How Rusty Shields Is Dismantling Transactional Leadership

[00:00:03] Hector: Hello and welcome to another episode of the how to scale a business podcast. My name is Hector Santi Esteban and I am your host for today. Our special guest is Mr Rusty Shields and he is the founder and CEO of Develify. And we're going to talk about how transformative relationships can be the key to scaling your business.

[00:00:21] Hector: So Rusty, thanks for hanging out with us today.

[00:00:23] Rusty: No problem. Thanks for the invitation. I'm really excited to be on today and talk about something I'm very passionate about.

[00:00:28] Hector: you are our first interview of 2025. And I think that is very fitting as we move into this new year. And we talked about transformation. And you said something before we got into the recording, which is that most people have transactional relationships. And so we're going to sort of talk about what the counter to that is, but before we do that, talk to us about.

[00:00:54] Hector: your background, you have, a lot of different roles. You know, you've, you've done a number of things over your years, but, you recently were published in a book on this exact sort of topic. But how did you get there? And, what were some of the stops along the way?

[00:01:08] Rusty: Yeah, that's a very interesting question and a great story, in fact, and I'm very excited to be a part of the first one of 2025, how serendipitous I think is this, idea of transforming your 2025, I'm very excited to be a part of that and the first one, so I'm pretty Pretty excited and thankful for that.

[00:01:24] Rusty: But a little bit about my journey. I actually started in music. All of my degrees are actually all in music. I've got four degrees, two vouchers, two master's degrees in music. Always knew that I could teach music. I loved, singing. I loved all instruments. It was my, creative outlet to really express myself.

[00:01:43] Rusty: Got into the. entertainment world as an opera singer and finally figured out most of the opera world was a lot more materialistic than I thought it was ever going to be. They were much more worried about the way you looked instead of the way you sounded. I was really not wanting to continue to have to put up with having to fit inside someone else's image.

[00:02:04] Rusty: So I went back to what I knew I could do, which was teach. I've been consulting, my entire, undergraduate collegiate career, my master's collegiate career. I was doing it to help pay for school. I would always consult with organizations that needed help in training. And I got hooked up with a consulting firm in Arkansas and they asked me to, Train all of their leadership development courses for their clients.

[00:02:29] Rusty: So I started training at a very early stage in my career in the very early 2000s and just continued that all the way through school to help pay for college, have some extra money. So I knew I could fall back on that. So fast forward to when I quit doing my music career, knew I could go back to training.

[00:02:44] Rusty: So I hooked up with an organization and was their training coordinator for a while. And then after five years, finally decided, well. I've worked for these consulting firms my entire life, and I've seen what organizations should and shouldn't do when it comes to leadership development and seeing all the things that did work well and decided, Why can't I do that for myself?

[00:03:03] Rusty: So I started my own consulting firm in 2019, right at the beginning of the pandemic. Great timing. I know, to actually focus on business development with a focus on strategy, performance and training. So that's kind of where I've made it to my short little journey. To where we are in 2025.

[00:03:21] Hector: One of the movies we watched recently with my kids was, Raya and the last dragon. And early in the movie, there's a scene where the dad, he's bringing together all of the different tribes.

[00:03:33] Hector: Of, the land. Right. And you know, he puts in some seasoning from one and, you know, some vegetables from another. And it's this unique mix and stew of all of the different parts. of this culture, right? All of the different parts of these people.

[00:03:49] Hector: And so I guess my question to you is when you look at your unique flair of consulting and training and facilitating and I've had the unique opportunity to be a part a number of those experiences, including the musical aspect. but my question is. what ingredients do you think you're, adding into that stew that might be unique or different from other traditional leadership development programs that you have because of, you know, your unique set of experiences.

[00:04:18] Rusty: I think it's just a matter of not settling for just because it's been done that way or being held back by what we think is a barrier. You know, I'm always of the mindset, just because, you know, that didn't work, why can't we do it this way? Or a lot of out of the box kind of thinking, like, why does it have to be done this way?

