The Power of Visual Thinking
Todd Cherches, CEO & Cofounder of BigBlueGumball
Todd Cherches is the CEO and cofounder of BigBlueGumball, a NYC-based management consulting firm specializing in leadership development and executive coaching. He is a member of Marshall Goldsmith’s “MG 100 Coaches,” a three-time award-winning adjunct professor of leadership at NYU, a lecturer on leadership at Columbia University, a TEDx speaker, and the author of the groundbreaking book, "VisuaLeadership: Leveraging the Power of Visual Thinking in Leadership and in Life" (Post Hill Press/Simon & Schuster, 2020). Todd was nominated as a finalist for the 2021 Thinkers50 "Distinguished Achievement Award" in Leadership, and was ranked #35 on the 2021 Thinkers360 list of the “Top 50 Global Thought Leaders and Influencers in the field of Management.”
www.toddcherches.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddcherches/
www.marlanasemenza.com
Audio : Ariza Music Productions
Transcription : Vision In Word
Todd Cherches is the CEO and co-founder of Big Blue Gumball, a New York city based management consulting firm, specializing in leadership development and executive coaching. He's also the author of the groundbreaking book, visual leadership leveraging the power of visual thinking in leadership and in life. Welcome Todd,
Todd:
Thank you so much Marlana. Great to be here with you.
Marlana:
So, I know why I think that visuals are so important. Why do you believe that they're so powerful?
Todd:
I mean, a lot of reasons, the main one is that we all need to get others to see what we're saying. That's the biggest challenge, whether it's an email, a Ted talk, a conversation, a text, we're trying to get an idea or a thought out of our head into someone else's head. One of the best ways to do that is to think, and to communicate visually. So, whether that's through photographs as you do, it's so amazingly well or through drawing or through using props, whatever it is, or even visual language using metaphor and storytelling. So those are all the different ways that I help to teach and coach people to think and communicate more visually.
Marlana:
I know you use the term visual thinking, what does that mean?
Todd:
There are different definitions, but to me it's about thinking and communicating in pictures as opposed to words or numbers. So often the business world we're talking about ideas, financial statements or whatever, but it really is about painting a picture with words. That's why they're saying a picture's worth a thousand of them, is around in all cultures. And it's almost like the equivalent of Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint slides. That's the equivalent of that. So, we produce words in Word documents, we produce numbers on Excel spreadsheets, and then we produce slides that help us communicate more visually if it's done well. Some of the people are still doing the bullet points and reading off the screen kind of thing, which is not doing it well, but yeah, the bottom line is really about getting ideas out there into the world so that other people can understand them.
I talk about three things in my Ted talk, ACR, attention, comprehension, and retention. When use visual imagery or visual language, it captures people's attention. It gets them to focus because they're looking at something. So, in today's world of interruptions, distractions, and information overload, that's one of the biggest challenges just to reign people in and get them to focus comprehension. It enhances our understanding and retention. It increases our recall our memory. And if we can remember things, we're more likely to use and apply them. So those are the main, some of the science behind why visuals are so impactful and just as humans, we're just wired visually. That's just who we are and how our brains were.
Marlana:
It was interesting because I did watch your Ted talk and you reinforced an idea that I'd heard once upon a time that it doesn't matter what language we speak because images, pictures, and things like that transcend all languages. Yeah. But tell us a little bit about how you came to that discovery.
Todd:
Sure. Well, a lot of people think because I'm an executive coach and I do imagine leadership chain consulting that I have a business background, but I actually have an English literature background with a concentration in Shakespeare and poetry. And if you think about literature and poetry, it is about storytelling. It's about metaphor. It's about language, .? So, that's in my roots, long, a big reader going back a long time. And then my first part of my career was working in, advertising and then media and entertainment and theme parks. So advertising is a visually based business. Even if you're doing radio ads, you still need to communicate visually. and working in the movie industry, the TV industry, and then the theme park business. Again, it's all about storytelling, .? I know that's a big part of your work is visual storytelling.
It's every story there are villains victims and heroes. There's an obstacle, there's a, there's some kind of quest or goal. There's obstacles, barriers or challenges that stand in your way. There's a beginning, middle and end. There's some kind of a resolution at some point. we always talk about how you are the hero of your own life story. So, there's all kinds of metaphors that come out of the, the world of entertainment and media. and that's a big part of my coaching is getting people to think of themselves as the hero of their life story. And then now what, what do you do with that? .? How do you create a happy ending to your story through, you know, through the coaching and the training? So that was just a few of the concepts behind. but it's rooted in my background in literature and in the entertainment and media industry.
