Why Presence Might Be the Skill You’re Missing with Brad Farris | RR327

Brad, Hello everyone, and welcome to this

week's episode of relationships rule. Today's episode is all

about presence and why it might be the most overlooked

leadership skill in business. My guest, Brad Ferris is a coach

and advisor to agency owners and C level leaders who want to grow

their businesses and become the kind of leaders their team

actually wants to follow. Brad believes that slowing down isn't

the opposite of progress. It's actually the path to deeper

connection, clearer communication and stronger

relationships with clients and colleagues alike. If you've ever

felt like you're rushing through your work and missing the point

this conversation is for you. Welcome to the show, Brad.

Thanks so much. Yes, my pleasure.

It's it's kind of on topic with me in that i

There's a phrase that I use, and I may have shared with you when

we spoke the first time, where we I talk about slowing down

your outreach to speed up your outcome, and that's in my world,

that's about when I'm reaching out to people or teaching my

clients to reach out to people on LinkedIn, because we're not

about saying hi and then doing a pitch, Right? So the drive by in

a hurry, yeah, the drive by like that, yeah. Don't be in a hurry.

Just slow down and get to know someone. So um, how did first of

all, I'm gonna so, so you often say slowing down helps you go

faster. So what does that look like in a business contact? For

context for you,

when I'm talking to clients, I'm often hearing them

talk about processing 100 200 emails a day, and having back to

back zoom meetings all the way through a schedule. And

listening to that just kind of makes me cringe. And so I really

started digging in with clients about what's going on here. And

there are two trends that I saw, and that is, the more emails you

respond to, the more emails you get right like, if you if you're

constantly responding to emails, people are constantly responding

your emails, and so you're getting more emails. And so to

slow down, and when you're answering an email, to answer it

completely so many times, especially C level leaders, are

responding with very short answers to emails that are kind

of out of context and leave a lot of questions in the

receiver's mind. To slow down and give more context and answer

it more completely. Means that you have fewer follow up emails

to answer, and your team is actually able to move forward

more quickly. And so what you want is for them to keep going,

but your one word answer of yes or no leaves them with questions

that they still can't answer. And so by slowing down and

taking more time to answer, you complete things in one turn,

instead of having bounced back multiple times.

That's so funny, because I just had an an email

from somebody last night. I just want to find it was a past

client of mine, and she said, Hi, I I know we talked about

scheduling time with my team to discuss my LinkedIn page. Is

that offer still good? If so, can you let me know what works

for you? I don't know what, what exactly she wants. Does she want

me to train them? Does she want me to now? I have to ask her,

like, that's right, charging her for this. What did I say? So,

yeah, it's exactly what you said, and it will require her to

answer back, and so she wasn't as clear as maybe it would be,

would have been necessary. So, yeah, that's

it's delaying the process of her getting the

result that she's looking for, and it's another email in her

inbox. Exactly.

I know I'm the worst though. I mean, I have

this tan. I'm gonna tell you how many emails I don't delete

anything. It's brutal. My wife doesn't say, Oh, you're either

an email box zero person or you're the extreme opposite. I

don't, yeah, I could beat that. But anyway, it's not good. It's

good if you're searching for something, but not not anything

else. So I don't know what that's about, but anyway, so

let's, let's do your okay. So is that something that your clients

get right away, or do they you know, that's got to be a

learning curve for some people,

for sure, because at the beginning it looks like

you're going backwards. You're taking more time, right? Yes.

And the other thing that they tend to resist is on the meeting

side, I talk about being in fewer meetings, yeah, like if

you're in a meeting, knowing what it is that you're there to

do, do that and then get out. So if there's an hour long meeting.

It doesn't mean that you need to be there for an hour, or maybe

it does. It depends on what's happening in that meeting,

right? Right? To be intentional about being there for the thing

that you're there for, and when you're there, you're listening

fully. What's really interesting to me is that when we listen,

when we're fully present, it actually changes the thinking of

the person that we're in the meeting with. So if we're

distracted, if we're looking all over the place, the other person

is also distracted. They aren't giving us their best thinking.

When we're giving them our full attention, it requires them to

bring their best thinking. And so it's it's something where

they have to experience it a couple of times. I can convince

them to try it for a day, or try it for a certain meeting and see

what happens, but very quickly they see how their presence can

affect the team, and they get addicted to it.

