PEOPLE STRATEGY FORUM

EPISODE #33

Beth LeFevre

Inspiring Your People And Finding Your Passion With A Purposeful Business With Beth LeFevre

A purposeful business needs to have a team of people who are passionate. One passionate person isn’t enough, no matter how what your business is. When everyone in the company or organization finds their passion, that can enhance the company culture and elevate the business. Join us as we talk to Beth LeFevre about reigniting your passion and how you can spread that to your team. Beth is the Founder of Master Life Inc, where she helps build team-building strategies and employer-employee engagement. Learn how to help others find what they love. Start creating a purposeful business today!

Inspiring Your People And Finding Your Passion With A Purposeful Business With Beth LeFevre

Every week, we are here to engage, energize and elevate your employees and your company. We have a panel of experts. They have a great extensive background in things like HR, compensation, reward and entrepreneurship. We then find a guest speaker to help us out with different topics every week.

Speaking of the panel, Sam is taking a break. He is normally here helping us run things. That’s fine. We do have Char who will be jumping in Sam’s place and guiding the conversation. You all know Char. She has shown up here before. She’s a great conversationalist. This is going to go smoothly once I pass it on over to her. She is an entrepreneur. She has worked as an HR professional and as a talent management expert. She runs multiple companies including a career coaching business. She has a company in health advocacy as well. I’m very excited to have her here.

We also have Howard. Howard works with the CompTeam alongside Sam and his team there. He is a rewards and compensation strategist and expert. He has years of experience implementing successful compensation programs in various companies. Sumit, who is normally here with us, can’t join us. We will be thinking of him as well. We’re missing out on some of our main men, but that’s all right.

That brings me to Beth Lefevre. She is our speaker. She is the founder of Master Life Inc. She helps build teams. She is an expert at inspiring and educating individuals. She helps professionals find their purpose and reignite their purpose. When you do something over and over again, it’s easy to get burnt out and feel like things are a little stale. She reignites people’s passions. She has worked with plenty of companies over the years. She is also a speaker. She has spoken internationally and hosted workshops in Australia, Europe, and across the US. She is a busy lady, so I’m grateful that she has been able to carve some time for us. Beth, welcome to the forum. We’re so excited to hear your insights.

Thank you. I’m happy to be here.

We appreciate your time. I was looking at your bio. I’m very intrigued. Your primary focus is team-building strategies. Give us a little bit more about your background, who you are, and what kind of services you provide.

I started as an entrepreneur in 1990. It was back in the day when coaches were athletic. That’s when people said a coach, it was athletics. I started working at Florida Atlantic University and was helping the education team become a team. We had a lot of student teachers. It morphed into a lot of things. What kept pulling me forward was working with people who love what they do. Every single time when I was on a team, the people on this team love what they do. I said, “We have to can this and make sure that teams love what they do and attract people who also love what they do.”

I was doing that for a while. I was doing training and in 2006, one of my co-instructors or co-facilitators came in like crazy. She was like, “You got to do this thing.” She was off-the-charts enthusiastic. By this time, I had done about every personal growth training and business management. I was like, “Fine. I’ll do this thing whatever it is.” I kept postponing doing whatever she wanted me to do because I thought that I knew it all. Have you ever had those moments? That was one of mine. I don’t like to admit it, but it did happen.

We had a three-day training and I never gave her time. Finally, she said, “I know you like food. I’m going to buy you lunch. We’re going to do this thing and I’ll drop you off at the airport.” I figured, “It’s free lunch. I’ll do it.” We were at the table and she gave me what’s called The Passion Test. I did The Passion Test. I was sitting at the table. I swear to God, she bribed the waiter not to come to the table. I was sobbing. My heart ripped open. I realized I was doing what I loved, but it was hard. It was an uphill battle.

Be an attractor instead of a detractor. Click To Tweet

At that moment, I decided, “I’m going to become an attractor instead of a tractor.” I had been a tractor my whole life. I’m always pushing. I remember where we were. I said, “From this moment on, I am going to become an attractor.” I did The Passion Test and have been with The Passion Test family ever since. It morphed. My position is that of ASAP Engagement, which is dealing with companies. That’s the morph that I went into and I get to live that every single day. That’s in a nutshell.

