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Speech Transcript

Unknown Speaker  0:00  

Hey, this is messing us with Matt cygnus.com. If you really want to learn how to level up your life, you should be listening to time to shine podcast today with my friend Scott Ferguson.

Unknown Speaker  0:11  

Time to shine today varsity squad. This is Scott Ferguson. Welcome to Episode 117 with my guy Mads singers with a unique name. What a unique guy. What a baller. I’ll just come ball Actually, he was in the Vietnam while I was interviewing him. He runs about five different companies has over 100 employees. He’s always helping companies level up. He is a big believer in delegation. He’s a big believer in being a go giver and giving not so much to get by giving and being open to reception. So without further ado, here’s my really good friend mad singers that consulting rock star

Unknown Speaker  1:01  

Time to shine today varsity squad at a Scott Ferguson and I got my brother mad singers from? Well, he’s Danish, but he is chilling out in Vietnam right now like no lie is he’s he’s a, he’s crushing it from wherever he’s hanging out. And he asks a question is, it’s an online business owner, you’re luckily experiencing some of these common problems. You never seem to stop working. It’s difficult to effectively delegate. Finding the right people is a struggle, and spending too long training staff and I’ll tell you what, I am dealing with a couple of those pretty much on a daily basis. But Mads has more than 10 years of experience in fortune 500 companies, such as Xerox and IBM, and more than seven years of experience coaching and consulting online entrepreneurs. You also spoken at, I’m just gonna say a bunch a buttload of large events. I mean, if you go to his website Mads singers calm which I’ll put in the show notes. You can see him actually standing up there in front of a few thousand, maybe a couple hundred 500 people, but the guy’s a total baller. He’s currently owning and running three companies and managing more than 100 people. He doesn’t just talk the talk, he walks the walk. Like I said, my boy, Mads is a baller Shot Caller and Mads, thank you so much for coming on the time to shine today. podcast, I’d love you to introduce yourself. But first, what’s your favorite color? And why?

Unknown Speaker  2:31  

light green

Unknown Speaker  2:32  

lights green lights that I have no idea.

Unknown Speaker  2:37  

There’s a method to my questioning with the colors which I’ll get to a little bit later. But yes, so tell us some origin stories man did tell us from like where you got started and then brought you up to this rock star consultant coach.

Unknown Speaker  2:51  

Sure. So I was born into a monk. I studied a little bit and I got sick and tired of that very quickly. left the mark. As soon as I turned 18 of all places. I started working with Xerox and very quickly. I mean, within a few months, became very interested in management. I got a luckily got a manager that was exceptionally good. And I basically, yeah, pretty much from I was 18 basically put my aim at management started studying a lot, or 12 years, I read about an average of a book a week. Now, a lot of reading. I spent a sizable amount of my personal money and taking trainings and tending events and so on, to learn the skills. And eventually I became a manager. I ended up working for IBM for many years as well, and outsourcing management specifically. And at some point, I started coaching other people who were managers and other businesses and so on or who was running their own business. And one day out, sort of woke up and realized I was making more money. Working five hours a week as a coach to working 60 hours a week at IBM in the high level management position and a half like, yeah, that doesn’t make a lot of sense. So I decided to leave. And started. I’ve always had a lot of coaches myself, I love coaches and I love particularly people who have specialized like, you know, if I want to go to the gym, I love having someone who’s could have gone to the gym with me, because it just it makes it that much quicker for me. And time is the most valuable resource we have. So the key thing though, around coaches is I’ve never liked people who don’t sort of walk the walk of people who are not doing what they coach, right? So again, someone who’s coaching you on fitness, but doesn’t go to the gym themselves. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. Right? Right. So I’ve always placed on to spend 20% of my time on management coaching. And so but the fundamentals that I’ve been doing then I built up big outsourcing company, so As moving around the world a bit ended up in the Philippines of build up a outsourcing company where we currently have probably about 130 staff. And then, besides besides my coaching and consulting business, and then I’ve started a media publishing business where we’re basically doing affiliate marketing, SEO and that kind of thing. And yeah, I love building companies, I love building teams put in finding great talent, putting them together and helping them shine. That’s really what I love doing. And I do that for ton of clients around the world, particularly, as you alluded to, in the beginning, people who are stressed out people who are really struggling, really help them get this stuff. I mean, everyone says this, you shouldn’t work in your business, you should work on your business. But the problem is, most people don’t actually know what that means. And most people don’t understand how to get there. Sure, right. So that’s really what I help people with. That my focus is generally on people management specifically. So you know, how do you hire the right people how to manage the right people how to give them responsibility and grow them. Okay? I’m a firm believer and generally you can always do it but generally recruiting from within. So when I start a new business when I hire people I always look for people with great attitude, great mentality and fantastic potential. You can grow them because when you grow people from within, they grow with your culture, they grow with your values and so on. And that’s what you want in a business right? Alone people raise money.

