workforce, it can be very easy to make the wrong decisions when it comes to structuring a company in this new, post-COVID world. Thankfully, Gleb has studied the data extensively and he knows exactly where people are going right and where they’re going wrong. To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: petermargaritis.com Resources: Read: Returning to the Office and Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams: A Manual on Benchmarking to Best Practices for Competitive Advantage gleb@disasteravoidanceexpert.com Access the “Assessment on Dangerous Judgment Errors in the

One of the key features of improvisation is the ability to listen. When we listen, we park our ego and our agenda, and strive to understand what the other person is trying to say. It’s about listening with our eyes and our ears – but it’s also about the questions we ask. Even when we think we’ve reached the right answer to our questions, we need to pause and ask ourselves “What else could this be? What are the blind spots I’m not seeing?” We need to think through that and come to realize that maybe this could be something else. That’s a big part of listening. To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: petermargaritis.com Change Your Mindset is a production of Crate Media Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brian Comerford is a digital leader and serial entrepreneur – notably co-founding RadioValve.com, one of the first generation of online radio stations. He served as an adjunct professor at The University of Denver – his alma mater – in the digital media studies department. He currently serves as the co-chair of the CIO Working Group for the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers, and is a board member of the Adoption Exchange. On top of all of that (and more), he’s the host of the Lead.exe podcast. He talks about The Great Resignation: what it is, why it’s happening, and what the workforce needs to do to adapt. To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: petermargaritis.com Resources: leadexe.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/briancomerford Change Your Mindset is a production of Crate Media Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I’ll be the first to tell you – improv isn’t all about comedy and making people laugh. However, improv can be a great tool for humor and is how most people are introduced to it. My own introduction to improv involved using it and comedy as coping mechanisms for the challenges life was throwing my way. Do you remember the song, “Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down?” Mary Poppins was onto something. To digest something undesirable, but necessary, combine it with something sweet. You can take this advice literally, but if you’d rather not indulge in a sugar binge, why not give humor a try? To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: petermargaritis.com Resources: 10 Reasons Why Humor Is A Key To Success At Work Change Your Mindset is a production of Crate Media Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eric M. Twiggs is the Chief Executive Officer and President of The What Now Movement, a group dedicated to building up high-performing entrepreneurs, authors, and career professionals to be ready for life’s unexpected challenges. He’s also the author of The Discipline of Now: 12 Practical Principles to Overcome Procrastination. As a certified life and business coach, Eric has conducted over 28 thousand coaching sessions, helping executive leaders and entrepreneurs transition from frustration to fulfillment. When the pandemic started, there were a lot of people sitting around waiting for things to get back to normal. Eric heard it again and again in his circle, but he responded, “That’s the last thing you should be doing. You should be asking yourself ‘What now?’” And that simple question became a movement designed to stop people stopping and help them pivot. To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: petermargaritis.com Resources: ericmtwiggs.com thewhatnowmovement.com Read: The Discipline of

Has anyone ever asked you the question: “How do you eat an elephant?” This question – and its answer – provides a powerful metaphor for learning and development for all professionals. And that answer is: “One bite at a time.” Learning the new skills vital to your role as a leader is no small task, but if you take it one bite at a time and start investing in those skills you will get there. To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: petermargaritis.com Change Your Mindset is a production of Crate Media Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Don’t be fooled by name, the hair color, or the crazy shoes – Michael Sherlock is serious about business. She’s dedicated to creating positive, productive, and profitable workplaces, and helping individuals and businesses unlock their ultimate potential. She shares ways you can rethink leadership, your relationship to sales, and how to shock the most out of your potential. To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: petermargaritis.com Resources: shockyourpotential.com kukuabiz.com Read: Tell Me More Read: Sales Mixology Change Your Mindset is a production of Crate Media Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices