Episodes
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There's a time for everything.
There's a time to open doors and there is a time to close doors. There's a time to start something and there is a time to put an end to it.
You may have noticed that the podcast hasn't been released for a couple of weeks.
It's at this time that I let you know that we will be putting an end to The Heart of Leadership Podcast for the time being. We aren't closing the door forever, but there is no current plan to resume it in the near future.
It is a bittersweet announcement. I have loved doing this, but there are new exciting things on the horizon for our business, Upward Focus.
Thank you to everyone who has listened to the podcast and come along this journey with us. I look forward to continuing our journey together as we step into becoming the best version of ourselves.
For more information about our business and what we are doing, head to http://www.upwardfocussolutions.com -
Are you exhausted, tired or burnt out? Are you overwhelmed with all the work you have to do? Do you lack motivation, lack passion and have a loss of focus? Do you need help getting back on track but you don't know where to start?
You don't let your car run on empty, so don't let yourself run on empty!
In this episode of The Heart of Leadership Podcast, I welcome back my brother and business partner, Craig McIntyre, as we switch roles and he asks me questions about my new book, "Focus Fuel: How to Focus When You're Running on Empty", as well as questions regarding writing a book for the first time and steps to take to overcome challenges along the way.
Thank you for Craig for wanting to do this. It was fun to be the one answering the questions.
For more information on The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew, and his business Upward Focus, head to www.upwardfocussolutions.com -
Missing episodes?
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"Who do you think you are? Do you really think you can do that? I don’t think so! You’re not like everyone else!"
"What makes you think you can do that? You’ve failed before. It’s going to be no different this time around. You don’t have what it takes!"
Do you find that you tend to compare yourself to others only to try and prove to yourself that you don’t measure up to them? They are way more successful than you ever will be. They are at a way better point of life than you are and you can never catch up. You’ll never be as good as them.
Or maybe you are trying to change habits in your life for the first time in ages and all you can think of is all the times you have failed in the past. You try to say positive affirmations about yourself, but you don’t believe them. You feel like a fraud.
If any of this sounds familiar to you, you have just been diagnosed. I’m sorry to tell you, but you are dealing with impostor syndrome.But don’t worry, you are definitely not alone. In fact, they say about 70% of people suffer from impostor syndrome.
That’s a high number isn’t it? Well today we are hoping to reduce that number. Today we are going to look at how to deal with imposter syndrome so you can move past that doubt and fear and step into becoming the best version of yourself.
We are going to go over 7 ways to overcome impostor syndrome in our lives.Who do you think you are?
You’re someone who’s going to get a lot stronger after this episode. That’s who.
For more information on The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew, and his business Upward Focus, head to www.upwardfocussolutions.com -
To be or not to be? That is the question!
This new year is less than two weeks underway and we have already set some goals for the next year and that's awesome! But often we are so focused on having a "to-do" list that we miss the big picture.
We want to accomplish things. We want to keep ourselves busy. And while that's great, we shouldn't just be focusing on a daily to-do list. We really should be more concerned about another list.
A "to-be" list.
In this episode of The Heart of Leadership Podcast, we look at the importance of creating a "to-be" list as we continue on this journey to become the best version of ourselves.
What type of person do you want to be?
For more information on The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew, and his business Upward Focus, head to www.upwardfocussolutions.com -
2020 is officially over and a new calendar year is upon us. 2021 is here and that means saying goodbye to everything to do with 2020 right? Well, not exactly. While many of us want to just throw 2020 in the trash, we can't throw everything away.
We take memories with us. We take successes. But most importantly, we take lessons learned. What things did you learn in 2020? We all learned a lot. We learned a lot about ourselves, about others and about our world.
In this episode of The Heart of Leadership Podcast, we take a look at the lessons that we learned in 2020 and I share the lessons that 2020 taught me, including an original spoken word piece.
