The Leadership Stack Podcast

Hosted by Sean Si

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575

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Dec 2024

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About the show

This is the podcast for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs to increase your leadership, teamwork, and profits. We have guests from all over the world and all kinds of industries who will tell you how they hire, manage culture, inspire and lead their people. The Leadership Stack podcast is hosted by Sean Si - serial entrepreneur and author of the books 'CEO at 22' and '50x your Business'. He is the CEO and Founder of SEO Hacker (https://seo-hacker.com) a digital marketing agency in the Philippines that is best-known for their work in the SEO industry. He has worked with and spoken to numerous companies throughout his career. He has also been invited to speak in international events and conferences. Tune in to Leadership Stack Podcast every Tuesday and Thursday at 6PM PHT on YouTube and Spotify and to our "Ask Me Anything" or AMA segment every Wednesday and Friday at 6PM PHT on YouTube and Spotify as well. We also do free business consulting every Thursday at 8PM PHT live on YouTube, so join our community and ask questions here: http://from.sean.si/

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February 8, 2024Episode 49414 min

Ep. 494: CEO AT 22 Discovered Digital Marketing

Join us on this episode with Mr. Clarry Herrera, CEO of Agenix Digital, as he and Mr. CEO at 22, Sean Si, engage in a compelling conversation about starting and upscaling SEO as a competitive business, proper delegation and leadership processes as a CEO, and what to look forward to in the age of AI . Listen as Sean shares his journey on growing SEO Hacker from the ground up. Get tips on how to delegate and manage your company effectively as CEO. Learn valuable insights on how to navigate through the Age of AI within the next 5 years. If you're a startup owner or aspiring to venture into the services industry, this episode is for you! ___ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack Website: https://leadershipstack.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack Leadership Stack Merch: https://leadershipstack.com/shop/ - - - Clarry Herrera Website: https://agenix.digital/

January 25, 2024Episode 49313 min

Ep. 493: Are you tired of HIRING BAD EMPLOYEES?

Join us in this episode with Mr. Clarry Herrera, CEO of Agenix Digital, as he and Mr. CEO at 22, Sean Si, engage in a compelling conversation about effective hiring platforms, team structure, and leadership strategies. Listen as Clarry shares his journey in building a thriving services business. Learn about the ALT framework, the secrets to hiring the right people, onboarding effectively, and retaining clients in the competitive field of SEO. If you're a startup owner or aspiring to venture into the services industry, this episode is a must-watch! - - - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack Website: https://leadershipstack.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack Leadership Stack Merch: https://leadershipstack.com/shop/ - - - Clarry Herrera Website: https://agenix.digital/

January 11, 2024Episode 49212 min

Ep.492: From Virtual Assistant(VA) to CEO at 23

Join us in this episode with Mr. Clarry Herrera, CEO of Agenix Digital, as him and Mr. CEO at 22, Sean Si chat about life after college, finding your passion in SEO, and their journey to success. Check out as Mr. Clarry shares insights into his outlook post-graduation, discovering SEO, and the moments that shaped his career, including his first sale and big break. If you're curious about finding your niche, or making it big in the SEO industry, this one's for you! - - - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack Website: https://leadershipstack.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack Leadership Stack Merch: https://leadershipstack.com/shop/ - - - Minter Dial Website: https://www.minterdial.com/ Book: https://minterdial.com/books/heartificial-empathy

September 28, 2023Episode 49110 min

Ep.491: Rethinking Mental Health: Wisdom Beyond Medication

This is our last episode with Mr. Minter Dial. Distinguished speaker and the author of the new book, "Heartificial Empathy”. Today, we're diving into the deep topic of mental health, spirituality, and self-awareness. Stay tuned as Mr. Minter discusses his thoughts about the center of being, the different perspectives on mental health, the pharmaceutical industry's role, and the importance of resilience. - - - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack Website: https://leadershipstack.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack Leadership Stack Merch: https://leadershipstack.com/shop/ - - - Minter Dial Website: https://www.minterdial.com/ Book: https://minterdial.com/books/heartificial-empathy

