In this constructive episode, David C. Olcott, CEO of Samurai Success, shares how to move from reluctant manager to effective leader in stage 3. If you feel frustrated managing people, overwhelmed by constant questions, and stuck wearing too many hats, you won’t want to miss it.
You will discover:
– What role distinctions you must master to lead without losing your identity.
– Why managing people directly creates constant frustration and burnout.
– How to build systems that allow your team to self-manage and scale sustainably.
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the start, scale and succeed podcast, the only podcast that grows with you through all seven stages of your journey as a founder, I’m your host, Scott Ritzheimer, and today I want to talk to those founders out there who are experiencing the identity whiplash that comes with leadership. Because if you’re a founder, you’ve probably created success by being the person who made everything happen. You were the closer. You were the problem solver. You were the one that clients wanted to work with. But as you do that and you get more and more clients, you need more and more help. At some point you wake up, you’ve got 567, maybe 10 or even 11 people. You’ve hired a handful and and those people, they just ask questions all the time. They they need things all the time, and it leaves you frustrated, and what I call a reluctant manager. And it’s it would be one thing if it was just a business thing, but it’s very personal as well.
We start to look in the mirror and wonder what we’ve become. And here’s what makes this so difficult. It’s that the sense of self that you had being wrapped up in being the expert, being the doer, the one who delivers results, is now not where you get to spend most of your time. Most of your results come through other people, and here to help us navigate this space in a very, very clever way is our guest today, the one and only David C Olcott, who is the founder, president and CEO of samurai success Inc, an International Executive, organizational and personal coaching firm headquartered in Denver, Colorado, David has poured his wisdom that he has gained from 35 years of coaching and into the trademark samurai success coaching system, which provides a proven roadmap of success. David’s clients become more purposeful and their businesses become more sustainable and profitable. In throughout the process, David is truly in the service of others, helping them create a successful life, meet their destiny and leave a legacy of their own. David, you’ve got this really cool business model, but you also have a very interesting route to explaining it. Tell us a little bit about the swords of illumination.
David C. Olcott
First of all, Scott, thanks so much for having me on board. Brother, I just I know it took us a while to get together, but, man, I’m really excited about being here and having this conversation, especially with your tribe and your audience. Swords of illumination, Samurai success. Boy that started so many years ago, when I was just I was a kid in Bible school, if you could believe that. And our pastor said to us, he says, If you really want to live a meaningful, purpose driven life. And I remember I was nine years old. I remember the time he says, If you really want to live a purpose driven life, then you have to understand about the greatest life you can live is being in service of others. Wow. And it hit me in such a way now nine years old, of course, it didn’t, you know, change my life and and stuff like this.
But as I grew up and I got involved in sales and business and stuff like this, I actually read a book called samurai selling. And in that book, it said the word Samurai, loosely translated, means in service of others. Wow. And I took those two events mother and pushed them together into creating samurai success. Because I was like, what if a business owner truly understood that they have a boss, that’s the marketplace, and that really isn’t just an individual consumer. I’m talking about a group of customers called the marketplace, and you could truly be in service to them. What would a business look like if you develop that business service philosophy, principle based upon no matter service or product you’re selling, but if you had that principle and that philosophy, what would a company like that look like? And that’s what’s thrilled me the last 35 years.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s fascinating, because folks who listen to the show will know the root of the word entrepreneur is to go between and so fascinating. How similar those are. Samurai is much cooler. I think we should just all call ourselves samurai instead of entrepreneurs now, but I love that. All right. So there are these, what you call swords of illumination, and those are specific things that you outline in the book. And so I’m wondering if you could just kind of walk us through. We may not get to all six of them, but let’s just start at the top and work through these. And how someone who’s in this reluctant manager stage, who’s who’s learning to, you know, to thrive within their market, you know, to please their new boss, or 1000 of them. But also, you know, get this ragtag group of folks around them, all moving in the same direction.
David C. Olcott
So it’s an interesting I love that you have a step seven step phase that you talk about with your podcast. And I’ve chanced to see some of those things. I really love this. And we’re at number three, this reluctant manager you talk about, which is so perfect for what we do at samurai success, because so many of our clients are great entrepreneurs and they’re great technicians, but they’re really not good managers. And what we mean by that is that we have the title of manager, we have the paid grade. As a manager, but we don’t really understand what a manager means. And in our world, Samurai success, you can have all those things, but if you don’t understand the five fundamentals of being a manager, being organized, understand how to plan, how to really lead through a system. And that’s probably the biggest differential that we make at samurai success, is because most management concepts that are out there today talk about managing people. We do not do that.
Scott, we we stay away from that, because I will tell you, if I took control of you and manage you for the next five minutes, you know, how long would that last? It’s just not going to last. So people. Managing people is a outdated concept and has been a long time, but managing a system that everyone buys into. That’s the game changer, and that’s how automation scalability comes in, because if I have to deal with all those personalities and all those questions you were asking about earlier, it’s going to drive me crazy. I’ll never be able to do that. So I have to replace all that with a structural system that allows for people to answer those questions on their own, set of standards, set of policies, principles, and those things are doable if you really understand your business and the system that you want to create and the outcomes you’re after. Once you have hacks, then you can get on to the fourth one, which is really about understanding the controls of that system and then staffing most models that are out there today, talk about, let’s put the people in the seats first. Good to Great.