[00:04:36] Rusty: Why can't we do it this way that maybe no one has thought about before? I urge people to take risks and tell people if you fail. That's fine. Failure is a gift. We learn something from failure. I've been at organizations where if someone tried something and failed, they were rewarded. Because they tried something, the organization realized that it was maybe a revenue stream or something they hadn't tried before and said, okay, maybe this has potential for us.

[00:05:04] Rusty: We're going to now put a team together and you're going to be on that team and you guys are going to be successful. So it's one of those things where I think we tend to get in our own way more times than not. like having a template or a blueprint, but when it came to music, everyone had the same sheet of music.

[00:05:21] Rusty: Everyone had the same. Black notes on a page that that piece of music had for everybody that printed it out. But it's when the artist or the singer then took that piece of music and turned it into their performance. , how did they connect with the story and express it in a way that the audience understands it?

[00:05:40] Rusty: I kind of see it the same way when it comes to us developing ourselves or developing organizations. It's the same thought and idea. We're here to make money. We're here to do it with the least amount of overhead as we can. Yeah. So we can maximize growth. formula I think is the same for everybody.

[00:05:56] Rusty: It's just how you decide to take. The recipe or the sheet of music per se and make it happen, I don't know that whatever that creative side of the brain is when it comes to music that really kind of just shows me that there's way more opportunities out there than us just getting in our own way.

[00:06:15] Rusty: , I had a gentleman that I was in referral group with and he did, Powder coating and he would always talk about powder coating mailboxes. And he said, if you can think of it, I can powder coat it. He said, the only limitation is your own imagination. That always stuck with me.

[00:06:33] Rusty: Like he always says, you know, get out of your own way. It's like, just tell me what you want and I can probably do it, but you're only limiting yourself. You're holding yourself back from even asking for it. He's like, if you just tell me, I'll probably make it work. You know, so that's the kind of thing that I really feel, when it comes to that idea is that I bring to the table, for example, I think you met Courtney, Widener in, Denver at our B& B event where I met you for the first time.

[00:06:57] Rusty: I remember meeting her back in February of 2024. It's been almost a year. Hadn't met before ever in our lives, and we had had an hour and a half conversation. And by the end of it, she said, Okay, well, I guess that's the end. Talk to you next time. And I looked at her and I said, When are you going to quit selling insurance and do what you really want to do?

[00:07:16] Rusty: And she kind of looked at me. She says, What do you mean? I said, You're not happy doing what you're doing right now. And she says, I know. I want to. Well, I said, What do you want to do? She says, I want to pick up trash on the beach. And I said, okay, why can't you? She says, I can't make money doing that.

[00:07:28] Rusty: I said, why can't you? She said, what do you mean? I said, why not put together a weekend retreat for executives and have them join in some tropical beach location. They develop themselves, but they also pick up trash on the beach and make it into this big idea. And so from there, she's ran with it. And she's on the verge of now doing one of her first retreats probably this year.

[00:07:52] Rusty: And she was in her own way, you know, it's like we're we're our only limitation I think at this point So I think that's really kind of secret recipe that i'm trying to drop in when it comes to that spice

[00:08:02] Hector: So my natural next question is what, ingredient are people. really missing or What are they doing wrong? You're in a unique position to see large sample size of different individuals and business owners and leaders. And we as people are a lot more alike than we Like to give ourselves credence for. And so what sort of common problems or pitfalls or I like to think of them as blind spots, are a lot of leaders encountering today that you feel, you know, your unique recipe has an opportunity to be a solution for.

[00:08:39] Rusty: Yeah, that's a great question. And it's funny. I for many years. My mentor has been pushing me To write a book and I avoided it for the longest time. I thought it was the most intimidating thing ever to write. I was like, I know I will never have enough to say, but I finally, after years and years and years, finally the right opportunity popped up to someone invited me to contribute a chapter to their book.

[00:09:04] Rusty: So I said, okay, I'll dip my toe in the water per se. and from that really came. Some connections, which is going to be my word for you, some connections were made between some experiences that I've had, some clients that I've seen, some organizations I've come across, and just the whole kind of idea that I've seen in people when it comes to, I think, that thing that people are missing.

