Leading with Voice: Courage, Connection, and Community

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Joshua Kornitsky: Welcome back to High Velocity Radio. I’m your host, Joshua Kornitsky, and I have a really wonderful guest, someone that I’ve really connected with here with me today. Uh, I’d like to introduce everybody to Misti Burmeister. She is the founder of Inspirion, and she’s the author of Provoking Greatness. For over 20 years, she’s worked with organizations ranging from startups and small businesses to major institutions like NASA, the US Navy, and Johnson and Johnson. She’s really helping them transform communication breakdowns into engagement breakthroughs. Her voice model equips leaders to build trust, empower teams, and lead through courage and authenticity. Welcome, Misti, it’s such a pleasure to chat with you.

Misti Burmeister: I was so grateful to be here with you. Somebody who’s got incredible courage and vulnerability. So thank you for inviting me in.

Joshua Kornitsky: It’s an absolute pleasure. Well, we had a good time just kind of chatting and we’re going to pick it up from there, but first I. If you would, I’d like to ask you to tell us a little bit about your background and kind of what led you to where you are now, because I think people really like to understand why you’re an expert or what brought you to that level of, of understanding and what you teach.

Misti Burmeister: Thank you. Joshua. Well, I have to say, first of all, I do have a lot of education behind me, though I don’t use as much of the education. I have a master’s in communication, a couple undergraduate degrees, but ultimately starting this business 20 more than 22 years ago now. Um, I started it because I was angry. I couldn’t figure out how to communicate with people who were older and they didn’t understand me. So there was this block. And back then. Um, well, let’s just say I was working for the as a fellow for the National Institutes of Health. And after I finished that job, I took a job with the government contracting company. So now I’m doing, um, they hired me originally to interview cancer patients and then write their stories. Joshua, I loved the work, showed up early, stayed late, got all the kudos and attaboys for doing that. And then that contract ended and the only contracts coming in were meeting, planning oriented. And let’s just say I didn’t know anything about like details. I was much more of a big picture thinker. And so I tried. I won’t give you all the hilarious stories of trying to figure out how to do meeting planning, but I did, and ultimately I ended up trying to figure out how else can I help this company. So I read every document they put out into the media in the 25 years they’ve been in business. And, um.

Joshua Kornitsky: That must have been hundreds.

Misti Burmeister: Yeah. A lot. I didn’t I didn’t have any friends, really. I was brand new to DC. I had nothing else to do okay, but to read these things. And so I presented to the CEO to show her everything I knew. I didn’t know why. Just thought maybe she could use me differently. But I didn’t know anything about, like, business development or I didn’t know any other way to contribute. I just had a master’s in communication. And so at the end of this presentation, she looks at me and says, Misty, what did your parents do to deal with you? It’s clear you have problems with anxiety. Do you take medication for that? And so I don’t think she meant anything bad by it, but for me, it didn’t feel very empowering.

Joshua Kornitsky: Very different time to you would kind of feedback today I hope.

Misti Burmeister: Yeah. No I think she would still do that today. It’s very much a power over instead of power, with which we’ll talk a lot about in a moment. And so the next day I quit my job without another one lined up. Uh, not the easiest thing to do, because all I had was $37 to my name and $1,000 rent payment coming due. Now, fortunately, I did have the skill of massage therapy and fitness training, so I wasn’t certified, but I quickly figured out how to barely get my bills paid, and I started to research because I wanted to understand what just happened. There I’ve got all this enthusiasm and energy and I want to contribute. But yet I was met with this wall of resistance that stopped everything. And so as I read, I kept going, oh my gosh, I said this. They heard that. They said this. I heard that while doing that research, I also opened the Yellow Pages. Um, back then. Right. It’s the Yellow Pages today. It’d be LinkedIn, but the Yellow Pages and I went that job. That company looks interesting. And I just made cold calls and to do informational interviews. And in six months I did 150 of them. Wow. Yeah. And in the middle of these interviews, Joshua would happen is about halfway through, like three months in, they would flip the interview on me and they’d start asking me questions. So they’d say things like, Misty, I just don’t get these young professionals today. They come into my office first day on the job without a pen and paper. Um, and, I mean, I had just had an experience like this being misunderstood. So I asked them, like, so what does that mean? I didn’t know this was called coaching. Okay. What does it mean? And they’d say, um, well, they don’t respect me. They don’t care about this organization, and they don’t want to be successful here.

Joshua Kornitsky: Because they weren’t showing up with a pen and paper.

Misti Burmeister: Exactly.

Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.

Misti Burmeister: We make up all kinds of stories about people based on what they do or don’t do. And so I said, well, what if it just meant they didn’t know they were supposed to bring a pen and paper?

Joshua Kornitsky: Occam’s razor.

