Elton Brown: 0:00

Welcome to SpeakUP! International with Rita Burke and Elton Brown!

Rita Burke: 0:06

Now there always has to be a first time, and our guest today, who is George Anastasopoulos is spending time with us for the second time. So George, I extend a warm SpeakUP! International welcome to you! Now, as you're aware on this interview on SpeakUP! International, we seek to inform, to inspire and to educate, and I'm certain that your responses will help us to do that for our listeners. Now George believes that there is a powerful leader in each of us needing a little help to be coaxed out, or in this case coached out. He's the professional certified coach with the International Coach Federation of and a certified sales leader with the Canadian Professional Sales Association. George was a former instructor at the University of Toronto and the Schulich Executive Education Center and a veteran business operator. George says that after 20 years, four companies, 20 job roles, and 20 plus bosses. He soon realized that he could never hold a job in the cooperate world, and so he created his own. He is the founder and head coach at Leadership Fundamentals. He's dedicated to his career to enabling people to quickly and confidently deal with their biggest issues, creating great workplaces that produce extraordinary results. He's the co-author of I Love Monday's to our Listeners, help us to welcome George the coach.

George Anastasopoulos: 2:18

Thank you Rita, and I'm delighted to be here. Thank you Elton, for inviting me to take part in this podcast.

Elton Brown: 2:25

Definitely our pleasure to have you here! Two weeks ago you were invited to be the keynote presenter at the District 60 Conference held by Toastmasters, and you gave a fantastic, beautiful, flowed perfectly workshop. I know that you came in, walked in that building, and you had a goal in mind. Can you tell our audience that one thing? That you were hoping to get when you finally said, thank you folks, and goodnight.

George Anastasopoulos: 3:04

Elton, thank you for asking. When I went in, I said explicitly to the audience, I am not here to change your beliefs, those beliefs that might be holding you back from reaching the best future possible for yourself. And there's a simple reason why I'm. Not here to change those beliefs, and that is because you won't let me. But I am here for a different reason and that is to help you understand that you are the solution to whatever ails you, whatever stands in your way, whatever challenges you're facing, both in life and at work, and that how you think the beliefs that you hold. Those beliefs influence your mindset, your attitude, your behaviors, your actions, and as a consequence of all that, the outcomes. I wanted to help people to understand that it starts there and have the courage to look in the mirror and say, these are some of the beliefs that are holding me back, but I now know how to change some of them so that they serve me and others better.

Rita Burke: 4:09

Do people actually come to you and say, what you said to me helped me to revisit, to review, to process my belief system, and it's helping me to move forward in my life. Do they really say that to you?

George Anastasopoulos: 4:27

Not in so many words, Rita, people come to me and say, I didn't realize what I didn't realize. That I actually do have these beliefs these many beliefs in a variety of different categories. Life categories, coworkers about me, about how the world works, about friends and family and so forth. I have these beliefs and I've had them for many years. I didn't really, I just, I had them, I real, I didn't realize they were influencing how I was thinking, behaving and acting and so forth. I get it now. And so even when I coach clients, they and I introduce the concept of beliefs. When I ask a question such as, okay, what belief are you holding onto that's causing you to act that way? I typically get a funny look. What do you mean by that? So it's something that bears a little bit of explanation for people to actually, okay, I get what you're saying. Then they finally turn it around and say, I see things I didn't see before, which was the beginning of the title of my presentation. See clearly think differently and reach your best future and it starts with seeing clearly I didn't realize what I didn't realize. Now they do. And that's the starting point. And from there we can build. We can become the best versions of ourselves possible. Making the bus the biggest difference, the biggest impact in other people's lives, and in the lives of, the, our family and our coworkers and the environment at large.

Elton Brown: 5:50

You've written a book called I Love Mondays. Why did you write the book?

George Anastasopoulos: 5:57

Thank you for asking that. It's interesting. First of all I've gotta say that when we came up with the title, I love Mondays we laughingly said, it's probably the second shortest book ever written after what men know about women, because seriously what's there to love about Mondays? You've gotta be kidding me, man. It's like the worst day of the week because I'm stressed out knowing that I didn't get half of what I wanted to get done last week. Done. I've got a mountain of meetings, I've got a to-do list longer than my arm. I'm stressed out over some challenging situations. So what is there to love about Mondays? I wrote, I love Mondays because I wanna create workplaces without complaining, without excuses, without powerlessness. Where people, that is people not AI people play really well together and win big. I wanted to create that because I wanted people to understand that you are the solution, not somebody else. You, you're it. And when you change how you think and what you do and how you interact, you're gonna probably end up living a life you love and you're gonna create. I love working with you type of workplaces and don't we all wanna hang out and work with people we love working with or hanging out with?