Unknown Speaker  6:30  

Yeah, absolutely mad. So you were at Xerox you in other companies in your you’re making a solid six figure income, I’m just going to assume, and maybe more but what did your family think? Or even your close friends and colleagues think when you said okay, I liked this five hour work week better than the six year what was their, you know, what did they think?

Unknown Speaker  6:55  

So actually, I had two of these. So one, one of them was actually when I left Then my God, I quit my education. I definitely had a few people raised their eyebrows. Sure. One of one of the great things if you will about them, I guess you get paid to study. Now one of the downsides with that is a lot of people go just to get paid. Got it. And, and I’ve, I’ve never been very good at wasting my time. So that that’s why I got fed up with it. And but But fundamentally, that was sort of me leaving was like to the first thing. And I had very few people to raise any eyebrows when I left the corporate world. And primarily, I mean, most people had seen me go through a lot of stuff a lot of my friends, they knew what I’ve been through, they knew my personality, and they knew that I’ll be successful, so they were not really too afraid. And yeah, I mean, when you work in management, like it’s a it’s a universal skill set. I can get a job.

Unknown Speaker  7:55  

Pretty much Yeah, and I can get a job in many, many you needed

Unknown Speaker  7:58  

to you could go back But like you have this want, and you have a big heart and you want to have people level up. And that’s amazing. So when you’re starting to work with people Mads, or you have a discovery conversation, let’s say you bring them on, you’re going to be their coach or consultant or their company. What’s some of the secret sauce you can share with our squad here to help them find their blind spot?

Unknown Speaker  8:23  

I think I mean, again, it depends a little bit with personalities, right? So I spend a lot of time on on a personality framework called disc. Oh, yeah, because it helps people understand both themselves but more so people are very different from them. And that is critical as a business owner or wherever you’re talking sales and managing people or whatever. But but really putting the right people in the right seats. It’s often what people really struggle with. And this is super powerful

Unknown Speaker  8:52  

learning closers. What do you What did you score with disk? What was your high D or low D or

Unknown Speaker  8:58  

what were you me So I’m a ridiculously high C with a tiny bit of SME. Okay. The beauty with this and the beauty I teach this in one of my management courses, right? And that the beauty about this is you don’t need to test like all these systems, most of these systems, you need to take the test, right. And when you’re testing people, particularly at interview level, what happens is one, some people don’t know themselves very well, sir. And at an interview, they will always tell you what they think you want to hear, no matter what you tell them about or what

Unknown Speaker  9:30  

you’re right.

Unknown Speaker  9:32  

about somebody, like somewhat some typical question is like, Are you very organized?

Unknown Speaker  9:37  

Right?

Unknown Speaker  9:38  

Oh, yeah, sure. No, no one at a job interview is gonna say no.

