The Interview

I wanted to share an interview that I gave, but didn't have the link...so, I will just share the text.

1. What is your definition of leadership?

My definition of Leadership: Leading does not mean to be out front. In fact, in my opinion, the best leaders are usually in the back …pushing, coaching and inspiring others to do more, learn more and want more. Too often, “Leadership” is considered to be managing or “the guy with the answers,” when in reality, it is the guy with the right questions that usually makes the best leader. Leadership is the ability to listen, inspire and invoke confidence in others without fear of being judged.

 2. As the owner of a company and people’s leader do you think sales is essential to achieve goals?

It depends on what the goals are. If your goal is not to grow, then no, I don’t think sales would be essential to that goal. Sales are essential for growth. Sales are the foundation to any company’s success. Too many people worry about the expenses, when they should be focused on the revenue and sales are what drives revenue. I think anyone with a goal related to growth and success would most definitely need sales as an essential element to achieve those goals. Let’s face it whether or not you believe you’re in sales, you’re in sales. Everybody is. Sales are essential to every day life. You are “selling someone” on something every time you interact with another person. You may be selling your spouse or selling your neighbor or selling your employee …or, they are selling you, but somebody is selling something every time we interact with another.

3. What motivates you and how do you motivate your people?

There are all kinds of things that motivate me, but I would say that my main motivation is freedom. The freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I want, with whomever I want and for as long as I want and as we all know, money is what gives you that freedom. So, money is what motivates me most because I understand that it provides freedom. Too many people do not want to be judged, so they never focus on money or claim that it is what motivates them and that is why too many people don’t make as much as they need or want. If you think about it, money will almost always provide the means to attain what motivates you, so if people would just focus on the solution, which is 99% of the time money, they would end up getting everything they want. What motivates my people? I would only be guessing, so you would have to ask them, however, it seems that they are motivated by money too. Whenever I offer a bonus or more money they seem to get pretty motivated by it.

4. What is the Lightspeed VT, The Bottom Line and #bradisms?

LightSpeed VT is my company. It is a training solutions company that is focused on helping people in two ways: monetizing content and training people better. Its mission is to inspire people to learn by creating the most engaging, reliable and innovative training on Earth.

The Bottom Line is a video series that I do where I share of all the wisdom that I’ve acquired by learning things the hard way. I do them almost every day, where I just sit at my desk and give people my opinion on various subjects that come to mind or get requested. They are pretty funny, people seem to love them. I think what people like most is that I don’t really sugar-coat the commentary, I just tell you like it is and THAT'S THE BOTTOM LINE!

“Bradisms” are the uncomfortable truths of what is required to find success in your business and life. There just things I believe or have said that people turn into to quotes or memes. I love when people hear me speak or watch The Bottom Line and then post a “#bradism” on social media. To me, it validates that people are hearing my message.

5. You work with Anthony Robbins, Grant Cardone, Tom Hopkins, Daymond John – how do you help them?

I would say they help me more than I help them. I mean, those guys, as well as many of my clients are amazing people that have a lot of experience and knowledge to share. I just help them reach more people and ensure that the people they reach learn more. I also help them make more time, which is what I value most. To see somebody that is extremely successful, yet has very little time to do anything other than work because their passion is to help people is sad to me. So, when I can help people make more time to enjoy their success and not have to sacrifice helping people, it gives me a certain amount of pride. I think that is how I help them most.

6. During the 10 X GROWTH CON you said that it took you 17 years to build your company but it would take 17 months if you would start today. How is it possible?

It would be possible because after 17 years I learned all the right things to do by doing all of the wrong things. I had to learn everything the hard way. I made a lot of mistakes and wasted a lot of time focusing on the wrong things, the wrong people and now, if I could do it all over, I would know exactly what to do without having to spend so much time learning. I think this holds true for life. If I could go back to 20 years old, I would likely be 100 times more successful than I am now. In fact, I know that would be the case. When you have the privilege of hindsight or experience it gives you an incredible advantage. That is why everyone should try to learn as much as they can from people who have already traveled those roads. It allows you to accelerate and succeed faster. In fact, I am writing a book that is called THE HARD WAY that talks about this very thing. It will share all of the lessons that I had to learn the hard way, so whoever reads it won’t have to.