Rita Burke: 7:12

You're saying some fascinating things. Based on what I'm hearing, George, you help people to pause for a bit, look at their belief system and decide whether they want to shift or not. So you coach them through that. Why do you do what you do?

George Anastasopoulos: 7:33

There is so much need in this area to be coached and supported from where I am dealing with what I'm dealing with to where I wanna be. And I'll give you just some examples. According to the American Institute of Stressed, 83% of people suffer physical or psychological symptoms from workplace stress. According to Deloitte research, 43% of employees are exhausted, 42% are stressed. Only 56% of employees believe that the executives care about their wellbeing. Again, according to Deloitte. In fact, I saw a piece of research only yesterday that said that 77% of workers in the UK are burnt out right now. Those are startling statistics. I wrote, I love Mondays as a starting point for this journey. It's what I do is to help deal with what I just talked about, because what that leads to is the great resignation, which is what we've been experiencing of late. It's hard to find good people. No, that's not, they're out there. They just don't wanna work for you. The reason they don't wanna work for you is because you got an environment where by, because nobody's fault, by the way, but you got an environment where by nature they're gonna be overworked, overwhelmed, overstressed, burned out. People individually don't know how to say no. Why? Because there's a belief system around authority. I'm not supposed to say no to my boss or whatever the case might be, and it comes with a considerable amount of limitations to it. I do what I do and I wrote, I love Mondays as a way to start bridging that gap to help people realize I can do this. I'm the solution. I'm just gonna stop looking at somebody else's. This is somebody else's problem to fix, but I will play a small role in it. When I wrote I Love Mondays, I wanted to give hope and inspiration to people I wanted to enlighten and entertain, which is why I wrote the book as, as a novel With a hero, but with a journey. Our hero is challenged. She works in the city. She's she takes the train in. She has a good job with a good company, but there's a lot of trouble at work. There's a lot of stress and pressures and all of that is overwhelming to the point where she struggles and has a breakdown and it affects her family and it affects her wellbeing, her health, and through that journey of change. She is coached, if you will, by a wise and sage non-human character who you'll meet in. I love Mondays, should you read the book to a transformation for herself and for those around her I wanted to give hope and inspiration. I wanted to enlighten and entertain.

Elton Brown: 10:13

How did you transition from being an employee? In the corporate world to becoming the founder and head coach at Leadership Fundamentals Incorporated?

George Anastasopoulos: 10:24

The right, first of all, kudos to you for asking the right word in that sentence, in that question, because it was a transformation. It wasn't a spontaneous, the light didn't suddenly shine cuz the switch was, turned on. I left the corporate world, 20 plus years ago. And I did exactly what most people who leave the corporate world do, who have something of a track record and knowledge and some skills. They started selling their knowledge and their skills and so I became a consultant and I started consulting with companies, which meant I essentially offered my expertise, my advice, my knowledge, and the form of reports and diagnosis and so forth. I did a little bit of training along the way cuz I was asked for that. Would you train my people on whatever the topic was. Soon I started transforming from consultant to trainer and then eventually from trainer to coach and now I do almost mo certainly not most, not all of my work, but most of my work in coaching with a big chunk of training on the side as well. So it was a transformation and it took years as it evolved. So there's no magic answer around careers. In this case, I just went with whatever door was open to me. Elton and I walked through it and I said, you know what? This is looks like a pretty cool place to hang out. I'm gonna be doing this for a while. It presented another opportunity and I transitioned into that and soon I realized I wanted to tell my story to a larger audience, became an author.

Rita Burke: 11:52

Many years ago, my husband and I opened a bookstore in Toronto. That means that people would frequently come into the building, into the space and say, I have to get a gift for my husband. What would you recommend? I have to get a gift for my child? What would you recommend? I have to get a gift for my boss? What would you recommend? Who could I recommend your book to? George? Who's it for?

