From CEO to Coach: The Leadership Lessons That Matter Most | Stories With Traction Podcast

 

SHOW NOTES:

In this episode, Matt Zaun sits down with David Frederiksen, Petra Coach and founder of PatientFocus, to discuss the often-overlooked struggles business leaders face when transitioning from doing the work to leading the team. David shares lessons from launching a company that changed how healthcare organizations collect payments—and how humility, systems thinking, and a mindset shift helped him scale both his impact and influence.

In addition, they explore:

✅ Why strategic systems scale a business

✅ What most leaders get wrong about delegating 

✅ How to turn humbling moments into powerful growth catalysts

…and much more!

BIOS:

David Frederiksen is a Petra Coach based in Nashville and the founder of PatientFocus, where he served as CEO from 2008–2023. He now works with teams across the U.S. to align strategy, execution, and leadership for real growth.

Matt Zaun is an award-winning speaker and storyteller who shows business leaders how to inspire action and drive results through the power of strategic storytelling. With a track record of catalyzing significant sales growth for over 300 organizations across industries—from financial services to health and wellness—Matt’s approach has been proven to deliver measurable impact.

 

*Below is an AI-generated transcript, which may contain errors

Matt Zaun 

David, welcome to the Stories of Attraction podcast.

 

David Frederiksen 

Thank you. Glad to be here.

 

Matt Zaun 

And I appreciate your time. I know you're incredibly busy, so I really appreciate you spending time with us today.

And I want to dive right in because you and I had a conversation a couple months ago, really appreciated your vulnerability, you sharing with me just some of the challenges business leaders face.

And I really want to start with your journey. you were the founder of Patient Focus. You were the CEO from 2008 to 2023.

Now you're a board member. So I want to start with Patient Focus. And the founding of that organization in 2008.

So can you take us through the idea behind the organization, some of the steps that led to you launching this company?

 

David Frederiksen 

Sure. About 2008, around in the early 2000s, the whole push of patient pay responsibility, in other words, amounts that patients had to pay out of pocket in the form of deductibles, co-insurance.

It was exploding, basically. It was a way for insurance companies to push down more of the financial obligation onto the shoulders of patients in an effort to reduce utilization.

In other words, keep patients out of the emergency room that didn't need to be there. That was the thought behind it.

You know, as most great ideas happen, there are unintended consequences. the Head portefe če. Thank If And one of the things that was not intended or not fully understood when that happened was, who's going to collect that money?

In other words, if a patient owes money for an episode of care, they owe it to the hospital or they owe it to the physician.

And what was happening was the hospitals and the physician offices and other health care providers did not have the systems or the people or the resources to collect from patients.

They didn't know how to do it because they'd never done it before. If you can pick any market in the United States, any health care market, there's 90 to 95 percent of all the bills or all the claims that they're filing are only going to about five different payers.

Whether it's United, Blue Cross, Cigna, Medicare, Medicaid, or TRICARE, that's it. With the advent of patient pay, you go from five to, you know, 50,000.

If you're a hospital over a course of a year, billing. Billing those episodes of care directly to the patients.

And so what we recognized was a lack of support for those health care organizations to bill their patients. And what we discovered in the process was this fundamental divide in between insurance billing and patient billing.

So those are two completely different processes. And at the time, most health care organizations were sort of equating the two.

Filing health care claims with an insurance company is about transactions. Billing patients is about relationships. These patients are customers, fundamentally.

And that has been a new concept for a lot of health care providers to understand and view their patients as customers.

Majors Billing Billing And so we built a company to provide a very efficient outsourced means of billing patients on behalf of the hospital or the physician practice.

And so we functioned as an extension of their billing office, sending out all the statements. We had a call center.

made all the phone calls to the patients. We took all the inbound calls. We sent text messages and emails to manage that patient billing process.

Lifting that burden off of the shoulders of the very, very limited resources of our clients' billing office.

 

Matt Zaun

Wow. Okay. So big need.

 

David Frederiksen 

Huge need.

 

Matt Zaun 

Great idea. But you and I know how ideas are sometimes. I don't know how many times I've walked through a store and I thought to myself, I've had that idea, but I never executed on it.

Right? So that idea didn't end up on the shelf as something that I did. Right? So you big need.