7. You say “Reject ordinary, be legendary.” What does it mean for you to be legendary? How you measure it? By income, relations, family, satisfaction or number of social media likes?

LOL …no, definitely not! Not by any of those things, I mean, it doesn’t matter how many followers you have, what matters is how many you inspire. What I meant by that was to reject the normal and go after everything you want in life with everything you’ve got. To be legendary, you must do what other’s were too afraid to do or weren’t able to do. You could even be legendary by just attempting to do those things. There are many people who are considered legends that have failed, but they failed doing things that were unheard of and nobody else even had the courage to try. They attempted to do the impossible. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you can be legendary in any of the areas you mentioned, it’s just not how what I meant. I mean you have you should reject ordinary, which is what everyone does, and be legendary, which is what nobody does or has the courage to do. If you don’t sacrifice for what you want, what you want becomes the sacrifice. #bradism

8. How does your ordinary/legendary day look like from the moment you wake up?

The moment I wake up, I know that it is a good day because I woke up. Many people didn’t. So, the first thing I do is, be grateful. Then, I grab my phone and do social media for about 30 minutes. If you don’t engage with people on social media they tend to forget you, so I make sure to do my social media first thing in the morning and then right before I go to bed. Then, I will jump out of bed and throw on some work out gear and head to the gym for a quick hour. Then, I head home to make my little girls breakfast and spend a bit of time with them, if they’re up. After I get some food, I will head to the office and start driving the spaceship. Everyday brings new people and new deals, so it stays fun and interesting. Depending on the day, I will jump in the studio to film some content or film a few Bottom Lines. It’s pretty much the same routine every day with a never-ending array of characters, variety and surprises. The day usually winds down with some personal development time and then dinner and family time. Other than travel, vacations and chill time, that's about what my day looks like.

9. You are very active on social media. Is it your strategy to sell your products using Brad Lea brand? Do you monetize it or just want to have fun?

No, I don’t really have a plan. I just like people, so it is a great way to connect with a lot of people very quickly. I get to help them and they get to help me, so it’s a win-win. I love when I see that I have motivated someone or inspired them to do what they would have normally been afraid to do. One day, I might create a product or something that I would offer or share through my networks, but no plans in the near future. I am just having fun and meeting new people with like minds.

10. Who was/is your mentor? Whose advices are priceless for you?

I get asked this a lot. My mentors are many. I mean, a mentor is someone you trust and gives you advice. Someone, who teaches you. I learn from everyone. My kids teach me things. My wife teaches me things like, patience and love. I learn from so many people, so I have many, many, mentors and all of what I learn is priceless because the more you learn the more you earn, so each and every lesson and experience is priceless. I am sure you were thinking I would say, Grant Cardone or Tony Robbins or Daymond John or big names like that, right? Well, yes, they are also mentors and I am very lucky to be around the great people in my line of work, but sometimes it is the most unlikely person who teaches you the most valued lessons, so keep your eyes and hearts open to anyone and everyone. Let life, everyone in it and all it’s experience be your mentor.

11. Could you share with us some story which has had the biggest impact on where and who you are today? Regarding to this story what is your advice for bosses – leaders?

