What does it mean to be a thought leader? And for that matter, what does it mean to be a good leader in general? This week, Hallie and I explore how to overcome habits like overthinking, perfectionism, and copying other leadership styles. We delve into what makes up good (thought) leadership and emphasize embracing your own unique perspective to navigate the challenges of life and business with authenticity and self-awareness.

Takeaways

• Overthinking often stems from a fear of judgment.
• Thought leadership is about sharing unique perspectives, not just expertise.
• Leadership is about being true to oneself and one's experiences.
• Business challenges often mirror personal growth opportunities.
• Embracing discomfort is part of the entrepreneurial journey.

View full show notes here.

Welcome to the 200 % live podcast, your weekly insights to spiritual growth in business success with Adam Hergenrauther and Hallie Warner.

First of all, we are right off in the foliage season. I feel like the weather here is on absolute repeat. I mean, it's been, what do mean? It's like San Diego weather. It's like 50 degrees today and yesterday it was really warm, but the past like three weeks has rained like for an hour and it's been literally sunny every single day. And, I mean, this is like,

like picturesque fall. you know what's really interesting I've noticed from a standpoint is, Stowe, so we live in a very tourist state, one, Stowe is even like the pinnacle of tourists. exactly, of people coming in there. And the town's actually been slow.

Really? Yeah, it's been slow compared to what it typically is when you're approaching kind of peak foliage. think peak foliage will be here in about a week and a half. I gonna say about two weeks. Stowe's probably week and a half. Down here is probably like two, two and a half or so. But it's real. I can always judge it by driving by a restaurant and seeing how many cars are there. And it's just like, you can still get in. And peak foliage season, it's a two hour wait everywhere. And Stowe's known for their food scene, right? So it's just like. And the foliage, yeah. Yeah, and the foliage.

Have you taken advantage of it? Interesting. Of what, stow? Just the trees. you not noticed them? I mean, so here where I live, not up in the mountains where you live, I don't feel like it's really chained. It's really turned yet. So. This right here, this plant that I'm showing right here. The beautiful fake plant. That's right. It's yellow, though. But no, I mean, just been taking advantage of the weather in general. It was so nice out yesterday, so I spent some time outside.

You're still in good spirits, everything going well in your life? Yeah, generally. Yeah. I mean, I'm an over -thinker, right? So I'm constantly over -thinking everything that I do. And just working through all the new business stuff that I'm doing. Why do you think you over -think things? I mean, isn't that just a personality trait? Could be. I don't know.

lingering perfectionism, of course, which I think I'm less of a perfectionist than I used to be. And it's more of you definitely improved that. Yeah, yeah. I'm almost like not even a perfectionist anymore. But I mean, I care what other people think probably more than I think that I do. And so my overthinking comes in.

the thing because a lot of what I do in my business is I put stuff out into the world. That's what it is. It's not a behind the scenes kind of job. It's creating contents, creating courses, it's posting on social media, it's having to put things out there constantly, which is very much a kind of counter to who I am as a person. I'm very introverted and probably more private than a lot of people.

Do you think that's why you do it through content? Because you don't have to do it from a personality standpoint and you can do it through content. You mean my personality doesn't shine through in my content? No it does. No but I'm actually interested they do because you've always taken that like it's do you use the like a medium which is not wrong or right it just I'm just curious because other people use their personality in terms of their speaking some people will use more of their... content can be videos and speaking as well. This is content what we're doing right now.

But a lot of your content, you rely more of, I think more of it like, more of like almost like a Ray Dalio approach, which is Ray is always in the written form. So it's more perfectly aligned and making sure that the comments are getting out there. Whereas me, I would much prefer just to go off the mic and be able to be interviewed that way and not have things. It's almost like, it's like the exact opposite almost. Yeah. No, I mean, I kind of like a little bit of all of it. It's no matter what I'm doing, writing or.

Speaking or to be on a podcast or being in an interview. It doesn't really matter what it is. It's all fear of judgment, right? And am I gonna sound Stupid or is this gonna land or is anyone even gonna care?

