Scaling Up Success Podcast

From Software Expert to Business Coach: Adam Gehaib's Leadership Journey

• Ryan Van Ornum • Season 1 • Episode 5

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What drives successful business evolution in a rapidly changing world? Adam Gehaib, owner of Focal Point Business Coaching of Cary, shares insights from his journey from high-tech software leadership to business coaching. With over 20 years of experience leading high-performing software teams, Adam learned that leadership, team building, and operational excellence transcend industries. His shift to coaching wasn’t just a career move—it was a mission to help entrepreneurs and executives overcome blind spots and build businesses they truly love.

Adam explores three major revolutions reshaping business today: artificial intelligence, DNA advancements, and blockchain technology. These innovations all drive optimization and efficiency, and Adam offers practical guidance on leveraging them for success. He also highlights the critical role of company culture, emphasizing that when teams understand their purpose, businesses eliminate wasted resources and lost momentum. Whether you're starting out or leading an established company, Adam’s advice is clear—gain clarity on your mission before diving into strategies. Connect with him on LinkedIn, at focalpoint.com, or through Focal Point Business Coaching of Cary on Facebook.

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Speaker 1:

Hey everyone, this is Ryan Van Arm with Scaling Up Success Again podcast here today. So today I'm here with Adam Gehaib and Adam, how are you doing?

Speaker 2:

today, bud, I'm doing fantastic, ryan. How about yourself?

Speaker 1:

It's been a good day. It's been a good day and you know any day that you can wake up and you have positive possibilities happening. You just got to keep a smile on your face and move forward right.

Speaker 2:

You know a smile goes so much further than a frown. So 100% with you.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. So well, let's just jump into it. Huh yeah, I'm in. So I know, man, you've been successful all your whole career, so tell the audience a little bit about you. Know who you are and and what you're about, and how you built, built yourself to where you're at.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, awesome. So, ryan, let's start with uh, thank you very much for having me on scaling up, happy to be here. Um, uh, for all those listeners, my name is Adam Gabe and, uh, I own focal point business coaching of Carrie. And, um, well, let's be honest, be honest, my road to coaching wasn't as straight as some others, right? I mean, there are people that you know. They come out of school, they know what they want to do, they find their career, they blaze through it, they spend 30, 40 years doing it and then they call it a day. Well, I don't think that's most people, and certainly not me.

Speaker 2:

So I spent my first let's call it I don't know 22, let's just call it 20 plus, because no one needs to know how old I am years in high tech and software. So you know running high performing, highly efficient software development teams, right, and the things that you learn in that space is learning how to adapt, learning how to overcome working in high velocity, high stress environments, all those fun things. But the core of what you do, whether you're in that industry or any of the others, is you build teams, right. You learn how to lead, you learn how to communicate, you learn how to get the best out of the people that you surround yourself with, right, and you know, I think that was what I loved about that industry is it was so fast paced and I was able to learn so much and surround myself with some of the most brilliant minds that I've ever known. But having said that, ryan, all good things come to an end and I got to a point where you can only make so much change within a singular organization and you just feel like you wanna do more and you can do more, and I feel like those are the types of people that have the responsibility to go out and do exactly that more. So let's see I don't know maybe about a year and a half ago we'll call it that decide to leave software and start a business and executive coaching practice, and the focus here is I want to unburden and help people achieve their goals.

Speaker 2:

It's far too often, Ryan, that people think they know exactly what they want to do and how to go about doing it. And well, especially for a small business or even someone who's just managing a lot, the things that are right in front of you are sometimes really hard to see, right, and it's hard to take action and budget your time and know how to build the right team and am I focusing my energy and attention on the right types of tasks that are bearing fruit or at least pushing me forward towards hitting my goals? And sometimes that's hard to do. So call me an accountability partner, call me a non-equity, silent partner, call me a great sounding board. But you know very simple Awareness, action and accountability.

Speaker 2:

I help partner with business owners, c-suite executives, decision makers, to get stuff done and to make sure that they're reaching their goals and that they're learning on how to evaluate, understand and implement the same types of solutions so that the next time they come up against something that they're struggling with call it stagnation, call it high turnover and lack of uh, cohesion in their messaging for team building, et cetera they know how to get past it. So a lot of fun. Love working with clients, love getting results. Uh, clients love that. That too.