September 21, 2023Episode 49018 min

Ep.490: Encouraging Professional and Personal Empathy in the Advent of AI

Sean: What can we do to encourage empathy in our people? What can we do to teach them about empathy and how they can practice it in their lives and in their work and in their community? Because that's how we're going to change the world. Minter: One is that it needs to be realistic. So you're not trying to save the world because you can't save the world. That is a one way ticket to being depressed because you're disappointed in your inability to save the world. The second thing is associate yourself with something that's good and you. So what I mean by that is it's very easy to get wound up by any of these big causes. Hashtag Ukraine, hashtag BLM, hashtag save the world, hashtag empathy. The issue is or the question is how is this truly relevant to you? At a deep level, the number of people that have hashtag Ukraine on their webpage or Twitter profile or whatever and have never been to Ukraine, don't speak the language. Their name isn't Shevchenko. They have a normal name, never been there, don't speak Ukrainian or Russian. And they still put on this hashtag. So I'm not going to poopoo. Of course, it's a tremendously important situation, but think deeply about who you are and why you're going to connect to this cause. So this is sort of an injunction to the younger folks like your 22 to 30 year olds. You get attached to a cause. Yay! Sure. Yet do the work and figure out how it's deeply important to you. Not at some sort of do good. Put it on Instagram and show the world. But within you, why does it resonate with you deeply and how is that going to construct your identity in a positive way for you and the world? And I think a lot of people are not doing enough work on figuring out who they truly are and making that connection so that everything sounds great. We got to do all these things. We're going to pressure our bosses to do all these things, and they don't even have empathy for the bosses either, because reality is, bosses need to make decisions. Sometimes they're tough and help their bosses. Why not in formulating crafting a more meaningful cause that will do well for them? We'll do well for the business and everybody grows together. Sean: It's so easy to say, but a lot of younger people still are, right? You know, you're nodding your head. You're raising your eyebrows. Where do you start with that? Minter? Not everyone is blessed to just have that kind of internal map within themselves. Minter: 100%. And so true. And the reality is I didn't know myself when I was younger. Took a while. So you need to experience things. I guess the point here is we'll keep experimenting and checking things out and maybe you're going to a job hop. That's okay. But if you can, little by little, start to craft what's truly important for you. I call it finding your North by experimenting with different things. What are the things that resonate on a deeper level that are realistic and are true to your core? And the more you, sort of, filter down and carve out what that means, the better you're going to feel. So go out, explore the world. But think about it along the way without necessarily knowing who you are, but along the way of experimenting, well, that was really something that was really cool, really deep. And hopefully that'll help you even to find out more about yourself. - - - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack Website: https://leadershipstack.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack Leadership Stack Merch: https://leadershipstack.com/shop/ - - - Minter Dial Website: https://www.minterdial.com/ Book: https://minterdial.com/books/heartificial-empathy

September 14, 2023Episode 48914 min

Ep.489: AI Empathy and Human Emotions: Shaping a New Era of Mental Wellness with Minter Dial