Yeah, I would think that there's a fine line

though, between staying present in that short amount of time

that you're there and and worrying that you've got to be

on to the next call or the next thing, and not letting that show

through to the people in that meeting who've been waiting to

get you in that room for a while.

That's a really crucial thing that you're

pointing out there, is that if I'm thinking about the next

meeting or the last meeting, I'm not fully present here, right?

And in the year of our Lord 2025, there are a lot of naughty

problems that need our full attention, that need all of our

create creativity and problem solving genius. And so if we're

using some of our brain on that last meeting and another part on

the next meeting. We're not giving this the the brain power

that it needs, and so it's crucial that we don't book back

to back meetings, that there's always space in between our

meetings, so that we are not like, oh my gosh, I'm worried

I'm wearing late what's going on in that next meeting? Like all

of that is distraction from being here and solving the

problem that is here, right?

So you're actually teaching or training

people how to lower their blood pressure, right?

I have an exercise that I do where I help people to

realize what they're like on their best day versus what

they're like on their worst day. And then I ask them to track

days that are best days and days that are worst days, and they

always report back to me that their worst day behavior comes

out when they're booked back to back to back, because we don't

have time to process, we get all backed up, and so we can't

really be there at the end of the day. And so we feel like

we're efficient because we've stacked all these meetings up,

but we're not even showing up for the second half of them. And

so more efficient is to cut some of those out, put some space in

between, and be fully present in each one.

Yeah, that's brilliant. It seems simple, but

it's not for a lot of it's not. It absolutely is not. So let's

go back for a second and and and let me ask you, so my audience

gets a little idea of who you are. How, absolutely, how did

you become so passionate about helping people grow into better

leaders? And you know, where did this come in for you?

So this is kind of crazy. Janice, like I have

always been interested in leadership. I was the kid that,

you know, when we formed groups for a group, group project, I

was always leading the project, and it was frustrating to me

that people weren't following me. And so I wanted to learn

about leadership and why people follow certain leaders and what

works and what doesn't. And then I was fortunate enough that

early in my career, I had a general management role. And so

when I was in my early 30s, I was leading a $20 million

company, and then another one and and so I just was in these

positions where I experienced the power of good leadership and

the power of not great leadership. And so over time, it

just became something that I've studied more and more often.

So who would you say was your guru that you

studied as well as your experience.

So when I when I want to channel a really good

leader, I go back to a CEO that I worked for named Bob Baker.

Oh, okay, so yeah, that's yeah.

I mean, he was just, I have a hard time

explaining like there were just very subtle ways in which he

would move the pieces on the chessboard to get things done

and and so he's just been a terrific model in my

head. That's great, that's, that's, that's

more special than I was thinking of, like, Good to Great the, you

know, and

books I love Jim Collins. I mean, there's all of

the leadership literature is helpful. The gap, I feel like,

is, I work with a lot of smaller organizations, more like two to

$20 million and a lot of the leadership literature is written

toward, you know, 500 million, billion dollar companies. And so

there's a big gap there. I feel like. Book, in terms of So, did

you write a book? I have not yet. Okay, just,

there's your there's your market, right? Of

course. So can you okay? Why do you think leaders struggle to be

present, especially as their companies grow, like there is

that monkey on their back. I think all the time of gotta keep

moving. Gotta keep moving. So what would you say that, like

the three top things are that they struggle. Why they

struggle?

