What you feed will live and what you starve will die – the same principle applies to leadership. If you want to be a great leader, you have to feed your fire to serve and inspire. Today, Jennifer and Eric to talk about success, leadership, and coaching – and how it led Eric to his calling as a man of faith.

• Eric Peoples is a public speaker, certified leadership coach, and founding pastor of Legacy Church in Farmington, CT. Eric has led over 1,000 people on 45 international trips to pioneer social change and humanitarian relief efforts in nearly 27 countries.
• He attributes his penchant for helping to his family’s strong support of philanthropic endeavors. Helping others, working hard, and doing your best – these were the family’s core values.
• How did Eric enter ministry work? His journey actually started in the corporate world. He had done work in sales for Xerox, where he moved up the corporate ladder pretty quickly. He enjoyed the job, earned and learned a lot. But after meeting his pastor, Peter Bruno, he began to take an interest in ministry.
• Eric found himself on a mission to help others discover their true selves so they can start their journey as purposeful leaders, too. His attitude toward stewardship guides him in giving his best effort as a man of faith, public speaker, and leadership coach.
• But how can he juggle his calling as a pastor and as a leadership coach? Eric shares how a pastor and leadership coach share some of the same qualities. They are both surrounded by people that have huge potential. They both serve others by empowering them so they can awaken that potential. And since he is someone who’s attracted to potential, there is no better way to touch and change lives than being both a pastor and a leadership coach.
• Eric reveals why most high achievers have the inclination to underestimate themselves. People think that leaders can ‘read their own labels.’ In reality, most of them don’t have anyone to help them read their labels and see their true worth. This makes them, more or less, blind to their own influence and accomplishments. Eric helps these leaders identify who they are and reframe their perception of what they believe is possible.
• Jennifer and Eric analyze one of the biggest questions a leader must reflect on, “If I had no limits, what would this look like?” They also investigate how this transforms their mindsets and helps them overcome limiting beliefs.

Quotes from this episode:

There’s always going to be more than enough to take care of you, and that’s why you can take care of others and help others to achieve something big. – Eric Peoples

Are you going to live so powerfully that people can’t forget you? – Eric Peoples

Want a little help creating your personal brand?

Jennifer has a free resource for you. The Personal Brand Workbook will help you figure out what your personal brand is today and what you want to be known for in the future, as well as how you want to impact the world. Download it today!

Eric Peoples

Website

Twitter

Facebook

Instagram

LinkedIn

Resources

Peter Bruno

Mike Kim

What if we were all given an unlimited amount of grace despite our shortcomings? Adam Martin is the Founder of F5 Project, an organization that provides job and housing opportunities to felons leaving the prison system so they can have a sense of purpose and the confidence to re-enter their communities. Today, Jennifer and Adam dive deep into how the social stigma that surrounds felons effects their successful reentry into society and how we can do better in providing equal job opportunities to this untapped yet promising workforce.

• Adam Martin is dedicated to helping others overcome the things he has in his life: alcoholism, drug abuse, and a criminal background that includes 5 felonies. His work on the F5 Project has been a game-changer for many lives.
• Most felons are left with jobs that barely get their bills paid. They are given lower wages, higher expectations, and not enough room to succeed. With social stigmas holding back several socio-demographics, especially the vulnerable ones, Adam has one question: “What if we weren’t so quick to judge and brand people as unworthy?”
• If you want a story about reform, then Adam has one for us. After leaving the prison system, he had worked at a car wash, served and waited tables at restaurants – jobs that weren’t enough to support his family. Despite the setbacks, he knew that wasn’t what he wanted to do the rest of his life. Instead, he was going to find purpose and end the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle.
• He eventually got a job at an information technology company as an outside sales representative. They hired Adam even after knowing about his past, but he didn’t have the same advantages as the other employees. He didn’t have a license, he didn’t have a car – the things that would enable him to do his job efficiently. But that didn’t stop him from bringing in the sales needed to get him noticed by the higher-ups. He took the bus, he rode his bike, and he did everything he could to earn his keep. His dedication paid off. By his first year, he had made the company a million in revenue – an astonishing feat, even for non-felons.
• This brings us to how social stigma against felons hurt their opportunity for reform and successful reentry into society. Hiring people always comes with risks, but people aren’t just data. They are not just their standardized test results and their previous life choices. These individuals have hopes and dreams too.
• Most of the time, it’s because we’ve marked them as failures that they have ended up identifying themselves as such – this is not okay. Adam isn’t trying to get every felon hired, but he does want to advocate for those who are actually a good fit for businesses.
• Bad things can happen to anyone and that can push people into making hasty decisions, but that shouldn’t dictate that person’s opportunity to live a decent and fulfilling life. Nobody is perfect, and people should be allowed to grow and change for the better.
• Jennifer probes into how employers can overcome their fear of hiring felons, so Adam shares the 2 things he looks for in a potential hire: First, he wants complete transparency from the applicant and to know what their crime was, and second, what the applicant is doing every day to ensure that they don’t go back to prison and how they give back to the community. A shift in perspective is all it takes to make the workplace a better place.