That’s incredible. Who are your primary clients? Are they companies or individuals? What size of companies do you work with?

There is no normal size. It doesn’t exist. My goal is to inspire companies and enhance them wherever they’re at. In the last couple of months, I’ve been working in Palm Beach County with the election board. I am working in Palm Beach County training trainers to do the elections, which is something that was not on my radar. I was like, “We’re going to go over here.” It’s fantastic.

I work with solopreneurs. I love working with large companies. I feel like if somebody finds their passion individually, that’s one person that shifted. In a company, if the entire workforce can figure out what their passions are, then you have a shift in culture. Those people, if they’re passionate, go home and infect everybody else. The larger the company, the better because I feel like that ripple in the pond is much bigger. That’s my favorite, although I’ll work with anybody who wants to move to a different level to be inspired. Also, it’s not only to be inspired but to inspire others.

I love the passion. It’s amazing who you are. Here you are in the interview and you’re crying. That does show that you’re very passionate about what you do. Did you want to jump in and talk to us about some of your philosophies, strategies, and the things you like to coach companies about?

Sure. You can do this on a call because I do a lot of interactive. I don’t like to just talk to people. I want to be interactive. To anybody who is reading this, I want you to do the same thing. The first thing is to reconnect to something that you were passionate about. It might be a project. Maybe it was school. It’s something that you would get up in the morning, jump out of bed and be ready to do it. All of a sudden, the entire day had gone by and you were like, “Where did the time go?” If each of you could connect for a moment and think about, “When was the last time that happened?” If you’re in touch with that, describe that passionate moment. Who would be willing to do that? Take a moment and connect. Remember the time when you were like, “I couldn’t wait to do this.”

I was ecstatic about getting into a talent management strategy position because I was doing traditional HR for all those years and I got my Master’s degree. It was an experimental position with a large healthcare system. I was super excited about the fact that I could finally put all my learnings and all those things over the years into practice because I was hired to be a strategist. I remember when I got the job offer. I was like, “This is my dream job. Is there anything more dream job-ish?” The role was crafted for my talents and skillsets, so that was even more ideal. Ultimately, a lot of corporate changes happened. They went to more of a corporate approach and my position was eliminated, but for that time, I was excited about that.

That is called the passionate moment. When you were talking about it, you were like, “This is my dream job. This is that moment.”

I was here in Estes Park where I’m staying. I was standing in snow shoes on top of the mountain when the recruiter called me with the job offer.

PSF 33 Beth | Purposeful Business

Purposeful Business: When somebody finds their passion individually, that’s only one person that shifted. When an entire workforce figures out their passions, there’s a culture shift.

 

There is a little bit of symbology right there.

I had got to the summit and she called me. My phone service was working. She said, “I’m happy to say we’re offering you the job.”

I got chills listening to you. You were at the summit. You were at the top of this mountain, and you get your dream job.

It was crazy. We were walking back down the mountain. I was sitting there going, “I can’t believe this happened.”

That’s what I’m talking about. Does anybody else want to share a moment if you’ve got one? You don’t have to because we have that feeling. Does anybody else have a little moment they want to share?

We work with a number of different clients across different industries. I have that moment when things, all of a sudden, click and you know you’re helping that organization. You’re connecting with the people that you’re working with on a deeper level than just the transaction. When that happens, it’s a special moment. It makes you feel good about what you’re doing and your impact.

That’s exactly it. When we talk about a passionate moment, it’s about how we do that kind of work. Howard, it sounds like you continue to do that. You have those moments where you go, “This is why I do what I do,” and Char too and all of you here. That’s why you’re doing these interviews. You want to make a quality difference for others. You are in the contribution business. That’s what you’re doing. If it was just for you, you would get the knowledge, hang on to it and do well in the world. What you’re doing is you’re handing this information off to others. That’s what’s inspiring. That’s what a passionate moment is.

One of my favorite authors is Steve Farber. He wrote a book called Love is Just Damn Good Business. It’s wonderful. One of my favorite quotes from him is, “Do what you love in the service of people who love what you do.” Live your passions, but in service to the people who love what you do. To me, that is in a nutshell what I get to do. First, we have to connect with what matters to us.