[00:09:28] Rusty: And I think it's a lot of times if we're talking about business, and I think this application goes personal and professional. It can be, I think, used and versatilely kind of applied across many different sectors, scenarios, use cases, whatever it may be, but I feel like too many people slash businesses slash organizations are focused too much on the money and not enough about the people and the people can be all many different things.

[00:09:55] Rusty: It could be your actual employees. It could be your client. It could be a number of people when I say people, but I think the thing that's missing is connection. And, when I train facilitators, so I do a lot of training, of facilitators to be better facilitators. And then I also train a lot of designers who design training to be better designers.

[00:10:17] Rusty: And the thing that has been kind of the X factor in my trainings that I've had has been the connection. I spend an extra hour to an hour and a half than most facilitators at the very beginning of a training. Especially if it's an all day training, I'll spend about an hour and a half. Working on my connection with that audience before we even touch the content.

[00:10:37] Rusty: If I've only got an hour, I may spend 15 minutes of that one hour, so almost 25 percent of the time, working on my connection with the people. Are we so worried about the transaction of, Oh, we need to make this much money. We need to make this much money. But if we flip that and focus on the people, you're like, your clients are technically the ones giving us the money.

[00:10:58] Rusty: So what can we do to make it instead of what's in it for me? What's in it for us? How can it continue to be a long lasting impact instead of, well, I got what I needed from you. Now I can move on to the next person. So that's a very transactional way. So I've devised a four step model for transformative connection.

[00:11:17] Rusty: That's what I'm actually writing my book about right now, and it will be released early next year. So we're still in the writing stage, manuscript stage right now, but they'll come out early next year. But the whole idea is for us to you. Quit seeing every connection. And when I mean connection, it can be a person you meet on the street that you do something nice for.

[00:11:36] Rusty: It can be a client. It can be a friend. It can be a family member. How can we start making long lasting impact on each other? It's what can I do for you? That's going to also. Give me something in return. So it's almost like that givers gain aspect. If you've ever heard of BNI, which is I've been a part of that organization for a long time, too.

[00:11:56] Rusty: But I would say that's the missing ingredient or the secret sauce or the X factor, whatever you'd like to call it when it comes to some of the reasons why I feel like some organizations are doing better than others.

[00:12:08] Hector: I'm glad you brought that up, Rusty, because when we get back from the break, we're gonna get into this framework do exactly that, which is, you know,

[00:12:16] Hector: the book was called how to scale business or is on how to scale business. So it's like this is the steps.

[00:12:20] Hector: if you're into what Rusty has talked about a little bit so far in terms of amplifying, through connection, I Stick around. We'll be right into that after this quick break.

[00:12:30] Hector: Hey y'all. Today's episode is brought to you by amplify media and we are a podcast and content production company. Well, we'd like to think of ourselves as like the media arm for your company because chances are, if you're listening to this, you probably have a product, a passion, a mission, a message, some sort of service that can make a great impact on the world, but you might not have the time, the team or the tech skills to tell people about it.

[00:12:49] Hector: Well, if that's the case, we can help go to amplify media. com. That's a M P L. A F Y media. com. I can also check the show notes for the link. And with that, let's get back to Rusty. So Rusty, you've, built out a framework. You mentioned the book is coming. So depending on when people are listening to this, they can go, snag that. But love to also know how you may have either stumbled upon or how framework sort of revealed itself to you.

[00:13:15] Rusty: Yeah, another great question, and thanks again for the opportunity to talk about that. a four step framework that I designed for transformative connection, and it really, to me, stemmed from my mentor. The one that would beg me for years to write a book. kept on asking, I was like, okay, that's fine, if I'm going to write a book, what do you think I should write a book about?

[00:13:33] Rusty: And he says, can I be honest? I said, yeah, of course. He says, the word that keeps coming to mind is transformation. I said, okay, where is that coming from? He says, well, he says, you have taken on many transformations in your life. He says, I've known you for 15 years now, and I've been your mentor for 15 years now.