For more information on The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew, and his business Upward Focus, head to www.upwardfocussolutions.com -
Our lives are filled with countless pages and chapters. Some that we are proud of and some that we want to throw away. This past year has been a chapter of our life and 2021 is the same. However, what's to come is different.
The rest of our pages are still unwritten. They are blank pages.
What will you choose to have written? Will they be filled with regret or will you be intentional with them?
Will you choose to keep living in the past or will you look forward to what lies ahead?
In this episode of The Heart of Leadership Podcast, we look at the importance of being intentional with what we do with the blank pages that are before us. What will you choose to have written?
For more information on The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew, and his business Upward Focus, head to www.upwardfocussolutions.com -
Do you ever feel like you can't seem to apply what you're learning? Maybe you heard something really important and you got so excited about hearing it. You had this feeling inside of you when you heard it and you knew it was going to be life changing! But then a couple days or weeks go by and you haven't made any changes. You forgot all about it or you remember that something was important, but you can't seem to remember exactly what it was.
I can't imagine the number of important things and lessons we have learned, only to completely forget about them or to forget to apply them.
Why is that? We know we need to make a change. We know it's important and that it will help us. But we can't seem to apply it. It's a big problem.
In this episode of The Heart of Leadership Podcast, we go over why we can't apply what we are learning and the steps we need to take to start remembering and applying all that we have learned so we can continue to grow and get better on this journey of becoming the best version of ourselves.
For more information on The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew, and his business Upward Focus, head to www.upwardfocussolutions.com -
Can you keep me accountable? How many times have you said those words hoping that someone would help keep you check? Hoping that someone would help make sure you got your task done? Hoping that someone would make sure that you didn't fall back into a bad habit?
Accountability from others is awesome and it is a big part of our success. But what happens when others aren't there? They either say they are going to help but then let us down or maybe we don't even have anyone to go to. Now what? Do we just give up? No.
We need to keep ourselves accountable. We owe it to ourselves.
In this episode of The Heart of Leadership Podcast, we talk about 10 ways we can keep ourselves accountable to accomplish our tasks, achieve our goals and overcome bad habits and bad lifestyle choices.
For more information on The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew, and his business Upward Focus, head to www.upwardfocussolutions.com -
Criticism. Something that many of us fear. We try to avoid it at all costs and when we are faced with it, one of our first reactions is to defend ourselves. But that's not always the best thing.
What exactly is criticism? What types of criticism are there? Could criticism actually be good and helpful? How should I respond to criticism?In this episode of the Heart of Leadership Podcast, we talk about constructive and destructive criticism, how to respond to it, how to give it out and what we can learn from all of it.
For more information on The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew, and his business Upward Focus, head to www.upwardfocussolutions.com
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Do you feel appreciated? Do you know when you are doing a good job? Do you know the little things you need to tweak to improve and get better? Do you show others that you appreciate them? Do you let them know when they could improve on something?
"Good job." "Way to go." "You did great today." "Thanks for doing that. I appreciate it."
Aren’t those words nice to hear?
What about things like...Could you please go into more detail next time? Would you be able to add pictures throughout the presentation? Or telling someone “we don’t use that type of language here. Please refrain from doing so from now on. You are representing the company.”
Those ones may not be the greatest to hear all the time, but they are just as important as the encouragement.
All of these words aren’t hard to say yet we don’t hear them nearly enough. We also don’t say them nearly enough to others.
Feedback. It’s a powerful thing.
It makes a world of a difference.
It gives direction. It sets the tone. It motivates us. It helps us understand each other. It helps us improve. It allows us feel valued and appreciated.
It’s powerful.
In this episode of the Heart of Leadership Podcast, we talk about the power of feedback and why you should be making it a habit of giving people around you the feedback they need.
For more information on The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew, and his business Upward Focus, head to www.upwardfocussolutions.com
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It's not all about you.
