Dr. Relly Nadler: Today, we have Leslie Ehm who has a book that we will talk about, which will be helpful for you around some tips. Swagger, is the book – Unleash Everything You Are and Become Everything You Want. We are going to dig into that a little bit more, with Leslie Ehm.

Cathy, welcome to the show.

Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Thank you, Relly. I know we are going to have a great conversation with Leslie. I’m just psyched about the whole day.

Dr. Relly Nadler: I’m going to say a few words about Leslie and then we are going to bring her on.

Leslie Ehm, people have said incredible things about her.  From a little bit of her write-up: Why are some people magnetic, confident, comfortable in their skin, in charge of their destinies? What’s their secret?

What she said, is “swagger.”

So, we are going to get her to talk a little bit more about the book, Swagger. It’s part guidebook, part manifesto. She says a little sweary and completely inspiring.

One of the things we will ask her about is a myth, ‘fake it until you make it,’ shows how you can record over negative mental tapes and challenge the preconceptions of what you should and shouldn’t do.

She’s a former TV host and advertising creative director turned training guru. She spent decades traveling the globe with her award-winning company, Combustion. She’s worked with executives and teams from Google, Disney, PepsiCo, and more.

We are really interested in bringing her on.

Leslie, welcome to the show.

Leslie Ehm: Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I’m in very esteemed company, I’m going to have to up my game for this one, big time.

Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Well, it’s so funny, Leslie, when I came across your book and your story and everything you had to offer, I said to Relly, “We’ve got to have her on the show. I need to know more about this Swagger because it is something that we all need.”

And, I know most people when they hear the word swagger, they associate it with something that isn’t necessarily what I think you are going to talk about today.

So, give us some history of your background and some of the key people who have influenced you.

Leslie Ehm: Well, my background is kind of long and twisty. It’s been a long and winding road. I started off my career as a singer, back in the day. I won’t say what day because that’ll date me immediately. I think I am going to hold off on that.

So, I was a singer who eventually moved into the film industry. And then into the TV industry. Again, all of these things were kind of by accident because I’m someone who likes to step into opportunities if I see them in front of me.

I then moved on to the advertising business. I ended up being an advertising creative director. Working in the corporate world at the top level in the biggest agencies in the world, believe me, this is also a corporate environment. Although people think it’s so cool, it really is its own version of corporate.

What I became aware of was that my people were suffering. I’m supposed to be at the top of the game and there to be the kind of leader who could help my people improve and unleash their best potential and be happy; to have wellbeing at work. I found I couldn’t do that from the inside.

It really bothered me.

So, I came home one day and said to my husband, “You know what? I’m going to quit my job and start a training company.”

He said, “S.. say.. say what? Because you hate training companies.”

I said, “Right? Who better to start a training company than someone who hates training? Because if I can make training experiences for people like me, who have zero attention span and not very much patience, I might be onto something.”

I just really wanted to help people to be better the very next day.

So, that’s what I did. I launched the training company. I learned so much from the experience. I learned about how people operate. What they need. How I structure training. What resonates and what doesn’t.

I built this company that, thirteen years later, is a global entity that trains some of the best organizations in the world.

I think the key to being able to do that was that – you were asking about my background – I was really raised to believe that I could do anything. That any opportunity was available to me if I chose to step into it. My mother used to say all the time, “Why not you?”

Whenever we expressed a desire to do something cool or we would be envious of someone who had the best job, someone who was on TV or on the radio or doing something epic. She would say, “Why can’t you do that? What’s stopping you? Why not you?”

We really, both my sister and I, were raised to believe that anything was possible, including launching a training company and having it go global.

You can listen to the entire interview above by clicking on the play button.