Unknown Speaker  9:44  

I’m particularly proud of the job that says, you know, we need someone organized like it’s not gonna happen. So the beauty of this is the fact that when you become really good at it, and I have spent 15 plus years working on disk, so I’m pretty good. But the key thing is like, you can tell People’s personality very, very quickly, just by again, looking at them looking at somebody. rogram Yeah, talking to them. Yeah. And that that is really, really powerful, right? And that’s usually where most of my training starts out.

Unknown Speaker  10:13  

I love that for finding blind spot. I you It’s funny, I asked that question to people that I interview to bring in a time to shine today and they all do it face to face. And then they say that they’re organized. And then I’d be like, hey, let’s go for a walk. And I go look at their car. You think where do you there it is? And they’re not then like, you know, that’s funny that you said that. So if I’m out and about in you know, we’re Florida’s opened up here a lot. I’d love to do a lot of network and prospect flushing meeting people. Mads, what, if I’m listening to somebody, and they’re telling me and I’m hearing a need in there, what are they saying? That would make them a great prospect connection referral for you?

Unknown Speaker  10:54  

So the sort of top three things I would say is number one, they’re feeling old. Well, they’re working way too many hours. That’s definitely probably the biggest one. The second one is to struggling to hire great people. And the third one is either having problems with people performing, or having struggles kind of taking a team and really making it seem like they have a bunch of individuals, but they’re not working as a team. So those are those are generally sort of the key things that most of my clients work with. But I mean, many people come to me and one of my very good clients have been with me for about a year and a half. And he just took six months off because he had a baby grind. It’s only a year and a half since he was literally working 60 hour weeks. And that is I mean for him that ability to do that is obviously life changing. And yeah, that’s,

Unknown Speaker  11:54  

you know, that’s that’s fantastic that you How many I’m trying to ask this question thing a question. So if you’re, you’re brought in your consulting, expertise are brought in to you, like, this is like pre Corona and then postcard do show up, or do you do a lot of the stuff virtually? Or how do you do this?

Unknown Speaker  12:16  

So it depends. Majority of my clients. So I basically have two ways I work with people. I either work with the business owner, and their management team. I work with the business owner, that’s typically those two options, right? And particularly if it’s a smaller business where you don’t really have managers yet, then I would tend to mostly work with the business owner. I occasionally do show up if it is suitable, but majority of my clients work with me online. Okay, basically, where I start with most of my client nowadays is I have my my sort of effective management course, which is basically all all of me repeating myself. So that’s it. Basically the cheaper way of getting all the content, all the knowledge I have, right? And then majority of people basically go on with coaching after that, right? That just takes, it takes a lot of stuff out of the way that otherwise spend a couple of months going through, but people, and it really enabled them to first of all have that information and go back through it again and again. And also it enables people who are not yet financially at a stage where they can afford coaching to get some absolutely top level management skills on board and really get get a high level of skill and as sort of a small one soft cost, right?

Unknown Speaker  13:41  

Got it. So if you’re the CEO of a company brings you in, and they’re doing okay, but they know they need to level up. And you always have that person that’s below the CEO that’s really in the trenches and managing people. How do you handle their ego When you come in, because you know the CEO is bringing you in, it’s shake hands, alright man, it’s great. But you have that person that’s answering to the CEO, their pride is hurt. They think their jobs on the line, like how do you handle them?

Unknown Speaker  14:12  

So honestly, I’ve never had a challenge with that. Oh, wow. I think

Unknown Speaker  14:20  

I’m a very agreeable person and I tend to win people over with, with knowledge. No, but I like I’m saying this from the bottom of my heart, but I don’t walk into a company and say, I know better. I walk in, I talk with people and I try and figure out you’re relatable. Exactly right. Yeah. And I’ve been through it all, like, managing no people. I’ve been managing hundreds of people. Okay. I’ve been through it.