Marlana:
What about the people that come to you and say, yes, but I'm not a creative and I'm not a visual person?
Todd:
Well, one thing I say is that we're all visual in different ways. There's something called VA visual, auditory reading and writing and kinesthetic. At one point they were identified as learning styles as if you're a visual person, or you're an auditory person, but the reality is they're just different sensory modalities for taking in and processing information. So, we're all visual, we're all auditory at different times. It really is about forming imagery in our mind. I was asked this the other day. What about for people who are blind or side impaired? In some way you could still use metaphor, you could still use visual language. You could still paint a picture with words. It doesn't apply only to site.
It applies mainly to the way we think and visualize things. and when you talk about leadership, one of the biggest words that comes to mind is vision, .? We talk about visionary leaders or having a leadership vision. And what does that mean? It's about seeing picturing in your mind's eye, which is a term coined by Shakespeare. And I know that cause I was an English literature and Shakespeare major. He said that in Hamlet, when you saw the ghost of his father, he didn't know whether it was an apparition or a figment of his imagination. I see my father in my mind's eye. How do you get an image from your mind's eye into someone else's, that's one of the biggest challenges that we all face. So, all of these things tie together, but those are some of the reasons why it's so, so, embedded in the way I think and the way I work and, and now how I apply it to my training, coaching, and teaching.
Marlana:
So, what are some of the most effective ways you have seen this manifest?
Todd:
Well, I break it down to four categories. One is using visual imagery and or drawing category. Two is using mental models and or frameworks. Category three is using metaphor and analogy. And category four is using storytelling with bonus points for humor, if and when appropriate. So those are the four buckets and they're not mutually exclusive in silos. When used in combination, they're even more powerful.
You can have a metaphor and then tell a story about it. Or you can have a mental model that is drawn out by hand, or you can describe it, you know, verbally, .? So, the way my clients use this, or I use this in my teaching, is it transcends language barriers, cultural barriers. like if I say to you, we need to plant the seed for a new idea.
We need to get to the root of the problem. We need to branch out a new direction. We need to see which ideas bear fruit and the sky's the limit. I just use five or six different analogies of metaphors that use nature or a tree as the foundation. So, when you use imagery like that, it helps people to picture what you're saying. It creates clarity, just as a good metaphor can create clarity. A poorly shows, a metaphor can actually do the opposite and create confusion and chaos.
I use a lot of baseball analogies, so I'm a big baseball fan, Mets and Yankees. but if I'm talking to a 25-year-old student of mine from China, she doesn't know anything about baseball, most likely. So, something with theater, dance, nature, or something that from her culture will resonate more than using metaphor, analogy or story that is meaningful to me. So, it's always starting with, who's your audience, what's your purpose? And what's gonna resonate with this person. If we are aware of this, we could be more strategic and more intentional, intentional, because we don't even realize how often we use metaphors or tell stories. but it's a big part of once you're aware of it, then you could be even better at it.
Marlana:
Agreed! Go back to those four buckets and break those down for us a little bit.
Todd:
Sure, the first one is using visual imagery. Even though we're on video, some people may listen to the audio podcast. I may say something's the tip of the iceberg, .? So, you picture in your mind an iceberg and from iceberg image that about 10% is above the surface and the other 98 or 90% is below the surface. So, the iceberg represents as a metaphor. It's both a visual image and a metaphor, what we see or know versus what we don't. And we always know there's more that we don't. So, when we first meet someone, that's just the tip of the iceberg. If you start watching a movie, the first five or 10 minutes of it's just the tip of the iceberg. So again, it always reminds us that there's more coming and then it's up to us to dive beneath the surface, to uncover what else is down there.
Iceberg can also think about Titanic can represent danger ahead, .? What are the dangers lurking underneath that we need to be aware of? . So just from that one image, you can have a whole conversation around how can use the iceberg as a metaphor, so that's, that's one category is using imagery. I just did a workshop for the Harvard Institute of coaching a couple of days ago on visual coaching and how coaches can use visual techniques, like the ones I'm talking about in their coaching practices. So, one exercise I do is, I have a sheet of emoji faces, they may say to a client which emoji face represents how you're feeling today. So, they may not say, or I'm confused, or I'm stressed or I'm tired or I'm happy, but they'll look at the imagery and it kind of forces you to reflect and then say, all this is the face that best represents me.