Great idea. How did you take that idea from a good idea to making it a reality? In the first couple of years, can you take us through having a good idea to actually executing on it and some of the things that that entailed?

 

David Frederiksen 

Sure. I mean, building any company is always a struggle of making sure your operations can keep up with sales and that your sales can keep up with operations so you don't get ahead of one or the other, and it's very easy to do so.

We had to build a system. Most of the off-the-shelf software to manage patient pay was built for and around collection agencies.

They weren't built or designed with any type of flexibility in terms of extended payment plans, skipped payments, correspondence. It was very much black-and-white collections agency-type systems.

So we had to build our own. And that is a... Undertaking. And so we had developers that were on staff, and we built the first prototype and went into the marketplace.

We picked up a few small hospitals and some physician practices. And the system that we built, we built it around the first few customers, and it was great.

The problem was we got more customers. And we kept having to build workarounds upon workarounds upon workarounds to manage the variability between our clients.

It's not cookie cutter. I'm based in Nashville. There's an expression about managing hospitals. There's tons of hospital management companies based here.

And one of them is, if you've been in one hospital, you've been in one hospital. They're all different. It does not matter how many systems that they're running on the same platforms.

It doesn't matter. What matters is every hospital is run differently. So we had to figure out how to adapt our systems to accommodate each one of these building offices, and that proved to be a little bit more challenging than we thought, because our system kept getting bigger and uglier, and we were throwing bodies at it, and it started to compress our margins, so we knew we had to make a change.

In order to have a more streamlined, flexible, adaptable system. And so after a couple of years, we rebuilt the entire platform on Salesforce.

And that was a great interim step. Salesforce provided us with the flexibility and the analogy I used to describe building a platform on a configurable, using configurable software.

. Resources, like our call center software, could integrate very easily into Salesforce.

 

Matt Zaun 

That was helpful. Yeah, so it's amazing. the immediate reaction that you had was, build a system. I'm interested and fascinated by this.

I'm a big systems person, love processes. I got that from my mother. My mother is an incredibly strategic woman.

She taught me to view business like a chess set, right? Think multiple moves ahead. She was a great businesswoman.

And that really started the idea of being strategic. How to align goals. to make things happen. Was there something for you?

Was there anything that you think positioned you to be more strategic in nature? And I don't know if I use the word enjoy, but at least position you to focus on the strategy elements of life and business?

 

David Frederiksen

You know, it's interesting. We're all a product of our training. And that includes, you know, how in our parents and who our parents were, how they were trained, because that.

That falls down onto the shoulders of our children. It's funny, if you talk to the children of attorneys, you know, they have a very prescribed way of processing issues and thinking about problems.

I am a product of a cardiologist. My father was a cardiologist. My mother taught medical school. So, a very scientific approach to things.

Breaking things down into the most simple element. Understanding how one thing flows to the next. And I'm a flowchart junkie.

When my kids were little, but old enough to do their own laundry, they claimed they didn't know how. So, I spent the weekend putting together four sets of flowcharts showing them how to sort the clothes, how to wash the clothes, how to dry the clothes, how to fold the clothes, and they protested, but they couldn't argue.

It's like, well, here, now you know how. And they've been doing their own laundry. So I'm a process flowchart guy.

That's sort of how I think about problems. Break them down and, all right, what are you trying to achieve?

Where are you trying to get to? And what's the most efficient way to get there? And that's how we approach the billing process.

But you also have to factor in variability. Nothing's cookie cutter.

 

Matt Zaun 

I love it. I need to do flowcharts for my kids' laundry. I have a 10-, 9-, and 6-year-old, so they're in the process of doing more and more chores around the house.

So I really appreciate you sharing that. So one of the things you posted on LinkedIn a month ago, I really appreciate this.

I'm going to read elements of this, and I want to talk about this, because I think this is so incredibly important.

You say you're good at what you do, you step off the corporate ladder, and you went out on your own to solve a problem in the marketplace.

You're an entrepreneur. You're hire a team to do what you've been doing, but why are you still doing the work feeling overwhelmed?

Talk about how you know this. Clearly, this was part of your life. Doing the work is one thing. Managing a team, doing the work is something entirely different.

The skills of a great athlete are not required to be a great coach, and your skills at making a great product are not required to be a great CEO.

I want to talk about this because I mentioned to you prior to this interview, I've been all over the country doing speaking engagements, working with a lot of CEOs, entrepreneurs.