Char, what you knew was you knew your dream job. Most people in the world don’t know what they love. We know what we don’t like. If you ask somebody, “What do you love?” They have a hard time coming up with ten things. They put their attention on, “I want to lose weight. I don’t want this job. I don’t want that job.” The truth is we want to start putting our attention on the things that we love and then become an attractor.

It's good to reconnect back to something that you were passionate about. Click To Tweet

Remember when I said I stopped being a tractor and became an attractor? That was because I got very clear on what are the things that matter most to me first in my personal life. That’s where The Passion Test comes in, and then in my work life. I transferred all that information over to, “If I can do this in my personal life and create amazing relationships, can’t I do this in my business?” I then turned it around to, “Can’t my employees do it in my business?” This was a moment where it’s the ripple that says, “How can we replicate this?” That is exactly what I do with companies. I say, “You got to start here. If they’re not willing to figure out what they love and they’re in alignment, they’re not going to promote anybody in their business doing the same thing.”

I love that terminology. When you talk about the attractor, I think of you’re planting seeds. You’re planting abundance. It’s not that you’re plowing through the fields. You are attracting growth. Is that what your mindset is?

That’s exactly it. I’ve been an entrepreneur since 1990. It was a hard path. I learned that this is what you’re supposed to do, work, work, work. I’m not going to say it wasn’t fun. It was rewarding and it was hard work. When I got clear on the things that mattered most to me, all of a sudden, the people, places and things started showing up in my path. It’s not that they weren’t showing up before, but I didn’t notice them because I didn’t even know it mattered.

It’s like when you get a new car. I got a little blue Eos sports wagon. It’s a convertible. The day I got it, I started noticing all these Eos that I have never seen before in my life. That’s the Law of Attraction. We all know this. Put it into practice. Once I got clear on the things that mattered, all of a sudden, those started showing up. My tuner was tuned to that channel. It’s like when you’re thinking of somebody and then the phone rings. This is all old stuff, but we forget that’s how life works. That’s how the universe works.

In business, we completely forget that doing what we love matters. I am not saying that the bottom line doesn’t matter. The goal is to increase profits, but if you increase profits as a tractor, it’s not fun. When I increase profits as an attractor, it’s the fun part. Howard, that is exactly what you talked about. It was that spark or that a-ha. You were like, “This is the moment because my client got something.” You’re going to get paid. We want to stay in business. We love those moments where somebody else has those a-has. That’s what fills me up.

What you’re talking about is a real positive approach, focusing on positive psychology. I’ve said this many times. Many leaders and executives like to look around and say, “So-and-so is not performing. The numbers are in such and such department.” It’s the negative aspects of which leaders are not performing well. It makes a great difference to focus on the positive and the potential of great leaders and bring it to light. Everybody has some areas to work on, but so many of our leaders and executives don’t know their potential or what they can do, which will ultimately inspire the team to have a more positive attitude and approach.

First of all, we don’t often even know the team we have. We don’t know what they love. We don’t know what their interests are. We don’t know what motivates them. We don’t know what inspires them. We give them benefits, ping pong tables, and all these crazy things, but we don’t check in with them, “What is it that you love?”

This was cool. It was a small dental team. They were a pretty close-knit team. They did the training in ASAP Engagement, which means Advanced Solutions for Activating Passionate Engagement. Part of the training is The Passion Test for Business. In that training is a moment where each employee does “When my life at work is ideal.” They had ten employees. They wrote down the things that mattered most, and then there’s a process where they come up with their top five. Once they have their top five, they start putting all their attention on that top five.

You can imagine what happened to the workplace. Everybody was now engaged. This was a surprise. They had a woman up front who was a receptionist. She didn’t like people. We know that happens. They also had a woman in the back that was doing all the paperwork. She’s like a bookkeeper but organizational. She like people. They did a test. They said, “Let’s see for a month what happens.” They didn’t know that’s what they love. They got the forum and said, “Let’s see what happens. They have the same skillset, but they have different passions. Let’s switch these two people around.”

PSF 33 Beth | Purposeful Business

Purposeful Business: Most people in the world don’t know what they love. They completely forget that doing what they love matters.