So, you know, that's where the overthinking comes in and then you start getting into the comparison train and looking what everyone else is doing. And that's just a recipe for disaster. So I've steered I'm working on that steered cleared of most of the comparison over the past couple of months, which feels much better. And then focusing very getting really more clear about what what do I want to create? Yeah. And I actually heard this on a podcast this weekend when I thought was very interesting about this whole concept of being a thought leader, which

I've always defined thought leadership in.

in the way that I'm going to share, but I didn't think I had the words for it because a lot of people think that thought leaders mean like being an expert, which is generally what people think of thought leadership as. You're being an expert in a topic, but I don't actually really, that doesn't resonate with me so much. The way that the podcast explained it is it's less about being a thought leader and it's more about sharing your thoughts from your unique perspective, which as soon as I heard that I go, okay, that's how I've always thought of thought leadership, but I think the world has always thought of thought leadership as this, you're an expert.

But that puts a lot of pressure on yourself and there's a lot of pressure to be the expert and always have the answers and so that's what I've Been battling with a little bit is if you position yourself as a thought leader and an expert. Well, then you have to always get it, right Which is not my jam. I'm really more about being curious and exploring ideas and exploring different things and it's okay if you contradict yourself because you're evolving you're thinking and so that I've

shifted from that thought leadership expert mentality more to, what if I'm just sharing my thoughts from my specific experience? And that's been helping. You know, I think the leadership in general just takes on so many different forms and so many different organizations, but so many different people at different phases of their life, it means different things. And so I think it's like thought leadership can go in the same kind of vein, which is that's why you it's almost yes, you can you can

If you wanted to pinpoint down and call it characteristics of leaders, I'm sure you could write those down and people would agree. But even when you're agreeing on, okay, you need grit or you need hard work, it means different things to everybody. So it's like, that's why it's so difficult if you want to start a business or create a business to try to emulate somebody else identically, because it's never going to be you, because that person is not you. They haven't had your experiences. They don't have your same personality. That's why being a leader is truly expressive

of who you are in the best way that you can do it so that you can then go out there and serve the world in your unique gifts and sharing your thoughts and ideas. You're gonna be right, you're gonna be wrong, but at end of the day, that's what makes leaders leaders is they're gonna go out there and yes, again, like I said, you could pinpoint six words if we all say this is what leaders do or four words, but how people do that and how they show up and do it is different. Just like I was using the example earlier,

It's much easier for me just to get on the phone and talk through somebody with something versus writing an email. I do both, right? But, and somebody else may purely go in a texting form, right? I know people that just text and then other people want to do something differently. Those are small examples of leadership, but this is why it actually almost gives people permission to go out and as you build your business to build a...

You can call it the way you want, but that's not really what I'm, that's almost like a get out of jail free of how I'm saying this. It's more about you should use your gifts or use your ability of how you want to lead and grow a company. And that's how you should show up and do it.

in 2004 so it's a little bit different but it's still like I remember going in there and then I started the job and in first couple weeks I was like man I can't work for somebody else and I'll tell you why it was mainly because a there was I just remember showing up at my desk and they're like

okay, you have to be here until five, so you have to make this work last until you leave at 4 .30 or five o 'clock, whatever it is, because I would come in early so I could leave a little bit early. But they're like, you just need to fill the void in the time that you have here, basically. And that kept being repeated to me over and over again, and that just kept gnawing away at me. And finally, I was like, man, I'm going to start a company. it's going to be, and I've changed the words to sound better now, but at the time, was like, man, people are just going be able to do

what they want, when they can do it. And we're not gonna have times. just remember being like, it's like, that's why we've always taken that approach of like, get your shit done. I don't care when you do it, because that's how I really wanted to run a company was very much hire people that were just gonna go get it done in a faster period of time. And that sometimes meant working all day. And sometimes it meant getting up at five so you could, you know, crush your stuff that you want to do it. And we maintain that while we were building companies. result. So results driven. Yeah, again, only environment, which is actually, I think,

trademarked term now.

by the there's two people who wrote the book that's called work sucks and like what to do about it and so it's about creating this results only environment and they actually did that she was the CEO of Best Buy and they actually implemented that whole which is a concept that we've done for years I know a ton of entrepreneurs do but yet when you actually look at it in a massive organization like Best Buy thinking about creating if they can do it I'm like of course small businesses can do it and entrepreneurs can do it if a company like Best Buy can create a results only. I think that's that's a company that you want to

do it like that. Like I know a very successful company around here that they're the opposite of that. And it's not necessarily results oriented. I think most companies would say, of course, we're results oriented. But again, that just means something different to somebody else. To me, that means you have the freedom and flexibility to be an adult. like, that's what it is. And other people are like, yeah, you have results over company, but you need to be here for these periods of time. Right. And that's so there's a different there's a different way to being able to do that. Yeah. So when

So communication aside, because I get it, different leaders communicate in different ways. And do you think that there are, because you alluded to it, but are there a couple of key characteristics that do make a great leader? I think number one is you've got to be willing to eat a lot of glass. And if you're not willing to do that, then you're never going to make it as an entrepreneur. As a great entrepreneur, yeah, without a leader.