I've spoken now in 25 U.S. states, so I'm halfway to my goal of 50. So I've been a lot of different businesses.

And it's amazing because when I read this, some people may think that we're talking about smaller organizations. I've known this to be true even in midsize companies and larger companies.

I've actually worked with C-suite where hundreds and hundreds of employees, and they still focus on certain skill sets from the past.

So this could be any entrepreneur, business owner problem. So I want you to talk a little bit about that on how does a leader, so think like, let's say, CEO, how do they start delegating more and relinquishing more of the control over the skill set aspect of the business and focus more on the leadership element?

 

David Frederiksen 

It's a great question. And it starts with admitting. It starts with admitting that, you know, I need help. I don't know.

And help can be the form of a book. It doesn't mean like, you know, you're confessing that you're in the wrong place.

It's admitting, okay, I need to figure this out. I don't know what I don't know. And when it comes to managing people, most people don't know what they don't know.

Plain and simple. And for most of us, we learn it, you know, on the fly. I, you know, there's all kinds of leadership training courses.

And I always thought that was, I didn't understand it. I didn't understand. That meant, you know, leadership training. What does that mean exactly?

But as I got further on in my career, leadership training can mean something as simple as learning how to manage people, how to coordinate action, and build accountability and trust between and amongst a team, because you're leading them, you're managing them.

And a lot of that is not taught. It's not taught in business schools. It's certainly not taught in law school.

It's mostly learned on the job. But there are lots of elements about leading that you can learn through training, seminars, webinars, online classes, lots and lots of books, ways to think about it.

But it's interesting. I think that most people who are thrust into a management position, where they were, you know, they were the ones...

And because they're really good at it, say, okay, great, you're so good at this, you're going to manage the people how to do it.

Well, those people who are thrust into those positions don't know necessarily, why would they, how to manage people to do it.

And that's the challenge. So I get back to, okay, how do you train them to do that? How do you provide value to that new manager?

I think a classic example is in sales. When you've got a really crackerjack salesperson, you think they're so good at sales, they must be good.

You know, we're going to promote them to manage the whole sales team. That's a false assumption that, you know, just because they're good at sales means that they're good at managing salespeople.

That's, no, it could be, but maybe not. It doesn't mean the same thing. So I don't know if I'm answering your question.

You know, how do you recognize... Um, uh, You know, a situation where you need to grow in that role.

I think the default, unfortunately, is because people lack the skills of how to incent, motivate, and coordinate action between and amongst their team.

What happens is they default back to their expertise of doing the actual work. And they think to themselves, this is almost a proverb, you know, I'll just do it myself.

It's faster if I do it myself. Yeah, it probably is. You're not going to go very far. There's a great quote.

It says, you know, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

And so it's a function of saying, okay, I'm going to teach this person. I'm going to train this person how to do this.

And it's not necessarily so I don't have to. It's like you're not supposed to. And again, it's wrecking. Recognizing that you're not supposed to do this work anymore.

You're supposed to get them to do it. And that is a fundamental mind shift that many new managers are not prepared for.

 

Matt Zaun 

Sure. No, that's an incredible point. So two different ideas. So recently I interviewed a lady, her name is Sel Watts, and I love what she said.

She said, no one starts a business to manage the headaches of managing people. So no one wakes up in the morning thinking, I have an awesome idea for a product or service.

I can't wait to go manage a bunch of people with different personalities and deal with problems. That is so true.

You immediately said, you said, I need help, which really speaks to the humility of this. One of the things that fascinated me the most, and I mentioned to you that my background is in politics.

So I was a political speech writer for well over a decade. I've worked with hundreds of politicians over the years.

One of the things that blew me away when I made the transition from politics to business is how humble.

Tell some individuals that are wildly successful in business how humble some of them are. I can't tell you how many times I've gone into an organization, and I'm shaking all the different hands in the room, and someone will pull me aside and say, do you know who you just spoke to?

I'll say, no. That's the founder of this company, like a multibillion-dollar company. You would have no idea. Sometimes it's hard to pick some people out, whether they're the CEO of a massive organization, founder, or the janitor.

Some of the people that I've worked with that are wildly successful in business are incredibly humble. So here's the challenge that I see.

So someone jumps in, they start an organization, it starts to go well, they start to see success, there's an element of pride and ego that gets in the way.