The startup phase, which is sort of getting to a

million or a million and a half dollars, teaches us some very

bad leadership lessons. In order to survive the startup phase

there is that I have to keep moving. I have to try all kinds

of things. I don't know what's going to work, so I'm throwing

everything against the wall to see what sticks. And in order

for that company to succeed at that level, the leader's own

energy and effort is really critical to moving things

forward. There just aren't enough people for the for the

leader not to be taking responsibility for things as

that business gets bigger when it gets to two and five and $10

million those lessons are actually holding us back. The

more time you as the leader are spending in the details,

delivering services to clients or planning things, then all of

that time is the time that nobody is doing the CEO job,

because you're the only one that can do that job, right? And so

letting go of those detailed things, letting go of the client

work, is critical to growing into that next phase. And so

letting go of the the hustle culture, the like pushing and

effort that that made you successful. It was critical in

that first part of the journey, but letting go of that is what

makes us successful in the second

part of the journey. So is that passing the

torch to people that you've hired, that you can trust

absolutely think the same way you do that, get it and

understand the business well enough. And I asked that because

so I have a daughter who is basically climbing that

corporate ladder, so to speak. And the the CEOs have said, we

need you to work with this coach, because we want you to

get to the next level as a leader. And I love that, that

they put that effort into her, but it made me see that you can

only do so much. You need to get to the next level. There's,

there's ways to do it, and there's, there's, yeah, so it's

different. You become a different type of leader.

There's there's actually an identity shift that

happens where, you know, in that startup phase, we go home at the

end of the day and we feel good because we got a bunch of things

off of our list, like we accomplished something. As the

business grows and gets into the growth phase, a good day is when

we've helped other people to get their work done. We've created

the systems and the and the limits and the and the processes

that are going to allow them to be successful. And so we might

not at the end of the day feel like we got anything done. I was

immediately all day, right? And so it's a change of identity,

from feeling like I am getting things done to I'm an enabler of

other people getting things done.

Yeah, that's a great analogy. Actually. That's

really good. And to be able to accept that and see that that is

exactly what you need to

be doing, that's right? That's the most valuable

thing you can be doing, right?

So can you share a moment put you on the spot,

but can you share a moment when presence made the difference in

one of your client relationships that someone shared with you

that comes to mind.

So earlier this week, I was working with a

client, and what's really essential is that she shifts her

energy from being the person that's kind of running the

business to there's a new segment of business that they

want to get into. And so she knows that she needs to block

time for this new business, which means taking time away

from the old business. And it scares her right to let go of

the thing that's actually making the money. And so we were

talking about that, and and as she was talking, I just

listened, and I didn't say anything. And so she talked to

the end of that kind of talk track, yeah, because I didn't

reply and just listened, she said, plus, I'm kind of afraid

I'm going to fail at this new thing, or if I'm really

successful, it's going to change who I am and like that. That was

really what was going on, right? That's the real reason that was

hard for her to make the shift, but I wouldn't have found that

out if I started just answering the questions that she was

asking. I waited to see what else was there and was

comfortable with the silence. It.

Kind of like I've heard often people, if they talk

long enough to answer their own questions. So it's exactly kind

of it that process, and then you can come back at Aha, you know,

like the light bulb moment and all and often, I guess people

will realize that once they've just said it,

they will, yeah, one of the things that I tell

the CEOs that I'm working with is you can be really effective

if you're really dumb. Yeah. Like if people come into your

office and say, Boss, what should we do about this? And you

say, I don't know. What do you think we should do? Yeah, and

just not answer anybody's questions. Pretty soon they stop

asking you questions. They just figure it out for themselves.

Yeah. Interesting. Okay, it's fun,

actually. So how does how would you say slowing down helps build

trust within an organization

when the CEO is constantly getting involved in

projects? So so we're going and doing the work on a particular

project, it communicates to the team that we don't trust them,

that we don't think that they can do it on their own. And the

result of that, over time is that they don't trust

themselves, right? And so they kind of do half hearted work

knowing that you're going to come in and fix it. So I hear

this all the time from from people who say, you know, my

team, they just don't get it. They never finish anything. It's

the quality is not what it is. And I say that's because you

keep fixing it for them. Why? Why would they right?

That's the same, that's kind of the same concept

with children.

Yes, very much, exactly. Yeah. There are a lot

of parenting lessons that work in leadership. Definitely.

Okay, so in your experience, what's the ripple

effect of having presence in meetings, and how does that

essentially change a company's culture?

Yeah, so when I'm being present in my meetings,

I'm communicating value to the people that I'm meeting with.

I'm giving them my full attention, and they know that my

time is valuable, right? And so the first thing that happens is

that they show up more prepared and more ready to talk. They if

I, if they know I'm paying attention, they need to show up

with their best work, and if I am paying attention, and they're

showing up with their best work, we're making more progress every

time we meet. So there's it's like we were talking about

email. There's fewer misunderstandings, there's fewer

questions coming back, and so that slowing down to be present

actually increases the pace that the organization is working at

now, the other thing is, you're teaching your organization that

this is how we do meetings, is that we pay attention, we don't

interrupt, and we're not multitasking, and so when they

start doing that, then that, then the ripple effect happens.