George Anastasopoulos: 12:19

Thank you Rita. It's a great question. When I described what I described a moment ago around the storyline of this manager, a lady who's is dealing with the stresses and the burnout that's coming from her work you might think my book was written for managers in the business community, and that was the opening sort of intention. But in fact it's intended for anyone in a workplace. Who want to be leaders, who wanna make a difference regardless of what their job title happens to be. Heck, it could be the janitor, it makes no difference or it could be the CEO I've heard CEOs say I'm just the CEO gimme a break. So it, it doesn't matter what the job title is. So I wrote it for managers. I wrote it for people who wanna be leaders, who wanna make a difference, who regardless of their job title who knows something's broken. One and wanna make it better, but they just know, don't know how. Just to give you an illustration, Rita, there's a, there is an illustration, if I can put it that way. And you can find it on the internet. And there's two cavemen. It's a sketch drawing and there's two cavemen these two cavemen are pulling and pushing a cart, and the cart's full of rocks and the cart has square wheels, right? So visualize that two cave men pushing and pulling a cart. Full of rocks with square wheels and behind them there's a third caveman and he's holding up a round wheel. Now, the two cavemen who are pushing them, pulling the cart, say, not now. We're too busy. So the two cavemen are the people who are in the workplace. They know something's broken. They know they want to get, do something differently, but they have no idea what it is. They're not pausing long enough to ask, how do I make a difference here? How can I, in fact, make this change? I don't, and I don't know where to turn. That's who my book is for people who actually wanna make a difference, people who wanna sleep at night, people who don't want to hear, feel heart palpitations, and that ball of anxiety in their stomach Sunday afternoon. People who actually wanna be fully present with their families. When they're present with their families.

Rita Burke: 14:28

Is that a kind of feedback you've received about the book from people?

George Anastasopoulos: 14:32

Absolutely and there's really two camps of people in terms of feedback that I've gotten. And the feedback is generally, oh my gosh, I can relate to everything in here. I. I've recognized myself in the hero of the story. Jessica. I recognize myself in the role of her boss Marine. I recognize myself in the C E O. I recognize myself as, as Jessica's husband, and on, because it's real life experiences that I've folded in there. These are real practical realities that are coming from the clients that I work with. People say, I recognize that. I love the belief shifts that you have built in there to help me understand how to look at life differently and look at things in my environment differently. And the simple skills that you teach, cuz I teach a handful of skills within the book I love Mondays are very practical and easy to apply. Whether it's acknowledging or confronting and or any of the other skills that I teach in there. There's also a second school of thought within the world of business, and that is I didn't get anything out of it and the reason for that is because it isn't written like a regular business book. Cuz business books are bullet points of knowledge. You should know that, have a summary and a worksheet afterwards. No, I didn't write it that way. I wanted to entertain and enlighten and to provide hope and inspiration. I read business books by reading the executive summary and then leaving it alone as one of my, as one of the testimonials on the book says, business books are dry as dust, which is not flattering, but they can be.

Elton Brown: 16:00

But it's true. It really true. It's really true.

Rita Burke: 16:03

Could that be based on a belief system though? That business books are and if we shift that belief system, they may not be dry anymore.

George Anastasopoulos: 16:13

Could be. Do I wish to be entertained? Do I wish to be informed? Look at your podcast, inform, inspire, educate, right? I'm coming in there into this conversation with that intention. So well said.

Elton Brown: 16:25

So what professional cer certifications do you hold and what are the organizations that you are associated with?

George Anastasopoulos: 16:34

The couple that Rita mentioned in my introduction. Thank you again, Rita. You know the ones I'm most proud of and that I hold most dearly. I'm a member of the International Coaching Federation. They're like the governing body of the profession of coaching, certainly within North America, although they have an international presence. I'm a professional certified coach that requires a considerable amount of. Investment, rigor, discipline, follow up every few years need, you need to renew that process, which means I hire my coach back to be a mentor coach to me for a period of time to give me feedback on my coaching and so forth. I'm most proud of that. Your listening audience can't see it cuz they're not seeing the visual. But in the wall, on the wall behind me there and the plaque is my professional certified coach certification, if you will. So that's the one I'm most I'm most proud of because it makes the most difference in the lives of others. I'm also a member of the Canadian Professional Sales Association. I teach sales. I'm also a member of a and a co-owner of another small training company, and we are in the world of sales training. As a certified sales leader, I'm equipped to speak to both sales rookies, to sales professionals about selling skills, account management, territory management coaching and ultimately sales leadership.

Rita Burke: 17:55

I get the sense, George, that you're eeking out a great amount of joy from coaching and helping people to ground themselves in who they are and some of the positive changes they could bring about in their lives. I'm getting that sense from what you're saying now. Teller listening, audience. How do you find your clients? Do they come knocking at your door or you go chasing after them? That's being facetious, of course. Tell us how you find your client.