Even though we are on this journey of becoming the best version of ourselves, it's not all about you. Your growth is important. Getting better and improving is important. Tapping into your strengths, overcoming your fears and improving your weaknesses are important, but it's not all about you.
So, if it's not all about you who is it about? It's also about others. It's about us. When we start to become the best version of ourselves, we help others do the same. We inspire them. We help them grow. We challenge them. We encourage them. We motivate them. We walk alongside them on their journey to become the best version of themselves.
In this episode of The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew encourages you to think about how your life is helping and impacting others. Are you helping them get better or are you holding them back? Are you inspiring them or are you crushing their dreams? Are you listening to them when they need you or are you too busy thinking of what you want to say that you didn't even hear a word?
Your challenge this week is to look for ways to serve and bless others. Check in on someone you haven't talked to in a while. Write a thank you note to someone who has had a big impact in your life. Help someone around you that is in need.
It's not all about you. It's about others. It's about us.
For more information on The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew, and his business Upward Focus, head to www.upwardfocussolutions.com -
Just like Garfield the cat, a lot of us hate Mondays. Mondays can seem like the worst. It's the end to a relaxing weekend. It's back to work or school when we don't feel like it. Mondays are a day that many people dread, but they don't have to be.
Mondays don't have to be your favorite day, but they also don't have to be your least favorite day either. In this episode of The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew lists several ways we can make Mondays more enjoyable and start the week off strong.
Who knows, after listening you may even say you like Mondays...but don't worry, we won't tell anyone.
For more information on The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew, and his business Upward Focus, head to www.upwardfocussolutions.com -
What if you could change your life with just 30 minutes each day? What if that's all it took to change everything?
There are 24 hours in each day. 30 minutes of your day accounts for just 2% of your day. What if you could change your life just by changing that 2%? What if 2% of your day was the difference between mediocrity and greatness? What if it was the difference between failure and success? Between disappointment and joy?
Would you choose to pay attention to that 2%?
In this episode of The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew suggests that just 30 minutes each day could change your life forever.
Are you ready?
For more information on The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew, and his business Upward Focus, head to www.upwardfocussolutions.com -
In this episode of The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew encourages you to stop wasting time and take advantage of the time in front of you right now. It has been a hard year and many of us aren't where we want to be. We had goals. We had dreams. We had plans. Maybe we were able to accomplish some of them but the majority of what we hoped for hasn't come to pass.
One of our first thoughts is "It's November. I'll just wait until the new year". No. That's the wrong kind of thinking. It won't solve any of your problems and it certainly won't get you closer to where you want and need to be.
There are two months left in the year so why wait until the new year to start over? Why wait to make our New Year's resolutions when we can start today.
Throughout the episode, Andrew encourages and challenges you to answer three questions to get back on track and become the best version of yourself.
For more information on The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew, and his business Upward Focus, head to www.upwardfocussolutions.com -
In this episode of The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew concludes the series on fear as he encourages you to overcome your fears and to do it scared. One of our first reactions when we face something fearful is to say "I want to but I'm scared. I'm afraid"
Fear holds us back from being happy. It takes away our joy. It limits our potential and growth. It lets opportunity after opportunity pass by. It's time to stop letting fear dictate how we live our lives. We weren't meant to live in fear anyways.
Fear is definitely a big part of life. Many people deal with fear. Whether it is the fear of spiders or the fear of rejection, fear is present. But there is something powerful about overcoming and conquering our fears. There is excitement, joy, growth and success all waiting for us if it all goes well. And even it doesn't go well...at least we decided to push through and not let fear paralyze us anymore. At least we did it scared.
For more information on The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew, and his business Upward Focus, head to www.upwardfocussolutions.com -
As we are on this journey of becoming the best versions of ourselves, we have looked at different fears in our lives that are holding us back. One of these fears we talked about last week is the fear of being ourselves. For me to be authentic and transparent with all of you, I need to be able to be myself. So as of today, I am taking a little break from the podcast. I don't envision the break to last too long and I look forward to when I can come back and continue this podcast, but there are some things I need to work through in my personal life before I resume again.