Misti Burmeister: Right. And they said, well, they should know, but they don’t. But they should. But and this back and forth. And at the time, I didn’t know anything about retention or engagement. It wasn’t a world I lived in. Turns out they were struggling with those things. And so I said, why don’t you just try this next time they come to your office? No pen, no paper. Stop them. Tell them. Go back. Get a pen and paper. When they come back. Stop them again. Let them know when they do that. What they’re communicating to you is they respect you. They care about this organization and they want to be successful here. Well, the turnover rate like started to go way down. The retention rate started to go way up and I kept getting phone calls. Right. So, um, again, I didn’t know it was called coaching. And that’s how my business was started. So I had one of the ladies I interviewed along the way asked me, hey, Misty, tomorrow can you come deliver a talk on generational differences to my group of women executives? And I said, no, Pam, I cannot I don’t know how to do a PowerPoint. I don’t know what she knows. Just come. And she hung up. So I went, long story short, and I landed my first contract with Marriott and I for two for two talks on generational differences that month, which meant I could pay my bills and actually eat a meal, a real meal as a result. So that’s how my business started. That’s how I got, um, got going on this.

Joshua Kornitsky: So I want to clarify something. And and normally it’s just when I hear the background, I’m like, wow, that’s really incredible. But you said something that that that is too timely. How long ago approximately was was that incident?

Misti Burmeister: So your question itself leads me into when people ask me, I’m going to answer it, right. That’s 22 years ago. But this answer, uh, is a little deeper than that. So often I still get requests. Hey, Misty, can you come speak on generational differences? I say no, but I will come speak on generational amnesia. Right? Which is like we go through this experience like we come into the workforce, we have our experiences, we learn what we learn, and then we forget that we learned it. And so when the next generation comes in and doesn’t yet know all the things that we know now, we’re agitated with them forgetting, oh, somewhere along the way we learned this and we forgot that we learned it. So it’s just a matter of teaching and coaching, rather than criticizing and condemning.

Joshua Kornitsky: The story in my head is the the poor person who came in without the pen and paper is now likely sitting on the other side of the desk saying, why do these employees keep texting me?

Misti Burmeister: Exactly, exactly.

Joshua Kornitsky: It literally is the exact state of of current small and medium sized business, and I’m sure large as well. Uh, it is the current state of employee relations. It is that same. I don’t want to say breakdown. I’ll simply say gap in, you know, clear understanding and clear expectations. Where I hear it from the businesses that I work with, which is mostly entrepreneurial businesses, about 250 employees. And below, I literally hear this in every engagement about they don’t understand why X, Y, or Z is happening with generation. Whichever. And, and it’s ironic and very poignant that you’ve shared that story, because I think what it leads to is a broader discussion around communication, which if you’re okay with I love to talk to you about.

Misti Burmeister: Let’s dive in, babe. This is the core of it all.

Joshua Kornitsky: So communication. What what I say versus what you hear, uh, that appears to be the root.

Misti Burmeister: It’s actually the foundation of, uh, from boomers to bloggers to Joshua. My first book, uh, Provoking Greatness, is my fourth book. My first book was From Boomers to Bloggers, where I took the five most common generational clashes, like pay your dues versus give it all to me right now. And I wrote stories, but please keep going.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, so so it’s interesting that you shared that. I believe your first engagement out of school was documenting cancer patients stories.

Misti Burmeister: That’s right.

Joshua Kornitsky: And in my brain, the the the way that this soup comes to a boil is you started by having incredibly, I would presume, emotional and perhaps challenging conversations with people, regardless of the state of of their cancer. They had certainly been through arduous times. They’d been through difficulty and undoubtedly suffered on a spectrum of of different issues. And that’s how you started. And in those difficult conversations are the things most people never mind leaders. Most people hate those conversations. Most people will literally talk about anything else or not speak at all to avoid having that conversation. But I imagine that that must have served as a as an incredible foundation, because you already you went from that into cold calling. The only thing left is speaking on stage, which I’m pretty sure you’ve done that too. You’ve you’ve knocked all the phobias right out of the park.

Misti Burmeister: That’s right. Absolutely.

Joshua Kornitsky: But what are some of the things that you can help us understand better about? I like to break it down into a couple of different things. First, understanding, uh, what some of the common challenges are because rather than me assuming, I’d like to hear it from someone who has expertise.

Misti Burmeister: So common challenges within difficult conversations.

Joshua Kornitsky: Just communications.

Misti Burmeister: Just communications.

Joshua Kornitsky: Because I don’t want to narrow it just to one specific if that’s okay. If you’re able to speak to it at a at a broader level.

Misti Burmeister: Well, communication is something that we’re doing in our body language and in our words. And very often we don’t know what we’re actually communicating. So difficult conversations, critical conversations, whatever language you want to use, uh, I like to look at what makes them difficult. Right. That word difficult or critical or challenging, what is it? And if we were to peel back the layers, it’s two things. It’s emotions and expectations. Emotions is the first thing you touched on just a moment ago. Like these conversations with these cancer survivors were high in emotion, and most of the time we run from those. But I contend, and I’ve seen that it’s actually our difficult conversations that hold the fuel for the greatest growth. So when we avoid them, we lose opportunities. When we address them, we get the spark of innovation, the spark of engagement. So let me give you an example. So the Environmental Protection Agency, this is years ago now they’re going through sequestration. Many of the employees of the CIO’s office, chief information office were standing around the water cooler talking about how they might lose their job, and as a result, they weren’t actually doing their job. And the then CIO called to say, hey, can you help? I didn’t know this at the time, but for 25 years, the CIO’s office had the lowest engagement scores. Gallup does that research every year within government agencies. And so that’s how I came in. She was acting CIO at the time, and the first thing we looked at is what and why? Right. What are you trying to achieve through the EPA? They had forgotten what the EPA was. Why did they choose to come work for the EPA? What does the CIO’s office, what are they responsible for? Like the flow of information? They had forgotten all the parts and pieces that make them a team.

