I think one of the biggest things about self-leadership is that if we want to be effective in what we do, then it starts from within and so any effort that it takes to improve who we are, and how we show up in the world, is going to have that ripple effect out to our people, our business, our organization

I would say to any leader, start with listening, because just that one act is going to show that you care, and that you value what your people have to say and therefore, people will then step in and feel engaged, and then that has that ripple trigger effect, to helping them realize how important they are in the whole scheme of things and then pay attention to their own behavior.

so many people get a VA confused of having a team. And it's really not about that it's about a philosophy, too many people, you know, started out as you know, employee themselves. And so what happens is when they go to start a team, you are bringing somebody on, and then you're handing work over to them. And it's sort of like it comes from a very parental system, give them a task, and then you make sure they do it well. And that's just the frustration "

So many entrepreneurs are so struck by the people pleasing gene of wanting to make everybody else happy around them, of having the need for external validation, the fear of disappointing others and that drives a certain kind of behavior.

With communication, people think about what they're going to say, it is all about the way we listen. It's all about being willing to be totally present, letting go of any the stories that we make up and being curious.

Moving from a large city like Moscow, which is very cosmopolitan into Lexington, Kentucky, you know, it's a lovely college town and as many professionals know, it's Middle America that has a totally different kind of middle. So, you know, the challenge is first just figure out a sort of how to blend in.

The first thing is just having gone through that experience as an immigrant number one, just trying to figure out where am I? How does this place work? What language do I speak? What words do I use? How do I understand other people?

People often ask, how can I sell myself? I can't talk about myself. You know, where I come from its considered a sin. How can you talk about yourself? I have built my entire career without selling, I simply share information about trusted business colleagues in my network and in return they do the same for me.

Praveen is an outlier marketer, parallel marketer and unconventional marketing is his forte. When the world moves one way, you need to move the other. That's Pravin’s philosophy and workstyle. As a parallel entrepreneur, he's taking companies from startup to multi million dollars revenue. And he's an author of eight books. He's the recipient of the American Marketing Association's Emerging Leader Award.

I always describe influencer marketing happens when someone, an influencer is involved in a campaign to promote product or service. And I think what I've also found fascinating is that we trust individuals, more friends, family, and trusted colleagues more than we do traditional advertising

LinkedIn expert may not necessarily call himself an influence. And Funny enough, even within the Instagram space, a lot of these influencers don't actually like that term, they will often refer themselves as content creators. Okay. Because that's what they see that they are

I think we're going to look at the way that the human brain is built. And what it is the video actually does to the human brain than other pieces of content or types of content, or media doesn't do. So, you know, humans at the moment are living in an overstimulated environment compared to what we were designed to actually exist in. And so what we've got is we've got this continual stimulus in our brains, and then it's you know, an overstimulation is almost become the norm. So in order to attract attention, in order to drive business and be seen and heard, you actually have to spike human attention even further.

"I made the opportunity to have the stories, what I was really afraid of was getting old and looking back and regretting all of the things I hadn't done. Because I wasn't supposed to do that. Because I needed to focus on my career or because something bad was gonna happen to me. I just had marvelous adventures and found the stories I was looking for no regrets."

I tell a story about a very rough crossing, where I was in my little boat, my lights went out. And I was in very rough seas. And there were these ships all around me. And I mean, in the beginning, I've seen people start to show signs of physical seasickness. When I tell the story, people get pulled into that story. But after a few minutes, I don't have much time. And at some point, I say, Have you ever felt like that in your business? Like you're out there in those rough seas, and there's no lights on and these big opportunities are going by you, and they can't see you, they run you right over and never even know it?

“Customer Experience is about people, how do people want your brand, stay loyal to your brand, refer your brand and it's about the human aspects, not just process, and not just about price tags.”

What is it like when a customer signs the contract, or buys a product or service? What's that experience going to be from that point on? It has to be intentionally designed, depending if it's a service or a product, and how it's delivered and set up and used.

To develop trust, you've got to be consistent, when you're not consistent, your employees see that and if they start seeing that you treat others differently, that’s when trust is broken.

You've got to be able to learn how to build trust, do it in small doses, one task at a time, where you feel comfortable, then they are going to do what you need them to do.

I am very passionate about leadership, and more importantly, how do we invest to back into our people to so that they can be successful? So that's probably what started me on my crusade.

You can’t be trained to be a leader in a day.

One of the things I talk about is that your journey is going to be not what you think it is. It's just the slings and arrows the curveballs are going to be chucked you way are going to be often and you have to have a tough skin and foremost, I guess a resilience to be able to handle the constant barbs that you're going to receive.

The GFC when Lehman Brothers dismantled, that actually changed corporate entertainment hugely by that we had the 11 golden years of the late 90s right up to 2009 and it as just an extraordinary time where people were throwing money at events, they were wanting to wine and dine their clients, they were wanting to make sure that their event was bigger and all of a sudden, the next week it wasn't going to be $300,000 at the Hilton, it was going to be office drinks.

We help great storytellers tell their story and be heard by a larger audience.

SEO, is really, important for any business, I describe it as the Rolls Royce of traffic. It's basically a consistent traffic source that comes to your website each month and converts visits into business.

We teach people to separate the person who we love from their deeds, which we may not love and we teach them to discern, to be specific, so when we say giver, we're not labelling a person, we're labelling their deeds.

We want to discern and listen to the right people. ask the right question to the wrong person, you get the wrong answer. Ask the wrong question to the right person, you get the wrong answer. We need to ask the right question to the right person and that's a really good, solid mentor.

It's not about how many contacts you make anymore, it's about how deep you go on each conversation, how good you are trust building, not how good you are, what your network is, or how many contacts you make.

You have to say this,” I’m giving you a call to see if you have any feedback on our previous conversation, any feedback on our last meeting, any feedback on our proposal, and remember feedback is going backwards, not forwards. Because the goal is not to create momentum in the process momentum puts pressure on people, and pressure creates rejection”

I think a lot of people drift into scaling by just growing?

And culture has become particularly particularly come into focus because of that, because it's very different thing to try and create that strong culture where everybody checks in with you .... trying to create that in a digital world without that in the office bit.

Australia has a large number of baby boomer business owners that are currently heading towards or preparing for retirement with no real plan for an exit from their business.

The first thing to do is begin with the end in mind, start to think about what is my exit look like?

There's a lot of goal setting to be done here, I think you need to be really clear. Why did you go into business in the first place?

“Great customer experience is a combination of everything that your customer sees, hears smell, taste, touches, and then the biggie is how they emotionally connect with you, your people, your product and your services.”

“In order for us to experience anything, the only way we can do that is via our six senses, I could stand next to you at the edge of the ocean and explain to you for an hour what it's like to swim in the ocean. Ultimately, the only way you know what it's gonna be like to swim in the ocean is to dive in and involve all your senses”

"So if you sit next to somebody every day, and they have a meat pie or a pizza for lunch, then you're more likely to want to have a meat pie and pizza - a negative influence on you. If you're the type of person that gets up and has their lunch break away from their desk and does a quick walk around the block before coming back into the office, that's a positive behavior, then that person who sits next to you is more likely to be influenced in that way "