Unknown Speaker  14:47  

I love I love that you said that because that’s how like I’ve been brought in. I’m not on your level, but I brought in to help a few companies and you know, I’m 270 pounds I walk in and I’m trying to get everybody fired up. But you know that that’s the one thing my coach that coached me about the consulting was just be relatable to the person and come in and not act like you’re swinging your big you know why like you’re a big Alpha Dog. And I’m happy to hear that you said that. And Mads, we’re gonna hop in our DeLorean. I know you’re from Denmark, you’ve heard of, you know, back to the future, right? With Marty McFly. Okay, so you’re in the DeLorean with Marty McFly. You’re going back in time you meet up with the 22 year old mad singers. With your experience now in your success? What kind of knowledge nuggets? Are you dropping on that 22 year old Mads hopefully listens to you? You know, but what kind of knowledge are you dropping to maybe help them shorten the learning curve in level up look just a little bit quicker?

Unknown Speaker  15:47  

Yeah. So when I was 22, that I was actually struggling with the thing that I’m teaching a lot of people how to come which was delegation specifically. And the way I really learned that was about a year Later. But But basically, and then the learning experience was great. But basically, what happened was I was in a position when new at all, like most small business owners, they know everything. And the problem is it’s easy to keep going down into the details when they know that business so well. And the learning experience for me was really getting moved to a position where I didn’t know anything. And I had to actually trust the people who were working below me. Right. So that was actually that really helped me understand how delegation really worked. And I think that’s probably been one of the most powerful experiences I’ve had to talk to my, my son, my 22 year old me, I’ll probably be some of that wisdom, right? One of the key nuggets around that is learning how to actually delegate responsibility, rather than delegating tasks. And it’s simple, but but really, that the essence is most business Almost try and delegate tasks and it’s online. It’s very common people always say, you have to figure out how this works. You build a process, and then you give it to someone. Okay? The problem is, that’s not how you do it. I can promise you, the CEO of IBM is not figuring out every process in the company and tell him what to do.

Unknown Speaker  17:20  

Right?

Unknown Speaker  17:22  

It’s about learning to handle responsibility, tell people, what is the outcome you’re looking for. And let them roll with it right in the beginning, in the beginning, they don’t do it as effectively as you could, because they’re not at your lap. But the only way that you grow is by doing more valuable things when you’re sitting doing basic stuff that someone getting paid five bucks an hour could do, right? That’s what you’re getting paid. And if you want to grow your business, you need to do higher level values, stuff that increases the value of your time and you can only do that If you learn to let go, love it.

Unknown Speaker  18:02  

I love that you said, the delegate the responsibility, less task, because that’s what my best mentor Sam did to me, like, you know, I used to manage real estate for him. And you know, he would we had a problem. And I came and sat down in his office and I said, Sam, this is the problem. You know, what should I do? And I sat down, he looked at me, he tore into me, you know, I mean, he was like, You need to have come to me with your recommendations. I mean, I could tell you if they’re idiotic or not, but you need to think for yourself. I love that you said, to delegate the responsibility, a little bit less than the tasks because it helps someone grow helps the company grow. And even if you fall on your face a little bit, you’ll have the person telling you but it helps the company grow, right, like you just said you would tell that 22 year olds, you know, Mads to learn to delegate

Unknown Speaker  18:58  

the one of the one of the keys things around what you just said is one of my famous sayings as, as a manager. The key thing, as a business owner, really, the key thing is never answer questions from your staff. Wow, that sounds strange. But that goes exactly back to what your mentor said, I don’t necessarily toy into people.

Unknown Speaker  19:20  

But he was different. He was different.