For a business leader that is struggling with humbling themselves to go out and get that help, what words of encouragement would you say to them?

Terracular. Terrific. Really focus on the humility aspect of doing what you're saying, reading books, understanding how to manage people.

What's something that you would tell that person if they're really struggling to lower their ego and reach out for help and truly be humble?

 

David Frederiksen

That's a great question. I would say that the first thing it's easy to admit is that there's got to be a better way.

Just to start with that, there's got to be a better way to do this, whatever it is you're doing.

Whether it's building widgets, whether it's painting a fence, whether it's running a company or managing a team, there's got to be a better way.

Because if you're starting to feel frustrated, there's got to be a better way. I mean, and the other thing is, and this is also relatively easy to admit, it's I'm probably not the first person to have this problem.

I'm not the first person to feel this frustrated. Therefore, there is likely a solution. That I'm not aware of.

And so there's, it's, it's to start there. mean, those are facts. There's, there's gotta be a better way. And I'm likely not the first person to have this problem.

And so the question then becomes, okay, where do I go? Where do I go for help? What do I do?

And it's, sometimes if you go to your direct supervisor or your, your boss, they're not going to have the answers.

That's why they, you know, they hired you to figure this out. So you got to figure it out. So where You got to, what do you do?

Um, you know, there's, there's, like I said, there's this whole environment and the whole, uh, lots of books and, and all kinds of leadership organizations and trade associations that can help.

You know, it's, I would encourage people to, you know, find their tribe, find an organization that is, that is populated by people in a similar position as you.

I belong to, an organization. I belong It blew up in my face, and this is what eventually worked. That is helpful.

So my point, going down this rabbit hole, is find space, find places, find people who have similar challenges as you, and talk to them.

How did you manage your way out of the situation? That's how you're going to solve these problems. By talking to other people who have had similar problems, you're not the first one.

And you're not admitting defeat by saying, hey, I'm stuck. Of course you're stuck. Everyone gets stuck. Managing people is hard.

Running a business is really hard. Running a division of a large organization is hard. Taking over as you're really, really good at making widgets, and now you've got to manage the people who are making the widgets, that's hard.

So what do you do? You find people who have done it successfully. You find people who are facing the same challenges as you, and you ask questions.

And it is humbling. To admit that, you have to be humble enough to do it. Because if you don't, you're not going to succeed.

You're going to get stuck. You keep doing the same things over and over again, and you don't get anywhere, you will be removed.

Plain and simple.

 

Matt Zaun 

That's a really good point. I appreciate you sharing that. One of the books I committed to read again and again and again this year is It's Tomic Habits.

Absolutely love the book. I'm on my fifth read-through as of right now. I plan on reading it every month from now to the end of the year.

And one of the things I talk about in the book is if you want to lose weight, go into a gym and start linking up with peers that want to lose weight, right?

That's where the culture aspect comes in. Because they want to lose weight, you want to lose weight. Just being in the presence of those individuals is going to help you and position you to lose weight.

So your point about EO, that's the peer element that you're talking about. Just getting in the midst of people that have challenges, they're hungry.

They're thirsty for growth. They're thirsty to learn what works, what doesn't work. Just doing that is going to put someone head and shoulders above everyone else that would be struggling but on an island by themselves.

So I really appreciate you mentioning that. And that is extensively covered in the book Atomic Habits. So anyone listening, if you haven't read that book, highly, highly recommend it.

Absolutely phenomenal book about adjusting habits and creating systems in order to do that. We're as good as our systems, which is one of the points that you mentioned.

Yeah, absolutely.

 

David Frederiksen 

of James Clear, author of Atomic Habits. James and I are both alumni at Denison University in Granville, Ohio. I graduated way before he did.

But yeah, big plug for the big red. yeah, James is an amazing speaker. I've heard him speak before. I've read his book.

I highly recommend his newsletter. It's real short. It comes out weekly. Atomic Habits is an amazing book, and James Clear is an amazing guy.

 

Matt Zaun 

Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that. That's interesting. is question is... My I hear that you both went to the same college.

That's awesome. So I want you to take us back in the past. I'm always fascinated by people's upbringing. You had mentioned your parents in the medical world, very scientific in nature.

But I want to talk about, let's say, 10-year-old David. What did 10-year-old David want to do, if you could think back to that point in your life?