Sean: For aging people who feel lonely or even younger people who feel the longing of loneliness and having someone to talk to, do you think that it would be a good, long term solution for them to communicate with an AI, even if that AI may or may not make them feel good about themselves? Minter: The word that's important, I think, in what you said is, is it a good solution? And I think it is a good solution, but not the best solution. The best solution is probably having your grandchildren and your children in your company hanging out. And it's human to human. However, people today are extremely self engrossed. They are doing what they have to do. They have less time to listen to other people. And especially today, the sort of intolerance for grandfather who's going to tell the same story 50 times. But the issue and one of the three main reasons why I got to write this book is that we've also seen a hellaciously large amount of mental health disorders, especially amongst the young. And I put this down to a number of things, but one of them being a lack of meaningfulness, a sense, a crisis of meaning, but also because of greater awareness, also because of a broader definition of what this is and the type of solutions, pharmaceutical or other, that are out there. And I think there are other issues as well in terms of how we are no longer as resilient as, for example, your grandfather or my grandfather who was killed in the Philippines. I mean, you know, so there's a whole lot of things that have gone on. And on top of that, when people have mental health disorders declared, they can't find therapists because they're just not enough therapists, trained therapists out there to do the work. And is it a good solution? Well, sometimes they may get bad advice for sure. But by the way, that happens in real life as well. You go chat with a friend about your situation and they give you advice. Is it always the best advice? You know, I'm going to put a little wager on and know. Is the AI going to be perfect? No. By the way, is AI capable today of therapeutic AI? No. Because it hasn't been sufficiently trained, but it's moving towards that. .And of course it's better to have a friend who knows you, your context and those deep friends. So is AI going to replace all that? No. And then the other thing to recognize is that outside of the fact that we as human beings, not only do we not always have the time, we sometimes don't have enough data to learn how to be appropriately empathic. But with a machine, it's going to learn over time and it's going to be able to respond if you program it with good ethics and some good ideas around the types of therapies that you can produce, it will listen to you ad nauseam. It can be programmed not to be distracted. It can be programmed to provide you with some good ideas. It doesn't have to be like a prescription of medication. Obviously not, but it can do some things and it can certainly be better than a lot of people, depending on the situation, depending on the relationship. And if it's well programmed, I am very optimistic that it will provide a good solution to help with your lack of therapists, with the inversion of the population growth, with being available at 2 a.m. in the morning when the young teenager is feeling terribly distressed. - - - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack Website: https://leadershipstack.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack Leadership Stack Merch: https://leadershipstack.com/shop/ - - - Minter Dial Website: https://www.minterdial.com/ Book: https://minterdial.com/books/heartificial-empathy

September 7, 2023Episode 48812 min

Ep.488: Unlocking Real Estate Success: A Deep Dive into Property Development and Team Dynamics with Vez Meas

Sean: What are some of the things that you do in order for you to still be able to make sure that you have a good occupancy for renters in your units available? Vez: We focus on the service. You know, when we opened 2014, there weren't many condominiums out there, but you go look at it now, it's surrounded by them. So, it's kind of like gas station days. I said my family owned gas stations. And here in the States, you go to an intersection, you get four gas stations in one intersection. So you're going to think gas is gas, right? In the convenience store, a can of Coke is a can of Coke, a bag of chips, a bag of chips. And, you know, pricing wise, of course, it's going to be the same. So the product itself is there. But what's going to make you different is the service that you offer. So, you know, let's say why we were successful in our gas station day was that sometimes small things, the customer is short of a couple of dollars. Hey, don't worry about it. You know, come back tomorrow. They got no cash. Hey, don't worry about it. Come back tomorrow. Hey, you're a regular. Here's a free donut. You know, these small things, this actually means a lot to people. And sometimes that small donut brings them a lot of happiness. So those things that you can get over the feeling like, Oh, what if they don't come back and pay me? Or what if everyone started asking for free donuts and whatnot? But sometimes it's just something you have to do. So with our property, it's the same. We offer housekeeping, we offer laundry, we have a full kitchen, we have 24 hour security. So anything to make people feel at home, feel at ease, because a lot of our tenants are people coming from overseas. So, you know, I'm a Cambodian American, I have that Western culture as part of me. So anticipating what their needs are, anticipating what can make their stay comfortable, we try to provide all that. So it's the service that will ensure that people will come back to our place and at least help us get the occupancy to a decent level. Sean: That's very good stuff. So how do you tell them, though? How do you get the word out that, Hey, we do the extra, we go the extra mile? I mean, for someone who's just thinking about renting for the first time or thinking about renting again after x number of years, maybe after three years during the pandemic, how do you get the word out to them that, Hey, we go the extra mile for you, why don't you rent with us? Vez: Referrals. It's definitely through word of mouth. Of course you can advertise online, you can put on your website, do SEO and everything. That's of course you got to do that, but at the same time, it's referral. So you treat everyone special, you treat everyone the same, and then they will tell their friends. You know, for us, let's say we have a lot of people that do business in Cambodia. They rent there for a long term. They would have guests come. They're business associates, whatnot. They would recommend staying at our place just because like, hey, I had a good experience. You should come stay here. Plus, it's convenient for me. Easier for me to take you out and whatnot. So you understand the tenants, what their needs are, meaning are they doing business. Are they going to be meeting people? Are they going to need transportation? You help make all that easy for them. So they would just keep telling their friends. - - - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack Website: https://leadershipstack.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack Leadership Stack Merch: https://leadershipstack.com/shop/ - - - Vez Meas Website: https://www.nakitokens.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vezmeas/?hl=bn Email: vezmeas@nakigroup.com LinkedIn: https://kh.linkedin.com/in/vezmeas