And they'll say, well, tell me what's the story behind it. So, we could use imagery as a catalyst for conversations in a way that just asking you a question verbally and literally may not list the response. That’s just one example of category one and there's mind maps and there's storyboards, which are visual, but they're also in category two, which is using mental models and frameworks. So, you can use post-its or index cards or sketch something out as a mind map or a storyboard, a company's organizational chart as a visual representation of the hierarchy and reporting structure. They're all around us. One of the things I always say is we want thinking outside the box has become a cliche, but you can't think outside the box unless you have something inside the box. So having boxes and frameworks will help us to simplify the complexity of the world, put them into boxes or categories so we could see them more clearly.
And then we see solutions that maybe we hadn't thought about before. So, I'll stop there for a second, but that's category one, visual imagery and category two models and frameworks.
Marlana:
Well ,go ahead. Keep going.
Todd:
There's two more. I just wanted to pause, see if you have any thoughts or questions. Category three is using metaphors analogy. just like the tip of the iceberg and just like the one with the tree, planting the seed, cetera. when you use metaphorical language, it helps to make the abstract concrete, the unfamiliar ,familiar, the invisible, visible. if you say, my love is like a red rose, that's newly sprung in June. But metaphors are not just for songwriters and poets, it really is for all of us to say, oh, baseball, that idea came out of left field, or you had a grand slam, or you really struck out on that presentation.
We do that all the time. I think the key is finding metaphors that resonate with your audience. I used the analogy, (we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.) And I had a visual image of the Brooklyn bridge, because I'm from New York, but I did the same workshop with a group in San Francisco via zoom. I used the golden gate bridge instead and I did it once through the group in London. I used the tower bridge. When use a metaphor or an image that resonates with your audience, people think, oh, this person gets me. So, I am saying, meet people, not where you live, but where they live or somewhere in the middle. In fact, speaking of bridges, I have a textbook in college called Bridges, not walls and words can build bridges between people to connect them or put-up walls between people to divide them.
So, in terms of what you're saying, what you're showing, are you connecting or dividing people through your words and your images. The last category storytelling, which could be visual through pictures and imagery or could be verbal. But again, as I said, stories take people on a journey . You have a beginning, middle, and end. Aristotle said that couple of thousand years ago. but stories are human, they're relatable, they're emotional, they're memorable. So, if I'm coaching a manager, I might say, instead of saying to your employee, do these 10 things and don't do these 10 things. You may say when I had your job, let me tell you about the worst mistake I ever made and what happened and why I say why I have these JS and don'ts that person's gonna be on their edge of their seat.
They wanna hear that story, .? So, stories stay with us and they're just more impactful than there's facts, figures, and feelings. Facts and figures are the rationale, that's the evidence, the feelings is what you wanna capture through the emotion of your storytelling. And again, when you use humor, it lightens the mood. But people are more receptive and more innovative when they feel good and when they're engaged, but it's gotta be relevant and it's got to be appropriate for a situation. So anyway, those are the four categories, and my whole book, visual leadership is a break it down into examples for those four categories. But in a nutshell, which is a metaphor, those are just a few examples,
Marlana:
And it's interesting that you say all that because I know most people when they invest in someone or something, make a purchase, or fol it's an emotional decision. Yeah. It's very rarely a logical decision. we justify it maybe logically, but usually it's an emotional connection.
Todd:
If you think about it, would you link in with someone you didn't know if there was no headshot on their LinkedIn profile, would you buy an item on Amazon or eBay? If it was just the title and description, but no picture, are you more likely to read a blog post that has an image above it or that, that doesn't so like the list goes on. We don't even realize, if you're on a plane and you look at that emergency card that shows you where the exits are. If that was a 20-page booklet that you had to read through. Once reading that, . But if you open it up and you have, here's the exits and here's the signs, traffic lights. I talked about this the other day in my workshop. Red, yellow, and green lights is a model I use in my coaching practice.
What do you wanna stop? Start and continue doing. . So red light stop, green light start, and yellow light continue. When my mother was in the hospital and they had a pain chart, it said on scale of zero to 10, how much pain are you in? And then it said from little pain to unspeakable pain, but then they had red, yellow, and green emoji Mocon faces that paralleled the traffic light. So, they combine words, numbers, and images to help the patient think about how they were feeling. Because some people might gravitate towards the numbers, but if you're in the hospital and you're medicated, you're not wearing your glasses, whatever, it's the visuals that people are drawn to first. And then you translate that into the number and then into the language.