Unknown Speaker  19:23  

But the key thing is I teach people that as well all the time. Right? But basically, when people come with a question, like what most business owners when I go work with them, you know, I see this guy flashing, and that’s like, flat was flashing. And it’s all questions from employees all the time. Right? And it’s because when you answer a question, what happens is you pre programmed people and you say, when I have this issue, go ask boss, man. It’s not like they know Oh, when I asked this, this question, this was the answer below that pre programming themselves to go ask you. So instead, what you do is you ask them questions and You asked him specifically, two things is what do you see the options being? Like, what is the potential options? And when when they then give you the answers, they’re like, what do you think is the best option? And the reason why you do that is because that helps you understand how they think. And and when you understand how they think, that can help you either let them go do what they want to do, or see if there’s something that totally missed. Love it. One of the big issues that business owners have is they know everything. Sure. And it’s often hard for them to put themselves in a place of someone that knows less sure and understand how they think. But if someone says if someone is giving you answers, and they’re like, Whoa, they’re not thinking about this right way. Sure. You’re not necessarily gonna tell them the answer to the question. You can ask them into how they think you’re like well, yeah, you know, if you think we should give this customer million dollar refund, have you considered what happens if God if you know if we do that, too, all right. Sure, like so you can ask him questions or you can you can talk to them about how they think about things. And that enables them to because they learn because they think themselves they learn. And benefit is when people come and ask you similar questions time and time again, and they always have the right answer. You can just tell him do it. I trust you, you know this stuff.

Unknown Speaker  21:20  

Just love it. So Mads, you’ve did a lot in your life. And we always talk about the dash here at time to shine today. And it’s, it’s required for any of my clients, whether I’m coaching them or they work for me directly, I want to know about their dash, and that dashes that little mark in between their life date and death date. Okay, how does Mads want his dash to be remembered?

Unknown Speaker  21:46  

Me it’s fundamentally I mean, I don’t have a particularly big ego. So my focus is much more about having helped a lot of people develop. I think people People who learn personal development, which I did at a very early age, probably discovered the closest to what I could see the secret of life. Because the thing is when you learn personal development, and most business owners end up, like particularly small business owners, they end up getting involved in green and personal development. And I see it as a huge responsibility for me to actually teach it to as many other people as I can, and help motivate them on that journey. Because I think I think the biggest issues we see in society today is people spending their lives sitting around watching TV, playing video games and not doing anything with the life and I think I don’t think it’s because people don’t want to, I think fundamentally it’s people don’t know what to do. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  22:48  

yeah, I love that guys. Yeah, you want you’re gonna build a hell of a legacy, which you already are. You’re living legacy from the clients that you’ve helped in level up and stuff. So what would What would your definition of life what will live be?

Unknown Speaker  23:04  

From me it’s very much about happiness. I mean, I think I fundamentally believe that happiness is a choice and the substrate interesting to most people, but I think, learning to let go of material things, learning to understand that your happiness is not a competition but others. It’s not about comparing yourself to others, right? Your happiness is actually learning to appreciate where you are at any given time. And I think what I always say is anything that I see someone being unhappy about, I see someone else being happier.

Unknown Speaker  23:43  

I love that given the ebb and flow, it’s good. It’s the opposites but still could be what’s good for one person might suck for another but it’s still it’s still that happiness. And what I always kind of bring up is the old Tony Robbins where pain is life sufferings a choice. You know, you don’t no matter what the situation is, you can still be happy in the situation, you might not be ecstatic, but you know that you can make your day better. You know,

Unknown Speaker  24:09  

I spend quite a bit of time in the Philippines and I tend to say that the majority of homeless people I meet in the Philippines are happier than the average Danish person. And they’re probably not that they are and that they feel it, but they look and I as an outsider looking at them, they look happier. And it’s because they have the time they have in Europe, particularly in sort of North North new people are so busy stressing around, you know, it’s like all the buses two minutes late that means I miss not connecting up and you know, this kind of rigorous sort of, and that challenge with it is it becomes very antisocial, like and then if I sit down in a bus next to someone else and say hello, they look at me like I’m an alien to me, but I think that’s one of the things That when you learn to appreciate things around you, when you learn to appreciate your situation instead of comparing yourself to others instead of looking at your situation and that gets up light, that automatically will make you happier. I

Unknown Speaker  25:14  

love it. Love it. I’m actually writing that one down too. Hey, Max Mads, as we’re like wine and stuff down here just a little bit, we’d like to do what’s called a leveling up and lightning round. Okay, so you and I could talk 1520 minutes and each one of these questions gonna ask you, but you can answer them in a second. So I’m going to give you five seconds, no explanations. Just give me the answer. You’re ready. Show. Here we go. What’s the best leveling up advice you’ve ever received?