August 31, 2023Episode 48713 min

Ep.487: Tokenizing Real Estate: Navigating Investments and Innovations with Vez Meas

Sean: I just want to ask, is there anything you'd like to promote here? Vez: Well, you were talking about real estate and we're talking about entering real estate. So one of the things I've been working on right now is actually the tokenization of real estate. By tokenizing, basically taking one of our buildings, not the whole thing, just 34 units right now. And this building is in Cambodia. A 111 unit condominium building right in the center of the capital city. So by putting this on the blockchain, now I'm enabling people that want to get into real estate, the accessibility, meaning they don't have to come up with millions of dollars to come into it. So, you know, like my minimum offering right now is $10,000. So for that $10,000, you get to own a piece of this property and it's all done through the blockchain. Sean: Wow. And when you say they own a piece of it, what's the difference between doing it via blockchain and not doing it via blockchain? Just so that some of our listeners who are not familiar with the Metaverse would be able to understand. Vez: So if you think of your traditional real estate, you know, I say I have 34 units and you want to own a part of it, I can't sell you just a piece of those units. You have to buy the units individually. And by putting a blockchain, I take those units collectively and cut them into shares. So you own a piece of it. It's kind of like the stock market where people buy stocks and Tesla, Microsoft, Google or whatnot, you're owning shares of it. So this is the same idea, whereas putting on a blockchain meaning, which is digitizing it but is backed by a real asset, a real world asset. So your valuation is there, all the revenues are there. It can be touch, seen, or feel. So is your traditional real estate, except it's embracing technology where people can get in a lot easier than your normal. Sean: The blockchain is a whole different ball game and people are just not yet that educated into it. And it's not that widely embraced because there is a learning curve. There is that learning curve. But the accessibility, the technology itself is very, very good. I'm very happy to hear that it's being used this way. That's a very good project. For example, for you, the owner of the property, why do you want to do this instead of just, for example, because you've been operating it since 2014 instead of just getting the rent revenue for yourself, why do you want to open it to investors so that they're going to be sharing with the rent revenue? Vez: Well, two things. One is the building is running, so there's a track record. If people are investing, they want to know, "Hey, how much yield will I get? You know, what is the occupancy rate?" And instead of you trying to pitch a new project saying it might be 80% occupied, we might be able to rent it for X amount of dollars, we might be able to sell it. So instead of guessing and estimating what it can be, now we have something like, "Hey, I have historical records from 2014 till now of what the operation has been, who my clientele are, and the occupancy level." So I think that would bring some comfort to any investor. And two, I just want to see this technology being used. So it's easier to do 34 units, $10 million raise versus 44 stories and $50 million raise. You know, once you prove that it works and I think that's when people will get on board. So that's why we decided to just do 34 units and see how it goes. - - - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack Website: https://leadershipstack.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack Leadership Stack Merch: https://leadershipstack.com/shop/ - - - Vez Meas Website: https://www.nakitokens.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vezmeas/?hl=bn Email: vezmeas@nakigroup.com LinkedIn: https://kh.linkedin.com/in/vezmeas