So, it's just interesting. These real-life examples are all around us. If we even stop to and pause to know this.
Marlana:
Yeah. And you know, you also completely hit on something that I tell people all the time when we're creating images is they're a means of communication, but we need to know who we're speaking to for them to be effective. So, talk to me a little bit about your thoughts on using these visuals in whatever form they are to grow a brand.
Todd:
I mean, there're brand logos. It's interesting to see certain logos, you see Nike or apple, certain ones are immediately recognizable, others are less. But you think about what is your own personal brand? Are you a suit and tie type of person? Are you more of a casual type of person? What is the brand you represent on a zoom call? . Like someone looking mine, what do they think? Oh, this guy either fakes it or he does read a lot of books. .? I have all the books, these, these, these are mine and these, but I've been reading an average of one business book a week since 1998. So that's about 50 a year for 23 years. So, I passed around 1200 books that I read. but just as you can judge a book by its cover is an expression.
We are drawn to its book coverage. So, a good cover can draw your attention while a blank. One may not. Marshall Goldsmith's book, What Got You Here Will Get You There, which is above my shoulder Here, is like my coach, my Bible of coaching. And I'm in Marshall Goldsmith's group of mgs, 100 coaches on the, on the cover. You can't see it from there, but there's a ladder with a businessperson standing on the bottom ladder. He's on the second to top rung reaching to trying to reach the bottom rung of the next ladder. But there's a huge gap there. So, the idea behind what got you, if you just think about the title, what got you to where you are today is not necessarily gonna get you to where you want to be, unless you find a way to close that gap.
And that could be through coaching or training. There's a million ways to do that. But I love so many people focus on the title. I'm drawn to that latter image that so many people may, may not know this because either you're not attuned to it or you're not looking for it. But I always use the Marcel PR quote that the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing what's new eyes. So, anyone can see new eyes take a different way to work or walking down the street. If you're in New York, like I am look up and you'll know buildings or things that you hadn't noticed before. So, it really is just about to train yourself, increasing your visual intelligence by starting to look for things and notice things that maybe you hadn't seen before. I wanna ask you as a photographer, there's the foreground and then there's the background, right? So, you use different techniques of focusing, angles, things like that and lighting to help draw people's attention. I'm just curious what are some of your thoughts on how people who aren't necessarily photographers but can use those types of techniques to help. Again, you don't wanna draw people's attention because you're trying to tell a story and communicate a message.
Marlana:
It's interesting because with photography, what people need to realize too is it's two things, it's a relationship with light, but it's also a series of choices. So, every time that I frame an image, I'm deciding what to include, what to exclude, what to focus on, what to draw your attention to. Because the light is an element of the story. Should it be harsh light? Should it be soft light? Should it be front light? Should it be back light? There's all of these things. So, it's really a series of decisions that go into how to effectively create this image to tell the proper story. And it doesn't mean a story or a wrong story. It's just the most effective story for that particular person or that particular instance.
Todd:
Well, my favorite examples of that, I haven't thought of in a while that you just triggered, there's a picture of a cow standing in the field and when they ask people from the Western world, what do you see in this picture? And they'll say I see a cow standing in a field, people from an Eastern background tend to say, there's a field with a cow standing in it. So, it's like, do you notice the eye object and it's environment? Or do you start with the environment and then focus on the object? So just interesting, just culturally what we look for, what we pay attention to, what we focus on is a big part of what we know this. So, the art of noticing is like, being aware. If you're a manager who are the people? What are the behaviors?
A lot of it is framed through our own lens, but if we can expand our lens, then we'll start to know things that may be that hidden gem idea from someone in your group, who's an introvert who hasn't spoken in a while who almost gets ignored. They sit in the back. I would say, even though I talk loud and fast, because I'm a new Yorker, I'm an extreme introvert. I always say I'm a three BS guy, a back of the room behind the scenes, bookworm by nature. So, everything I do to put myself out there is pushing myself out of my comfort zone. But there were a lot of times that I was in meetings where I had a great idea suggestion, but I didn't have the courage or the confidence to speak up and speak out. And that goes back to my school years.
And then earlier in my career and you would kind of hope to be called on that. I never had the confidence to raise my hand. So, who are the people who would, who you should call on? if you create an environment of psychological safety where you don't put people on the spot and make them feel stupid. Some people just need that space, which opening. And then once you open the door for them, they're gonna walk through it. Again, it's noticing not just ideas and visual imagery, but people too, what, who are the people that you may not be giving the attention that they need and could use and could be the solution to your problem. there in front of you and you don't even notice it because you don't give it an opportunity.
