Adam Torres and Susan Treadgold discuss early stage entrepreneurship and Susan’s book.
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Show Notes:
Many early stage founders are looking to make an impact on investors. In this episode, Adam Torres and Susan Treadgold, Founder of Treadgold Executive Development, explore how to make an impact on investors and Susan’s book, The High Performing Woman: 52 Take Action Tips for Greater Confidence, Energy & impact.
About Susan Treadgold
Susan is an experienced and professionally qualified corporate and executive coach, award-winning speaker, best-selling author and transformational trainer. Prior to that, Susan spent 16 years gaining extensive corporate and management experience at a senior level in Equity Sales, Research and Corporate Marketing in investment banks DLJ, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup. Passionate about helping people reach their full potential, she has developed training courses, facilitated development workshops and mentored high potential individuals throughout her career.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on be our guest to apply. All right. So today I have Susan Treadgold on the line and she is founder of Treadgold Executive Development.
Susan, welcome to the show. Well, thank you, Adam. Great to be here. All right, Susan. So, Newport Beach Investor Conference I know you were sent over to us from Brad Turner, who’s been covering the conference now for, oh, I think the last month or so. And I got the update that you’re not only going to be going, but you’ll also be hosting a Fired Size Chat with Howard Simon.
So, I just gotta ask, are you excited? I am so excited. I’m actually going to be the Master of Ceremonies for the med tech portion of it and oh, yeah, and that’s doing a fireside chat interview with Howard Simon. I think he’s another person you interviewed. He sure is and oh, that’s wonderful. So yeah, and I’m going to definitely be attending and roaming around.
I think we might have a booth there or something like that. So I will meet you on Thursday. That’s going to be fun. Have you ever? This is my first. with an event like this and with one of Brad Turner’s events. And I’m excited. I’ve seen nothing but good things. I’m just curious. Have you been to a Brad Turner event in the past?
I certainly have. I’ve been MC at the last two. Oh my gosh. So, I have a veteran here. Why should people be attending? Oh, I think it’s just wonderful networking. you can learn a lot about investments. You can learn a lot about health. You can, you know, it’s a combination of both people pitching, people educating, and, you know, through their booths, also people demonstrating.
So, yeah, I think they’re, they’re great events. Yeah, it’s awesome. Be my first one, but I’m sure won’t be my last. Well, let’s kind of get this thing started here. So the importance of energy and impact on early stage companies seeking capital. So what, what a great topic for today’s discussion.
And so how we normally like to start these conversations is what we call our mission matters minute. And so just so you know, Okay. Susan, our mission is to amplify stories for entrepreneurs and executives, just like yourself. So that’s what we work day in and day out undoing. What mission matters to you?
Why do you do what you do? Oh, we can take the whole interview for that. But My background was in investment banking, and then I made a radical career change into executive coaching and book writing and personal development. And now I’m using both of those things to really move forward.
Health science, med tech, biotech AI driven companies that are really looking to make the world a better place. And so I’m really passionate about helping them create better pitch decks. Present better and connect with the right people. Now, you know, based on obviously your work now, but also when you were an investment banker I mean, you work with a lot of founders, lot of startups think a common theme is, is definitely around burnout or like some other things like, like, how have you seen in your career like how to kind of avoid this?
Like, how have you, how have you thought about that topic? Yes, it is a big topic, Adam, because doing what you love, doesn’t safeguard you from burnout. And a lot of founders are doing what they love and, and they’re really passionate about what they’re doing, but they’re doing everything. and there are two things that I, I’d like to say on that.
First of all, as a founder, you need to constantly be asking yourself, am I doing what I am doing right now? Is it moving the ship forward? Or is it just movement, you know, they really need to be focused also think about, you know, what can be delegated? I mean, sometimes they don’t have the resources, but there are so many you know, they may not have the financial resources, but there are so many resources out there to make yourself more efficient.
But the other thing that is in my book, the high performing woman is my energy wheel. Everything is energy. I mean, essentially, we’re just a bunch of vibrating atoms, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, and so what I like to do with my clients is to, have an energy wheel and I like them to look at that and figure out where they have energy leaks and then what are the habits that they can do to The plug up those energy
leaks and so there are 6 main areas of my energy wheel.
