Leading Along the Curve: Insights from Industry Leaders on Driving Growth

Today, we are delighted to kick off our new series, Leading Along the Curve, with Timothy Harrison.?

Timothy Harrison is the founder of the EPOG Academy, which stands for Enjoyable Pain Of Growth. He is also a former division one athlete who played forward for Rice University’s basketball team and a spoken word poet. In this conversation and future Conversations About Growth articles, we’ll delve deeper into the concepts of personal disruption, disruptive innovation, professional growth, leadership development, and organizational growth.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: When you think about growth within your work or industry, what are the biggest challenges? What is holding people back?

Tim: I find that when people feel overburdened and undersupported, it’s often because they’ve gotten in their own way.?

One of the biggest challenges I see among the executives I coach is that they overload themselves with work because they're not aware of their need for control. It is this orientation toward control that leads them to take on more responsibilities and not delegate effectively.

To empower others, leaders need to shift their mentality. They must find ways to relinquish control and put trust in others. By focusing on helping their team do their job to the best of their ability—to grow within their roles–they get out of their own way, and that's when things really take off.

Q: What trends are you seeing in the Growth and/or Leadership Development space across your industry or work?

Tim: As a young leadership and executive coach, I love keeping my finger on the pulse of the newest technologies, such as ChatGPT. By asking the right questions and creating clear prompts, entrepreneurs can supercharge their businesses or personal development—it’s almost like having another person working for your company.?

To create great AI prompts, I channel my ability to ask insightful questions, a skill set I’ve developed through my work as a coach.?

It goes beyond sharing a technology––I believe in inspiring and equipping people to realize their potential, and I love sharing how the tools of our time can help them reach their fullest potential.?

Q: Tell us about a new S Curve? you’ve jumped to recently. What is it? How does it feel? What motivated you to jump to it?

Tim: I’m always looking for new ways to learn and grow, so I know I’m on multiple curves, but for the sake of this question, I'm going to focus on my speaking career.?

I’ve always been a natural speaker, but I’m making the intentional choice to put it at the forefront of my business. Not only does speaking allow me to generate more coaching clients, it’s a platform from which I can reach more people.

So, through this shift, I'm learning a lot about professional speaking. You have to have a clear understanding of your audience, and it takes a lot of empathy and understanding to be able to consider: ‘Who are they? What are they feeling right now?’?

It takes a lot to get inside their spirit.

In some ways, it's similar to performing spoken word, but there's a lot of nuance to it. A growth takeaway from this experience is that the more you learn about something, the more you realize you don't know. For me, that includes things like tone of voice or pace. Recording this podcast episode is a step on that learning curve as well.

Q: What am I taking away from my conversation with Timothy?

Whitney:?

• By focusing on empowering others and relinquishing control, leaders can get out of their own way and inspire growth in their teams.
• Now, more than ever, asking insightful questions (i.e. creating effective prompts) can supercharge our personal development and businesses.

Thank you to our guest, Timothy Harrison, for sharing his insights on growth. To hear more from Timothy, listen to the complete podcast episode.?

How can you get out of your own way??

Note: I asked ChatGPT, and it recommended 1. Identify your self-limiting beliefs, 2. Set achievable goals, 3. Take action, and 4. Surround yourself with positive influences.?

What tools could you use to realize your potential??

What is a new S Curve you’ve jumped to recently? How does it feel??

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