 

The one in the back said, “I was ready to quit. I couldn’t do this anymore.” The one in the front said, “I hate people.” When to walk in, there was the disclosure that said, “Let’s see what happens.” They thrived. They didn’t have to lose anybody. Training new people is one of the highest costs that companies have, losing and retraining.

We did a company in Mexico where they had 3,000 employees. Everybody on staff did The Passion Test for Business, ASAP Engagement. When your life at work is ideal, what does it look like? They did a reorganization based on what people’s passions were. Their net growth increased by $1.4 million the following year. I don’t know if it had anything to do with profits or people finding their passions, but I do find it a little bit interesting that they increased that much. That company hired us to go in and train. Now, they have an onsite group that helps their employees continually increase their passions and profits.

Do you think that it needs to be incorporated into the recruiting or interview process as well? People can do jobs, but it doesn’t mean they necessarily like the job that they’re doing as you pointed out.

This big company in Mexico said, “We need to have this part of the recruiting process.” That’s exactly what happened. All those new people that came in were given an aptitude test first. Number one, “Are they able to do the job we need them to do?” Number two, they were given The Passion Test, “When my life at work is ideal.” They then place them according to what they love.

Here’s what happened two weeks after those people had been in. People in the department said, “What are you doing differently?” We said, “We’re giving them these two aptitude tests.” It was a call center. They said, “These people’s percentages are higher than people that we’ve had here for three years. We don’t get it.” Why? It’s because they put the people according to what they love in the positions that would benefit the business and the employees. It was a win-win for everybody because people are showing up.

They created a production department doing films. Remember, it was a call center. In those call centers, there are advertisers. They started making movies of the products. They created a production team. They went out in the neighborhood and were asking people to use these products. Those products were selling twice as much as the videos that the companies that owned those products had.

They decided, “I love doing these productions.” They started doing them better than the authors of the products they provided. The company started saying, “We’re not even going to send our videos anymore. What you’re doing is better.” There were all these people in the company that wanted to do filming and production. That’s part of their company. Those are the things that happen. Sometimes, when you let people do what they love, they’re going to do better. They’re going to show up at work wanting to do their job.

I’m curious what your thoughts are on this issue. I’ve noticed hiring signs everywhere. I was at a family reunion and one of my relatives was describing that he finally wanted to retire. People kept leaving. Three people left and then he was doing the job of three. Ultimately, he decided to retire and move on. This organization is then left with no one.

It’s also strange. I was trying to get a car repaired because there was an accident. We couldn’t find any car repair places because of staffing. There are all these holes and positions that are open. It’s one to do the team strategies, but two is to attract in a positive way people that want to work in their passions. I do think that it’s a good way to attract great talent to say, “We focus on positive talent. We focus on your passions, ambitions, energy, excitement and enthusiasm about what you do. This is a very different organization than you’ve ever seen before.” It makes a big difference when people say, “I don’t think I want to go anywhere else because you care about me and what makes me tick.”

Do what you love in the service of people who love what you do. Click To Tweet

You hit the nail on the head. When talking about people’s passions, we’re talking about company culture. I don’t care if it’s a small dental office with ten people. One of the cute things they do as a team is they decided that every single morning, they were going to do a morning check-in. They would form a circle and ask, “How do you feel? What do you want to accomplish today?” It takes maybe five minutes for the entire team to go around.

If somebody was in a horrible mood, they didn’t try to change their mood. They said, “We’re going to give you extra support today.” They didn’t try to rah-rah them. They said, “Today, you’re in this place. You’re going to get extra support. Make sure that you tell us what you need. If you need bigger breaks or you need to do a phone call, we will cover you.” They wouldn’t have known that if they didn’t have that morning checkup. That became part of their company culture. Not only did they say, “We care about you,” but they also took the steps to show the employees, “We care about you.”

I love that idea. That’s fantastic. All of us as human beings have off days.

Life happens.

There are a lot of external factors that we go through with everything that’s going on in our world. There are so many external factors that are affecting families and people’s mental states. That’s a great idea. In the past, it was like, “Joe is on the phone again. What’s going on?” The next thing you know, it’s a performance issue. They never address what’s going on with Joe.