[00:13:50] Rusty: And this is what I've seen in 15 years. so in 2021, I, had a gastric sleeve procedure physically, and I've lost over 210 pounds. And had a physical transformation and that totally changed my life completely as well from that aspect. So there was one transformation he brought up. He said, you made this very drastic transformation from an opera singer to now somebody in learning and development.

[00:14:14] Rusty: He said, that's a huge transformational change when it comes to something else you're doing. He says, the other transformation I've seen that you've made from trainer? To facilitator, because those are two totally separate things. A lot of people don't really know a lot about the difference, but that's a big transformation.

[00:14:28] Rusty: And if you're in the learning and development world, you can really know what that transformation is like. But once more telling and once more guiding, right? And so those are some big transformations. And so I was like, okay, I'm going to talk that way in the back of my head and kind of Do well on that.

[00:14:43] Rusty: But then when I really started facilitating all day long, every single day for entire year, once I started doing that, there was something I was noticing when I would have these classes. The thing that kept on coming up is every time we would take like a lunch break on the first day of like a three day course, all I kept hearing was.

[00:15:02] Rusty: Rusty, I feel like I've known these strangers my entire life. I don't know what you've done, but for some reason I feel more connected to these people than anybody I've ever met on the first day only being with them for two and a half hours. And that, same theme kept coming up and coming up and coming up.

[00:15:19] Rusty: And I was like, what am I doing? And it's just something that I knew to do and it was these activities that I was planning at the first hour and a half first half of the day that really set the stage for everything thereafter and these activities were fostering more transformative connections I was pushing people to establish psychological safety with each other I was pushing people to be vulnerable with each other and Starting to share.

[00:15:46] Rusty: Why are you here? What are your pain points? What are you struggling with? Is there anybody else in the room that can help with that? So part of my four step transformative connection process kind of started with that idea of you here? And so the first step in my transformative connection model is the why every time you meet with somebody, every time you have a meeting, every time you do something, there's a reason for it.

[00:16:09] Rusty: There's a, why there's another book that I'll reference called the art of gathering by Priya Parker. She talks about every time you gather, the reason you choose the place matters. The reason you choose the room matters. The reason you chose the time matters. Like there is an art of gathering. If you're just meeting a friend.

[00:16:28] Rusty: There's choices made on where and when and why the why is the big piece of that. So establishing the why really early in your connection is going to be the utmost importance because the most limited resources in our adult lives are time. And energy. We all wish we had way more time. We all wish we had way more energy.

[00:16:49] Rusty: So if we are going to give of that limited resource of time and energy, we want to know that it's going to be worthwhile. Like it's going to have an impact on my day or impact on that time that I'm giving up. So I would want to know that why up front. That's what's in it for me factor. But it's as we progress through the rest of the steps, is what's going to change it from what's in it.

[00:17:09] Rusty: For me to what's in it for us. Okay, so the second step in the model is what I call the vehicle. And when I talk about the vehicle, it's not like the vehicle that you go out and start your car with. But it's almost the same concept though. What's my vehicle for connection? Mine is music. Music is my life.

[00:17:27] Rusty: Music brings me joy in everything that I do. If I don't have music playing in my vehicle, if I don't have music playing while I work, if there's not some way for me to have music in my life, then I'm, flat. Now, I use music as my connection with others. You were able to hear me sing at an event. back in September in Denver, and after that we've talked about music almost every single time we've been on a phone call, you talked about going to Hawaii, writing a song, right?

[00:17:53] Rusty: So we had that connection, a little bit deeper of a connection. So that's my vehicle that I use to connect with people. So what's your vehicle? what can you use as something with? That you enjoy doing that you can talk about with anybody, Is it knitting? is it wine club? Is it reading? Is it movies?

[00:18:12] Rusty: Is it traveling? Like if you said you've been to Hawaii, Oh my gosh, I was just back in Hawaii in November. Did you go here, here, and here, right? It's just a way, it's a vehicle. To really start that connection. So step two would be the vehicle. So find out what your vehicle for connection is and use it in your conversations.

