Teresa de Grosbois is the ultimate influencer. The bestselling author of Mass Influence, international speaker and chair of the Evolutionary Business Council, Teresa puts on the ‘Advice WINGS’ to encourage women entrepreneurs to play big, know the “rules of influence” and live their dreams.
Bestselling author of Mass Influence and Entrepreneur Theresa des Grosbois shares how to become a viral influencer and thought leader. We dig deep into why some things go viral, and talk giving forward, “evolutionary business” for social good, and personal growth.
Melinda Wittstock: Welcome to Wings, Theresa.
Teresa de Grosbois: It’s great to be here, thank you so much for having me.
Melinda Wittstock: Well, from Costa Rica right now, I know that we might be hearing birds, which is inspiring, but beyond that particular inspiration of birdsong, what is inspiring you right now?
Teresa de Grosbois: You know, I think the thing that’s lighting me up the most is one of the things that I was taught in business is build your business first, and then figure out where your physical location is. Just this last year, we realized we could actually build a really inspiring community of transformational learning down here in Costa Rica, so we’re actually building an intentional community down here that reflects the work and the values of the different evolutionary business council members that we serve.
Melinda Wittstock: That’s awesome, so how does that actually manifest in practice?
[tweet_box design=”box_12_at” float=”none” author=”Teresa de Grosbois” pic_url=”http://wingspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/photo-Teresa_de_Grosbois.png”]Find something that totally lights you up and that the world really needs, be the solution to a huge problem, and when you do, business gets a whole lot easier. #WingsPodcast #WomeninBusiness @teresadee[/tweet_box]
Teresa de Grosbois: What it’s going to be is a learning environment, so we’re not only, you know people are building houses down here, we’ve got a fractional model so people can buy weeks, but what’s really exciting is we’ve got a fractional model for the retreat center too, and of course our prices are ridiculously cheap because we’re not part of the traditional timeshare industry. This is more about picking our neighbors, you know creating a mastermind-like community where people are really up to creating positive change in the world can all gather and learn from each other and collaborate with each other and mastermind with each other, and host events.
Melinda Wittstock: Okay, well that is truly inspiring in my book. As a female entrepreneur, we often share our frustrations in these little minisodes, what’s your biggest frustration as a female entrepreneur?
Teresa de Grosbois: I wish I could clone myself.
Melinda Wittstock: I know.
Teresa de Grosbois: I think as entrepreneurs, you know we love doing it all ourselves, and I’m very blessed to have an amazing director of operations, Pam Bane, who helps run the evolutionary business council and really helps run the training branch of my business, and she manages the team. Every few months, we’re adding another person to the team, because it’s very easy to get way too busy and to get sucked down into the weeds, you know especially when some of those things are fun, but they’re not necessarily where we’re impactful.
Melinda Wittstock: I completely understand. It’s interesting actually that as women, we tend to want to clone ourselves, and think about all the things that we should be doing, rather than using our leverage and just bringing in people and hiring people, bringing in team members quick enough, so thank you for sharing that. I always like to turn to our advice section here, we ask folks for three pieces of advice, and so if there were … Sorry, I’m just going to pick up there again. Well now it’s the really exciting part, practical advice for all our Shero listeners, what are your top three tips that are practical, that women who are listening right now can walk away with and implement right away?
Teresa de Grosbois: Well, I would have to say the first is play big. A lot of us have this paradigm that, “Oh, let’s just practice on something small, and then I’ll do something that really matters or that people really care about later.” Playing big is so much easier than playing small. Find something that totally lights you up and that the world really needs, be the solution to a huge problem, and when you do, business gets a whole lot easier.
Melinda Wittstock: So true, number two.
Teresa de Grosbois: Number two I’d have to say is: learn the rules of influence. We all learn the set of rules in the sandbox back in kindergarten about sharing and developing relationships and reciprocity, and then we move into business and that skillset expanded into, “Hey, it’s a good idea to buy a colleague a coffee, if you want to develop a relationship with a coffee.” Then you only have to phone up the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and offer to buy them a coffee, and faster than you can say “gatekeeper”, you’re going to learn that the rules operate differently when you’re dealing with the highly influential. It can almost feel like you’ve suddenly moved to a foreign country, when in fact it is predictable, it is understandable, it’s just a major paradigm shift to really understand how mass influence or high influence works.
One of the reasons I wrote my book was because I wanted good people, everyday heroes who are out there in the trenches building businesses and making the world work, I wanted them to understand that influence isn’t nearly as hard as some of us think it is, it really is just a matter of learning the habits that highly influential people tend to operate by.
Melinda Wittstock: What’s number three?
Teresa de Grosbois: I’d have to say number three is take action on your dreams, you know because you will never be more authentic, you’ll never be more passionate, you will never be more influential than you are when you’re working on something that you’re really lit up about, something that you really love. In fact, the closer you get to your dreams, the more other people are going to pay attention, because you’re going to be so much more inspiring when you’re doing something that you’re really excited about.
[tweet_box design=”default” float=”none”]Take action on your dreams! You will never be more authentic, you’ll never be more passionate, you will never be more influential than you are when you’re working on something that you’re really lit up about, something that you really love. #WingsPodcast @teresadee[/tweet_box]
Melinda Wittstock: Very, very true, when you’re in alignment with your highest purpose and your true values, miracles start to happen. Actually there’s a real providence about that, I completely agree with you. Do you have a special offer today for our listeners, and how can folks find you?
Teresa de Grosbois: Well, I would love for folks to have a look at my book; we actually give the digital version of my book away for free. If you go to massinfluencethebook.com, we send you to all the sites, Kobo, Amazon, iTunes, whichever your preference is, and the digital version of Mass Influence is actually my gift to the world, because I never want the price of a hard copy book to be a barrier for someone learning how they can really create change in the world. We also have a 30-day influence challenge listed on that site, which is basically just 30 days of rolling up your sleeves and learning by doing. We give you a quick little one-minute tip every day, something you can focus on that day that helps you shift your paradigm to understand how mass influence and high influence works.
Melinda Wittstock: How wonderful, that’s so generous, I think I’ll take the challenge.
Teresa de Grosbois: Thank you, I’d love to see you in it.
Melinda Wittstock: Sounds wonderful. Theresa, thank you so much for putting on your wings with us today.
Teresa de Grosbois: It was just a joy, thank you so much for having me.
