ChairLife Podcast

Vistage Master Chair Tom Cuthbert breaks down a simple, repeatable framework for one of the most consequential things a chair does: selecting members. Get selection right and the group gets stronger and everything gets easier; get it wrong and you can spend years managing the consequences. Tom walks through his five "Make Its" and the deliberate, candidate-friendly process behind them. In the second segment, he shares the six-word story that captures his whole philosophy and the Nashville lunch that changed how he chooses the people he works with. Show Notes Member selection has to be an intentional process, not a default. When it is right, groups strengthen; when it is wrong, the costs compound for years. The Five "Make Its": Make it easy, make it fast, make it obvious, make it personal, make it matter. These five remove friction, keep the chair in control of the process, and surface the GLOAT attributes Tom looks for: Give, Listen, Obstacles, Accountability, Thankfulness. Make It Easy: candidates should never have to work to join. Tom's sequence runs from referral, to EA intro, to a Culture Index review, to a 20 minute call that is all about them, to an in-person meeting, to a conversation with two members, to a full-day group meeting and feedback. Nearly 100 percent close once they reach the room. Make It Fast: speed is a feature. Tom's sales cycle never runs more than a month and a half, and referrals get an immediate response. He would rather have a fast no than a slow and painful yes. Make It Obvious: confusion kills action. The process is visible to the candidate at every step, and Tom does his own research up front, using AI profile sheets, LinkedIn, and Culture Index. Clear criteria make a no easier for everyone. Make It Personal: selection is a courtship, not a funnel. It has to be a genuine human match, and the group and team need to feel the fit too. Make It Matter: recruitment fills seats, but selection builds community. One member can change the chemistry of the whole room. Tom calls a strong selection process a "mediocrity defense shield." The key test: would you enthusiastically select every current member again today? Tom's Tips and Tricks: Significant Work With People I Love At a Vistage corporate event, Tom was asked to write a six-word story, and the six words he landed on still define his work today: significant work with people I love. The phrase traces back to a lunch in Nashville early in his chair career, when he asked veteran chair Garth how he chooses members. After Tom's long, rambling answer, Garth set down his tea and said simply, "I have to love them," explaining that working only with people he loves makes him a better coach, mentor, and friend. That moment reframed love not as a soft business word but as a serious selection criterion. Tom offers five practical ways to tell whether you love the work in a business context: the Calendar Test (do tomorrow's names energize you?), the Energy Test (are you energized or drained after a first conversation?), Give and Take (favor givers, and watch how candidates treat your staff and the server), Character Before Category (lead with integrity rather than treating it as a tiebreaker), and the discipline to say no to those you do not believe you can truly care for. The real question is not whether someone is a fit, but whether you will love working with them. He closes with Mother Teresa: we may not all do great things, but we can do small things with great love. Resources Member Selection Playbook: www.tomcuthbert.com/selectionplaybook Give and Take by Adam Grant Culture Index (candidate profile survey) www.tomcuthbert.com www.chairlifepodcast.com https://docs.google.com/document/d/15ultNV_YwRqEWG8Ukb8x3BN1bD_siUZ0fF69MS90zXk/edit?usp=sharing