Misti Burmeister: What are we trying to achieve and why does it matter? All right, so leaning in, instead of going, I we should know this, which is where shame lives, which is where force and push also lives. Trying to force people to do things rather than give voice. We give force rather than give a voice, which is vision, ownership, intention, community and energy. These are the five components of successful teams. Um, when I say success, I mean that they’re very effective at taking differences of all sorts and and making them into an asset rather than a liability. Right force makes differences a liability, and voice makes differences an asset. So the EPA’s office, the first thing we did was lean in. What isn’t working here? What? What? Where am I really struggling and what they got to. Very quickly, Joshua, I’ll break it down. Is that the CIO, the administrator of the CIO, every time she’d go on video, uh, be interviewed because there was a natural disaster in a particular area, she’d have egg all over her face because she couldn’t get access to what the EPA had done in any geographic location quickly enough. And so they talked about these problems instead of looking at people as problems, which is what they were doing, looking at each other as the problem, they started looking at problems with people. So looking at the problems together, rather than looking at the person as a problem and as a result they came up with. Nine months later, they came up with at the push of a button. The administrator and the, um, the general public would have instant access to what the EPA is doing in any geographic location. Okay, so.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s going on.

Misti Burmeister: Yeah. Say it again.

Joshua Kornitsky: So they know what was going on.

Misti Burmeister: Exactly. So that we all could know what’s happening, like what the value is that the EPA is bringing to to the world, really, but certainly to the States. Right. So as a result of this, now they’ve got voice, they’ve got a vision, they’ve got a sense of ownership, uh, intention, community and energy. People’s hands started flying up. How can I help? How can I help? I want to do this part. I want to do this part. So now we went from not engaged to fully engaged. Happens at Gallup. Came in nine months later. They were the highest engaged among all of the EPA as a result of some clarity in their voice. So we could take and I want you to know, Joshua, we had people in some. I facilitated a lot of conversations with them. We had some folks in there who had lawsuits against the EPA. How do we use that kind of energy to drive engagement? And it and we did, and it worked. I won’t go into all the details of it because this is a shorter conversation than that. But it’s very powerful when we turn toward those difficult conversations rather than running away. But that’s a skill set that we have to hone, which is part of what I teach.

Joshua Kornitsky: Which leads me to to sort of follow up on that, because you’ve you’ve helped us understand what you mean by your voice model, the the vision, the ownership, the intention, the community and the energy. And as I hear that and I say this, uh, as as someone who has difficult conversations as part of what I, how I help my own clients, it was a long journey to have the confidence and I would say the understanding because the biggest barrier to those conversations was me was was being willing to have them. How do you at at a high level coach and help, whether it’s leadership or or even just the community, to break through that barrier of what I presume is fear, right? Because you’re.

Misti Burmeister: Go ahead.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, because if if I have to, you know, if we’re sitting down and you’re my manager and and you’re just going to say, well, you’re fired. And I have questions about why I’m fired. Just taking a simple example. You know, most people, maybe a bad one because fired is is terminal. But, you know, any kind of difficult conversation, to my experience, at every level I’ve dealt with within an organization and in life, there are people that don’t want to ask the hard questions because it’s an uncomfortable conversation. And what I’m ultimately asking through, through a lot of words is are there any coaching suggestions you could make to help people get through that barrier of what I presume to be fear, because you’re not going to hit me in the in the head with a bat for asking a hard question, but it is getting over that fear of of that uncomfortableness. And I’m wondering how you coach or how you help them get past that.

Misti Burmeister: Well, first we have to look at like, what is the fear of? We have to be careful what we put after. I am so I change the language to I have fear, right? So I have fear. What am I having fear of? And generally, when it comes to feedback conversations, there’s fear that they’re going to put even less energy into their work. There’s fear that they’re going to be less engaged as a result. There’s fear that they’re going to start crying. There’s fear that they are going. So the emotions are going to get big and that the problems are only going to become more. So we have to first look at what is the fear. Um, the other thing is when we’re talking about the fear being how emotional somebody else is going to be. Then we have to look at how comfortable or uncomfortable are we with emotions, and do we have some presumptions on what we what we should say or we should do, and not many of us are taught? I’ve not seen anywhere anybody ever, in my 22 years of work that struggles with difficult conversations. They do not know that all they have to do is listen, reflect back, have empathy. They they think very often what happens is when somebody emotions go up, they go into problem solving mode rather than just listening. So it’s a skill set. Difficult conversations is really a skill set that when we master it, there is no conversation that’s going to be too much. When we can sit in silence for just a little bit longer and ask more questions, we go away from our fears of emotions are our agitation because we have expectations and we get to start asking and learning more about what other people are actually struggling with, very often with difficult conversations.