Yeah, or even a leader. I think if you're not willing to eat glass for your people, if you're not willing to, and again, all they use that as a metaphor of basically like just hard shit that you have to deal with. If you're not willing to, if you can't withstand it, you can't withstand it and it's going to make you suffer or like you have the weight of other people or you're trying to always, you know, avoid situations that are, that have conflict or you get really beat up if an employee leaves or you lose a customer and like you can't, you you suffer. You have to just be honestly willing

to sit there and deal with the pain that comes in from that. That's why to me when that started really happening as we started growing our businesses, I just started saying, well, business is nothing but a conduit for our personal growth. And that's really what all that means. It doesn't mean you don't feel yucky inside. You do. But then it's like, can I handle this yuckiness? And the answer that's literally I wake up every day, every morning. And that's the first thing that I always say is things are going to happen today. Some things are going to be things that I want to happen. Some things are going to be things that I don't want to happen. And I'm willing to handle both.

And that's just kind of like my starting position every day. Because every day some shit's gonna happen that I have no idea what's gonna come in there. This is just a funny aside. was listening to a podcast, I think last weekend it was Modern Wisdom and it was Chris Williamson and Dan Martell who's the, he's a SaaS entrepreneur.

very successful, he's written a book called Buy Back Your Time. they were having very, you know how they have like three hour interviews, but during that interview, they were, think it was Dan Martell was talking about this whole, he didn't say business is a conduit for your personal growth, but that's essentially what he was saying, he just didn't say it in those words. And I kept saying it and I'm like, does he think that's like new? I'm pretty sure Adam's been saying that for like 10 years, did they hear it? Anyway, I just it was funny, because I felt like Chris was almost like, I never thought about it like that before. anyway, I just thought it was really funny because I'm like,

we collectively and anyone who's been in the environment that we've been in have always felt that way about business. And just thought it was really interesting that they, it was kind of like a new concept to them, which, know, whatever. But I just think it's kind I think there's a lot of really incredibly successful people.

that have seen business as goal oriented and now what they've accomplished a lot of their goals and they're doing more reflective and they're actually seeing how it can have a different goal that's more intrinsic. And I think that's really where people are making the change from. I even saw Ed Milette do this and obviously he's been there and then it might have been a year ago he got onto a podcast because he was at an event that I was at and then I happened to listen to a podcast he did right afterwards and he just started meditation. And he was like this thing just changed my life and now I see every four,

episode it's like he's interviewing somebody that's around spirituality or Deepak or something else he talks about and then he'll jump back into his other forms of different things but again to his he keeps talking about how like he needed new friends now all of a because now he's seen the world differently and so there can be these incredibly successful outwardly driven leaders and owners and entrepreneurs and CEOs and at some point people just it's almost like you reorient yourself now I also think there can be a lot of people who are are successful in their own ways

not maybe millionaires that are doing that, have reoriented themselves to have their inner experience be more of that primary focus in their life. And that's a different perspective for what it is. We happen to be the intersection of both, which is I really enjoyed building businesses and I had financial goals that I think were fun to kind of go after. And at the same time, I'm like, well, while I'm doing that, I might as well use all of this because if you haven't noticed shit happens every day in business and it's just hard. It's just really hard. And there's a lot of times where you're like, man, I feel amazing. And then in a minute later, you're like, holy

shit we're gonna collapse and the world's gonna be not a friend of mine text me there a day this is hilarious he doesn't he owns a pretty these are about 100 employees at his organization

It's not in real estate. And he's like, Hey, do have a few minutes to talk? think he's like, I'm really, I'm really struggling with it. I forget exactly what he said, but it's like, man, this could be a really, really tough moment. And then like, I lost it. was right in middle of it. And I forgot to respond to him. And the next day I went and responded to him he goes, he goes, don't worry about it. He goes, I'm back to being a billionaire again. Like, and it was like, he's like, for a second there, I thought we were fucked. It's over. Like, cause I told him that term and he was trying to figure that out. And I just laughed and I was like, yeah, just like, that's like the,

of what it is. forget about just business side, that's what life is too. Life is the same way. So again, whether I always think about it as like, there's I am, right? There's the I am.

