E2A 077: Accelerating Leadership with Jeri Childers 

Episode Transcript

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Scott MacMillan:

You're listening to the Entrepreneur to Author podcast.

Announcer

Welcome to the Entrepreneur to Author podcast, the podcast that brings you practical strategies for building authority and growing your business. And now, here's your host, Scott MacMillan.

Scott:

My guest today is Jeri Childers. Jeri is the founder of Accelerate You, a coaching, leadership, and business development company where she works with leaders and organizations supporting entrepreneurs, innovators, and business builders who want a personalized roadmap for their lives, careers, and businesses. She's also the author of the new book, Accelerate You, The Power Pivots, Mindsets, and Steps to Power Up Your Leadership.

Jeri, welcome to the Entrepreneur-to-Author Podcast. Thanks for being here.

Jeri:

Thank you, Scott.

Scott:

It's my pleasure. I shared a little bit about you in the intro, obviously, but I think it would be really helpful for our listeners if you could provide a little bit more detail about what you do and your expertise.

Jeri:

Well, thank you. For the last 10 years, I've been working with leaders who are launching new products into the market, researchers who have invented something that they think will make life easy for us or make the world better. And most of these people are really good at what they do, but they may not be good at creating the change that they want to create in the world or launching themselves.

So I've conducted research on the mindsets that allow us to be unstoppable, to allow us to power up our leadership, and to be more innovative.

Scott:

Excellent. And listen, you've recently published your new book, Accelerate You. It ties into that whole concept, doesn't it?

Could you share a little bit about the book? Who is it written for? I assume it's a similar audience to the people that you work with.

And what's your goal for them with the book?

Jeri:

Yes. So I have been working with leaders for the past 25 years, and most recently have been conducting research asking, how did you develop your career? How did you launch that innovation?

And in particular, I've been focused on women who typically are in male-dominated fields and experience more barriers than others. And I wanted to be able to bring all of their learnings, their tips, best practices, and what I've learned over time into one place. So I work with leaders.

I love working with women, but also companies who are very excited about advancing and accelerating women. And so this book, for me, was something that I could bring it all to one place, leverage in my training and in my consulting.

Scott:

Yeah, lovely. In the book, you talk about the concept of personal power. What is personal power and why is it important?

Jeri:

Well, many of us have a tumultuous relationship with personal power. It gets kind of a bad rap. But at its core, personal power is the ability to identify what's needed and to take action.

And it's important in our lives to be able to consistently take action and get our intended results. So I work with people who want more consistent results, want to really take off or create lift. It could be someone entering a career, entering a market, and they want to be able to effectively create the change.

Scott:

Could you talk a little bit about mindsets? So what mindsets help a leader determine their success more consistently and effortlessly?

Jeri:

Yes. So in our research, well, first of all, you can measure mindsets. And I have a tool that I use for that.

But we've identified 48 different mindsets, but the top five that allow you to power up, particularly in the area of innovation or if you're creating a big change in your life. So these include being able to get really clear, communicate clearly by seeing the big picture. So entrepreneurs, innovators see the big picture and are able to articulate that for the people around them or even themselves.

They're able to use that big picture thinking to inspire themselves and to inspire others. The second mindset is being able to initiate quickly, regularly. What is that?

That's being able to leave very little time between the moment you think of an idea or a concept, feel you're committed to it, and then taking action. We also have found that those leaders that have a mindset that allow them to intuitively make decisions, reference their own experience or their gut in order to make decisions. When you make decisions quickly, you're often able to seize opportunities in the marketplace.

If you're finding that you're procrastinating, overanalyzing, or needing more information or input from others, that can be helpful in some situations, but not when you're trying to move into a market or implement a plan. It's better to implement a plan and make changes incrementally than perfect, perfect, perfect. Another mindset is being able to understand your level of personal power.

And what that means to us in this level of analysis is being able to be comfortable with decision-making, problem-solving, your ability to make a plan, delegate, be comfortable influencing others, helping them become motivated to play their role. And then finally, it's important to understand your relationship to change. Some of us typically are resistant to change, or we like really big change, and those around us want to keep things the same.

So understanding what makes you want to achieve, what makes you, contributes to change, how you can make that change more effortlessly. Those things, those are the mindsets that you want to build.

Scott:

Excellent. That's really, really fascinating. Thank you for sharing that.

I'd love to talk a little bit now about your approach to getting the book pulled together, and specifically about the writing process. I find that some authors find writing very difficult, and others find it very easy, and then of course there's a spectrum in between. How did you find the writing process, and how did you approach it?

Jeri:

Well, at first I was writing just for myself, and then I quickly realized that this wasn't just my notes to myself, this could be much more. And I found the process quite exciting. Yes, there were frustrating times, but I was also looking, as I always do, to co-create.