Misti Burmeister: Um, the people that were trying to have them with have some phenomenal ideas for themselves. Very often they already know something’s not working. So the questions are very different. So instead of coming into it with you should this and you should that, um, we come into it with better questions, which then leaves people feeling a lot more safe to explore. How might I do this differently? From my perspective, Joshua, every time we give somebody feedback, the response should be, oh, I get it. That makes sense. In order to get that kind of response, we have to really know what people are trying to achieve, why it matters to them to really help them to grow instead of just criticizing to control. Based out of fear, which comes back down to force and a lot. We’re distinguishing between you and I in this conversation. There’s two different ways to lead and. And it’s taught very strongly. Force. Push. Use fear. Just last night, um, it’s a little segue. Joshua. Just last night, I was having dinner, and I was. This is true inside of families. And it’s true inside of companies. It’s true all over the place. So this gentleman and his wife were sitting next to me, and they were talking about their 25 year old son. And the the gentleman was, um, very angry with his son for not contributing better to society. He’s just living at home. He’s got all this education and he’s so smart, but he’s so stupid because he’s not using it. Okay, so that’s that’s leadership based on force.

Joshua Kornitsky: Yeah.

Misti Burmeister: I’m gonna I’m gonna shame that person until they finally figure out they need to go do something. And the truth is, is we don’t do better by being made to feel worse.

Joshua Kornitsky: I was going to tell you that really leadership that’s that’s just pushing and.

Misti Burmeister: Right. But yet we all do it. I do it all the time. I, I study this stuff because I have to learn how to go from a place of voice versus coming from a place of fear and pushing and force. Trying to force a solution is probably my biggest nemesis, right? When I lead from voice, what am I actually trying to achieve? What is my intention? So in these difficult conversations, what am I actually trying to achieve? When we really know what that is.

Joshua Kornitsky: So that’s that’s if I can interrupt. That’s a really the the what am I trying to achieve question. Um, I, I wonder how pervasive that strategy is because to my own experience, often when I’ve entered in and this would be more in the part of my life that I was on a leadership team and, and had people that I reported to less so now because I’m an entrepreneur. But in those circumstances, often I felt if I was sitting down with the CEO, the CEO or they arrived knowing full well the message they were delivering and the better CEOs that I worked for were typically willing to engage in dialog. The the ones that I would rate as less effective simply delivered a directive. Now, in the hierarchy of an organization, sometimes a directive is the the appropriate response, but in certain contexts it should be a dialog when it can be when when the subject matter isn’t. We’re going with this insurance company versus that insurance company. And here’s why. Um. But how? How do you help leaders understand the different strategies and how to weigh and and decide upon them beforehand? Because that intentionality of the voice model, to me, perhaps it’s an assumption on my part. I feel like each one of the, the letters, the and the acronym that it stands for has its own power. But the intentionality. What what did you come here to say or what did you come here to discuss or or why are we sitting together to to convey information either one way or bidirectionally? How do you help coach people to to prepare and to you said, slow down and listen. How how do you do that?

Misti Burmeister: Well, this is bringing me to an experience I had recently, and I just want to land on what you said, that the leaders you’ve worked with that have been more fitting for you are the ones that come with dialog rather than directive. Right. So dialog is you don’t hear it as often because it’s more vulnerable, and I say more vulnerable because there’s a perception that we are supposed to already know. Right? And if you’re seeing that, I don’t actually know. Um, then there’s the opportunity for you to think that I’m not a very strong leader. So we protect and try to, uh, project, like, strong. But in reality, it’s our vulnerability. It’s our I don’t know, that makes us stronger. I had one executive. This is years ago now who could not reach his number for his sales quota for years, and he had reached a sales quota for many years before that, promoted into leadership. And now collectively, they couldn’t. And he’s on the verge of getting fired because of this. And I had a chance to work with him. And at first, you know, he wasn’t willing to do anything different. He’s like, I’m just going to push them. I’m going to push them. I’m going to push them. They’re going to sell. They’re going to sell. And I said, well, you know, this is kind of an extreme, uh, language, uh, Joshua. But just go with me. I said, why don’t we go in there and say, hey, listen, guys, I’ve been failing at leading you for the past three years. Clearly, there’s things I don’t know, but you might know. What might I do? Or what might we do differently to get a better result? Six months later, they blew their numbers out of the water. Right? So he didn’t have all the answers. And that’s not the job is to have all of the answers. So we’re going from we’re going from directive. But you’re asking me how do you your very specific question is how do you coach people to.

Joshua Kornitsky: Um, to understand because everything typically in, in in my brain defaults to to business more than anything in, in a business context, you know, urgency is usually high. Um, movement is typically at an accelerated pace. And I, I believe you are correct about the slowing down, uh, about the listening, about the intentionality, about the community and the energy. How do you help leaders who are used to working at a thousand miles an hour understand what that will do for them? Because it sounds like what that will do for them is change things in a positive way.