Did you like, you mentioned Legos earlier and Play-Doh. Did you like building?

 

David Frederiksen 

Were you interested in science and math? Take us back to your earlier childhood. Yeah. You know, Lego was one of my favorite things in the world as a kid growing up.

And looking back at it as an adult, there's a lot of elements of problem solving when you're trying to build something and you've got a set of toys.

A set of tools, if you will. How do you how do you solve the problem of what you what you have?

So I really, really enjoyed that. I was a math guy, and English reading and writing was where my heart was.

But it's interesting. As I mentioned, my father was a cardiologist. My mother taught medical school at Vanderbilt, and my sister is a clinical psychologist in New York.

I discovered quickly after one semester of molecular biology that the world would be a safer place if I were not a doctor.

So you're welcome. And that wasn't where my passion was. But I did love health care. Like I said, grew up in it.

I grew up surrounded by doctors, surrounded by both physicians and PhDs doing super interesting things. My mom ran a lab out of the biochemistry department at Vanderbilt, and I grew up with those people and really, really liked what they did.

I love working with doctors. And so it was the business side of health care was really intriguing as I got older.

And that's really where my heart is, figuring out a better, faster way to deliver for patients. And, you know, you talked about the 10-year-old David.

You know, my father was perhaps the kindest human being I've ever known. And he always put the patient and their concerns.

That was his first and foremost focal point. And I think a lot of health care today has lost that.

The patient is the last one on the list. It's all about who's going to pay for this. And that's the question.

And then all the systems are built around that question. Who's going to pay for this? The patient and their satisfaction and their care and how they are treated in the process is pretty much last on the list.

So I guess my father instilled that in me, that, you know, it's the person at the end of the day that really matters.

And so that's who you say, that's who I work for. I don't work for, you know, page camera cardiology.

I don't work for St. Thomas Hospital. I work for the patient. That's why I'm here. And he was right.

And I've carried that with me ever since.

 

Matt Zaun

That's a great perspective. Appreciate you sharing that. So you mentioned 10-year-old you. You talked about Legos. I want to talk about grit.

I know a lot of business leaders, when we talk grit, they go back to their teen years where something was happening, whether it was sports or extracurricular activities or something was happening that really positioned them to have more grit in life.

So if we shift from 10 through your teen years, was there something that prompted you to learn perseverance, learn that when things don't go your way?

 

David Frederiksen

Do you need to push through? Yeah, sure. I played football in high school, and I was not very good.

I was really good at keeping the bench from flying up when everyone else ran onto the field. But I ended up as the long snapper.

I was the one who snapped the ball to the punter. Now, our punter was only 5'3", so I didn't have a very big target.

And the head football coach at the time was a legendary man by the name of Tommy Owen. And Tommy, he never raised his voice.

Coach Owen never yelled, but boy, were you terrified of this guy. He didn't stare at you. He stared through you.

And he commanded respect. Everybody loved him, but he was a very serious guy. And I remember one play, I missed a block.

And he walks up to me, and he says, why did you miss that block? And I said, well, I did this and I did that.

He's like, nope. Why'd you miss that block? Because I missed it. Exactly. And his light bulb went off above my head.

like, oh, excuses don't really matter, do they? Hmm. And it stuck with me. And it was a life lesson.

like, it doesn't, your excuses don't matter. You've got to do the work. Get it done. Keep moving. And that was a lesson.

And one of my favorite people in history is Winston Churchill, who's filled with great quotes. And there's one that he said was two of my favorites.

One is, you know, never, never, never, never, never give up. I believe in that. The other one was, if you're going through hell, keep going.

Tell me three things. Tell me, number one, there is a way out. No matter how hard it is and how hard your life is right now, there's a way out.

Number two, you're going to get there if you just keep going. You're going to get out of it. And number three, you're not the first person or the last to be here.

That's very comforting. And so when I heard that quote, it sort of crystallized a lot of my different experiences throughout my life about being in really, really tough spots and how you get out of them.

You keep going. You keep moving.

 

Matt Zaun 

Wow. I really appreciate you sharing that. I appreciate you mentioning Winston Churchill. I'm also a fan of Winston Churchill, a huge history buff, big museum guy.

like to go to museums all over the country. And just to put in perspective for people listening on the quote you mentioned about never giving up because I want people to understand just the dire straits Winston Churchill was in.

