Ed Goldman: Follow this leader and you may become one yourself

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Rick VanDermyden is a motivational speaker and trainer on leadership and a partner in Keller Williams Realty’s Folsom office.

Ed Goldman

Columnist- Sacramento Business Journal

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"My grandmother's 102 years old and sharper than all of us," says Rick VanDermyden as we settle in at Temple Coffee one recent morning and before he even has a chance to assess my sharpness. He must sense that because he suddenly says with a snow-blinding grin, "No offense."

VanDermyden, who turns 48 this month, spends a lot of time thinking about not putting people down. In fact, it's what led him to begin a second, now parallel, career as a motivational speaker and trainer on leadership. When I ask him what made him change from being a full-time mortgage broker to a corporate consultant and coach, he says, "The leader I was reporting to."

It's not an endorsement. VanDermyden says the boss he had in the early 1990s "was very positional. Every decision (he made) was about his getting recognition and notoriety." VanDermyden also says his end of the real estate business was becoming "entirely too transactional and less relational. Everything was too commoditized for my taste. I handled some loans and never met the client face to face. It became very uninteresting to me."

These days, he meets everybody, it seems. He's given leadership seminars, speeches or training to clients ranging from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to Guatemala's Department of Social Welfare. On Oct. 30, he'll offer a seminar, "Lunch and Learn," at Piatti Ristorante in the Pavilions shopping center. For $49, you get a fine meal, a 90-minute presentation by VanDermyden and a copy of the book, "Good Leaders Ask Great Questions," by John Maxwell, whose leadership techniques are practiced by VanDermyden (a member of Maxwell's public speaking team).

Ed Goldman, president of Goldman Communications Inc., is a Sacramento writer and marketing consultant. His collection of Business Journal columns, "But I Digress," is available at Amazon.com.