Today's Business Leaders with Gabe Arnold
Sep 23, 2026 · 41 min · 10 segments
Brad Farris didn't set out to become an executive coach. He spent years doing acquisitions for a billionaire family, then transitioned to management consulting—helping entrepreneurial businesses…
Gabe ArnoldHost
So as you transition, then, like you said, working with essentially it sounds like similar, you know, similar clients.
What was what what are kind of the things that you come in and start to assess and look at, you know, when a leader is willing to have a conversation? What what are the what's the process you look at or what are the things that a leader should be thinking about? And like, man.
maybe I do need to look at some coaching or like, how do you identify, you know, the gaps and challenges that you can come in and help with?
I'm really creating a program for each client, but there are some things that come up often, right? And so one thing that I'm frequently doing is looking at a leader's calendar.
And the first thing I generally notice is, back-to-back meetings, you know, like their calendar looks like a failing game of Tetris, right? And I have a process that I do with people where I ask them to think about who they're being on their best day and who they're being on their worst day.
And I say, so what are the things that lead to more worst days? And something that comes up over and over again is back-to-back meetings.
By 3 o'clock, if you've been in back-to-back meetings all day and you haven't peed and you haven't eaten and you haven't taken a break, you're hell on wheels.
We look at the calendar and we say, so you told me that back-to-back meetings make you a person that you don't want to be.
What do you think we should do about that? And so we start rearranging some things on the calendar and we actually go through a process of deciding, forget about the calendar you have.
What's the calendar that you want to have? And we do some time blocking where there's some time to think on the calendar, because if you're a leader, you're really getting paid to think more than you're getting paid to do.
We tend to have theme days where, like, let's have all our one-to-ones on Tuesday so that you're not having all the switching calls.
And so having some themes, setting some things on the calendar that you know you need to do, and then setting some rules about when you can put other meetings on the calendar.
So as you transition, then, like you said, working with essentially it sounds like similar, you know, similar clients.
What was what what are kind of the things that you come in and start to assess and look at, you know, when a leader is willing to have a conversation? What what are the what's the process you look at or what are the things that a leader should be thinking about? And like, man.
maybe I do need to look at some coaching or like, how do you identify, you know, the gaps and challenges that you can come in and help with?
I'm really creating a program for each client, but there are some things that come up often, right? And so one thing that I'm frequently doing is looking at a leader's calendar.
And the first thing I generally notice is, back-to-back meetings, you know, like their calendar looks like a failing game of Tetris, right? And I have a process that I do with people where I ask them to think about who they're being on their best day and who they're being on their worst day.
And I say, so what are the things that lead to more worst days? And something that comes up over and over again is back-to-back meetings.
By 3 o'clock, if you've been in back-to-back meetings all day and you haven't peed and you haven't eaten and you haven't taken a break, you're hell on wheels.
We look at the calendar and we say, so you told me that back-to-back meetings make you a person that you don't want to be.
What do you think we should do about that? And so we start rearranging some things on the calendar and we actually go through a process of deciding, forget about the calendar you have.
What's the calendar that you want to have? And we do some time blocking where there's some time to think on the calendar, because if you're a leader, you're really getting paid to think more than you're getting paid to do.
We tend to have theme days where, like, let's have all our one-to-ones on Tuesday so that you're not having all the switching calls.
And so having some themes, setting some things on the calendar that you know you need to do, and then setting some rules about when you can put other meetings on the calendar.
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