There’s the foundational energy. That’s the air, food, water, sleep supplements and light. We put into our body and, you know, no amount of positive thinking is going to offset dehydration, a poor diet and no sleep then there is. Mind energy. That’s the thoughts we think, the images we visualize, you know, worrying catastrophizing.
That can be de energizing or the affirmation side of things can be inherently very energizing, creative visualization about the success that you’re going to have. Then there’s the move energy. I mean, nowadays, I mean, sitting really is the new smoking. So many people are. I, to their desk, they are not getting sufficient movement and this is not just you know, the, the physical movement.
It’s also the body language and the smiles. It’s the mind body connection. You get that right. It’s very energizing. And. The fastest way to change your state is to change your physiology. So if you’re feeling stuck, overwhelmed, just get up and move. Then there is the, the pause energy and that is the, the, the.
Getting still unplugging. The mindful the meditation piece, you know, still in the mind, you know, going slow to go fast. And then there is the other 2, our connection energy, how we interact and communicate with others. I mean, are you being an energy angel or are you being an energy vampire? Because I like that that that you give is going to be reflected back at you in several ways.
This is where the, you know, the inherit communication skills come in to play. And then there’s the space energy, the environment that you surround yourself with from, you know, the what’s physically on your body. There’s all sorts of research out now about toxic clothing to the sites, the sounds, the smells.
The clutter or the cleanliness in your vicinity and how that adds or depletes adds to or depletes your energy. I mean, we know research showing from hospital beds that people that have a view on nature recover more quickly. So, these are the 6 areas in my energy wheel and what I like people to do is go through and assess their energy on a scale of 1 to 10 in each of those areas.
And most people will find that they have an energy leak somewhere. And then what I like to do is work with my clients to create a personal energy. Blueprint, that’s really because what gets measured. Gets done, so looking at creating some micro habits. In each of those areas and then Putting them in a monday to sunday sort of spreadsheet and keeping Did I go to bed?
Did I get eight hours sleep last night? Did I drink the right amount of water? Did I get three hugs my connection energy? Did I? You know throw away five things, you know the the space energy So it’s all these little like and i’ll tell you you can throw away five things for the rest of your life You’ll never run out of things Oh, for sure.
Yeah. So that’s, that’s what I like doing with my clients is creating their own personal energy blueprint. And so they can, they can be really mindful. About when they’re starting, and if you’re measuring this and you’re realizing, oh, gosh, I only got like. 40 out of 100 points this week, and then looking back, like, what have I been doing or not doing, you know, and it allows you to course, correct quickly before you start hitting burnout.
Yeah, where do you find and I know we’ll have to generalize a little bit here because there’s so many variations of people, especially early stage founders, you know, where do you find like many go wrong within processes like this when they kind of like, you know, they’re getting started, they’re feeling like, okay, I want to make a change here, but then they kind of have maybe sometimes a false start, where do you find that people go wrong in these type of, situations?
Yeah. Okay. I think that they they don’t stay in their lane. Like they really need to, to be focused on the things that they can really deliver on the things that they are best at, and then create an amazing team around them. I mean, the. The power is in the pack. Yeah, I can see that. and I guess I’ll speak for myself.
I won’t say for all the other founders out there, but, and you’re welcome to judge me, but we get, we get, you know, we get new ideas and we want to try new things, right? Sometimes we’re like, we don’t, we don’t always get in that lane, right? Right, right. Exactly. The new, shiny object syndrome, right?
Absolutely. I want to spend some time here today talking about impact as well. Cause I know that’s another thing that you’re, you’re definitely known for and that you dedicate your life to. So like founders that are interested in making an impact on investors, like, like how do they do that?
Yeah, there’s, lots of components to that. There’s, you know, having a compelling pitch deck. It takes people on a journey from, you know, the introduction and mission introduction to the team and your mission to, clear stating of what the problem is and then what is your solution? What is your unique solution?
What sets you apart in this solution? Then looking at the market size and what the competition is doing. And then what is your business plan and, you know, what have you done so far? And what are the milestones? So, having a really clear. Uncluttered pitch deck and people go away understanding what. You do, I can’t tell you the number pitch decks that I have seen and I go through it and it’s death by data.