Speaker 1:

And uh, to be honest, just a happy guy doing it man, man, that is that's, and taking that, taking that leap of faith. You, you had everything you know kind of kind of set up for you, that you've worked for 20 plus years doing something that that you enjoyed, but you wanted this, this next step, how, how did you know what was the pivotal moment that you knew that you were going to be successful in the new, in the new genre of uh you know coaching?

Speaker 2:

Well, um, that's a trick question. So I think, no matter who you are, um, a little bit of self-doubt is is a good thing. It could be a motivating factor, right? I don't think there are any sure things in life, right?

Speaker 2:

But what I can tell you is, every step of my career, whether it be from a very, very young child, when I was in sports, I was a leader, I was vocal, and if I wasn't good at something, I either didn't do it or, you know, I really worked my butt off to make sure that I had the ability, at least the raw talent and tools in order to do it. Well, making a career change, you know, especially mid-career, it's no different. There are no guarantees in life. But what I can tell you is, over my last 20 years, I've been coaching every single day, building people up, seeing the best in my people, in things that they didn't always see themselves, putting them on a path towards greatness and betterment, and then rinse, repeat, and it's really no different when you're looking at yourself and you're ready to make that change, that shift.

Speaker 2:

It's all about impact. What is your legacy, what is the impact you want to lead? And I just knew that I was going to be successful because, to be honest, I'm kind of a pit bull and I won't let myself fail, right. But, like I said, let's go back to that whole self-doubt thing. It's not necessarily a negative right. Use that as a driving force. Find your driving force. It doesn't have to be self-doubt, it doesn't have to be anything negative, but find your force, latch onto it and then let's see what you can do, cause at this point, especially when you start your own business, it's you against you, right, right. You can't ask for any better odds than you against you If you're confident, driven and self-motivated period.

Speaker 1:

So what? The thing that I I gather so much from like business centers that are really successful is that they have like a motivation piece, that like when they're, when they, when they wake up in the morning and their feet hit the ground like the devil says, oh crap, they're awake, right. So, like what, what's driving you to be that force for others?

Speaker 2:

It's really simple. My motto, my, why, my? You call it whatever you want. It's really easy, though. Everyone deserves to love what they do and who they do it for we all have a moral responsibility to every day try to make the world and our ecosystem better for ourselves, our kids and their futures. If that doesn't resonate with you, then I don't know what does. Absolutely. That gets me up, gets me motivated.

Speaker 2:

Every day is a new opportunity, and I'm not one of those rah-rah cheerleader type guys. But the reality is you said it right it's a nice, sunny, beautiful day, the world is smiling. Take it with a positive attitude and go, try to be productive. It doesn't mean you have to solve the world's problems or at least hit all of your goals today, Ryan, but make a positive progression right A little bit each day can go a real long way, and that's just what I try to do every single day. It's what I preach to my clients continuous success, continual growth. If you can do that and every day make one little small step forward, eventually you know what you get Inertia, Momentum. It gets easier, right.

Speaker 1:

That's it. It's like going to the gym every day and then, all of a sudden, you start to see your gains. You know it's the same kind of thing. Um, with that being said, like you know, with what you've done, you've seen evolution in business. You've seen the, the, the trajectory change in in each course of a business that you've been in. Uh, where, where do you see the evolution going from here? Like, where do you see business evolving?

Speaker 2:

So you know right now, especially if you think about what's going on in the tech industry and whatnot, ai is big, right, it's everywhere. It's in your refrigerators Heck, I was watching something this morning. It's in restaurants. Well, they will, you know, create orders for you and kind of create a palette based on your wants and needs and all these things. So not to say that AI is everything but embracing technology and utilizing the technology to make your lives easier doesn't matter the industry, doesn't matter the vertical. To me, that is where everything goes.

Speaker 2:

Because if you think about it, ryan, what is every single person trying to achieve in their business? Two things optimization and efficiency. We humans can only do and process so much. We only have two hands, so that means there's only two things that we could possibly be doing at once.

Speaker 2:

Learn which avenues in your business can be optimized using technology, using software, using outsourcing, delegation don't care how, but focus on the optimization play, because the days of having these massive organizations, infinite resources and to have one person who can specialize in any one given thing, I think those days are over, right?