and then you can put in there like I am successful, I am angry, or I am enjoying this experience, or I am not enjoying this experience. And so to me, the I am or the adjective how you describe either like I am Adam, like who's Adam, there's two I am and there's an Adam, right? The I am is always the constant. So when you always focus on the I am is always gonna be okay, that everything else you just allow it to float up and down. Because just life's gonna be nothing but windy and then sunny and then everything in between. And so you just enjoy the,

Who am I, which is the I am before all of this. And it's so funny because we use this language every day and don't think about it. Like, well, I am really frustrated. I couldn't handle that. I would never allow that to happen to me. Who's the I am? And you've just people just mistaken that for themselves. But if you actually hear your own language, that's what it is. Like, business is nothing but a conduit for personal growth because the growth comes in and it's the I am that gets to witness all of it.

It's just a step back. And the reason why I bring it up that way is because it literally gives you the ability to handle anything in business, which makes you a more effective business person, which makes you a more effective leader or a parent or content creator or anything that you're doing. It's the it's always after and there's a plethora of those things that you can go out there and do. But there's one thing that always is there while you're doing that. And that is the I And so when you do that, then you just that's how.

business can give you a reflection of your intrinsic or like your personal growth because it's always reflecting on the IM is constant. But man, business is really hard. I went bankrupt. I didn't go bankrupt. We sold the company for a billion dollars and everything in between there. I had to learn how to lay off people. Man, 15 employees just walked out of me or they're going on strike. How do I handle that? Right. It's like all of these things. Yeah. You're never going to you. You're always going to be surprised by life in business. You just always will. And so to think about

that your mind knows everything about what's supposed to happen in life is just a lie in itself. That's another thought you're buying into. Just like you buy into a thought, but if the mind's starting to tell you, know that I'm gonna be in this forever, no you don't. You have no idea. Just like, you know, I was giving some relationship advice earlier to somebody and it's like, you know, like I really wanna stay with him. I'm like, you don't know that either. And like I just, I've told that to Sarah many times, like I have no idea if we're gonna be together and you have no idea if you're gonna be with me.

And I was like, we're happy and we're in this moment and we're enjoying this. It doesn't mean it's not a way out. It doesn't mean you don't love the person. It just means that you don't actually know. Your mind has no idea and it has no idea where it's going to be. Now you can create a plan. You can go after it. Absolutely. You should do all those different things. But that's why there's another side to all of this that gives a different perspective, which to me just relieves a lot of suffering. It doesn't relieve the yuckiness feeling that comes in from things that don't go your way. Cause it's going to show up for a long period of time until they do that deeper work.

What if you could pick a word for what is that? Everything you just talked about for the past few minutes, what is that characteristic? Because I agree with you, that's what great leaders are able to do everything you just talked about. What's the word that encompasses that? I keep going to resilience, but I'm not sure if that's really the right word. To me, it's surrender. OK.

Yeah is the one word if you had to put it down there because that's why you're literally and really surrender Just because what you're not you just as just as a side token of this surrender does not mean you're not taking action in life, right? I know you know that but just listeners listen again Surrender does not mean you're allowing people to walk on you or you say yes to everything It simply means when you feel yucky inside or you get that discomfort inside you surrender that and then show up and handle the situation so if employees are leaving you and

and it's a 24 hour disaster zone, and you're feeling like real shit, you're not gonna go in there and stop the feeling, but what you can say is, I can handle the fact that I'm having this experience inside, and I can also handle the fact that I'm dealing with my employees. That's the state that you get to. Yeah, you know, I actually agree with you that that's the word, I just didn't really want that to be the word. I know, I I tried to find something And I'm like, god damn it. No. Okay, fair enough, yeah, I get it, I get it, yeah, it's surrender.

Yeah, well, it's just because I'm even thinking you asked me about overthinking question. What's the answer to that? Yeah. Yeah. And it's in other people have used different words, right? I mean, you can say like, you know, the now.