How long would it take to say, “I’ve noticed something’s up. What’s up? Please share with me. I care about you.” We don’t have those mechanisms formulated in businesses to show that we care. It has been a couple of rough years. People have been pushed to the emotional limits not only in physical ways because of COVID and because of what has happened. It’s hard to think about profits when you don’t have employees. You don’t have employees because you don’t have customers. It is a vicious cycle.

I do a lot of brain stuff. I’m a behavior management specialist. We talk about the brain. People have been treading water for so long that it’s hard to thrive when all you can do is survive. That’s where we’ve been. Everybody has been treading water. Sooner or later, you get tired. You’re like, “I need to back float for a moment.” They are not built into our businesses. We never took the time to create a culture that says, “This is how we take care of our people.”

We did 57 hours working with Palm Beach County. I have been doing part-time. I have not worked that much in forever. I loved every minute of it because I’m training. It was an absolute blast. I loved it, but I was burning the candle at two ends. I would come home, cook and wash clothes. I still have a family. I called up my massage person. We usually have a regular massage. I said, “I need you early at 9:30 AM.” She came in, did it, and gave me extra time. I came home and got to put my makeup on. I feel completely different because I did that. I’m taking time for myself and filling up my cup.

Back in the day, I would buy a box of See’s Candies. I’m not doing a commercial but that’s what I love. When you’re wonderful, you offer them to everybody else. I kept them in my closet. Those were my candies. If I decided to invite somebody, that was cool. Some people would say that was selfish. I go, “It was self-full.”

PSF 33 Beth | Purposeful Business

Purposeful Business: Make it a part of your company culture to check in with everyone on your team. Ask how they’re doing, how they feel, and what they want to accomplish for the day.

 

I do things to fill up my cup because I can’t give it to anybody else until I fill up my cup. That’s what we want to train entrepreneurs, business people and ultimately, your employees. It’s to fill up their cups. We want to give them methods and ways to do it that won’t take away from the company. How do we create employee engagement by doing what that particular employee needs? There are many methods to do that.

We create a culture action plan that incorporates how I can create employee engagement by doing what they love. The first thing you got to do is do a survey what is it that you would want? It’s so simple. “If we could do anything for you, what would you want?” They say things like more flex time and more time with my family. They were things that were so easy to accommodate, but we don’t know what they want. We haven’t taken that time.

Some people love working 57 hours a week. They feel valued and important. Others in particularly different generations maybe want to travel more or do some flex time. Working with Howard, Sam, and the CompTeam is great. They’re looking at compensation from a different viewpoint and not just a weekly paycheck or the monthly paycheck. It’s also about all those other types of benefits.

That’s part of the reason with my company. We wanted our employees to work 25 to 30 hours a week. I always said, “Please have another ambition as well.” Ultimately, that did happen. Thank God my employees had other positions because we did have to temporarily lay our people off. The biggest fear is to lay off employees, but we’ve already had them prepared mentally like, “If you have other positions or other passions, we support you to go to training to move your passion.

When we did have to do the temporary layoff in December 2021, I could sleep at night because my people were okay. It’s just having that proactive creativity and exploring these options. No offense to the CFOs, but sometimes, it’s the financial guys and financial people that say, “That’s too expensive. We can’t handle that. That’s not acceptable.” Yes, but you’re going to have higher productivity and higher profits.

I do want to make a comment. I don’t speak for everybody. There must be an alignment with the companies that I work with. That’s my number one. I don’t care how much you’re going to pay me if I have to go in and do dentistry or if I have to go in and pull teeth and make people shift, I don’t want to do that. I like working with companies that are aligned.

One of the first things I did way back was I went into the website of the CompTeam. I took the time to look at it and said, “I like this company. It feels like a good fit. They’re doing the things that work with me.” Thank you because it showed up even on the website. You can see those things. The wording or phraseology showed up on your website only because you know what you’re doing. You are in the contribution business.

Thank you. You might find it interesting. You are joining hundreds of other forum recordings of other like-minded professionals with different types of tele-management strategy approaches. I have to say from personal experience, sitting on an island, trying to solve world hunger, and trying to figure out how to do a talent management strategy differently against the brick wall is challenging.