Misti Burmeister: Yeah, they’ll get a lot more engagement. Their their team will be a great deal more empowered. And they’ll go away from why won’t they do this to I can’t believe the initiative that they’re taking. Right. So but we have to go away from we have to give ourselves a chance to try something different. Um, so one leader I worked with recently, uh, she had gone. She’s getting ready to pitch a business idea to a group of investors, and she had gone to lots of other successful people who’ve done this before. I’ve not actually pitched myself. I have, but not on purpose. Not on purpose. I’ll just say like that. Okay, I have pitch, but not on purpose. So she wanted my ideas and I listened to her ideas and it was missing something critical. So why is this business important to you? Because if you can show investors that you are absolutely committed to the core, to the success of this business, they’re going to they’re going to be far more interested in giving you money.

Joshua Kornitsky: Sure.

Misti Burmeister: And so she started to share how this product changed her life. It was extremely vulnerable. And now she’s getting ready to go and pitch the idea. But in the moment, she said to me, you know, Misty, a lot of people gave me that suggestion, but none of them gave it to me with the actual experience because I had shared with her a story of, I’ll give it to you really quickly. I was going to speak for NASA. It was their first annual leadership summit. The CIO asked me to come speak. It was during the 2008 2009 downturn. I had a lot of fear around my business, so I hired somebody to create the perfect speech. I had done plenty of great speeches before, but I was scared. So I had somebody write the perfect speech. I paid somebody to create the perfect PowerPoint. I go up on stage to deliver this message. I’m to go right before Vint Cerf, who’s known as one of the founders of the internet. People were getting through me to get to him, opening the biggest opportunity of my career. Sure, I had spent 30 hours a week just memorizing the speech. It was 45 minutes long. I could start in the middle and go. I mean, it was perfectly memorized. I get up on stage, Joshua and I kid you not, I forget I had a great start and then I forgot every word of my speech. People were tweeting about me. Okay, so I was trying to be so perfect in my Presentation. So when I was listening to this woman share about her idea, her business idea, and I shared my experience with NASA, her walls just came down and she was able to share.

Misti Burmeister: Really, why is she trying to do this business? Why it matters to her. And so if we are going to shift from trying to force people, which takes a lot of energy and move into more of a voice model where we’re communicating a vision, like if we can’t, you know, you ask me, well, we don’t have any time, right? This is this comes back to the idea of investing. Do we invest when, uh, the stock market’s low or do we invest when it’s high? Most people invest when it’s high. Right. But the real smart ones that make a lot of money invest when it’s low. So do we take the time now to get some clarity around what are we really trying to achieve here? What does the end zone look like? We want the best employees of all the superstars, the NFL players of our industry. But yet we never define what the end zone looks like. Nfl players are not going to put their life on, on, uh, you know, in in harm’s way. If there’s no end zone, we have to have some clarity around that. They’re also not going to listen to a coach that’s not clearly trying to help them to reach the end zone and better. Right. So we have to have some clarity on what individuals are really striving to achieve in their career, why it matters matters to them. And then communicate what we’re doing together as a community. And most leaders don’t get those two things.

Joshua Kornitsky: And that sounds like that’s that sounds like that’s vision, that’s ownership and that’s community. And and I feel like they, uh. And forgive me for just arriving here, but it sounds like they’re all actually interdependent.

Misti Burmeister: Very much so.

Joshua Kornitsky: Or at the very least interconnected, because having just vision with no ownership is a zero. Having ownership without intention is is your football player without an end zone, right? They just run forever and they don’t know what they’re running towards or for.

Misti Burmeister: I have to share this one with you. So there was a client of mine who went to go give somebody feedback. And I mean, it was pretty harsh feedback. This person sat down, this is all the things you’re doing wrong, and the person just starts to cry, right? Because that morning they found out their mother died, right. So having some clarity about is now a good time having some education around how when, what are the what are the structures that we need to have in place before giving people feedback is important. We’ll spend a lot of money on making sure that people have sales training, right? You’ve seen that. You’ve probably experienced it.

Joshua Kornitsky: Oh, gotcha.

Misti Burmeister: But how much money and time have we spent on getting clear about what we’re trying to achieve and how to communicate what we’re trying to achieve. We don’t spend a lot of time there.

Joshua Kornitsky: No, not at all. And and if anything, to your earlier point, it is often misinterpreted as weakness that that one of the things that that I’m a, I’m a very big believer in and it’s, it seems to be the underpinning of what you are in many ways conveying or what I’m taking from what you’re conveying is it is this concept of progress over perfection because you yourself have have shared stories in the last few minutes about, you know, attempting perfection, attempting perfection, getting on that stage. And then let’s just go with not perfect. And to to my understanding, when it comes to communication, there has to be a level of I’m not sure the right term here, but you have to give yourself grace. So perfect example is the story you just shared, that the employee burst into tears because their mother had passed away. As the leader on the other side of that conversation, while while that was horrible and that was embarrassing and and that was insensitive, and any other thing you want to think about, it was a mistake. And we can also move past it. I’m sorry, I didn’t know is all it takes and and I believe I don’t know another word you said. Vulnerability. It’s also humility. It’s it’s being willing to say I’m sorry.