Marlana:
Agreed! And you know, I think that's one of the things when that I also stumble upon too, is to help somebody build their personal brand. A lot of people say, well, I don't wanna be the face of my business or I don't wanna be out in the spotlight, but at the end of the day… And I'm gonna go back to your advertising background for this packaging matters. The way things are presented matter because it affects the way we see things and it affects the way we rate something even. So, you wanna talk a little bit about that from your advertising?
Todd:
Yeah. Well also as I was thinking, you know, one of the exercises I do in my workshops is I'll have people, I'll say you have two minutes, take out a piece of paper in a pen and draw a picture of a leader. What does a leader look like? Let me ask you a few guesses. There's a few different ones, but the one more than the other. What if you had to guess, what do you think people draw when I say draw a picture of a leader?
Marlana:
I'm going to guess it's usually white male.
Todd:
It's a middle-aged white male in a business suit. So, what does that say about the way we frame things in this world of diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, where we're trying to be more inclusive if even for businesswomen, professionals are drawing that. If you don't have time to think about, that's the first thing that comes to mind, that's what you draw, but how does that impact hiring decisions who gets heard, who gets promoted? So, until we change the picture in our mind's eye, then subconsciously we're gonna keep choosing the same people over and over again. So, without this awareness, sometimes people actually get upset with themselves and kick themselves. It's like, I should know better than that. I do this for a living. And yet that's the picture I drew . Usually, they'll draw a big ear, which represent listening.
They'll draw a watch that represents time management. They'll usually make the leader taller than the followers. If they, you know, even if you can't draw, even if you have ICD, which is, I can't draw a syndrome, I'm not the greatest draw in the world. But I always say, if you could play Pictionary with your friends and family, you could draw well enough to do this exercise, but yeah, we need to change the picture in our head so that we could change the reality in the world. So that's, that's one of the key examples that I use. So, so I am speaking about advertising. Yeah. It's branding it's you know what the Coca-Cola can was not red, but blue. What if, you know, what, if Santa was wearing green and not red. So, it's like, there's certain imagery and color systems and we can talk for hours just about color coding in society, which is really fascinating.
Todd:
Why blue is boys, pink is girls? We have labels that. It's like the whole coloring outside the line or kids Dr. You know, coloring purple hair. It's like, no, you don't, hair is brown or black or whatever. It's not purple. Like why isn't it purple? So, often we're locked into what our culture or what we're brought up with that, and it limits our creativity and innovation, locks us into decisions like the leadership one I just talked about.
Marlana:
How much do you think that we should lean into the visuals we already know and have, for example, from a perspective angle? If you want something to look powerful, a lot of times you'll go at an upward angle. How much should we lean into them and how much do you think we need to go back to our idea of what a leader looks like? Do we need to change what the visual is?
Todd:
I think it's kind of a subjective question. I think what we should do is just be more aware and be more intentional, purposeful, and strategic. And then from there you can make those decisions on how you angle something or if something in this shadow. I've heard stories of like darkening, like one of the examples I just thought of when the whole OJ Simpson murders was going on, I was living in LA at the time and how he is on the cover of Newsweek and time. I forget which one, but one I'm really darkened into the complexion and made, took the same image, but darkened did and made them look really… They manipulated the image basically to send a message. It's like, yes, imagery can be manipulated. and I don't get into the politics or the fact that he was. I actually lived on the same block as his, as Nicole Simpson at the time.
So that was a crazy time in my life. But also, during that time was the Rodney king rod riots and the Northridge earthquake. So that was a very tumult, tumultuous time living in LA in the early nineties. But as you're thinking, you almost replay memories as if you're watching a whole movie in your mind's eye. So, it's like, as you were asking a question, I'm kind of going through my mental Rolodex or my mental file cab Rolodex, that ages me as a baby boom <laugh>. but my mental filing cabin and of examples and stories and things like that. But I think the key thing is to be aware, be strategic and purposeful, and be aware that people can interpret your messaging based on how you present it. So, it's good to get multiple perspectives, get input and feedback from other people, because you may see things one way through your lens. but someone else may see it from a completely different angle. I think those are some of the things to think about.
Marlana:
Very true! And know your audience.