[00:18:27] Rusty: That's the way to connect with people. The third step is going to be what I call the inclusion engine. And I like to stick with kind of that car theme since we talked about the vehicle, And when I talk about inclusion. Inclusion has many, many, many different definitions to many different people.

[00:18:43] Rusty: And when I talk about inclusion, I'm not talking just about the D E and I inclusion, I'm talking about a change in vocabulary instead of it being, doing things and making sure that you belong, right? So if I'm talking to Hector, I want to make sure that you belong in this space. I want to make sure that we belong.

[00:19:02] Rusty: I want it to be a connection in which, where we both feel equally. That we belong in the space that we're in. So that inclusion engine is how can we begin to really connect in a way that we both feel included. And then the last step is going to be the empowerment action. Empowerment is so important. I want everyone to walk away from a connection, feeling empowered to make decisions on tasks and goals and things that they want to do in life.

[00:19:30] Rusty: What makes it more of a transformative connection is how can we harness the collective resources and tools that we already have? It doesn't have to be about just what tools and resources that I have to give to you. What other resources do we have in the room that we can share of? Can we call on an Isaac Stegman to help us out with the business coaching?

[00:19:49] Rusty: Can we call out a Courtney Widener to talk about self care? how many other resources collectively do we have so we can begin to make? Those connections with other people, and then the whole transformative connection goes to an exponentially higher level because you're involving other people. So that four step connection idea for those four steps is kind of the framework that I'm using to write my book about transformative connection, urging people to quit being transactional with their life.

[00:20:17] Hector: I have an idea of the answer, but rather get it from the source. If I'm a individual and I go, you know, I'm hearing this and that rusty, that sounds fantastic. All that sounds great. And also It seems like a, big mountain to implement or integrate fully. And so my question is, when, starting to, you know, is it a stepwise process?

[00:20:40] Hector: Is it one, two, three, four? Is it bits at a time? Is it pick one, you know, choose your own adventure. If someone is going, all that's great. where do I start or what's the roadmap to, you know, integrating this not only into, as a leader, as an individual, but ultimately you know, you want these things permeating through your organization.

[00:20:59] Hector: how does one go about something like that?

[00:21:01] Rusty: Yeah, that begins great question. I get that question all the time because. It all comes down to application, right? It's almost like you use it or you lose it. You know, like I've learned a couple of languages before in college when I was studying opera, I could speak them fluently when I left college, didn't get a chance to use them.

[00:21:17] Rusty: So as adults, we're application oriented. So I get this question all the time. How do I apply this to what we're talking about? I tell people, I said, it's one of these things where it's almost like the quote, you know, Rome wasn't built in a day or eating the elephant one bite at a time. It's that type of idea.

[00:21:32] Rusty: Like you're not going to be able to accomplish this just like in one instant setting. Like I read this book or I'm, I'm studying these steps and now I'm just going to go do it. And I'm going to be an expert at it. You're going to find out you're going to fall flat on your face pretty fast. So I do think that it is a progressive order.

[00:21:47] Rusty: I do think you have to start with number one, because I think you have to understand the why before anything as adults, we always are asking the question. Why, when someone tells us something, well, why are we doing it this way? If you change a process, well, why are we doing this now? Right. And so I think a lot of things always start with the why.

[00:22:03] Rusty: So I think you have to figure out that why first, you know, and I don't think that that's going to be something that's going to be hard for people to figure out once you start making a connection with somebody, I don't think it's very hard to figure out what the why is going to be. That's something I think we can figure out pretty early, right?

[00:22:17] Rusty: The vehicle, that's something that I feel like people have to spend a little time on figuring out, what can I talk about that I'm very passionate about that's not necessarily work. That I can connect with people about and continue to have conversations on because if you latch on to something professionally, you're limiting yourself on the amount of people you can connect with.