Speaker 2:

So, as we start thinking about how we staff, how we build teams, how we kind of think about what we should be doing on a daily basis. It's about knowing your strengths, knowing what you do extremely well and how those skills tie into what your goals are. If you can go through your entire calendar and point to each item and say this has moved that needle forward, or this is a series of tasks or actions that I do on a weekly basis that is helping me achieve goals, driving value, increasing revenue, those types of things then you know you're doing the right work and you don't need to really optimize those efforts. But if not, go back in, refactor, think about what you're doing, why you're doing it. So I'm going to stress this optimization and efficiency plays are everywhere. Get on board with figuring out how to evaluate yourself, help bring in someone from the outside to help you have those conversations, but don't waste your time, your money, your effort or your energy on things that aren't necessary.

Speaker 1:

Period. Yeah, that's phenomenal and you know, for every business owner, you know, hearing this, they should definitely be taking notes on that. That's hope. So that's a free counseling, that's a free consulting session right there, my friend.

Speaker 1:

I will bill you later. It's perfectly fine. One of the things that I find fascinating right now is you know, in you know in the past we had one revolution at a time, like the industrial revolution we had, you know, the internet revolution. You know now, if you think about, there's actually three revolutions happening at the same time. You have the AI revolution, you have the DNA like how far we're making DNA issues or not issues, but changes and advances and then blockchain, like there's three different revolutions happening at the same time and it it all three of them impact almost every business on the planet and I find it really fascinating how people are dealing with these things and you know being able to, like you said, leverage, you know different opportunities that are out there for a business owner to grow. It's really fascinating to see who's really pushing into those things and who's hoping just to hang on.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and what's funny is all three of those revolutions. It goes back to what I was just talking about. Everything has to do with efficiency doing it better, doing it faster. Everything has to do with efficiency right, doing it better, doing it faster. You know, the AI and blockchain thing making it simpler to get commonly exercised tasks done. The DNA thing. It's being smarter about how we go attack illnesses, right, how we go build drugs. It's information. All three of those pieces is about having as much information at your fingertips as quickly as possible to make the best decision with your outcomes. Oh, absolutely yeah. What I find fascinating about that, ryan, is is that not what we all do as business owners, as leaders? We are trying to look into that crystal ball and to get the answers to that proverbial test for next quarter before someone else, right? All we're doing is we're trying to gather up the information at our fingertips, analyze it, evaluate how to utilize it best to serve our purposes and to be prepared. It's about preparation. Oh, 100% yeah, fascinating yeah.

Speaker 1:

You can either prepare to succeed or prepare to or prepare to fail, but one of what you're doing, it either way you know. Um, with that being said, with the advances that are happening, you still need you know, unless you're doing stuff yourself, and even then you still have a culture. You know of who you are and how you deliver business, whether it's you or your team. How, how do you recommend for business owners to create that culture?

Speaker 2:

Okay. So culture is something that no one can get away from, and the more you starve your culture, the harder it is for you to find your identity. And if you don't know your identity, this comes back to awareness. I was talking about my three A's prior. You know awareness, action, accountability. If you don't know who you are, who you serve, if you don't know your why, if you don't know who your clients are, where do they live, where do they hang out, what do they like, you're missing the boat on being able to connect with them.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so how do you go about building a culture? Well, it starts with looking inside yourself. What do you stand for? What do you want the business to stand for? What are those avenues or attributes of success that are important to you, right? Second, great, you've got those identified. How do you put that into your messaging? And I don't mean your monthly newsletter or your monthly all-hands email out, while that's important to kind of keep that drumbeat going, use who you are and your self-awareness to drive the actions for your entire year right, for your entire year right. Put that into your, your goal statements. Why are you doing these things? Right, there's a method, there's a purpose when everyone is bought in right. What happens, what typically happens within teams when people are bought in?

Speaker 1:

thoughts, they, they usually all, all head in the same direction. You're not, you're not getting splinters, you know, going off in different tangents and directions.