George Anastasopoulos: 18:29

Yeah, no, I totally get where you're coming from. It's my clients often come to me, but it, they come to me because I knocked on their door many years ago. So it's a, I guess it's a combination, if you will, of what you said. I've been in this self-employed world of mine running leadership fundamentals now with the title head coach, if you will, appropriately, because I am, and I've been in, I've been doing it for a very long time, so earlier in my career, I had to tell people and knock on doors and earn the credibility and the reputation for them to be able to say, you know what, George, I think I do wanna work with you. In fact, Rita, how it started, it was an interesting little story. How it started was I had completed a sales training program. It was a half day thing for a client in the east end of Toronto at the time, and he was the vice president of sales. I had an audience of some 25 people within his sales management group. It was a pretty large company, and after completing this half day event with his team, He and I, the vice president of the sales, and I went back to his office to debrief and he was very, short and sweet to the point. He said, George that was great. Fantastic. My people love you. The content was terrific great engagement and so on and so forth. But he says, I wanna talk to you about something else. I said, what's on your mind? He says he says, George, I'm I'm the VP of sales up here, but I'm from Jersey. He's American from New Jersey, some from Jersey. So his Jersey accent comes into play and he says, I feel like a fish outta water up here in Canada. You speak the same language, but I just don't feel like I'm really solid ground and I'm wondering, do you do any coaching? I'm wondering, do you do any coaching now at that juncture, and this was well over 15 years ago, probably closer to 20. I hadn't, I wasn't certified coach. I had not done any four fee coaching. I had always been coach-like in my career as a manager, but it was really instinct and intuition that was driving me into my experiences and the way I was operating. But during that moment, I, of course, being an entrepreneur, I looked at him, didn't miss a beat, and said, of course I do. And he said that's terrific. He says, I could use a coach. Send me a proposal. Let's get started. So we did, I sent him a pro. I came back to my home office at the time, right after that meeting and I quickly got on to Google and I said, what's coaching? So I could figure out what it is it that he's asking for. So I make sure that I'm giving him what he thinks he needs. I formulated a proposal and I started coaching him. Third meeting in, we're sitting in his office. And at one point he takes a break, has a sip of water. He looks at me and he says, George, I've worked with a bunch of different coaches throughout my career. He says, I want you to know you're changing my life. I thought, oh my gosh. I wish I knew what I was doing to make that possible. But I realized, Rita, in that moment, this is for me. And I had better get good at it and consciously good at it so that I know what I'm doing and I honor my clients' requirements, needs, and explicit requirements so that they are fulfilled and happy and satisfied. And so that's when I made the decision that said I'm going for this. This is really cool. Not just cuz I got praise because it felt so satisfying to know that I was making a difference in a person's life and cause of them, he will make a difference in people's lives around him.

Elton Brown: 21:47

So what does George do for fun? What does he like doing to be entertained?

George Anastasopoulos: 21:57

Elton, that's a great question. So I often say, I have three passion other than my, my, my family and my work, who I love dearly. In both cases I have three passions. They are God cycling and liquor and I have a keen interest in theology and faith. I am big fan of cycling. I have a road bike that's on the road and I have a road bike that's on a trainer downstairs and have been cycling for most of my life. And enjoy the, just the challenge of just the physical challenge of being on a bicycle dealing with the elements. And then I happen to really appreciate. The distinction of different liquors and foods for that matter. So those are my, my, my passions and the things I enjoy doing. I love reading. I'm a big fan of classical novels. In fact rereading probably for the third time, Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. And realizing at this stage, having read it already several times throughout my life, how an extraordinarily well-written piece of literature it is.

Rita Burke: 23:04

Isn't it interesting when we pick up a book for the second or third time, we see it from a completely different perspective. Isn't that interesting? You've said something that has resonated with me. You said it's s neither good or bad, it just is. Could you expand on that statement a little bit for me please?