Want a little help creating your personal brand?

Jennifer has a free resource for you. The Personal Brand Workbook will help you figure out what your personal brand is today and what you want to be known for in the future, as well as how you want to impact the world. Download it today!

Where to find Adam:

Adam Martin LinkedIn

Adam Martin Twitter

Adam Martin F5 Website

F5 Project Facebook

Adam Martin – Founder of F5 Project I Keynote Speaker I United Way 2016

Other resources:

Rich Roll Podcast – John McAvoy

Hiring People With Backgrounds: Looking Past The Data To The Person | Adam Martin | DisruptHR Talks

DisruptHR

Joe Gerstandt isn’t just a straight white dad with tons of tattoos. He’s also an expert on diversity and inclusion who has trained leaders at Fortune 500 companies, non-profits, the government, and more. He also speaks on how each of us can become conscious champions for diversity and inclusion in our work and in our lives. Jennifer and Joe talk about his journey from small-town America to where he is today, and what he teaches that changes so many people.

In the words of Sally Hogshead, “Different is better than better.” In the second part of a 3-part series on personal branding, Jennifer shares some tools, strategies and exercises from her Personal Brand Worksheet that you can use to discover where you’re at and help to get to where you want to be. In next week’s episode, we’ll be taking what you’ll learn today out in the world.

• In today’s episode, Jennifer will talk through some of the steps of her Personal Brand Worksheet. This week’s episode is the second part of a 3-part series on personal branding. If you missed last week’s episode, please listen here before continuing with episode 24!
• What is a personal brand? Jennifer defines the personal brand as “the perception that people have of you compared to others in similar positions”. So in order to secure those opportunities that you want, you’ll have to stand out from a crowd in a big way.
• So where does one start? One of the best personal brand assessments that Jennifer has found was created by Sally Hogshead. You can find it in her book called Fascinate: How to Make Your Brand Impossible to Resist or online at com
• Today’s world is noisier than ever and career success no longer hinges on securing a quality job. To really move up, get noticed by the right people at the right time is the name of the game. But how can you stand out when everyone else trying to do the same thing at the same time on the same platforms?
• You might be happy with your job today but if the 2008 recession has taught us anything, it’s that ironclad job security is a thing of the past. Rather than focusing on employment security, the new reality of work is all about employability. And that’s where your personal branding comes in.
• Do you have Jennifer’s Personal Branding Worksheet in front of you? Let’s get started! Feel free to pause the podcast and take your time on each section.
• Forget your job title. Don’t let it pigeonhole you when you’re looking to make an impression. Instead, consider: how does what you do add value? What are you most proud of? And what gets you excited? These are things that will help you stand out.
• Identify your skills and strengths. What do you bring to the table? What comes naturally to you? Narrow these down to 3 to 5 thing that you truly excel at. You can use the words on the worksheet for inspiration!
• Let’s take a look at the bigger picture. How people view you is an integral part of your personal brand. Think about how your colleagues or friends would describe you.
• What do you aspire to be? How do you want to make an impact in this world?
• We all have a personal brand whether we want to or not. So now it’s time for the hard part: ask the people around you about their perception of you to find out what your existing brand looks like. What three words would they use to describe you?
• Take these words and type them up into a document. No skipping allowed! Upload them to net to create a word map and find the words most commonly used to describe you. This can help you identify what people do – and don’t – associate with you, and help you figure what you need to do to get the words you want to show up on your map.
• So you’ve taken stock of where you are but where do you want to go? One exercise that can help you shape your personal brand is creating a Personal Branding Statement.
• Jennifer uses the BRAND acronym to break down this exercise. B for bold, R for relevant, A for authentic, N for notable, and D for differentiated. Jennifer also talks about some notable personal branding statements she’s come across and why they stood out to her.
• Ready for some homework? Start thinking about your own personal brand statement. Jennifer suggests using Kary Oberbrunner’s formula to develop your statement. Fill in the blanks!
  • I am (your professional identity) who helps (your audience) do or understand (your unique solution) so that (transformation/benefit).
• Share your personal brand statement with us! You can send Jennifer an email or LinkedIn message or share it on social media with the hashtag #impactmakerspodcast.

Resources & Links:

Personal Brand Worksheet

Impact Makers Episode 30 – Your Personal Brand

Sally Hogshead

Fascinate: How to Make Your Brand Impossible to Resist

Howtofascinate.com

Impact Makers Episode 4 – Quit the Cubicle with Mike Kim

Meg Guiseppi

Impact Makers Episode 7 – How I Became A Speaker And Entrepreneur

Check out another trailblazing HR powerhouse!

HR expert Laurie Ruettiman hosts a podcast called Let’s Fix Work where she speaks with a diverse array of people about how to change the way we think and work for the better.

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