No offense to the executives that have the traditional mindset, but it’s challenging to change the organization to a different mindset about team development and talent strategies that are out-of-the-box and non-traditional in thinking. It’s not just the younger employees. The older employees are also looking for a different company altogether. They’re sick of the old traditional stuff. I’ve had so many people tell me that they’re so sick of the traditional type of mindset. They’re willing to take a pay cut to go to a different company with a better culture.

It's hard to thrive when all you can do is survive. Click To Tweet

That’s across the board. When people are saying, “We can’t get people to work. We can’t keep people to work,” my question is, “What are you offering? When people come to work, they have to have a personal reason that they are there. I’ll give an example. I had a thought. This is a perfect example. We were in Mexico doing training. We did “When my life at work is ideal.” I speak fluent Spanish so I got to go down there and do all the training in Spanish, which was very fun.

We were doing “My life at work is ideal.” This gentleman came up with, “I don’t like this job.” That’s the biggest fear in businesses. If they do this training, people are going to discover they don’t like what they’re doing. Here’s what’s cool. During that training, not only do we do, “What do I like at work? What matters most at work?” We go a step lower and say, “Why do I do it? How does it enhance my personal life?”

Francisco discovered, “I don’t like what I do.” When we did the step lower that said, “Let’s see why you do what you do. Why are you putting up with this paycheck every week?” He said, “I get up, hit the snooze alarm, go to work, and do my job. I sit by the water cooler to waste as much time as I can so I can get my paycheck.” When he discovered why he does what he does, which we call those core passions, he had renewed energy. He came in and said, “I feel completely different.” We’re like, “How come?” He came over and what he told me blew me away.

I want to give credit to Janet and Chris Attwood. They’re the authors of The Passion Test. I was in Mexico with Chris Atwood when this happened. He came over to the car and said, “I have to tell you what happened.” He goes, “I don’t like this job very much, but one of the things that matter most to me is my family. I have a son who wants to go to college. We don’t have enough money. I separated from my wife about six weeks ago and I don’t like it. I’m not happy with who I am. When I discovered why I was doing what I was doing, I realized my family is more important than anything in the world.”

He goes, “All of a sudden, this job was about showing my family how much I love them. I’m doing this because they matter more than anything in the world. I want to keep coming to work so that I can contribute to my family. Not only that, at the end of the training, I called my wife. I said, ‘I’ll do whatever it takes for us to get back together.’”

I speak Spanish and Chris doesn’t. I was translating for Chris. He looked over at me and said, “We thought we were just teaching a business course.” It was truly one of those moments for us where we realized living your passion and doing what you love in work and in your personal life affects every single part of your life. It enhances it or depreciates it, either way and however you’re feeling. I’m going to fast forward three months later. We went back and there was a Christmas party. Francisco came running over. He was a Mexican guy. He had a great big hat and cowboy boots on. He was speaking Spanish and said, “I want to introduce you to my wife. We did get together.” They were dancing cheek to cheek the whole time.

It was one of those moments where you go, “This is why I do what I do.” It happened because this company put time into their employees to say, “You need to find out what it is you love or at least why you do it.” Here’s what happened to his work. He showed up happy and excited. This is why I’m doing what I’m doing. He got a promotion and ended up doing what he loved. Even if you don’t love what you do, give it your all because then, you will get promoted or moved to a job that supports what you love. Here’s another example I could keep going. You just pressed the button.

This is simple. All of us know it. You go into a restaurant. Somebody comes over, “Can I take your order?” You’re like, “Oh, man.” No matter how amazing the restaurant is, that is not going to be a good dinner. You go into a dive and somebody comes over and they’re like, “How can I help you? I want to serve you. Is this okay?” They come back not obnoxiously but truly because they love what they do. They want to serve you. That is a ten-star experience. You’re going to tell everybody about that restaurant. I’ll calm down for a while, but that’s what I’m talking about.

I love the stories. It makes it more meaningful. Hats off for creating that environment for Francisco to allow for vulnerability. It’s not just about gender, but you’re not supposed to cry at work.