So when the Nazis were expanding across Europe, there was an idea in the United Kingdom. That France would not fall.

France was a buffer, right? They wouldn't fall. The Nazis would never make it to their shore. And France fell within two months, which was shocking to the world.

And then on the United Kingdom's doorstep, there were literally airplane parts falling out of the sky on a daily basis.

So sometimes we hear a quote, we think, oh, that's great. But there's so much behind what's being said. I mean, the idea of Winston Churchill never giving up, these are some of the most dark, horrific moments in this guy and his nation's history, not knowing if the island's going to be blown out of the sea.

And there's a lot of history people that might be listening that know. I would be very scared to wonder what the world would look like if the United Kingdom would have fallen.

It could have gone very dark very quickly. So very thankful for Winston Churchill. Very thankful that he did truly never gave up.

And I think there's a really good segue into the coaching piece. Because you mentioned his quote, never, never, never give up.

And one of the best ways to never give up is to have a really good coach that's there helping you to never give up.

So I do want to talk about your transition into coaching. So now you are a board member of Patient Focus, and I'm guessing there's another CEO in place, right?

So now it's freeing up your time to do coaching yourself. So talk to us a little bit about that.

What do you think separates a good coach from a great coach in the business world?

 

David Frederiksen 

A good coach is a good teacher. And honestly, gets energy from it. If coaching drains you, it's one thing to be tired.

It's one thing to do a lot of work with someone and come away, you know, wow, that took a lot of energy.

Sure. But if you're thinking about being a coach and spending and really working very hard with an individual or a team.

you. Thank And getting them to think differently. If that doesn't give you energy, then you're in the wrong job, quite honestly, because it is exhausting.

And if you don't love it, it's just too hard. So I love it. I love teaching. I spent two years after college teaching English in Spain and Mexico and loved every minute of it.

And, you know, working for pesos is not exactly as lucrative as it sounds. And I didn't think I could support a family.

I certainly couldn't. So I came home and went to graduate school. But I loved it and I wanted to stay in the game.

So I worked with a firm here in Nashville or an organization called Youth About Business. It's kind of a junior achievement thing.

Working with high school students, that was a blast. I still do that. The Entrepreneur Center in Nashville. It has cohorts of these young companies coming together and trying to grow and build something.

I'm an advisor to that organization. So I kept my foot in the game the whole time throughout my career, just because I love doing that stuff.

And then when I rolled out of Patient Focus, I was trying to figure out what's next. took some time off, and I was recruited by the former owner of Petra Coach, and he was explaining to me what kind of work was involved, working with teams, helping them to be better, helping them with systems, and putting them in place, and providing realistic expectations for them.

I think a lot of us think that we should be able to flip the switch overnight, become overnight success, make a million dollars in a very short period of time.

And that's really not the case. It's about helping people understand that getting 1% better every day is fine. That's perfect.

That's progress. That's moving. know, there are different ways to think about things, different ways to approach a problem. The kind of back to some of our earlier points about, you know, admitting that you need help and being humble about it.

You can't coach someone that doesn't want to be coached. So that's, you know, for all our, at Petra, we call our clients members.

All our members have their hands up and say, you know, hey, I'm stuck. I need help. So I joined Petra because I love the type of work that is involved.

The people at Petra are second to none. They're phenomenal at what they do. We're a scaling up practice, and that's based on a book called Scaling Up by Vern Harnish.

The original version was called Mastering the Rockefeller Hats, and it's an operating system for a company, much like Windows as an operating system for a computer.

And it... It's a very organized approach to business. And what I loved about learning all about the scaling up process is it was a way for me to take all of my experience, all of the lessons I've learned, all the scars that I have, all the times I've stepped on those landmines and lived to tell about it, but take all of that and organize it in a way that I can share very efficiently and effectively with a team of people.

In terms of, okay, let's think about these four things. What about your people? Let's talk about your people. Let's talk about your strategy, your execution, and cash.

So taking that expertise and aligning it in a way that I can effectively share with a team so they can get better.

That is very, very rewarding to me. That's something I enjoy thoroughly. I live for lightbulb moments when I can see the lightbulb above their head.

Yeah, okay, cool. It works. We can do that. And then watch them succeed. succeed. it. I can't get enough of that.