So I was looking for a way that I could work with a team of people that could help me. So I had a process, I had several drafts, yes there was the part in the process where I wanted to make it as best as I could, but I also knew that I would benefit from collaborating with other people in the editing process. Now when I began that process, what I really, really liked was working closely with my editor.

Hearing what was working, what was not working, how we could make things more clear and accessible. And that was really fun. By the time you get to that process, I found that to be very fun and personally inspiring.

Scott:

Yeah, it's interesting because earlier you were talking about how often it's better to kind of get started and then iterate versus perfect, perfect, perfect. And I think the same thing holds true when it comes to writing. It's better to get something down on paper and then understand that the magic really happens through that iterative process of editing, re-editing, self-editing, professional editing.

So there's some interesting parallels there, aren't there?

Jeri:

There certainly are. And I've always loved that co-creation and getting that feedback and being able to create that lift through that iterative process.

Scott:

What about the publishing process? What did you find most interesting or perhaps surprising during publishing?

Jeri:

Well, first, I want to say I was looking for a one-stop shop, that co-creator persona in my publishing partner. I did not want to become the expert at editing, doing the artwork, the marketing, developing relationships with channel partners in the publishing process. And so I was pleasantly surprised that all of that could be available and simply implemented by folks who had a lot more experience than I did.

So I enjoyed participating in the process and not having to be the expert.

Scott:

Well put. That's a very good way to put it. Talk about the business goals that you have for your book.

Obviously, when we write a book, we have goals for our reader. But what are the goals that you had for yourself and your business, and how are you using the book to support your business?

Jeri:

Yes. Well, I started out knowing this was a passion project, knowing this was going to help my mentees, my coaching clients to be integrated into my training programs. So the publishing of the book, for me, was about building awareness, about mindsets, about the process of identifying your power within being able to power up, to understand that you can manage your own power.

So I wanted to build awareness. I wasn't looking to generate revenue, but I wanted to be delighted by watching the awareness build and to be able to know that the book was reaching others.

Scott:

Wonderful. Let's go back to talking about personal power for a moment. For our listeners, what are some strategies that our listeners could use to power up their own leadership?

Jeri:

Well, I think the first step is getting clear on the big picture and the big picture within the inside of you. So creating clarity, understanding what's driving you, unpacking what motivates you. Why would you want to do that?

Well, you can make better choices. So if you're a careerist and you're wanting to understand your next move and how you can make the best choice, understanding what drives you in those 48 dimensions and being able to understand the context of the work environment that's going to give you satisfaction, make you feel more productive, put you in that flow state more often so work feels more playful, you feel like you're getting more consistent results.

So understanding not only your motivations, but what's driving you, what do you want to create in the world? What are the kind of problems that you want to solve? So that would be the first step.

And I call that awakening, awakening to what do you want now? What is the problem you want to solve now? Because that changes over your career.

Being able to understand what's blocking you. If you want to take initiative, if you want that initiative to drive you and you feel like you're stopped more often than not, you need to unpack that. What's causing that?

Is it the environment? Is it an emotion or some kind of experience that you've had or that you want to create that will allow you to initiate more? So I help people identify and unpack those issues to begin to back themselves.

In particular, women often are waiting for others to open the door or feel uncomfortable sharing with others the value of their work or their results. So helping them create, increase their visibility, their comfort in telling their story. And often that means telling the story of their team.

It's so much easier to describe the contributions of the people around you. So helping, creative problem solving. So a pivot you can take when you feel stuck is get creative.

I mean, really let down your boundaries about and stop filtering out what's possible. So these are just a few examples of power gaps and also pivots that you can make.

Scott:

Oh, wonderful. And I love that kind of counterbalance, the gaps and the pivots and how you map those together in the book. Jeri, how can people get in touch with you to learn more about the work that you do and perhaps get in touch for some help if they need it?

Jeri:

Sure. Well, I'm available at Jerichilders.com. If you visit that site, you could download the book, learn more about me, the programs that I offer.

I'm also on all of the social channels at either my name, Jeri Childers, or Accelerate You. So I invite you to connect. I want to hear your power pivots and help understand your story and learn what you want to create in the world and how I might be able to help with that.

Scott:

Fantastic. Well, we'll put those links in the show notes. That is very easy for people to access.

Jeri, thank you again for joining us today and for being so generous with your time and your expertise. It's really incredible to hear about the work that you do. And I know that our audience also really appreciates hearing about your author journey too.

So thank you again.

Jeri:

Thank you, Scott.

Scott:

As we wrap up this episode of Entrepreneur to Author, remember this. Now is the time. Time to write, time to publish, and time to grow.

I'm Scott MacMillan. Until next time.