PSF 33 Beth | Purposeful Business

Purposeful Business: Living your passion and doing what you love in work and personal life affects every single part of your life. It doesn’t matter how you feel; it enhances or depreciates it.

 

Especially not a Mexican man. I just stereotyped but you know what I’m saying.

It’s great that he opened up. He was honest with his feelings. He felt like, “I’m not going to get fired if I tell him my company that I’m not happy with my job.” They have a safety aspect. Psychological safety is something we talk about a lot. That’s fantastic. What a great story. You do impact lives. Negative work culture can affect families and people personally. What do you think, Howard?

Clearly, this is beneficial to both the employees and the company. Why is it that so many companies won’t embrace this? Is there a fear of getting into the emotions of your employee population? What’s the reluctance?

In the past, we have been taught that there is a line that we don’t cross. There’s business and there’s personal. The reality is they’re highly intertwined. When you walk into your house, you leave everything that you did at work by the door. When you walk into work, you leave everything that happened at home. It’s a nice saying, but emotionally, it’s impossible unless you shut those feelings off in every place. You can’t pick and choose, “Where am I going to be emotional? Where am I not?” We learn to numb out. We’re like, “In business, I need to be business-like. We don’t talk about emotions. We don’t become emotional.” That means you’re not passionate either.

If you got to turn down the crap, you got to turn down the passion. It’s the truth. If we can find a place that says, “There is a time and place for this.” I don’t walk around crying at work. Every now and then, I do. I must admit. I’ve been at places where I started crying. People understand what it’s about. There are times when I say, “This is not a good time for me. I’m in a place right now. We’ve got stuff going on in the family.” I let them know so that they understand why I’m not me that day. I’m like, “This is not the day that I can support you. This is the day that maybe I need a little support.” We have been taught to separate those.

What ASAP Engagement does is number one, we start with the management, owners and entrepreneurs. I always start at the top because they don’t have a support system to create a company culture where engagement occurs and we take away those lines. They’re willing to be vulnerable, “This is what matters most to me.” Communicate it to the employees. Most of the time, I’ve never seen it not work where the employees feel safe. They can say, “This is what you love. I can’t wait now to tell you what I love.” We’re a workforce that says, “How can I make sure that Howard and Jules are doing what they love? We’re all loving this moment.” I don’t have time to do mischief if I’m loving what I do. I don’t want to because I’ve fallen in love with the people around me.

I started working in the city. I started working in Palm Beach. Everybody has their own very particular personality. Char, you started with that. Everybody has the stuff they’re not good at. Everybody has strengths. My goal when I’m there is to bring out their strengths. I’m like, “Somebody did training and they were fantastic in this area. You might want to work on this.” I always start with, “This was amazing. You got to me cracking up in the back.”

It’s election training and people are having fun. Who could ever think of that at this time and era? People get crazy about all the election stuff, and yet these people are having a blast. You get to look at and enhance those qualities of every single person on the team. If I don’t take the time to find out where these people excel, then I can’t enhance that.

People bring their whole selves to work. As much as we think they’re only there to do the job, there’s a whole other side of people where if you engage that, you’re going to get that much more productivity, excitement, and enjoyment from your employees.

Even if you don't love what you do, do your best because you will get promoted or moved to a job that truly supports what you love. Click To Tweet

It’s so cute. I’ll say something. We do training where I’m in the back of the room watching. Somebody has me cracking up. I was like, “You were having so much fun. Where did that come from?” I had this comment the other day. She has been in there. She feels safe enough now to express herself in that way because there is a company culture that has been created where it’s safe to have fun at work. People are walking out saying, “This is the best training we’ve ever had,” because they’re having fun. They’re getting the information they need, but they’re having a blast doing it.

The reason I mentioned that is because I could have fun and not say anything, but the moment I said something, her face went, “I tried something new and somebody noticed and acknowledged me for it.” She’s now going to do that way more often. She is going to stretch a little bit, shine, have fun, and make a joke where normally she probably would have thought, “Was that okay? Did I cross a line?” Somebody took the time to acknowledge that. That’s also something at work.

Since there’s so much competition that occurs, we’re afraid to acknowledge others if they are better than us at something. If I acknowledge somebody, does that decrease me? No. It enhances the entire team. That’s another one, Howard, when you said something about what has happened. We stop acknowledging people’s specialness because there’s competition and they’re fearful.