I was 17 yrs. old; my parents were always trying to get me to get a “real job.” I had worked as a kid delivering newspapers, mowing lawns, pulling weeds and whatever odd jobs I could find, but up to that point I had never had what was considered a “real job.” So, I decided to get one. I ended up finding a job fighting forest fires. Sounds cool, right? I was excited! It was a hard job to get and it paid started out paying $22 an hour!! Now keep in mind, this was more money than my parents were making. In fact, it was more than anyone in my family was making. In the mid 80’s, this was a great paying job and anyone would have killed for it. As you can imagine, I was excited to start. I ran around bragging to everyone, especially the girls, that I would be fighting forest fires, and of course, I strutted all over town acting as if I was the coolest dude on the Earth. As it turned out, as I showed up for my first day … at 4 AM … I found out that my job was not actually fighting the fire. To my dismay, I found out that my job was not that cool. They quickly explained to me that I would be the guy who walked around after the real fire fighters put the fire out and made sure that the there were no embers still smoldering and that the tree stumps didn’t re-ignite and cause a new fire. You can imagine how stupid I felt. The job was the worst. It was at the “bottom of the totem pole” and there was nothing cool about it! They had me carrying around this big, heavy-ass bag of water, which was referred to as a “piss bag”, up and down steep mountain sides … both ways … trying to find tree stumps that might have had embers still burning inside them. It was miserable, to say the least. After the piss bag was empty, which seemed like every ten minutes, I had to hike down and refill it and then go right back out and look for more stumps. After a few days of this bullshit, I noticed that my left arm had a big rash on it. The rash was extremely itchy and irritated. Very quickly, I realized that I had Poison Oak. If you’ve ever had it you know that it’s NOT something you want to get, let alone when you have to hike all over a mountain filled with burnt stumps, brush, smoke, ash, and dangerous debris. Anyway, I was freaking miserable! I went to the “boss” and told him that I wasn’t going to be able to work for a day or two due to the poison oak. He started laughing, pulled off his shirt and that stuff all over his entire body. He said, “You only have a little spot of it! Its part of the job, now quit being a pussy and get back out there and go to work!” Now trust me, I wanted to “be tough” and stick it out. I wanted to “see it through,” “show some grit” and persevere. I wanted to follow all of the advice that I’d been given about never giving up, seeing things through and all the other platitudes people hear growing up, but I didn’t. Thankfully, I didn’t give a rat’s ass about all of the advice I heard, I quit right on the spot. Knowing full well that I would disappoint my Dad and basically everyone in my family, there was zero chance that I was going to continue working a job that made me unhappy and one where poison oak was “part of the job! I wouldn’t have stayed for double the money! I quit without even thinking about it for two seconds. Thankfully I did too. If I hadn’t, I would’ve never learned that “good advice” is only good when it aligns with your goals and dreams. I never would have learned that you shouldn’t try to make others happy by sacrificing yours. When it comes to all of the advice out there that tells you to never quit, work hard and try not to let down people down … I learned, while that may be great advice in some cases, when it goes against your soul and it lets you down and causes you to be unsatisfied or unhappy, don’t listen to it. Throw that crap aside! This life is too short and too full of incredible opportunities to let “good advice” ruin it for you. Find something that makes you happy and is right for you. Be happy and do not let the fear of judgment stop you from doing anything you want to do. If I hadn’t learned this at an early age by doing this job, I may have never started LightSpeed VT. I may have just accepted the “norm” and went through life trying to achieve what others thought success was. Only you know what is best for you. Don’t settle for what others believe success is, decide for yourself what success looks like for you.

Remember this #bradism: To get what you want, you must be willing to let go of what you have. What is my advice for “bosses” and/or leaders? My advice is to ask more questions and listen. Information is only valuable if it’s understood. In order to get people to follow and move in the same direction, a leader must know how to motivate and strengthen many different kinds of people. In order to do that, you need to ask a lot of questions and do a whole lot of listening. But, the most important advice I would give them is to not fear judgment. Do what you think is right, do what makes you happy and expect nothing less from your team. If everyone is doing the right thing, you can’t go wrong.

12. How do you see yourself and your company in 10 years?

Ten years older and a whole lot smarter! LOL. I don’t know, you’ll have to check back, keep tabs or come back and interview me again. I would bet that I am doing whatever makes me happy and my company will be helping me do it. I mean after all, our vision is to be the most widely used training system in the world. There is a lot of work to do.