John Foppe

John Foppe's Speech Descriptions

“All things are within reach when you reach within.” John Foppe dispels common myths and beliefs regarding motivation and taking action. Using his own unique experiences discovering what he could do and what he couldn’t do, John helps audiences analyze their inner critic and make things happen. While the sight of how John handles life with his feet will amaze you, once you hear his message, you won’t be looking at him; you’ll be looking at yourself.

Within Reach
John Foppe’s Signature Speech

John Foppe was born without arms, but he believes all things are within reach. As a child, he had difficulty doing the simple things most of us take for granted, and he led a life marked by dependency. At ten-years-old, John couldn’t put his own pants on. Today, he travels the world as an author and owner of a successful international training company.

In this fascinating, poignant, but ultimately inspirational speech, John recounts his transformation from victim to victor. But, more importantly, he helps you discover your own place in the world. Applying his own experiences and the special insights he’s developed as a trained counselor, John dispels these common motivational myths:

• I can do anything.
  • You can’t do everything, but you can do something meaningful.

• I must stop feeling sorry for myself.
  • It’s okay to be down. It’s not okay to stay down.

• I must change my attitude.
  • Your attitude constantly changes—good today, bad tomorrow—that’s the problem. You must change your being.

• I must overcome obstacles.
  • You can live around them.

• If it is to be, it is up to me.
  • You will need help.

• I was born to win.
  • You were born; the rest is your choice.

• If John can do it without arms, then I can do it.
  • You can do more.

In addition, John reveals how to silence your internal self-critic, do more with less, and stay motivated. “All things are within reach, when you reach within.”

Getting It Done or Making It Happen?
Encoding Excellence into Execution

In "Get It Done" organizations, people show up and do their jobs. Work is fine, but not fantastic. In "Make It Happen" companies, employees don’t just do their work - they love their work. Employees don’t just meet their goals - they exceed them. Customers are not simply satisfied - they’re elated.

In this inspiring presentation, John Foppe, a veteran author, trainer, and adviser to executives, reveals how a "Code of Exasperation" can unwittingly exist within an organization defining the difference between "getting it done" and "making it happen". It’s no secret employees can become burnt out, fearful, and complacent. Instead, the secret is how these reactions kill vital initiatives.

John was born without arms, and he once led a life of dependency. He created his disability through exasperated perceptions, reactions and practices. Likewise, John reveals how employees create an organizational reality that either makes or breaks the company’s vision.

The "Code of Exasperation" can’t be purged, but it can be re-written into a "Code of Execution". John teaches how to encode a new reality and healthier roles where people execute in their own way. As employees understand the part they play in the big picture, they naturally embrace the vision. Rather than trying to transmit the vision to people, now people realize the vision through their own initiative. Instead of simply getting it done employees make it happen!

As a result of this presentation, participants will:

• Learn how to fill the gaps between the company’s vision and desired outcomes resulting in higher productivity, better image and greater profits.
• Experience how people take on a way of being that encodes itself into an organization’s culture, either making or breaking a vision. Inspiring employees to be the vision improves performance, increases morale, and develops superior service.
• Identify their “set” perceptions and learn how these viewpoints close off their minds inhibiting creativity and spawning resignation.
• Stop excuse-building behavior and challenge people to set higher goals.
• Recognize the four types of exasperated employees and their predominant perceptions, reactions and practices, which increases attrition, angers customers and kills vital initiatives.
• Identify the “Subconscious Conspiracy” - An unspoken relationship dynamic affecting the norms, values, assumptions, and rituals of an organization that perpetuates blame and kills initiative. Stopping the conspiracy eases conflict, alleviates stress and lowers turnover.
• Recognize the four types of executor employees and their predominant perceptions, reactions and practices, which creates excitement, prevents costly mistakes and makes things happen.
• Identify and ignite the “Conscious Covenant” - A transparent relationship dynamic where each person’s strength holds each other accountable creating camaraderie and a willingness to listen and learn.
• Spot the “Have Trap” - A common motivational mistake of confusing incentives for the goal itself. Avoiding the trap empowers people to think creatively and do more with less.
• Learn the “Path of the Executor” - An alternative paradigm of self-motivation and self-management where employees consciously internalize a vision and commit to executing outcomes enabling people to solve their problems.

Being an Executor, Not an Executioner
How to Get Everything Done Without Destroying Anything

Have you ever felt like a hamster on a wheel? The faster you go, the better you get, but better probably isn′t enough, so you have to go even faster - an exhausting cycle.

Eventually, work falters. Enter the executioner! Managers crack down with tighter controls. When controlled workers feel they have no choice, they stop taking initiative. Workers also become executioners - slowly killing initiatives with inaction.

John explains how to break the cycle by showing people they can choose to be Executors. Making things happen becomes a way of life. Employees will learn how to be executors through:

• Realizing three ways of:
  • paying attention
  • stating intentions
  • applying efforts.

• Walking the "Ellipse," a specific set of practices which mobilize one to navigate problems and maintain the vision.
• Understanding how 90% of making something happen involves making oneself available. John details five benchmarks for employees to measure their own availability for making things happen.

No more painstaking efforts to get people involved. Now, people get involved! When people choose to be Executors, turnover drops, innovation abounds, targets get hit.

You Reap What You Sow
Harvesting Strong Business Execution Practices

When it comes to creating a culture of business execution, leading thinkers and visionary executives realize that employees need to make every practice an execution practice.

In this presentation, John defines execution practices and reveals how cultivating these practices positively impacts an organization’s culture.

John highlights the four root purposes of an execution practice and presents how our daily mindset influences the way we fulfill these purposes. He emphasizes the value of a "holistic" approach including every aspect of ourselves in the cultivation of execution practices. Moreover, he outlines how to integrate this holistic approach into our daily work.

In addition, John identifies the four basic functions of an execution practice. He explains how to design our daily practices to support the successful outcome of these functions and create a culture of execution. He reveals the 12 success factors that emerge when employees make every one of their daily practices into an execution practice.

Finally, John describes the productive affect strong execution practices have on the culture of the organization, and he explains how the presence of execution practices ultimately determines whether there is feast or famine.

• When we approach our daily practices with a mindset of execution, we are more fulfilled.
• When we design our daily practices so that they strategically achieve successful execution, we are more productive.
• When we integrate execution success factors into our daily practices, the organization prospers.
• When every practice is an execution practice, the entire organization harvests a culture of execution.