Now everybody is starting to be listened to and cared for and

dealt with honestly, and things are getting resolved in one

meeting, and the pace overall starts to pick up.

Do you? Can you think offhand of of any

companies that epitomize this type of good behavior? And you

know, like we hear about stories about big, you know, not

necessarily big, but companies where everything works, because

it starts at the top right.

So I don't have firsthand knowledge of this, but

the Amazon culture is a culture where people do a lot of written

reports, and so they'll show up to a meeting and they'll hand

out to everyone. It's like a six page report, and before anyone

can talk, everyone has to read the document. And that what

they're doing there is they're making sure that everybody is on

the same page, and the person that took the time to write that

document had to really think through what they were going to

say. So nothing is sort of half hearted. They've thought it

through to the point where they're willing to give this out

to everybody. And so it's an hour long meeting. They might

spend 20 minutes reading the document and then discussing it.

And so I think that's going in the right direction. It's taking

more time to both present and receive the information so that

we're elevating the level at which we're having

conversations.

So it was interesting that you chose

Amazon, because I've heard like, a lot of negative about their

customer relations and things like that. So yeah, yeah, I

think there's a big difference between the

executives, yeah, that operate on this written plan. The story

that I've heard is that they were doing a lot of PowerPoint

presentations, like a lot of companies, and the CEO, Jeff

Bezos, was like, this is wasting time. I don't want to do this

anymore. I never want to see another PowerPoint presentation.

And that's that's when they started doing these written

documents. And really changing the way that they thought

through their business.

What do you think about? This isn't on my list of

questions here, but what do you think about, I guess I'd call it

the huddle culture, where there are companies who have a huddle,

they start with a huddle, and everybody in those the different

departments, has gets to state something good, something bad,

whatever. You know what I'm talking about. What do you think

about that?

I think it can be done well and it can be done

poorly. In a company that has a fast moving business. It can be

helpful to have a place where everybody syncs up and so that

huddle, that morning huddle, is a place where we're setting

priorities for the day. We're updating people on news that's

coming out, changes things that are happening. So it can be a

way to have very efficient communication. On the other

hand, coming out of the developer culture, there's

there's this in the agile methodology, there's a daily

meetup, and that is more about revealing your roadblocks to

help unblock things that are stuck. But I feel like it can

often devolve into a status meeting, where people are just

updating everybody on what they're doing, which could

easily be an email, right? And so thinking about, what is it

that we're trying to accomplish in this huddle, and are we

accomplishing that? That's, I think, what's really important.

Yeah, good point. I see it as kind of a more raw

thing. It can be, for sure, yeah, so, because I'm all about

relationships, so, yeah, okay, so what are some daily practices

or reflection questions that help leaders stay grounded and

connected to their people?

So one question that I invite clients to think

about is at the end of each day to ask yourself, if I had this

day to lead live over again. What would I do differently? And

that's just a way to kind of review and notice, you know,

those back to back meetings. I was cranky again. I can't do

that anymore, right? And a lot of times, what I find is people

have to notice it, 456, 10 times before they're like, okay, okay,

I'm not gonna do this anymore, right? So that's one that I

think is helpful. Another one that I think is helpful is to

ask leaders, what do people experience in your presence, or

a different version of that is, after you leave the room, what's

the mood that you leave behind? Are people energized and excited

that you've been there. Do they feel dejected and discouraged?

How are people experiencing your presence, and how do you want

them to experience your presence,

right? Yeah. Do you find, again, not on my list.

Do you find any specific differences in how female

leaders versus male leaders take to this? I'm not trying to be

sexist.

I'm just No, no. I'm thinking about it honestly.

I don't I don't think there are hard and fast rules. What I will

say is slowing down, showing up to fewer meetings, writing fewer

emails. These are all attacks on our ego. They make us feel less

important, right? Going to meetings and sending lots of

emails feels important, and doing less of that feels less

important. Yes, okay, and so if ego is a big part of what's

driving the leader, I get a lot of resistance for this, and that

could be men or women that have that ego driven leadership, but

I think that's more the difference is how much, how much

is their their leadership driven by ego? Yeah, all of a sudden I

can't hear you. Are you on mute? No, you're not on mute.

