Meet Amy Riley

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Amy Riley . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Amy below.

Hi Amy, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

I believe that we all have the ability to grow and develop our resilience. Here are some ways I have grown and practiced my resilience.-

– Getting really clear on what I would love to have happen. When we have a strong and super clear bigger-picture commitment, that commitment calls us to step up. It has us doing things that we might not really want to do in the moment and it takes us out of our comfort zone.

– Reminding myself that everything is figure-out-able. I might not know how to do it all in this moment, yet I know people that know things and I have resources that can help. Complex things get figured out one step at a time.

– Setting big goals for myself personally and professionally and putting myself on a learning journey. For example, I have completed a number of Ironman triathlons and ultra marathons. Signing up to train for and complete a race like that puts you on a journey of failures, breakthroughs, and learnings. You learn to not sweat the small stuff and learn that you can do more than you think that you can do.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I have been developing leaders at all levels across a variety of industries for over 25 years; and recognize that leaders who inspire, engage and get extraordinary results are those who demonstrate true courage.

Through my work with leaders and additional research, I have developed The Courage of a Leader 4 Pillars. These are at the cornerstone of the work that I do with leaders, and are explained in detail in my #1 international best selling book, The Courage of a Leader, How To Inspire, Engage and Get Extraordinary Results.

I’m passionate about supporting leaders. When leaders are doing it right, no one else knows what all they are dealing with and focusing on throughout their days. There are demands and needs coming from every direction. I want to support these leaders who care to do their job well, with courage.

In February 2022, we launched The Courage of a Leader podcast. I’m delighted to be able to say that due to extraordinary guests and amazing listeners, the podcast ranks in the top 3% of all podcasts globally. https://courageofaleader.com/podcast/

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Owning and focusing on my strengths and passion. This provides a whole host of benefits from getting clear on my brand, to providing the best possible value, to enjoying what I do each and every day.
Advice: Reflect regularly on your strengths, where you know you can innately and naturally provide value, and on your passions, what interests and energizes you. Lean into and lineup as much of your life as you can with your strengths and passions. This is the formula for creating the most extraordinary results in the most enjoyable way!

Surrounding myself with people who support and complement my efforts. My business partners, advisors, and friends are all people who support one another. I also intentionally have in my network people who think and operate differently than I do, who have skills and knowledge that complement my own.
Advice: When you meet good energy people, find ways to continue to interact with them. Let go of partnerships that don’t support you. And, seek out those who are different than you. When you have the thought, “I don’t quite get it, but I think I like it,” continue a relationship with that person. 🙂

Taking time to reflect and refuel. I don’t believe in work hard, play hard. I believe in work smart, play often. Our minds need time and space to reflect, think, and dream to come up with those strategic ideas and plans. And, our minds and bodies need time to rest and refuel. We provide the best to everyone and everything around us when our energy has been recently replenished.
Advice: Find your ways to work smart and play often.

Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?

It’s best to go all in on our strengths!

Research backs this up. According to the Gallup organization, employees who learn to use their strengths are 7.8 percent more productive. Then, when you get the whole team strongly agreeing that they get to use their strengths every day, the team is 38 percent more productive, and their customers (internal or external) are 44 percent more likely to give high satisfaction scores.

You want to map the work to your and other’s strengths. I love it when I get the opportunity to work with intact teams. Within team programs, I’ll have each team member identify and share with the team their strengths and weaknesses. We create a chart on the wall as we do so. Then you can launch conversations that map the work that needs to be done to team numbers’ strengths and determine how to move folks away from tasks that weaken them.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://courageofaleader.com/
• Instagram: @courageofaleader
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amyshoopriley