Todd:
Yes, definitely! I always say star, one of my models in my book is my three-legged stool model. The seat of the stool represents your purpose. What is the purpose of your presentation or your communication sitting on that stool is your audience, .? So, who's sitting, there could be one person could be a hundred thousand people. Then the three legs of the stool are your content, your design, and your delivery, .? So just by breaking it down, just like a stool with less than three legs is gonna tip over. If you don't think about the content, what to include, what not to the design is, how do I structure and sequence it. And the delivery is how am I gonna ultimately present it? So that's like the five parts of designing it and delivering any message. So just even physically seeing it with your eye, I'm sure you could visualize that three-legged stool in your mind, just from that verbal visual description.
Actually, when I'm presenting, I show a picture of an aquatic sea animal and people say, oh, is that a dolphin? I'll say, no, it's a, PPU, it's the PPU of your presentation. <laugh> so it's Gable, it's cheesy, but you know what? You will never forget it. So as soon as you see that, every presentation needs a Corpus. So, the way it's presented again, it's humor, but it sticks with people years later in a way where if I just said your presentation needs a purpose could go in one ear and out the other. So again, that's the power of using visual language. And again, humor when appropriate. It just helps to make things stick. Think about how many messages were, whether it's an advertising or just in real life. The number of messages were bombarded with on a daily basis. Checked my email this morning. I had a hundred emails when I just started my day today. And it's like, how do you cut through the clutter? Again, using visual imagery on visual language will help to do that.
Marlana:
Love it! And with that, I only have four final questions for you. First one, what's the best piece of advice you were ever given?
Todd:
A lot of good pieces of advice. One of them was, years ago when I first started my training career, my mentor, Joe, a Montana who I'm still good friends with all these years later said to me, you know, your content inside and out, but you present it very robotically is almost as if, if there's a glass partition between you and the audience. When this one presenting in person, he said, you need to take a hammer, break that glass wall down and step out, then interact with and engage with the people because they're all in your career. You're so focused on the content and not saying the wrong thing and getting it . that you forget that there's a live audience out there. So that’s one piece of advice I've never forgotten.
But think about the visual imagery, that of breaking that glass partition, just like the glass sailing for like women in executive positions. So, whether standing, whether is that barrier and obstacle, it could be clear, and you may not even see it because it's clear, but once you smash through it, it opens up a world of possibility. So, I would say that among many pieces of advice, but that's the first one that popped into my head when you asked that question.
Marlana:
Share with us one thing on your bucket list,
Todd:
On my bucket list, a lot of things, especially since we've been kind of lost a couple of years because of the pandemic. I would like to first just get out more and travel more. It's one of the things that's been really nice. I've been having lunches in New York with a lot of people who friends I've made on zoom over the last couple of years. So, it's been really nice to actually have not Shaked their hand at least hug or a fist bump. So, that's been nice just to connect with more people, again, as an introvert, it's very easy for me to just stay home, but just to get out there in the world more is something that I'd like to do, continue to do more of
Marlana:
When the toy companies finally get around to making an action figure of you, what two accessories will it come with?
Todd:
I love that question! and I have a good answer for it cause I that's one of the exercises I do, you know, draw yourself as a superhero. two, two things, in my Ted talk, I talk about how, when I was a kid, people would say, what do you wanna be when you grow up and I say Superman, and they say, well, what's your backup plan? I said, Batman. So those are my two career aspirations. So like Superman, not x-ray vision, but visual thinking is my superpower. And like Batman who had his bat utility belt, I have a utility belt of coaching tools, visual coaching tools in my toolkits. So, my superhero would have a Cape. Those are the two superpowers that my action figure would possess
Marlana:
Love it! And last how do people find you?
Todd:
the best way is going to my website, which is just my name, toddcherches.com. People could download on my list of top 52 book recommendations that had the greatest impact on me. But also link with me, just say, you saw me on my landing, the show and I like to connect with you. I'm on LinkedIn all the time. So, I love to engage with people. Those are probably the two best ways.
Marlana:
And tell us how they get your book
Todd:
Visual Leadership, Amazon or anywhere books are sold. So, it's available an audio book, Kindle and hard cover, though there's a certain irony to listening to an audio book about visual thinking. So, the good thing is many people who bought the audio book have gone on to buy the book too. I would say, the book is written in a very visual way, full color on every few pages. I would say, if you read it, leave an Amazon review, or reach out to me, tell me what you think or any questions that you have.
Marlana:
And they'll be able to see all the visuals in their minds eye.
Todd:
They will definitely be able to do that!
Marlana:
Thank you so much for being here, Todd,
Todd:
Thank you so much, Marlana.