Misti Burmeister: So you just named two pieces. You’ve been asking for specific pieces of the puzzle. Uh, in terms of leading effectively under the voice model, you know, small little things that you can do other than just, uh, which is powerful. So it’s not a just but pausing before we react and getting some clarity, like what’s actually going on? What am I having fear about right now Before saying anything more. But you also just said these words, I don’t know, powerful in creating cultures where trust is high. You also said I’m sorry, right? So I didn’t get this right. Uh, I need to make an amends. I need to apologize. So when we hear things like, oh, I got that wrong, or I’m sorry, or I need to apologize. Trust goes up. Particularly with leaders, uh, with with. When a leader does this, they show everybody else how to do it, how to be perfectly imperfect. Uh, when you hear, I don’t know, I’m not really sure what. I remember when, uh, Rich Sheridan is the CEO and co-founder of a company called Menlo Innovations out of Ann Arbor, Michigan. They have one gobs and gobs of awards for their culture, uh, including a presidential award. And, I mean, it’s pretty, pretty incredible. When the pandemic hit, I call Rich and I said, how is everything going? And he goes, I have no idea. I’m scared out of my mind. I have no idea what’s happening. And all of a sudden I just calmed, like, even I don’t. I wasn’t leading a big team at that time, but. Right. But even me, little old me who works with all these teams, I calmed more. Well, if he doesn’t know, it’s okay that I don’t know. So this builds trust. So not everybody’s walking around pretending like they’re supposed to know everything. Instead, they’re asking more. They’re asking more questions. They’re contributing more ideas because they’re more curious and less afraid.

Joshua Kornitsky: So it it sounds like it leads to growth. It leads to collaboration. It leads to a stronger team. Um, help me understand how we help others understand this.

Misti Burmeister: I think we share our stories, Joshua. I share our stories.

Joshua Kornitsky: I think that, um, it it speaks to me so very strongly because I inadvertently arrived here, uh, well aligned and and aligned to the understanding of, of the need to, uh, no, no perfection on this side of the of the, of the dialog. But the the need to be open and honest is, uh, a driving force for me at this stage in my life because I’ve tried the other ways. And when you lie all the time, you have to remember what you said. And then you have to remember not if you’re going to perpetuate the lie, then you have to have a book of all of the lies you’ve told so that you can remember. Uh, and I don’t recommend that for anybody. Um, tell us how we can learn more.

Misti Burmeister: Well, hang on a second, Joshua. I want to land on what you just said there. Honesty. Authenticity sells. Most people are trying to be something that they’re not, um, or they’re trying to protect themselves, which we I do it, we all do it. Um, I will come in trying to show how smart I am way more often than I’d like to admit, because it’s a protective mechanism for my little ego. We all have them, right? Um, but you just said is so important because I remember you told me a story not too long ago, uh, about going to a vistage meeting. And, you know, most Vistage chairs aren’t terribly interested in having too many people who do exactly the same thing involved. And it won’t go into more details about that. But in the end, you got invited in because at least because in part you shared about some struggles you were having with your daughter.

Joshua Kornitsky: Yes.

Misti Burmeister: When they asked about how you were doing, it was real. It was vulnerable. It was authentic. So I my greatest, um, talent gift skill is looking for and sussing out what’s real, what really matters to you? What are you really trying to achieve? Because if you can get some clarity about what’s truly in the way, then it will move itself out of the way. Right. But if you don’t like the EPA was willing to look at what was really in the way. Not all leaders are. Not all teams are. I’ve worked with lots of them. But if we’re really willing to look at what’s in the way and what is authentic, the results are remarkable.

Joshua Kornitsky: Is in your perception, is that a journey to arrive at that willingness? Because, uh, a very wise man told me a few weeks ago when I was at a charity event, uh, we were talking about our, our, our background and our parents and growing up. And, uh, he had said something that that really resonated with me. He said, you know, I wasn’t always this man. This is the man that I’ve become. He said that he said.

Misti Burmeister: Those words.

Joshua Kornitsky: To and and and it occurs to me that if I think back when I was in my mid 20s, I had a team of 25 salesmen, salespeople that worked for me. Um, and I definitely subscribe to that, uh, use of force. This is this is what we’re doing. This is what what you need to do, what you need to do and what you need to do. And. And I was a, uh. What do they call that, a tinpot dictator? Uh, just, you know, if we had a problem, we would just fire that guy and hire somebody else. Um, I was not a total failure, but I was certainly not particularly successful in that role. But my style of leadership evolved over time to become very different. Um, and, and I think that if that person met this person, they would have very little in common other than I’d like to believe. I’ve learned along that journey. And all of that is is a long winded way to ask the question. Is there a level of patience? Is there a level of growth that has to happen for any leader that’s listening to this right now and saying, oh, that’s all crap, that that’s all just emotional garbage. I’m not going to listen to my people. I’m going to tell them what we’re going to do. Um. How do you feel that translates as it relates to lived experience is, I guess, my question.

Misti Burmeister: So first of all, I will say that I teach the very thing I have to keep learning. I am always trying to force solutions. I mean.

Joshua Kornitsky: My way.