[00:22:38] Rusty: Because if they can't connect to that work you're doing, then that's not going to be a transformative connection. You need to pick something that. A lot of people maybe have had an experience in, right? like, I think hobbies are things that you enjoy doing. Hiking, swimming, sleeping, traveling, knitting, you know, crocheting, drawing, reading, writing, Earth protect, music, you know, there's so many things that we all enjoy doing.

[00:23:03] Rusty: That I think is where we really need to let go more and say, this is what I enjoy doing. It's like you're being your authentic vulnerable self. And you begin to talk about the things you enjoy doing. And I think it's where a lot of people sometimes get hung up. And so I would say that's where I think the first.

[00:23:18] Rusty: Struggle is going to be is figuring out what that vehicle is. But once you found that vehicle, it's almost smooth sailing from there, right? Because then you move on to making someone feel included, which is hard. Sometimes it's hard to be vulnerable and to be empathetic. But I've studied enough.

[00:23:35] Rusty: Empathy and, enough listening skills and coaching that it's natural for me to have that conversation. So if you're struggling in that realm, sometimes we need to do a little development of ourselves and study a little bit of empathy, vulnerability, maybe take a little , coaching one on one book.

[00:23:52] Rusty: or a class. Brené Brown is probably one of the foremost leaders and authors and speakers on vulnerability and empathy. Highly recommend reading anything that she puts out. On Netflix, she had a wonderful one hour, documentary or a kind of talk on a call to courage. Highly recommend. I took eight pages of notes when I watched that the first time.

[00:24:12] Rusty: Just really good stuff. So I think that's, what's really going to help you in step three. And then in step 4, I think it's going to be you taking an inventory. Like, I think you have to take an inventory of the resources and tools that you have, and what resources do you have in your network, right? You can't have every single thing , every Opportunity of support to provide to everybody.

[00:24:33] Rusty: There's things that you just can't provide, but it's taking an inventory of people you do have in your network that can help you provide that, that I think it's going to help you through that. But just to help kind of wrap up that idea on a question, it's, one bite at a time and it's going to take practice.

[00:24:46] Rusty: It's an idea until we start doing it over and over until it becomes a practice and then it becomes a habit.

[00:24:52] Hector: Yeah, I'm glad you double tapped on really each of those because the answered a lot of my questions, especially with regards to the inclusion one, which seems like the, least obvious, not necessarily the hardest per se, but the least obvious. But I love your approach big fan of Brene Brown's work. Rusty, this has been so fun and glad we got a chance to do this for our first interview of the year. If people want to get connected with you or go deeper in your world, where's the best place for listeners to go?

[00:25:22] Rusty: Yeah. So, I've got a pretty good active social media. Kind of realm going on. So I'd say on LinkedIn and Facebook, both, I've got weekly posts and videos that I do, on transformation. In fact, have a post every Tuesday for Transformation Tuesday. You like that alliteration, right?

[00:25:38] Rusty: And so I've been doing that for about two years. So, I would say get on social media would be best thing. So either search Rusty Shields or Develify Consulting. Either one will work. Also, my email address is rusty at develify dot com, which is D E V E. L E F Y dot com rusty at develop. I dot com feel free to reach out.

[00:25:59] Rusty: I'd love to hear from as many people as possible. can talk about this kind of stuff all day long. I was contributing author to a handbook for consultants where I designed a five step visit model that talks about visibility, which is the single most important business performance indicator. To show growth.

[00:26:18] Rusty: I'm talking through that model. There are some huge wins in my first year being my own business and consulting in year one. I grew 200 percent in my first year and really taking a step back and going through those five steps in my visit models really was the key to success there. So I'd love to talk through that formula sometime about those and kind of how to accomplish those.

[00:26:41] Rusty: But that was really how I begin to scale my business.

[00:26:44] Hector: Well, we appreciate the time, Rusty, the insights, the wisdom. We'll link all those up in the show notes. So go check that for those. We would appreciate you growing the tribe and community. So if this will resonate with someone that you know, hit that share button and send it to them. And don't be afraid of hitting a rating or review button wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:27:02] Hector: But other than that, hope you have an amazing new year and we'll see you on the next one. Later, y'all.