Empowering Entrepreneurs Adam Tarnow - Leadership Training and Consulting
Adam Tarnow is our guest. He is the founder of Adam Tarnow & Company, a leadership development firm located in Dallas, TX. They develop customized training to equip professionals with the soft skills they need to become excellent leaders.
What does Adam do for his clients?
Curation is a word that I'm starting to really grow comfortable with. When I first thought about what I wanted to do as a consulting firm focused on leadership development, I was thinking that I would develop my own custom content or come up with my own custom content, and I do that. But then I realized there's really nothing new under the sun, right? A lot of what I do is I'm standing on the shoulders of other great authors or thinkers and the ideas that they've shared with the world. And I'm just kind of organizing all of that. So I really do think curation is a very accurate way to describe what I do. And when I present this content to my clients, the only customized piece that I get to add to it or where I get to put my fingerprint on it, is really deciding how to organize the content.
So Adam went to school, became a CPA, then you got out of that and you became a minister. How did you fall into leadership development?
The only metaphor I can find out there that seems to really describe it well, is it my career has turned into a Seinfeld episode, where you just had all of these plot lines that seem to make no sense. And then at the very end, it's like, oh, that, okay, now that all make sense how that came together.
So being a CPA has taught me is how to think. It taught me about corporate America, it taught me about large organizations, certainly taught me how to be organized and thoughtful. What ministry taught me was people just we're all the same. We all have the same issues. We have the same thoughts, feelings, emotions. It taught me how people think and react. It taught me a lot.
When you are growing as fast as Adam's business is, there's time to say yes to all opportunities, but then there's the time when you have to make the hard choices to say no.
In 2021, the training started to pick back up and I was able to now start to say no to some of those other things that I said yes to. But I was so grateful for the learnings that happened in there. I mean, obviously, as an entrepreneur, I need to know how to market. So I was really grateful that I said yes to some of that. Podcasting is a big part of my business model as well as for my own personal brand. So I was grateful to say yes to those things because I learned a ton as I went through that. So so yeah, I mean, saying yes is very, very helpful oftentimes. But then there comes a time where you do have to focus.
Do you think when you go into these companies and you provide the training, though, is there some sense of team in that regard?
I do feel like I'm a part of their team now and they do view me as that trusted advisor. There is a high because when they do well, I feel like, okay, I got to contribute to that and that was a lot of fun.
What does Adam consider his superpower to be?
I think I just I'm a teacher. I mean, I think that really is it. I just love to teach. I love to learn. I love to systematize that information and I love to share it with others. I can remember all the way back to eighth grade in my math class and the teacher letting me get up there and teach that exercise and that lesson, like going over it with the class. And I loved it.
What advice would you give to people that have that "skill of leadership," but haven't been able to capitalize on it or have the awareness of that skill?
My teacher side of me is going to have a bias towards just go study it. And so that to me is always such a great way to do it. This is really no excuse to not be a continuous learner anymore. I mean, between master classes and YouTube and LinkedIn classes and training that your company provides and books that are out there, as well as audiobooks and podcasts. I think for some, it just starts with curiosity and just wanting to learn and finding some voices that really do that you really do resonate with.
And what is his endgame?
My owner's intent is very focused right now on what I would say is building a platform. And for the first time in my life, I think I understand why I want to build a platform.
Adam is referencing:
On a mission to curate the most helpful leadership content my clients have ever encountered.
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