George Anastasopoulos: 23:26

If you'll indulge me a and I'll try to make it a brief story. It's a story about the farmer and his horse, and it goes like this and it's mythology and it's a funny little story. Long time ago in a valley far away there lived a farmer and he had a son and a horse. His wife had passed some years ago, but one day robbers passed by his land and stole his horse. And the neighbors from miles around came to the old farmer's house and said, what bad news that this should happen to you. You now don't have a horse to help you deal with plowing the fields and working your farm. How are you going to, deal with this? It's a horrible thing. And the old farmer shrugs his shoulder and he says, who's to say what's good, what's bad? A few days later, the horse vigorous beast that it is, escapes its captors and starts wandering back towards the farm. Happens to meet up with a herd of wild horses being social animals. They follow the horse back to the farm. Now the farmer has an entire stable full of horses. The neighbors come to visit from miles around and they go, what fantastically wonderful news that you should have an entire stable full of horses. You're like the richest man in the valley now, and things are wonderful for you. The old man shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders. He says, who's to say what's good and what's bad? A few days later, his son is trying to break in one of the wild horses and is thrown, breaks his leg. The neighbors come to visit, wouldn't you know? And say what horrible news that your son is lame and is unable to help you out on the farm. How will you get by? The old man shrugs his shoulders and he says, who's to say what's good and what's bad? Several weeks later, the local military arrive at his door. They knock and they say, excuse me, sir, but a war has broken out with a neighboring country and we require all able-bodied young men to come and fight and die for their country. But we see that your son is lame, so we'll just pass on by who's to say what's good and what's bad. And so I have adopted the philosophy of there is no good and there is no bad, there are minimally situations what you make of them and what you do with them.

Elton Brown: 25:45

Wonderful story. Love the moral, and you are an excellent storyteller!

George Anastasopoulos: 25:52

Thank you.

Elton Brown: 25:52

Who knew!

George Anastasopoulos: 25:55

You flatter me. Thank you, Elton.

Elton Brown: 25:57

I wish we could talk to you forever, but I'll have to admit that the storage that will be required for us to talk forever would exceed my hard drive. So I'm going to say thank you so much, George, for talking with us, telling us about your book. I love Mondays and I'm sure that we can find it where. Anywhere. Everywhere. Do you wanna tell us a number of places we can find it?

George Anastasopoulos: 26:30

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So it's Think Online. Best suggestions, quite honestly, is to go to my website, leadershipfundamentals.com, click on books, and on that page, there are links to pretty much everywhere and any version. So you can get it in audiobook format, soft or paperback. You can get it in hardcover, Amazon chapters Indigo, Barnes and Noble and so forth. So all the links are in there so you can order it in whichever format you best consume your books if you will. I'd also encourage people to, to read it, understanding that this is designed to help you understand you're the solution. And that this is merely the starting point. And I do wanna make an offer to your listeners and the offer is simple. Buy my book, listen to the podcast cuz I gotta listen to your podcast. Listen to the podcast, buy the book, and read it. And then reach out to me on my website, leadership fundamentals.com. Book a 30 minute conversation with me. And I am happy to speak to them about any obstacle that's in their lives that was triggered by something they read, and I love Mondays and help them get to a better place.

Elton Brown: 27:44

Wow. I think our readers are going to love the motivating suggestion that you've just given for them to read your book. I want to say on behalf of SpeakUP! International please come back to us again after you've written your next book, I Love Tuesdays and with that I'm going to call this conversation closed.

Rita Burke: 28:10

Thank you so much for enlightening and entertaining and educating and informing and inspiring. Notice I've added two more words. Two, the reason why we exist. Wow. Thank you.

George Anastasopoulos: 28:24

Wonderfully said. Thank you so much for that. I'm honored and I'm touched. Thank you, Elton.!

Elton Brown: 28:29

Thank you for listening to SpeakUP! International. Our guest, Mr. George Anastasopoulos has a special offer for you. By purchasing his book, you tend to embark on an trends, formative journey. Buy the book, read it visit Georgia's website at leadershipfundamentals.com, where you can book a 30 minute conversation with George where, he will gladly discuss any obstacles and new life that were triggered by something you read in his book. I love Mondays. Georgia's aim is to guide you towards a better place providing valuable insights and positioning you on the road to overcoming your barriers. At SpeakUP! International, we are interested in interviewing individuals and organizations. That are supporting their communities, making a difference. Please reach out to us by sending a message to info@speakuppodcast.ca and include your name, company, name, the services you offer to your community and your email address. We look forward to connecting with you. You can reach us using Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. To connect to our podcast use Spotify or your favorite podcast platform and search for SpeakUP! International. You can also find our podcasts using our web address. www.speakuppodcast.ca. Our logo has the woman with her finger pointing up mouth open. Speaking up! At SpeakUP! International, we aim to inspire to inform and to educate.