I know it's two words, but like the now is surrender. That's what, that's all just, however anybody gets to the point of surrender, there's a thousand different ways and there's amazing teachers that teach you how to get there. You can do Keteladay yoga, you can do exercise, you can do meditation, you can do journaling, you can do, you know. Do you have to do any of those things? No, you don't. Okay. The simple thing is all Sometimes I'm like, I don't want to add something else in my life. You All you literally have to do is watch the thought come in there and surrender to the thought. That's the highest form of any personal growth you ever have.

and it never changes. I mean, that's literally for thousands of years, that's everyone, you don't have to go anywhere. So don't have to do anything. It's not about going to sit in the woods and meditating either. That's the complete, that's, that's just another thought that you caught onto. And you're going to live in a cabin now and you're trying to do this, but guess what? There'd be a bunch of pain there too. And it's not about getting divorced or getting a new job or starting a new business or it's not, it doesn't, is about, that's what I mean. It's just all it means is that those things are just things that you're doing. But if while you're doing those things, if you're not,

constantly surrendering to your own inner dialogue. again, people define, they say, go be successful, Hallie. What everyone's saying and what they're really meaning is they're saying, if you can go get the world the way you want it so that the way the world then hits you, it gives you the thoughts and the emotions that you want. That's what being successful means. Because if I get enough people, leverage, power, fame, money,

then I can rearrange the world so that when the world experience unfolds, it's almost like it's a trick that you can put on the world. It then will trigger you to have better thoughts and better emotions. And so that's the experience that I want. Whereas you could also just wake up and go, why can't I just be okay anyways? If I can, why do I have to use the world to make myself feel that way? Why don't I just feel that way and then just allow the world do its dance? That's. So, I just made a little note that in my,

a book that I want to write of a series of essays entitled Identity Crisis. I may have to have a chapter about surrender in there, which I'm not happy about, I think that I think it needs to be that it might need to be in there. Yeah, it's a tough thing because it's like then when you get out in the real the real world when you're listening to a podcast or like in your

You doing some form of preventative kind of like a meditation or journaling and then also you're like, okay I'm good and also you get out there and you're like, but it's so hard out there Yeah, it is. It's really hard. That's why you have to use the basis of everything you're doing and I promise you you have more light Well, and then I also just think again everything that you're saying I'm just like well then if it's gonna be hard anyway, we know it's gonna be it's gonna be hard anyway And things aren't gonna go the way that we want them to go and people aren't gonna like what we're gonna we we're gonna say or do Then I'm just like then just do

what you want to do. That's exactly right. Anyway, that's why I have keep reminding myself. I'm like, say what you want to say, put out what you want to put out, do what you want to do, be with people that you want to be with because someone's gonna have an opinion about it and or nobody's gonna care. So you know why we weren't about it is it was only a thought that you cause and then you identify with the thought and that's causes worry. But you could also literally just, you know,

It'd be great just to able to wake up and go, you know, I'm gonna go out there in the world today and there's gonna be some people that really love what I say or at least one person or a couple people. And then there's gonna be some people that literally hate your guts and they're like, they wanna throw up every time they hear your name. And it's just like, it's awesome. Why can't you think that way, right? And it's not like you're doing anything intentionally, that's just gonna happen. Like it just is.

I mean how many people just take shots at anybody the more you become everywhere's like I mean that's this is maybe a little bit social media thing so you may or may not have seen it but I've seen a lot of posts lately you probably haven't seen it let's be honest I haven't been on social media for years yeah there's a lot there's a lot of these videos of with business owners entrepreneurs all just you know whatever celebrities they they're using this phrase let them like just

Like, let them say whatever they want to say about that. Let them not like you. Let them, anyway, just, the let them just reminds me of like, it's like the surrender. Just let them. Let them say what they're gonna say. Let them come to your party. Let them not come to your party. Just let them. You do your thing. The reality is, is like, if you can let them just be their thing, it doesn't bother you. They no longer want to bother you. Yeah. Because if it doesn't bother somebody, there's no resistant energy to it. And so then people just kind of naturally move away. It's only when you're resisting,

what it is not surrendering to it, that there's an energy buildup. Is there another word other than surrender? I know. I'm honestly, I would love to coin one and say it myself. I'll get the thesaurus out later today. It's just such a, but it's the word. mean, I get it. a word. That's why it's literally about it's in it. Yeah. It's just, and maybe I'm like subconsciously afraid of the power of it, of the word. Well, it's, part of it. even subconsciously and consciously. Well, because it makes it actually life very easy. Yeah.

It does, it's almost like too easy. Yeah, I was gonna say it's almost like too easy. And that's why people overcomplicate it. I'm like, but no, I need to make sure I need to do hard things because that's the only way I'm successful. I promise you there'll be plenty of hard things that come up when we surrender. Because as some stuff comes up, more stuff will come in. More stuff will come in. More stuff will come in.