By: Maria Williams

Throughout his 10+ year career, Rusty Gunther has soared to great heights, overseeing teams in the sales and insurance industries and driving the growth of over USD $50m in assets across different organizations. 

Despite his accomplishments, Gunther acknowledges that success doesn’t come overnight. With a passion for helping individuals and organizations succeed in their business endeavors, Gunther works with his clients to lay down the building blocks of slow, purposeful commitment so that they can reach new professional heights.

Read on for his tips on getting out of your own way and building habits designed to help you reach your goals, whether in your personal life or at the workplace.

Break Down the Big Picture

Many can dream loftily when setting out to achieve personal and professional success. However, none of these dreams can be achieved without the small steps one commits to daily.

Gunther’s coaching philosophy likens this process to creating a compass: to chart the right course, he and the client will sit down to discuss their needs and goals, mainly as the client envisions hitting those goals in the near future. By asking forward-thinking questions at the beginning of the process, Gunther says these steps provide a “compass for how we’re going to steer the ship over the next year.”

This allows individuals or organizations to use the compass as a guiding light for targeting and tailoring their behaviors and patterns in small, meaningful ways. Gunther works closely with clients on implementing new aims, whether personally or across company systems, and on course-correcting the ship as aims are achieved and begin to shift.

This process manifested in one of Gunther’s clients, who, through his guidance, reached a highly lauded long-term achievement within his company. However, Gunther emphasizes that this change didn’t happen overnight, nor did they even set out to achieve that goal necessarily, instead establishing “​​really small habits early on in our coaching relationship that led to some amazing results.”

For Gunther, laying down this groundwork is key to transformation: “To really invoke lasting change, you’ve got to work with people on their habits and what they’re doing on a day-to-day basis to achieve their vision or their goals.”

Honor Your Time

Time management is a seemingly small and often overlooked task that can significantly improve our personal and professional lives.

Gunther notes, “I see a lot of people struggle with creating a to-do list and having all of the intentions in the world of getting those things done, but never assigning time to those tasks.” By regimenting our week beforehand, we are able to make space for and prioritize our goals, whether beginning a project, generating new business growth, or facilitating employee development.

In meticulously structuring a week, Gunther says no detail is too small or left up to chance, and “when you break it down to the smallest possible act that you can do, that will help propel your business.” With time management, even noting how much time each task will take in your schedule can jumpstart the path of living intentionally.

For businesses, building upon this habit can be expanded to leading “an intentional month and quarter.” Gunther’s guidance allows clients to examine and implement what fits their vision while providing motivation and tracking tangible and measurable progress.

Focus on What Aligns With Your Vision

In the fast-paced and competitive business world, it can be a struggle to dispel relentless thoughts of time and opportunity maximization, even at the expense of our mental and emotional limits. Gunther instead asserts the importance of stepping back, recalibrating, and reprioritizing.

While being enthusiastic team members and leaders is vital, the risk of taking on too much overburdens us, hinders our bandwidth from contributing meaningfully, and feeds unhealthy habits that threaten our ability to build upon our long-term goals. Particularly in sales, wherein our focus is on helping others, we sometimes need to practice being “stingy with our yeses and generous with our nos” in order to recharge ourselves first. 

As a self-professed people person invested in aiding those around him, Gunther admits that he has difficulty instilling this philosophy into his own life. Therefore, he employs a tactical approach with himself and clients, asking objective shorter-term questions like “Is there any time in my calendar?” to questions with an eye to the future like “Does this align with my vision?” to narrow down their action items.

Photo Courtesy: Rusty Gunther

Practice Walking the Walk

For business leaders, leading by example and with care and positivity is crucial to fostering a healthy and productive team culture. This is key to Gunther’s unique and refreshing approach to leadership, where the “most important thing that we can do is that we act out of love for the person across from us in any situation.”

“If someone’s worried about the culture of their organization, they need to look internally first,” Gunther notes. “They need to figure out ‘what am I doing? What am I doing that contributes to any negative culture that you want to see eradicated from your organization? Or what am I doing to empower them to make better decisions?’”

Along with looking within and setting habits to lead with integrity and love, Gunther also emphasizes the importance of adopting a positive, intentional mindset and learning to block out the noise: “Watch what you listen to and watch what you talk about because those things are your reality, and we need more light, love, and positivity in this world now more than ever.”

When you lead by example, “you have the opportunity to do … and to be that for other people every single day when you live intentionally.” This helps cultivate a sales culture of trust, enthusiasm, and excellence.

Embrace Change (And the Challenges That May Come Along With It)

Though it might seem daunting to disturb the status quo, taking the first step to tearing down limiting personal habits or overhauling stagnant organizational systems is vital for creating new growth. 

To illustrate an example of diving into discomfort rather than shying away, Gunther uses the typical scenario of an organizational environment with an unhealthy relationship to eating and drinking habits. He links his own experience of taking a break from alcohol and how a choice he made for himself inspired a ripple effect of open, honest dialogue at work events. Setting this example pushed people to “talk about their health in completely different ways,” thus “sparking different conversations by leading with example.” 

On a personal level, embracing change can take on different forms: for Gunther’s clients, it can include getting creative with setting goal reminders or reaching out to your surrounding community for support. Gunther also references personal commitments such as participating in 75 Hard and redefining his relationship to symptoms from an unhealthy work environment, like alcohol. 

For Gunther, an open mindset and willingness to put in the work despite the fear of failure lies at the heart of excellent, people-focused leadership, informed by a substantial investment in your personal life. “I believe we should always try to do hard things. That makes us a good example, not only in our organizations or sales teams but also in our personal lives.”

Rusty Gunther is a trailblazing sales and leadership coach dedicated to guiding people and organizations toward their fullest potential. Please visit Rusty’s website to book a consulting session for your organization, a speaking engagement, or to take the first step towards unlocking your personal goals.

Published by: Martin De Juan