And I just, at the end of the day, I don’t even really understand what they do. I mean, there’s been quite a few that I really just don’t understand what they do. So, clarity is king. the other thing is being able to present, because that is a learnable skill, and that is something you really should invest in, and with my clients, I like.
Taking them through a 5 point transformational communication model, which includes storytelling, because people learn through stories you know, we’re taught that from the time that we are children, you know, once upon a time in a land far, far away, it Yes, and so making sure it’s research has shown that our brains light up on And an MRI differently, when we realize we’re going to be told a story, just, I think why people are so addicted to gossip because it’s, you know, again, it’s that same format. Time, specific time, specific place, specific characters.
Oh, Adam, you wouldn’t believe what Dana did at the Christmas party last week in May, you know, and so, and then your brain immediately perks up like, Oh, a story’s coming. So that’s 1 of the things that I feel like a lot of founders are missing out on is interspersing their data heavy presentations with nice little stories.
Hmm. Well, well, Susan you may not know this, but my long term listeners do. I, I love talking about and promoting books. So when I saw you had a book, The High Performing Woman 52 Take Action Tips for Greater Confidence, Energy, and Impact. You have to bring it up. to me about, I see it’s an Amazon number one bestseller.
Amazon best selling co author of Success University for Women in Business as well. So, I mean, talk to me a little bit about this book. Yeah, great. Well, I had been writing a blog for a number of years called Take action Tuesday tips, which I still do. You can find it on my website at tedlondon.
com. You can sign up for it. I still have, it’s still going. And I’ve been writing these tips for years. And, you know, I had one or two people tell me, Oh, you should put these into a book. Then I had another couple of people say, and then it was just like, Everywhere I went, people are saying, you’ve, I’ve been printing these off and storing them in a folder.
You need to put this into a book. And finally got through to me. And what I did is I looked through and I thought, okay, how many am I going to do? I thought, all right, we’ll do 52. you can do 1, 1, every week or gorge on them, like a box set, you know all in 1. So, and I chose the ones that it had the most, you know, engagement.
So, I guess those are the ones that resonated with people the most. And at the beginning of that, I’ve also included my energy wheel and explaining. That whole concept that I just went through really briefly with you at the start and how you, a lot of the tips are then sorted by, okay, this is a tip for connection energy, or this is a tip for space energy, or this is a tip for foundation energy.
So, I have it organized like that. Yeah. And I have, you know, had a lot of master classes on exponential energy and says the high performing woman, but to be honest, 90%, targeted at women, but I would say 90 percent of the tips are relevant for both. Male and female, it’s just that women usually have the uniquely energy energy draining.
Duo of being the 1st, point of contact with kids as well as household, which. It’s shown that so, and McKinsey did a study on how talented women thrive and it showed that women are more likely to burn out or opt out the men so managing your energy. As a woman, you know, is super important. So, but like I said, the tips are mainly relevant for both sexes.
Wonderful. Well, Susan, first off I’m excited about the conference coming up. I know you are too, and you’re a veteran. So you’ve already kind of giving me a slow down there. And I’m pumped to see you MC again as well. And I will be attending. I mean, how could I not attend the fireside chat between yourself and Howard?
That’s going to be awesome. That being said, if somebody’s listening to this and they want to connect with you on, on your coaching on the book and anything else, and just follow your journey in general, I mean, what’s the best way for our audience to do that? Sure. Go ahead and link in with me, Susan Tregold on LinkedIn, or.
Send me an email, Susan, at EdLondon. com. Fantastic. And, and for everybody, everybody listening, we’ll put that information in the show notes so you can just head right on over and, and check out Susan’s site, of course, and then also we’ll have some links to the book, so we definitely want you to pick up a copy of that.
And speaking to the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters or engaging in an episode, we’re all about bringing on business owners, entrepreneurs, and executives and having them share their mission and you know why they do what they do. If that sounds interesting to you, we welcome you.
Hit that subscribe button. We have many more mission based individuals coming up on the line and we don’t want you to miss a thing. Susan thank you so much again for coming on the show and I will see you on Thursday. Wonderful. Look forward to it, Adam.