In this episode, Vistage Master Chair Tom Cuthbert shares how a single definition from Vistage speaker Eric Coryell reignited his focus on group purpose. A real issue is any issue that affects the team's ability to achieve purpose. Using that as his foundation, Tom walks through how he recently rebuilt his group's purpose statement, ideal member profile, shared fate framework, and his personal commitments to every member. He also shares the opening commitment statement his group now reads aloud at the start of every meeting. Show Notes Why every group drifts over time and how a written purpose statement stops the slide from peer advisory group to lunch club Tom's group purpose statement: achieve better decisions, personal growth, and business results through accountable peer advisory How to define an ideal member based on who that human being is, not their revenue size or industry The concept of shared fate and why it is the secret sauce that separates a high-performing group from a networking event A real example of shared fate in action: one member's $2 million hiring decision processed by the group saved over $500,000 in measurable impact Tom's ten commitments to his members, including full presence in every one-to-one, challenging the hardest questions, expert speaker vetting, and tracking group measures The member non-negotiables: real issues, candor from your own perspective, confidentiality, full presence, and embracing feedback The opening commitment statement Tom's group now reads aloud at the start of every meeting A challenge to every Chair: write your purpose, write your commitments, and build a metric board to track both Tom's Tips and Tricks: The Time Audit - 3 Buckets to Get Your Calendar Back Tom shares the three-bucket framework he uses to audit his calendar and protect his time across a large, multi-group practice while working four days a week, forty weeks a year. Bucket one is stop doing, using a zero-based calendar approach to question every recurring commitment. Bucket two is could someone else do it, with four diagnostic questions to identify what to delegate and where you are the bottleneck in your own practice. Bucket three is start doing, anchored by the question from Gary Keller's book The One Thing: what is the one thing that, if I did it this week, would make everything else easier or unnecessary? Tom closes with a direct challenge to block 30 minutes this week, print out the three buckets, and do the audit now. Show Notes / Resources: https://www.accountableteams.com/ - Eric Coryell tomcuthbert.com/highperforming — Issue Processing Form & High-Performing Behaviors tomcuthbert.com/goals — Annual goals process chairlifepodcast.com — Subscribe & past episodes https://docs.google.com/document/d/1K_WdCJKHTbrZqR7ejtE4R-Byzb2-GDA8_BNXEnwuTUM/edit?usp=sharing

In this episode, Vistage Master Chair Tom Cuthbert introduces the one productivity metric he believes every Chair should be tracking: income per hour. Tom walks through how to calculate it, why it matters more than total income or member count, and the five specific levers he has pulled over the past ten years to more than quadruple his number while working fewer hours. This is not a conversation about chasing money. It is about running an intentional practice that lets you show up at your best for your members, your family, and yourself. Show Notes Why income per hour is the single most important productivity metric in a Chair's practice and how to calculate it How Tom took his income per hour from under $140 in 2016 to over $500 today while reducing his working hours every year The three levers that move the metric: increase income, decrease hours, and do both simultaneously Why tracking total income or member count alone does not tell you whether you are working efficiently or just working a lot Tom's strict calendar boundaries: Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday work days, Fridays and weekends off, and all of July as a sabbatical How recurring one-to-ones eliminate the monthly scheduling scramble and let work come to you The immediate ROI of hiring an executive assistant for any Chair with at least one full group Why doing only your three things, plan, coach, and facilitate, is the filter that drops hours and improves member focus How group type and utilization rate directly impact income per hour and why a full Advancing Leader group outperforms a CEO group on this metric Tom's Tips and Tricks: Book Review - Beyond Belief by Nir Eyal Tom is a longtime fan of Nir Eyal's work and considers Indistractable one of his all-time favorite books. He valued it so much that he hired Nir to coach him personally during 2020. Nir's newest book, Beyond Belief, carries the subtitle: The Science-Backed Way to Stop Limiting Yourself and Achieve Breakthrough Results. Tom pre-ordered it, has finished it, and calls it one of the best leadership and coaching books he has read in the last ten years. The core idea is simple and powerful: beliefs are not facts, they are tools. Like any tool, you can pick up the right one or put down the wrong one. Most CEOs walk around treating beliefs as settled truths, and those unexamined beliefs filter what they see, what they attempt, and what they achieve. For Chairs, this reframes the coaching conversation. Instead of asking a CEO if something is true, which puts them on the defensive, ask whether that belief still serves them. That question opens the door without triggering resistance. Tom has been testing this in his one-to-ones and finds it immediately effective. Resources Beyond Belief by Nir Eyal Indistractable by Nir Eyal www.tomcuthbert.com www.chairlifepodcast.com https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zB-jcUVEZOGzEYXibxZ4rjPAe9mmb7BZKhlaHBbMpZE/edit?usp=sharing