Unknown Speaker  25:42  

First, break all the rules by

Unknown Speaker  25:46  

a common baseline. Let’s break all the rules. We’ll leave it at that. share one of your personal habits that contributes to your success.

Unknown Speaker  25:55  

Showing up every day, not

Unknown Speaker  25:58  

so other than In your website, and of course time to shine today.com that’s my shameless plug. What website? Do you like to go out there quickly? To go level up your life?

Unknown Speaker  26:10  

dynamite circle?

Unknown Speaker  26:12  

Go, I’m gonna write that down. Don’t Don’t explain. I’m gonna go look at it. Alright. Not the book that you’re reading now, not the flavor of the month. What’s the one book that stood out to you?

Unknown Speaker  26:26  

That was like my only answer. So first break all the rules. I got it.

Unknown Speaker  26:31  

What is your most commonly used emoji when you text?

Unknown Speaker  26:37  

code colon, and this one. So I guess it’s a happy, normal, happy face.

Unknown Speaker  26:43  

If you can be one age for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Unknown Speaker  26:48  

I don’t think I want to.

Unknown Speaker  26:50  

Okay, no, that’s fine. Any charities and organizations you’d like to give your time and or money to

Unknown Speaker  26:58  

know okay. Well, last question, what’s the best decade of music? 6070s 80s or 90s?

Unknown Speaker  27:07  

Minus

Unknown Speaker  27:08  

90s All right, my man such a transitional era. Hey, man, it’s how can we find your brother?

Unknown Speaker  27:14  

My singles.com is the best place. Again, I actually have a free training for people who are starting out or people who are struggling a bit with punishment on my on the front page of my site, okay, otherwise, Facebook, LinkedIn and so on. Man singers. I’m the only one with that name. So

Unknown Speaker  27:33  

all of those will be in the show notes folks and like I am super stoked. I have a whole written page of notes here from my boy Mads you know, it’s funny that he taught along the way if you’re really listening, he actually was dropping as almost a basically a free masterclass, you know, so, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, struggling to hire or having performance problems for maybe some of your employees, he’s a great great company to go to He appreciates every situation that he’s in. He understands happiness as a choice. You know, his legacy that he wants to leave as he wants to help a ton of people level up their life. And if you’re a manager out there, let your employees or the people that are below you maybe like, answer their own questions. Don’t answer the questions for them answering questions if they’re wrong, maybe dig a little deeper and guide them along in Mads was awesome. I mean, it’s like 11 o’clock I’m almost you know, his time. And this is the first time to shine today to ever do a podcast with anybody that’s in Vietnam right now. So that’s kind of cool. And Matt’s really appreciate your time and you’re part of our varsity squad. Now you can’t go anywhere. So again, thank you so much.

Unknown Speaker  28:46  

Pleasure to be here. Awesome. Thanks for having me, Scott. You bet, man. Take care.

Unknown Speaker  28:51  

Hey, thanks so much for listening to this episode of time to shine today podcast, proudly brought to you by southern New Jersey real estate. Real Estate excellence who can be reached at 5612497 to six six and online at www dot Sutter in nugent.com. If you’re a business owner or professional who would like to be interviewed on time to shine today, please visit time to shine today.com slash guest. If you’d like to sup so please subscribe on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. There’s a link in the show notes to our website. Also there you will see a recommended resources. We hope that you will support our show by supporting them. If you like what you’ve been listening to, it’d be great if you could just give us a five star rating and tell your friends how to subscribe while you’re at it. I’m your host, Scott Ferguson. And until next time, let’s level up it’s our time to shine

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