I am on mute. Knocked it over. Sorry. So yeah,

there's a lot more spider legs to that, because as well,

because there are women who have more men underlings who might

see the Yeah, the difference and same, vice versa. So yeah, I

think that's kind of interesting, but a whole

different topic for sure. Okay, I'm going to come to something

completely sideways from what we were talking about, because I am

so thankful and blessed that you use grammar properly. You write

right, you write correct. Yes. Because anybody I ever hear who

says there are less people who do this, there are less people

who do that, I cringe, and it's just one of my pet peeves around

grammar, less or fewer, right? That's right, and

I thank my sophomore year English teacher

for growing that one into my head.

Thank you to that person. It's, it's, it's so

prevalent now, more than it ever was when you listen to the news

and you listen to people you know reporting things that I

begin to began to wonder, have they allowed it now? Like is it

a new grammar rule that says there are less people at this

event today than there no Right?

Right? No. AP style still has the other but it's

also interesting. Janice, I think that taking time to use

proper grammar, full sentences, capitalization in the right

place. This is part of me showing respect for the people

that I'm writing for, and to take the time to make my

conversation or my sentences shorter and more effective. Like

all of that is part of that slowing down to speed up. If I

can take time to do to improve my writing, it's going to

improve the impact that that writing has.

That's interesting. I like that. Okay,

okay. Do you have any pet peeves around grammar?

Well, I will say that my own, the pet peeve that

I violate most often is I use the word that way too often,

like if when I, when I go to review my writing, I'm almost

always taking that out all over the place, and way too many

gerunds, way, way too many ings. I can almost always rewrite

those to get rid of them.

I sometimes put I think they're what are they

called? Prepositions or interjections or something or an

adverb at the beginning, like just, or Yeah, so, or Yeah,

putting those things at the beginning that are not

necessary, things like that. But it's not just writing. It's

speaking. That's why I'm saying it right. It's speaking. And I'm

just a bit of a grammar now. I think I'm a grammar Nazi.

Actually, it's like, yeah. Anyway, I remember I had a

friend, a good friend once, who was an English teacher, and we,

we sat and talked about this for quite a while, and and how many

phrases, like few and many, fewer and and less, and other

ones like that, and we had a whole list of them. It was so

much fun at the time. Anyway. So on that note, let me ask you a

couple of off the cuff questions. So do you how do you

gather your information these days? Do you read like real

books? Do you listen? Do you watch? What do you do to gather

information?

I always have one or two books going like real,

real books, like the I read on the Kindle. Read on the Kindle

because I like the highlighting feature to explore my notes.

Okay, and I listen to a lot of podcasts. Podcasts are my in the

car, walking the dog, mowing the lawn. Kind of

thing. Do you listen to business ones or

entertainment ones?

I don't listen to very many entertainment I listen

to some coaching podcasts, some business podcasts. I have a

couple sales podcasts that I listen to because I just really

like the mindsets that they're teaching. So yeah, the host

grabs me. That's what gets me to watch.

Yeah, I actually dive diverged from my normal

last week and decided to listen to a true crime story podcast

just to see, I've listened to them before, but years ago, and

I was just like wanting to see how they did that particular

one. And it was kind of interesting. I think I wouldn't

go back to it because it wasn't grabbing me. But I finished the

story because I wanted to know if the guy was you're not

guilty, right? But anyway, so those are kind of fun once in a

while, and I just again, listen to the hosts to see how they act

on their on their on their podcast, interviewing people.

Because that's what I do mostly, is interview people, right? My

wife

really likes a podcast that's about wild animal

attacks.

Oh, my gosh,

yes, it's it's just three goofy guys. Two of them

are brothers. One of them's a wildlife biologist, and they

talk about how not to get attacked by animals.

Basically, that could be good. There were two

bears in the local park right near here. Wow, yep. They're

coming out of hibernation, or they got lost or something. No,

they would have been out of hibernation for a while, but,

yeah, babies that get lost, you know, coming down. So anyway,

and I'm going to ask you another question off the cuff here. So I

my favorite word is curiosity. I love that word, and I love being

curious. Curious. And I wonder, do you believe that curiosity is

innate or learned? That's part one. And part two is, what are

you most curious about yourself these days?