Is a great example of that that says, hey, you know, go find the right people and then put them in the right seats. Listen, that’s a company that has billions of dollars of debt. That’s stock, people, you know, debt stuff that you can go and get all this money and have all the small, medium sized business. We can’t do that. We’ve got very limited resources. So the idea here is that let’s go build the system. First build the bus, know what that seat looks like and the characteristics that fit that seat, and then let’s go hire the people for that seat. So it’s a very different way when you’re a small, medium sized business that you have to approach business to really be successful.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, it’s so true. It’s so true. I love one of the things I’ll say is, you know, there’s not a founder. And tell me if you’ve met one, maybe you have, but I’ve never met a founder who their reason for starting the business was to manage a handful
Scott Ritzheimer
of people. Yeah, it’s just, it just, there’s easier ways, you know, there’s easier ways. And so I love, it’s a really hard stage for a lot of founders. It’s a really hard stage. And I love the distinction that you made between managing people and managing systems, and I think that’s such a helpful way of thinking about it, because you will always be reluctant if you’re trying to manage another human being, and that’s such a great distinction. So at the same in the same token, though, like those people have to work within the system, and so it’s not necessarily quite as clear cut in the real world. So tell me a little bit about what the difference between those two or better. Yet, how about some symptoms that you’re still managing people when you could be managing systems.
David C. Olcott
So run a big systems, or what we would call KPIs, key behavioral indicators. Most people know what KPIs are, but most people, when you’re dealing with people, you’re going to start moving into this realm of key behavioral indicators. And if you have someone who is constantly showing up late, even though there’s a standard in place, they can’t follow a dress code, even though there’s a standard in place, if they can’t follow a structured system that you have, even though it’s in place, then you’ve got some real issues to deal with. And you’re going to deal with one of these three things, either you realize that there’s a training issue and you got to pull that person back into training about how to help them. Second part is they’re just not the right person for that particular seat, and that happens a lot, especially when you’re building a business, right? Yeah. And the third one is that potentially, you have to make a bus stop. Getting to Know Your business is as much as getting to know yourself, and that’s what swords illumination is about. When you really know who you are, then you’ll start attracting people like this.
This is like frequency kind of concept. So if you’re a tuning fork, which we are, we’re frequency generators as human beings. And people sense this. For me all the time, right? And so when you show up and you’re authentic, for example, people feel that when you’re inauthentic, people feel that. And what’s the people in the sales game don’t realize that you can spend all your time on your scripts you want, your structure, your principles, if you haven’t lived what you’re selling, there’s a missing authenticity and missing vibrational frequency that your customers are picking up on, that if you don’t change that, they’re not going to be buying from Yeah. So there’s this Attractor Factor that when you start being authentic with being a manager, you’re going to attract other managers. If you are an entrepreneur, you’re going to attract other entrepreneurs. Even if that entrepreneur isn’t the right person right seat, you’re still going to attract them.
And that’s what we run into as founders of a business, is that we don’t realize we have to change our frequency. We have to change our identity based upon where the company is in these. Seven cycles, or these seven steps, these seven elements, you’ve got to be able to make that shift, and that’s what swords elimination give you back the power to be able to do. You can change your identity, you can change your program, you can change those elements and actually start attracting those people you’re looking for.
Scott Ritzheimer
It’s so good because the other part of it, it’s not just an attraction, it’s also an amplification. One of the things that I see a lot of especially stage three leaders, fail to recognize is their bad habits have a way of showing themselves in the rest of the team, right? And there’s a lot that are really common, like founders are generally not great at accountability. They’re they’re not necessarily, you know, many of them are not great at discipline or routine and and so when you get a group of people around, there needs to be accountability, there needs to be some organizational routines. There definitely needs to be discipline. And, you know, in earlier stages, when it’s mostly just you, it’s kind of like you live with it, you know, or you know it’s but when it’s the you and then it’s being amplified and compounded many times, the frustration that we see in our team is just a reflection of the challenges that we’re we haven’t dealt with ourselves well since. Yeah, so when we’re looking through this lens, I want you to pull this apart a little bit. You said you can change your identity, and I think that’s a really important thing, because one of the reasons why we get stuck in these different stages because we can’t let go of what served us well in the past. But a lot of people would say your identity is your identity. You can’t change it. So unpack that for us a little bit. What have you learned about identity and how can busy entrepreneurs apply that to their life?