I want to take a quick break. As always, we love to give a shout-out to our sponsor, TMA. This perfectly aligns with everything we’ve been talking about between passions, talents, and finding what works best for you. The TMA Method is great for that. They offer a bunch of great assessments including a talent assessment.

Since they are our sponsors, we offer a free talent assessment. You can email [email protected]. It takes about fifteen minutes. It’s pretty quick. You’ll dive in using a positive psychology method to find your talents and explore your strengths and weaknesses. It’s a good tool. We talk about it all the time. I know Char uses it a lot in her business as well. We always speak to the TMA Method.

First of all, I also want to emphasize. Beth, you may be interested in this assessment that we also offer. Well also provide that to you. We’ve applied positive approaches to understanding passions, interests, drives and talents. It’s a great conversation tool. It is way more than just this process, but my employees appreciated that we handle performance management strategies very differently and talk about these conversations. We love TMA. For you, Beth, how do people get ahold of you? Do you have a website? Do you have a workshop? What is it that you’d like people to reach out to you with?

My regular page is being rebuilt because I’ve added some things. I have another place. It’s called MoneyLifeFreedom.com. That’s a temporary site where I do some personal stuff. That’s money, life, and freedom because one of the things is when you’re doing what you love, you enhance your abundance. That’s cool. Not only do you enhance your life, but you also enhance your abundance. It’s MoneyLifeFreedom.com. You can contact me from the business that I’m rebuilding. The website is Master Life Inc. You can contact me at [email protected]. We want you to master your life. That’s pretty much it.

This has been a great conversation. I love the actual examples. People don’t always like training. Thank you so much. We’re about to wrap up, right, Jules?

We do have a question. Thanks for popping it through. It is, “Can we get a copy of The Passion Test?

PSF 33 Beth | Purposeful Business

Purposeful Business: There’s so much competition in work that people are afraid to acknowledge others. Acknowledging somebody doesn’t decrease you. It only enhances the entire team.

 

You can find it on Amazon or you can go to ThePassionTest.com. They have it there. The Passion Test book is amazing. It will start you on that process. They have a system of how you can give yourself The Passion Test. They also have a place where you can contact an individual facilitator and they can take you through The Passion Test.

I didn’t offer this, but I do a 33-minute free consult to see if I can be in service to you and answer questions. I allow 33 minutes. There’s a whole reason, and I could go into that later on about why that happens. In 33 minutes, we can find out if I can support you in your business and if I can personally answer some questions you might have. If you’re interested in that, send a note back, “I was on this wonderful call with the People Strategy Forum and I would like that 33-minute free.” I offer that to anybody. As long as you mention them, send me an email and we’ll set it up. As I’m choosy about my businesses, I’m choosy about my clients. I want to make sure that we’re a good match. I spend that time supporting you. I don’t do sales. I find out what it is that matters to you because that’s what I love. I love making a difference in people. I wanted you to know that.

Thank you. That’s generous too. Thirty-three minutes is a lot of time when you’re going back to back with people. Guys, hop on that. If you want to be the next Francisco, here’s your chance. Don’t miss out.

Thank you so much, Beth. It has been a pleasure having you on. I would love to have you back.

I would love it. I love you guys. This has been very cool.

Thanks, Char, for hopping in place of Sam and doing an awesome job, diving in, and keeping that conversation going.

I like doing Sam’s gig.

Thank you for the invite. It was wonderful working with teams that love what they do, and that shows. I appreciate it.

Thank you all.

 

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About Beth LeFevre

PSF 33 Beth | Purposeful BusinessFounder of Master Life Inc – Team building strategies; personal and professional engagement

She is a behavior management specialist specializing in Adlerian philosophy. Beth has been working for over 29 years to inspire and educate individuals, businesses, entrepreneurs and organizational teams to create passion, cooperation and connection in every area of their lives.

Master Life Inc. is about enhancing and enriching relationships: with self, partners, parents, children, co-workers, community members, governments, and nations. It is time to investigate from the inside out to find the source of our discomfort and take action in creating the world we desire and deserve.

 

 

 

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