Misti Burmeister: At the end of the day, if I look back, how many times did I try to force a solution? It’s too many to count. So, um, it’s not for me. It’s not just a lived experience. It’s a continually lived experience. It’s looking. It’s asking myself at the end of every day what worked and what didn’t work. And I will tell you that forcing solutions, even forcing solutions, like I’m going to get on that show, I’m going to get that, you know, I’m going to become a best selling author. Okay. I had the idea of this in my head, but I didn’t make that happen. I wasn’t the one that actually made that happen. The universe did. My first book became a bestseller while I was in Bali, Indonesia, because a client purchased a lot of from boomers to bloggers in Washington, D.C. on one day, and I didn’t even know that was a thing. That would then put me on the Washington Post bestseller list. Right? So we we can’t like forcing just doesn’t. It’s such a waste of energy if we truly look at what are our results, and we’re trying to push and force people to do things the way that we think they need to be done, then we’re probably going to go, that doesn’t work and then becomes the question, so what might I try to do You differently, even if it’s just a little bit of different and one little bit of different is.

Misti Burmeister: Find out about the folks that you’re that are working for you, like you would $1 million potential or billion dollar potential client. You’re going to know what their children’s shoe size is because you want to win that contract. So leading people is no different than winning over people is no different than winning over a contract. It’s all people. At the end of the day, how well do we know these people? Which requires from us? How well do we know ourselves? Does anybody actually care about me? What am I trying to achieve? Right. So we have to do that work on ourselves as well, because we can’t give to another person what we don’t give to ourself. And the only reason why I’ve been able to do this work is because I’m constantly looking in the mirror myself, and I have so much more work to do, so much more work to do, which is why I’m able to push and challenge people to step up into their potential. Because I do it every day with myself and it’s not easy. Going from force to voice is not. It’s it’s a daily practice.

Joshua Kornitsky: And it sounds like it requires you. You just hit it. It requires practice. It is. It is not an inherent skill. It is not a flip of a switch. It is repetition, repetition, repetition to understand and remind yourself.

Misti Burmeister: Yeah. People will say like, um, gratitude is an attitude. Have you heard that one?

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s. No, actually, I haven’t heard that one.

Speaker4: Well, no, I mean, I.

Joshua Kornitsky: I understand what the message is saying. I don’t know that I agree with it, but.

Misti Burmeister: I definitely do not. I think it’s a practice. Brene Brown first said that I heard it from her. Right? Uh, gratitude is not an not not just an attitude. It is a practice. Well, the voice is a practice also. It’s something that we practice consistently. We’re looking at what am I actually trying to achieve with this person? What is the goal if I’m sitting next to them? I’m not looking at them as a problem, but I’m looking at the problem with them. That’s the the biggest piece of, of um, I don’t know if I want to say advice or suggestion that I would offer our listeners is people that are challenging for you. Are you looking at them as the problem? Are you looking at the problem with them? It commands of us to walk into a meeting, clearly defining a problem.

Speaker4: Right?

Misti Burmeister: I can’t tell you how many times I say in meetings with my executives, what is the problem that you’re trying to solve? Or what is the problem that we are trying to solve here? The EPA got there. What is the problem we’re trying to solve, then became the fuel for everybody to help make that a success.

Joshua Kornitsky: That is, um, that is a very poignant thought. And and I think it hits it right on the head, because ultimately, if you don’t know what you’re trying to solve for you can’t solve it. If someone much wiser in 100 years ago said that you know, if you don’t know the destination, how will you know when you’ve arrived? Same difference.

Misti Burmeister: But most leaders are walking through their career and through their you know, you’re working mostly with people who are owning businesses, entrepreneurs, and most of them don’t know what their end goal is. They’re just trying to make more money. They’re just trying to get more market share. I mean, these aren’t bad things, but they’re not. They’re not something that’s activating. They’re not something that’s going to drive passion. Energy is the last part of vision, passion, energy. Where does that live?

Joshua Kornitsky: I always ask what their definition of success is, what is, what is done look like. Because if you can’t tell me what done looks like, we’re never going to know that we’ve arrived because you haven’t defined it. Now we can we can decide. Done as x millions of dollars and we can achieve done and decide whether or not there should be a new definition of done. If if you’re only talking in financial terms, the definition of success is relative to the person you’re speaking to and the subject you’re discussing. Because x millions of dollars may ease your life, but it won’t make you any happier if you’re not a happy person.

Misti Burmeister: Yeah. People. What is a people won’t. People will forget what you told them, but they won’t forget how you made them feel.

Speaker4: 100%.

Misti Burmeister: Who is that? Who is it that said that?

Speaker4: Far as I’m concerned, it’s you.

Joshua Kornitsky: But I have heard it before.

Speaker4: Uh, no.

Joshua Kornitsky: But absolutely. People remember the way you treat them. Uh, my my father, may he rest in peace, taught me that you can learn everything you need to know about someone by going and having lunch with them in a restaurant and seeing how they treat the service staff. And it has not failed me yet, because you can either. To your point, either work with them or believe they are the problem.