Those are good questions. I believe that

curiosity is one of the most powerful states that the human

mind can be in and so I guess I believe it can be learned,

because I think anybody can, can be in that place. Okay, you

don't have to be curious about, you know, quantum physics, but

we could be curious about what made Janice word that in that

particular way, right?

Okay, I get you. I get you when you're saying

that, because I'm that person, those details like I did about

the grammar, right, right? I know it's not everybody does

that, okay.

And what I'm curious about these days, I feel

like this is sort of a middle of the road answer, but I'm very

curious about artificial intelligence and what it is good

at and what it's not good at, and I've been using it in lots

of different areas, just to try to figure out, Is this helpful,

is this useful? Is this a waste of time? And so far, I've found

some things that it's all of those for. You know, I found

some things that it's useful for, and some things it's a

waste of time for, and some that I feel like if I got better at

it, it might be more useful. So that's that's something I've

been really curious

about lately. Yeah, me too. I've been using it

and I've actually been loving it. I feel like it's my

assistant now, yes, yeah, you know, but you have to be careful

for sure of what you're what you're doing with it. All right,

one last question for from your business perspective, I'm coming

back around for leaders listening who want to build

stronger relationships with their teams and their clients.

Where should they begin? But what is your best advice? I'll

open it up to that.

Okay, well, I'll answer the first one. First, I

think the place to begin is, is to stop interrupting, and

actually, just to make it a rule in your in your meetings, that

nobody interrupts, and each person can talk as long as they

need to talk. And there's two things that happens when, when

we institute that rule, one is the extroverts in the room,

their best ideas come at the end, like they have to talk in

order to think. And so if you let them keep talking, you'll

you'll find better ideas for them and for the introverts in

the room, when they know that they're going to have a chance

to talk, they're going to spend more time thinking to be ready

to talk when it's their turn. And they might not say a lot,

but what they say will be more impactful. And so that's where I

would start. I would start by by eliminating interrupting, which

is hard, which is super hard,

very hard for me, very hard. Okay, sometimes I get

excited by something that someone said and I want to react

to it right away, because I'll forget.

Write it down. Have a piece of paper. Write things

down.

Yeah, exactly. Okay. And your best piece of

advice, then I say that because I thought you were going to

answer both parts. You don't have

to. You're right. No, I'm glad that you prompted

me, though I think that the best advice that I would give is that

you can trust your people, like, if you did a good job hiring,

and if you're doing good job as a leader and a manager, they can

do the job and having more direct conversations with them.

When you're listening to them and you're telling them your

honest feedback, you're going to build trust between you so that

they're going to be able to do amazing things, things you never

thought they would be able to do.

Awesome. That's great. Well, thank you. Thank

you for being today. And how can my audience find you? I will put

it in the show notes. Of course, absolutely preference. You can

just go to my website, anchor advisors.com,

where you can learn all about me. And if you're interested

there, I have an assessment, and I'll send you the link so that

you can put in the show notes. But there's a self leadership

assessment there that helps you to evaluate what is the job that

you're doing, managing yourself before we can manage other

people. We need to learn to manage ourselves and a lot of

these things, like not interrupting, listening fully,

letting people talk a lot of that requires us to manage

ourselves at a higher level. So I think it's just anchor

advisors.com/self-leadership-assessment, but you can go there and or if

you just go to anchor advisors in the resources section, you

can see the assessments

well, your your banner on your LinkedIn profile,

I think, says it all breaking through the biggest bottleneck

to your business growth. You. That's right. I love that. It's

great. Well, thank you for being here. And I think to my

audience, I'd just like to say, just to wrap up that, Brad

reminds us that Leadership isn't about doing more, it's about

showing up better. And when we. Bring presence and intention to

our work. We create space for relationships to flourish. And

as we always say on this show, relationships rule. So if

today's conversation sparked something in you, share it with

a friend or a colleague and remember slowing down might just

be your next best

move. Awesome. Thank you, Janice, you're

very welcome. You find this oops, thank you for

okay. There I had to find my stop button. It disappeared. So

thank you, everybody. And lastly, remember to stay.