 

Matt Zaun 

That's awesome. I was listening to an interview with Jeff Bezos recently where he said, don't ask what will change in 10 years.

Ask what won't change in 10 years. And his idea was this was a guiding light for Amazon where he said in 10 years from now, customers are still going to want products delivered quickly.

He's never going to get a customer that approaches him and say, you know, I wish that it was delivered three, four days from now.

Like every customer is going to want better pricing and things delivered quickly. So they really focus from a distribution perspective on what won't change in 10 years.

Right. I thought that was really interesting. And I bring that up because with AI and all kinds of technological advances, who knows what 10 years from now will look like.

There's going to be major, major advances. There's going to be things that we can't even predict. Some of us might not even be able to imagine or fathom what the world looks like in 10 years, as scary as that may sound.

What won't change in 10 years as it pertains to coaching? Meaning, what do you think, even with AI and everything else that's going to happen, what do you think is still going to be needed from a coaching perspective in a decade from now?

 

David Frederiksen 

I'll go back to my earlier point. It will not change if someone does not want to be coached. They cannot be coached.

That will never change. People just will not do what they don't want to do. It's pretty simple. That won't change.

I think also, in terms of coaching, is that there's always a better way to do something. There's always a better way to do something.

I think that working with people, I think coordinating action between and amongst teams, aligning people on goals, will always be a challenge.

Will always be. When you get someone to align and focus on a goal, it's very rewarding and very exciting.

You can get them there, but it's hard work. always It's hard work. Accountability, I think, will always be difficult to manage.

Setting expectations and holding people accountable. Now, accountability has kind of a bad rap. A lot of times the word, the connotations of accountability are equal to blame.

That's not what it is. Accountability is saying, okay, we have a goal. We're going to do certain things to get there.

Who's going to do what? All right, you're going to do this, you're going to do that, you're going do this.

Cool. How do we know how well you're doing? Okay, we're going to measure it. Great. We're going to measure how successful you are.

And we're going to come back and say, okay, where are you? That's accountability. That's just saying, okay, I'm taking on this role.

I'm being responsible for it. This is what we're going to do. Great. Did you do it? How are you doing?

That's accountability. It's not about blame. It's not about getting to the other side and going, who screwed up? No.

It's about how do we get there? How do we get there together? there? do we there? And how do we know we succeeded?

That will never change. Accountability is tough. It's tough to manage. It's tough to do. But it's possible with the right systems in place.

 

Matt Zaun 

That will always be true. Wow. Great points. Really appreciate you sharing that. And I really appreciate your time today.

I mean that sincerely. This was a great interview. I appreciate the points you mentioned. There are three points that I'm going to have as my takeaways.

Simple but powerful points that you shared with us. The first was about systems. Immediately you mentioned build a system.

And then you broke down for us two different variations of systems. You used the analogy Lego versus Play-Doh. I've never heard it in quite those terms before.

I think a lot of times in business we want to templatize things. And you broke down for us sometimes that's not possible.

It needs to be custom, custom fits. You spoke. A lot of this conversation was built around systems. And I appreciated that.

Second point, I do appreciate you mentioning, I need help. I spoke to the humility of you as a leader, but also I think that that's really good from an example perspective, everyone listening, recognizing sometimes pride and ego gets in the way.

We start having success and our pride and ego gets in the way. We have to humble ourselves, recognizing that to manage people, we need to reach out for help.

We need to read books. Sometimes we need to take trainings. We need to figure out how to connect with people.

So I really appreciate that point. And then the third and final point, I appreciate you mentioning the peer piece, getting involved in peer groups.

Fantastic idea. In addition, you spoke to the importance of mentorship, getting involved with these peer groups and getting solid mentorship.

So those are three points that I'm going to take with me. Again, I really appreciate our time today. If someone wants to reach out to you and inquire about your coaching services, where's the best place they can go to get that information?

 

David Frederiksen

Sure. The website is Petra Coach, P-E-T-R-A Coach. We're based in Franklin, Tennessee, and our clients are all across the country, and we are across all industries you could possibly imagine, from healthcare to construction to legal to services, we cover the gamut.

 

Matt Zaun 

Perfect. I'll include that in the show notes. People could just click and go from there. Thanks again, David. Really appreciate your time today.

 

David Frederiksen 

Sure. Enjoyed it. Thank you.