197: Growth Loops + Why it’s Better to be Respected than Liked with Todd Herman

“Liking is the great fog of the mind.”—Todd Herman

You’ve heard the adage that people need to know, like, and trust you to want to do business with you. But is that really true?

Today’s guest, longtime entrepreneur and peak performance coach Todd Herman, believes liking is not nearly as important as respect, and can even prevent us from making strong decisions. We also cover how to organize your work according to your strengths, creating growth loops for growing the business, and making key adjustments as your business grows.

More About Todd: Todd Herman is the creator of the multi-award-winning Leadership & Skills Development Program, 90 Day Year, author of the WSJ bestselling book, The Alter Ego Effect: The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life, and recipient of Inc. 500’s Fastest Growing Companies Award. Todd is also the founder of Upcoach, a platform to help coaches simplify, organize, and automate their coaching.

🌟 3 Key Takeaways

• Know-Respect-Trust (with a little “l” at the end): Drop the need to be liked as a main priority of how you show up online, replacing it with respect instead.

• Theme your days: Organize the different kinds of work you do into different daily themes over the course of a week, such as coaching day, writing day, and domino day (catch-up), to optimize your energy and inspiration.

• The Transformation-Led Growth Loop: Four stages of working with a 1:1 client can be systematized to ensure successful outcomes: Onboarding clients so they start seeing results quickly; building a strong relationship through encouragement and accountability; demonstrating progress the client is making; and retention by **keeping people invested, engaging with new/next products and services.

📝 Permission: Drop the need to make your business look like someone else’s. Be honest with yourself about what you want, and ditch the idea that you need to scale, scale, scale.

✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next: Institute theme days: What kinds of similar work can you batch together to do more efficiently and joyfully, and when in your week does it make the most sense to do it?

🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Todd on the web, IG: @todd_herman, Twitter, LinkedIn

• Article: Agenda Seeding: How 1960s Black Protests Moved Elites, Public Opinion and Voting by Omar Wasow

• Program: Peak Athlete (licensing)

• Software: Upcoach

• People: Jordan Harbinger, Nassim Taleb

📚 Books Mentioned

• Nassim Taleb’s books

• The Road Less Stupid by Keith Cunningham

• The Mental Game of Baseball: A Guide to Peak Performance by H.A. Dorfman

• The Referral Engine by John Jantsch

• Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business

• Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One

• Life After College

🎧 Related Episodes

• Beyond a Million: 066: The Science Behind Peak Performers and the 90-Day Year with Todd Herman

• Free Time: 006: Going Pro on Podcasting with Jordan Harbinger

• 140: How to License Your IP (Intellectual Property)

• 186: Licensing 201 — Q&A (Part 1) on Product Development, Attracting Clients, and Sales Process and 187: Licensing 201 on Pricing + Packaging, Train-the-Trainer, Delivery, and Legal

• 127: Protect Your Idea Factory, Build a Creative Flywheel, and Go Behind-the-Scenes of Book Publishing with Todd Henry

• 058: Look for Measurable Loops

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