Misti Burmeister: Let’s use our emotions to drive our energy. That’s the point, right? Feelings. The very thing that most people are afraid of, right, are the source of engagement, empowerment, success. You can think here, I want to reach this number, but I’m going to promise you the number you’ll reach will be well beyond that if you can harness your energy. If you can harness your emotions and turn them into energy, that’s driving towards something very specific. I came into this career because I was pissed off. I could not tolerate that people were. I was not understanding them and they were not understanding me. And then I started seeing it everywhere. And I’m like, oh no, you just don’t know how to talk to each other. You don’t know what you’re trying to say to each other. And so I taught on this for years how to understand what each other is saying and it transformed teams. The same thing is true when whatever product or service you’re creating it makes a difference. What’s the difference it makes and how committed are you to that? It’s perfectly fine that you’re going to sell the business. Be clear about that, because if you’re not, then fear will take over. I got a client right now who’s talking with colleagues every day about how much money do we need to put away in the first part of 2026 to make sure that we get all of the matching money before this date, in which the company might do more layoffs, that is, could be such a horrendous waste of energy of the employees.

Misti Burmeister: What if they were using all that energy to focus on creating and making the product better and stronger? No. Instead they’re afraid I might lose my job. Let me get all the money I can out. You see what I’m saying? It’s. It’s a flip. We have to flip that switch away from force, pushing people into voice. What are we taking them to? What is our commitment from our heart? What are we trying to achieve? I had one leader and I know I’m a little bit rattling. I know we’re almost done. I had one leader who said to me and I used to not like it, but I love it now. He used to say to me, he headed up government solutions for AT&T. And I said, what’s your vision here? I didn’t like his vision. I like it a little bit better today. I helped him to create what I thought was a stronger vision. But his vision ultimately was to create the opportunity for everybody on his team to grow, to develop, to grow into their potential. So all of the revenue that they were bringing in, he was finding ways to help people grow. That was his vision. And what I just did, this little tiny thing, I listened to what they actually do, which is make it possible for government to communicate with each other.

Speaker4: And I have a task.

Misti Burmeister: Right. So just a little tiny, this is what they’re actually doing. And that helped as well. But even something as simple as we’re going to use these funds to do what?

Speaker4: Right.

Misti Burmeister: Okay. So if you’re money focused, what’s the end zone with that money? What’s the what’s the difference that money’s making that matters to you, that matters to your team? A little bit of passion in here. Can you hear it?

Speaker4: Absolutely.

Joshua Kornitsky: It’s reminding me of your story about the woman who was seeking to bring her product to market. You’ve got all the passion in the world. Which leads me to the question of how do people learn more? What’s what is the best way to, uh, learn more about voice, to learn more about you if they want to engage you directly. How to how do how do people reach to you or learn from you?

Misti Burmeister: Well, I love direct phone calls or direct emails. So my phone number is (240) 401-4397. Once again (240) 401-4397. Um my email. Mr.. Mr.. Mr.. At misti burmeister.com that’s b u r m e I s t e r. So, Mr.. Mr. Burmeister, the voice model is written about in provoking greatness. You can get that anywhere. Um, and the website for me is the same as the last of my email. Misti Burmeister. Com. I’m all over social media. I’m always putting great stuff out there and would love to have more folks involved.

Joshua Kornitsky: And we will share all of those links so that anyone who’s listening doesn’t have to scramble to write them all down. But when we publish the interview, we will publish it with all of that information so that people know how to get in touch with you. Um, Misti, any any final thoughts? I feel like we could talk forever.

Misti Burmeister: No, I just think, Joshua, you’re one of the most down to earth, kind, wonderful people that I’ve ever met. And I love knowing that you went through plenty of your own challenges with your own ego, and forcing and pushing to get to the place where you are right now, which is far more open, accessible, relatable and kind. Because I tell you what, I just want to run my feet to help you.

Joshua Kornitsky: Thank you, I appreciate it. My my next challenge is learning how to accept praise.

Misti Burmeister: Well, let’s practice right now. You ready? You just did it. Actually, you said thank you already.

Joshua Kornitsky: Thank you. My guest today is. Is someone who I think you all can tell. I enjoy the discussion. Uh, Misti Burmeister is the founder of inspiration. Uh, she’s the author of Provoking Greatness from Boomer, or from boomers to Bloggers. And there’s other books in there.

Misti Burmeister: There is? Yeah.

Joshua Kornitsky: Uh, all available, I presume, on Amazon.

Misti Burmeister: Uh, yep. And also on my website. There’s ebooks as well. Yep.

Joshua Kornitsky: Perfect. Okay. Uh, for more than 20 years, she’s worked with organizations ranging from startups, startups, startups. We’ve created a new business class from startups, from startups to small businesses, uh, to major institutions like NASA, the US Navy, and Johnson and Johnson, helping transform communication breakdowns into engagement breakthroughs. I feel like we had a couple of those today. Her voice model, which stands for vision, ownership, intention, community, and energy. You can learn more about in Provoking Greatness, but it equips leaders and teams to be better at building trust, empowerment, and really to lead with courage and authenticity. Thank you, Misty, for for sharing. Uh, a wealth of information.

Misti Burmeister: You are an absolute joy. Thank you so much.

Joshua Kornitsky: Thank you. This is your host, Joshua Kornitsky here on High Velocity Radio. We really appreciate you listening and we will see you next time.