I thank you all for your support and thank you for listening to the podcast. In the meantime, maybe it would be helpful to revisit some of our older episodes or take this time to continue to work through things in your own life as we are all on this journey of becoming the best versions of ourselves.
Thanks again. See you soon. -
In this episode of The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew continues the series on fear as he addresses a fear that many of us don't want to face - the fear of being ourselves.
Our world is so fascinated by superheroes and supervillains. So many of them wear masks and we celebrate them. We applaud them. We hang pictures of them on our wall. We want to be like some of them. But why? It's not wrong to like them, but why do we celebrate the people that wear masks and not so much the ones that show their true selves?
Our world loves secret identities. Double lives. Alter egos. Just like these superheroes and supervillains, we also wear masks as we are afraid to be ourselves. We are afraid to show our true identity and we afraid to be vulnerable. It's time for us to put the masks away and start working on being our real selves.
Who are you behind closed doors? Who is the real you? Do others know the real you? The inner beauty? The inner struggles? The pain? The fears? The hurt? The successes? The failures?
Many of us are afraid to show the real us because we have been hurt before. We have been hurt for being ourselves so we believe it's better to just pretend to be someone else or we just become a masked version of ourselves.
We need to learn to become more authentic and appropriately vulnerable and transparent if we want to become the best version of ourselves.
For more information on The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew, and his business Upward Focus, head to www.upwardfocussolutions.com -
In this episode of The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew continues the series on fear as he lightens things up by sharing funny fear stories. We started off the series by talking about fear being defined as an acronym meaning False Evidence Appearing Real and that's exactly what it is. We believe that something scary, threatening, dangerous or something that could potentially cause pain or a threat is real. We turn from a possibility of something happening to a promise that it will happen. We psych ourselves out.
In today's episode, Andrew shares funny fear stories that were sent in by the listeners of this podcast. The whole purpose of the episode is to provide a laugh and get you to smile, but also to get you to understand that a lot of our fears are actually not there at all. We just think that they are. There are indeed false evidence appearing real.
Thank you to everyone who submitted a story for us to read!
For more information on The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew, and his business Upward Focus, head to www.upwardfocussolutions.com -
In this episode of The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew continues the series on fear as he talks about another fear that is present in so many of our lives - the fear of asking for help. Whether it is something small like asking for directions or something big like asking for mental health support, we have a fear of asking for help.
Maybe we have been let down before. Maybe we don't want to be a burden to others. Maybe we are supposed to have it all together and we don't want to seem weak. Maybe we fear being found out. Whatever it is, we hold on to these reasons for why we shouldn't ask for help. Unfortunately, the dangers of not asking for help are much greater than the result if we do ask for help.
We need to get over the fear of asking for help in this journey of becoming the best version of ourselves. We can't do life alone. We need people to support us and help us along the way.
For more information on The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew, and his business Upward Focus, head to www.upwardfocussolutions.com -
In this episode of The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew continues the series on fear by focusing on a fear that is hard for so many of us - the fear of forgiveness. Whether it is forgiving others, forgiving ourselves or even receiving forgiveness, we have a fear of forgiveness. We don't want to let people off the hook. We don't want to say what they did was okay. When it comes to ourselves, we don't feel worthy to receive forgiveness for a terrible mistake we made.
In this journey of becoming the best version of ourselves, we need to face our fear of forgiveness. Forgiving someone doesn't mean what they did was okay. It doesn't mean it didn't happen. But it does mean that you are choosing to no longer live in that anger, bitterness and fear any longer. It's time for you to take control over the situation. It's time to take the first step towards forgiveness. We can't move forward unless we take the first step.
For more information on The Heart of Leadership Podcast, Andrew, and his business Upward Focus, head to www.upwardfocussolutions.com - Show more