August 24, 2023Episode 48610 min

Ep.486: Insights from Vez Meas on Mastering a Growth Mindset

Sean: What are the things that you have learned along the way as an entrepreneur now that really helps you out? You know, from day to day, we entrepreneurs, the problem is we got a slate. And that slate is full of things that we must do for the day. And there are things that also we have no idea what to do with, and we got to be creative and we got to think ahead and we got to be intentional about the growth of our business. What things can you share with us that you learned along the way on your journey to lead yourself to become more disciplined? What are some principles that you have right now that you carry with you? Vez: One of the main things is you expect to fall. If you haven't fallen yet, you have to expect it because to me that's where all the lessons were. All this hardship, you know, all those times when you're just dealing with difficulties and stress, how you navigate through it is going to help you with future projects. You know, for example, when I started with real estate, it's just flipping single family residences. Now we're doing condominium developments but I would not be able to jump right into it without going starting small, learning the ins and outs and all the pains that come with it. So expect to fall. But when you fall, you just learn from it and know that it's not the end of the world. Things can be fixed and just keep that positive attitude and mentality to carry through. And another thing is to always keep learning. You know, I've been doing this for years but I cannot say I'm the expert or I know everything like you're learning every day. There's new technology, new strategies, just new ways of doing things. So it's also important just to be open minded, be aware and just keep learning every day. - - - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack Website: https://leadershipstack.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack Leadership Stack Merch: https://leadershipstack.com/shop/ - - - Vez Meas Website: https://www.nakitokens.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vezmeas/?hl=bn Email: vezmeas@nakigroup.com LinkedIn: https://kh.linkedin.com/in/vezmeas

August 17, 2023Episode 48511 min

Ep 485: Cultivating Curiosity for Professional Growth with Tony Harris

Sean: Now, I want to put a little twist in our conversation and ask you, were there some people who in your past you have mentored and you talked with and given advice to and then ultimately ended up earning the business or hurting the business? What do you think would be the number one factor for businesses that fail? Tony: You could say luck. Some businesses have failed because it was just bad luck. But they weren't listening. They weren't listening to what experts were telling them, be they trend forecasters, finance directors, or clients. One of the things we used to talk about actually was having healthy paranoia. Now, I don't know if there's such a thing as healthy paranoia, but it meant that you did worry about things if it's too quiet. Why is that? And I think you have to take the pandemic out of it and all of that because nobody had a training manual for that. But I think more often than not, you haven't read the rooms, you haven't smelled what's happening in the air. You've ignored the advice. You've not trusted how things are going or you just haven't changed quick enough communications. You know, look, we have social media. It's changed the way we operate in every single way. Things like the pandemic came along and changed the way we operated entirely. There are so many scooters on the road now delivering food. It's affecting the landscape. It's all these things that can make you make really poor decisions. There was the space race and the Americans spent something like $10 million developing a pen that could work in zero gravity. And the Russians gave their astronauts a pencil. You kind of go, there's a little bit of that. How do you react to the way the market is going? You know, you can't just sit there and go, it won't affect me. We won't do Internet banking. People will never do it. Well, they will. We don't want mobile phones. Yeah, we do. People are going to want big screens on this. No, they're not. Listen to the early adopters. See what's going on in the market. You cannot keep pretending it won't change because it will. You have to embrace change all the time. That would be my number one thing with anybody who doesn't want their business to fail: to embrace change. But before you even think about doing it, always check. Does the world need another one? That's the difficulty of people who, you know, have their hearts set on things like restaurants or bars. This is a lovely business, but you can fall out of fashion very, very quickly. Sometimes there's just nothing you can do about it. Apart from going, does the world need another restaurant? But they might need my restaurant. And that's what's lovely about entrepreneurs. The problem for entrepreneurs is that they start with a dream and a vision and they end up fixing it. And that's what they have to stop trying to do. They've got to get out of doing it and go back to their dream and their vision. I think that when businesses can fall apart, the vision is no longer achievable either because you lost sight of it or just the market pivoted and you were not in that pivot. - - - Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack Website: https://leadershipstack.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack Leadership Stack Merch: https://leadershipstack.com/shop/ - - - Tony Harris Website: https://strayrhino.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-harris-8ab54a91 Book: https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-101-Tony-Harris-ebook/dp/B09WXR9Q2N