Speaker 2:

Let's put this into a driving metaphor. If everyone's driving in the same direction or at least, sorry, moving in the same direction and that road is straight, there's no friction, there's no deviation, it's smooth, it's more efficient. It's when you get those speed bumps or you're driving on a windy, you know canyon road, you got to slow down. And all those slowdowns, all those hiccups, all those miscommunications around your message that should be driven by your culture, causes you to refactor, causes you to stop and start, and each time you have to restart that progress towards whatever it is that you're talking about.

Speaker 2:

It's time, it's time and money oh absolutely yeah, and thrashing is the largest inefficiency play you can have within your organization. Have a direction, have it be well thought out, be purposeful and make sure that everyone understands and knows how they play into the execution and delivery of that vision and boom done.

Speaker 1:

How do you, how do you get people there's, the people that are like the type A personality that ready fire aim versus you. Like that. I love that, I do.

Speaker 2:

I do. I mean that's right up there with like fail fast, I mean exactly Ready fire aim versus paralysis by analysis leaders.

Speaker 1:

How do you? How do you find a middle ground for most business owners as you're coaching them?

Speaker 2:

So I think it depends on the industry and it depends on the expectations. And it starts with you have your end goal in mind right when you have your goal, how do you build your plan? You start reverse engineering and walking it back. You don't always have to have the accuracy if your goal is first to market, first out quick feedback. So it's about knowing your outcomes. Is that something I typically promote? Well, not necessarily, but it depends on what you're trying to achieve.

Speaker 2:

So, know what you're trying to achieve. I think that is the first and foremost aspect of any type of project initiation, because I do think with slowing down, you will eventually speed up. The more that you can have foresight into all the potential gotchas you know, the more information you have about the variables at play that could disrupt or change your trajectory, the better. But, once again, know your purpose, know what your success looks like when you've completed it and make sure that you're not sacrificing. You know accuracy for speed and that if you are looking to have a longer term plans, you know and have those materialize as close to what you had envisioned, then take that time right. So it really just depends on the outcomes that you're expecting, the timeline, the timeframes, the resources.

Speaker 2:

That's what I love about one-on-one coaching. I don't use any off the shelf curriculum. It's not, you know, free made for each and every client. You have to listen right, and the best way to listen is your ears and with your eyes. Yeah, right, I mean look at what people are saying, look if they're engaged, look at how, if your message is resonating, you know. That is how you truly understand what someone's trying to do, why they're trying to do it, and then we just help them identify the best path forward that hits all of their criteria.

Speaker 1:

Man, man can't answer that better man. That's phenomenal stuff right there. So thank you, sir. If you could give one piece of advice to someone starting their entrepreneurial journey today, what would it be?

Speaker 2:

Get clarity, know yourself, know your vision, know your clients, know yourself, know your vision, know your clients. Everyone wants to jump into the business plan and move past what I call step one, which is the awareness step. I was actually just chatting with someone this morning and they've been in business 10-12 years and they did an exercise at the beginning of this year to go back in and refocus on the awareness piece and get clarity on who they were actually targeting and it changed their initial thoughts about what they wanted to execute on early in this year. So I would say take that time, understand yourself, get the awareness of who you are, who you serve, what you stand for, what your messaging looks like, who your clients are, where they live, and then how you're going to resonate with those individuals.

Speaker 1:

Right, man, man, that's some, that's some stuff right there. Man, everybody listening on this podcast, just you should just sop it up with a biscuit. Total yes, just this good gravy right, thank you, man Appreciate it. Awesome. Well, you know, man, it seems like the time just flew by, but we really appreciate you have it on here. How can people get a hold of you if they're interested in your coaching?

Speaker 2:

services. So they can find me at LinkedIn, adam, adam, gabe. You can go to focal point business coachingcoachingcom and you can do a coach lookup right there. Or you can find me on my Facebook business page, which is focal point business coaching of Carrie. But listen, I really appreciate you having me on scaling up. This was a fantastic time and a great chat. Ryan, always appreciate it Absolutely, man.

Speaker 1:

You know, I always appreciate our conversations and and I'm I'm so, so glad to know you as a person and and just continue to develop this relationship, and you know I couldn't be more appreciative of your time today. Thank you, randy.

Speaker 2:

Likewise, sir, likewise. Awesome, well, enjoy and have. Likewise, sir, likewise.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. Well, enjoy and have a wonderful day. Take care guys.

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