David C. Olcott
So there’s a huge difference between your identity and something called your role distinction. So for example, there’s three very classic role distinctions within a business. You have the entrepreneur, you have the manager, and you have the technician. So if you go back to the E Myth, that’s where you’re going to get a lot of that information from. Those are role distinctions. If you’re a CEO of a company, but then all of a sudden, you’re a small business owner and you’re also the CFO and you’re also the COO and the CTO and the you know, M, O, U, S, E, you got to be able to understand that your role distinction is something you’re going to be placing these hats on. But that doesn’t change your core identity about who you are. So core identity, your mission and purpose. And also, then there’s these, these forks, or, sorry, these spokes in the wheel of this balance we call it. And that is, those spokes are the different individual things that you have to be able to accomplish every single day. For example, you would probably not go into a nightclub and act the same way that you do at church.
And if you do, probably someone’s going to suggest some medication. Suggest some medication to you. But the same thing is, if you approach just being a CEO when you’re being the CFO, you’re going to find a lot of conflict in that, because that mindset skill set, tool set, that’s necessary to make that person or that role distinction be successful isn’t the same mindset, skill set, tool set, that makes you successful in other areas of your life, and those discernments is what systems allow you to see. Because if I’m going to do a presentation, I’m going to be very right brain creative. But if I’m going to jump into Financials, I’m going to jump right into my left part of my brain. And if I don’t understand those role distinctions, my identity before going in that I’m going to create some conflict. Another great example, if you’ve ever been in a creative meeting, right where a bunch of entrepreneurs are talking about ideas, and you walk into that meeting as a technician, how are we going to do this? Oh, my God, Scott, the conflict that create you don’t understand. I mean, I’ve seen great ideas just get blown out because there was too many technicians in the room forgetting their role distinction about, hey, this is just a creative meeting.
We’re not figuring out how we’re going to do this yet. We’re just talking about the idea and see if it really is of service to the community, the marketplace and our business and our vision. And then we jump right into that technician role, and you just cancel that thing it’s done, even if it was a brilliant idea. So understanding the difference between identity and role distinctions is the first three chapters of the book, because that’s exactly what we talked about, swords of identity, and then outcomes, and then we wrote in a role distinction. So very clearly you start to identify that there is discernment between these aspects which take different mindsets, skill sets and tool sets to really be successful.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s such a great word, discernment. I love that. Yeah, I love that. Because, again, it isn’t changing the fundamental of who you are, but it is changing the skills that you have access to and the ones that you use. Got it. Okay, we’re 100% same page there. I love that. David, there’s this question before I let you go, I have to ask it. I ask every one of my guests. I’m very interested to see what you have to say. But the question is this, what is the biggest secret you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
David C. Olcott
It’s kind of a reason why I wrote the book selfishly on my own part, that if I. Okay if I ever come back to this place, I wanted that book in my hand when I was at an early age. Here’s the most brilliant thing I’ve learned in this entire lifetime. I’m 59 at saying some things that I’ve met some really remarkable people in my lifetime. But my whole life, I thought I was here to discover who I am. I thought like under some rock or some treasure chest I was supposed to dig something up, or I was here to discover and find out who I am. This is not how successful people work. Successful people work with this idea. They’re here to create who they are. Your identity is a self creation. If you’re going to be successful this lifetime, you think about any celebrity, whether you like that celebrity, or President or anybody else. These people know this secret, which is they are here to create who they say they are and do the things that align with that beingness, if you will, that identity. And that is a true secret that now that I know what that is, it has truly changed my world.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s fantastic. That’s fantastic. I was wrong about why I thought I was here. What a statement to open that up. So good. David, there are some folks that have been wrestling with this, these different roles and how to get them all to work together. They’d love to get a copy of your book. Tell us where we can do that, and then also, where can they connect with you and reach out for more information?
David C. Olcott
Yes, the best hub for us is Samuraisuccess.com we have all kinds of channels. Matter of fact, I think there’s over 200 different videos available to you right now that you can really get some of the insights in this. The book is available on amazon.com. It’s the number one bestseller right now. We just passed the 10,000 sale points. So very Congratulations. Thanks. And then as on also, what’s the audio.com you can actually pick up, so if you don’t want to read it, and I know a lot of entrepreneurs just like to listen to stuff in the car. Really a great discounted price right now on sale. Take a look at that. That’s Swords Illumination. Anything you want to know about our company and how we might be able to be of service Samuraisuccess.com. Is our best hub for you to be able to reach us.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic, fantastic. Well, David, thank you so much for being on today. It was real privilege and honor having you here. So glad we were able to finally get our schedules to work out together. For those of you watching and listening, you know your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation, as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Guest Name
David C. Olcott is the founder, president, and CEO of Samurai Success, Inc., an international executive, organizational, and personal coaching firm headquartered in Denver, CO. David has poured the wisdom he has gained from 35 years of coaching into the trademark Samurai Success coaching system, which provides a proven roadmap for success. David’s clients become more purposeful, and their businesses become more sustainable and profitable. David is truly in the service of others, helping them create a successful life, meet their destiny, and leave a legacy of their own.
Want to learn more about David C. Olcott’s work at Samurai Success? Check out his website at https://samuraisuccess.com/
Connect with David through his LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-c-olcott-1107bb1/
Get a copy of his book Swords of Illumination at https://www.amazon.com/Swords-Illumination-David-C-Olcott/dp/B0CF4CXVHJ