ChairLife Podcast: Episode 45 (101) Master the Art of No: Why Vistage Chairs Must Say It Clearly and Often In this episode, Vistage Master Chair Tom Cuthbert makes the case for why no is one of the most powerful words in a Chair's vocabulary. Drawing from William Ury's book The Power of a Positive No, Tom walks through a practical framework for saying no in a way that protects your priorities, guards your time, and actually strengthens relationships rather than damaging them. He also shares real examples from his own Chair practice of where and how to apply this skill every day. Show Notes Why saying yes to everything dilutes your focus, weakens your group, and takes time away from the high-impact work that defines a Chair's career The three-layer sandwich framework from William Ury: the inner yes, the firm no, and the outer yes The TREE acronym as a practical tool for delivering a positive no: Taproot, Robust Trunk, Expanding Canopy, and Energy Common situations where Chairs need to say no, including mismatched prospects, members who reschedule constantly, vendor requests, and outside speaking or board invitations Why Tom starts every new relationship with a 20-minute call and says no to lunch, coffee, and hour-long meetings upfront How to say no to a member request that falls outside your expertise while still adding value and strengthening the relationship Why guarding your time is not selfish but essential to building a high-performing community Tom's Tips and Tricks: Don't Be the Chauffeur Tom shares the story of Max Planck's chauffeur, who memorized Planck's quantum mechanics lecture so thoroughly that he delivered it flawlessly to a standing ovation. When an audience member asked a follow-up question, the chauffeur had no answer. Charlie Munger called this chauffeur knowledge: knowing the right answers up to a point but failing under pressure when the hard questions come. Tom applies this directly to the CEOs Chairs work with. Reading books and listening to podcasts builds surface-level recall. True mastery comes from sitting in the seat, facing real problems, and being surrounded by people on the same journey. The job of a Vistage Chair is to move members from memorizing to mastery. Resources https://amzn.to/47lIRtk https://amzn.to/4s6T2JO www.tomcuthbert.com www.chairlifepodcast.com https://docs.google.com/document/d/1F4l6yYoeJGDldMLNYEHGaFaFVSwUN7Lyhov5zsleTbo/edit?usp=sharing

In this episode, Vistage Master Chair Tom Cuthbert breaks down why businesses fail and what Vistage Chairs can do to help their members avoid it. Tom walks through the brutal statistics behind business survival rates, the five major reasons companies fail, and seven specific areas Chairs should focus on in their one-to-ones to help members build stronger, more resilient businesses. The conversation centers on the concept of deep financial optics, seeing ahead rather than just reviewing what has already happened, and the critical role peer groups, coaches, and external relationships play in keeping leaders from operating in isolation. Show Notes Why most businesses never reach meaningful revenue milestones and what the numbers actually look like The concept of deep financial optics and why it matters more than reviewing past performance The five major reasons businesses fail: no market need, running out of cash, the wrong team, ignoring competition, and poor execution Seven focus areas Chairs should use as a diagnostic in every one-to-one, including financial optics, talent vetting, cash defense, competitive intelligence, and execution How Vistage peer groups and coaches dramatically increase a member's odds of success Why isolation is one of the greatest risks a business leader faces Tom's Tips and Tricks: My Top Ten Gym Habits Tom shares the ten exercises he relies on to stay sharp and ready as a Vistage Chair, with a goal of 200 gym days per year. His top ten include Mike Tyson push-ups, the Pete and Bobby Challenge (100 push-ups and 50 pull-ups in under ten minutes), handstands, pull-ups with added weight, standard push-ups, Bosu ball balance training, sled pushes, planks, farmer carries, and Zone 2 cardio. Tom also shares how he pairs cardio with reading the Wall Street Journal to make the habit sustainable. Resources Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross Just Six Weeks App (free, available in your app store) Chair Success Services: www.chairsuccessservices.com ChairLife Podcast: www.chairlifepodcast.com https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PMxfZIMuX7dGHFN4ZbnwQH-YVMOBmxGxh6uoDY0V9HY/edit?usp=sharing