Transcripts
Welcome to the Potential Leader Lab, and I'm your host, Perry Maughmer. And today on episode 50 season 2, we are exploring relentless consistency, ditch the hacks and show up every damn day. Welcome to the Potential Leader Lab. I'm your host Perry Maughmer, where we don't just talk about leadership. We explore, experiment, and hopefully evolve our thinking and our actions. Now this isn't your typical leadership podcast. First of all, we define leadership rather broadly as taking actions to create a better world for those we care deeply about. And, obviously, this means that we don't believe leadership is reserved for those with titles or authority, and we also believe that every single person has both the capacity and, I would say, the responsibility to lead each and every day from wherever we are.
Perry Maughmer [:It's about action, influence, and owning the moment when leadership is required. We are about evolution, figuring out what it really takes to unlock the leader within you because the world needs you and what you have to offer. We believe leadership is not something you become. It's something you do. And here in the lab, we're gonna explore and experiment with how to do that. So if you're ready to unlock the potential you already have and embrace leadership as a moment to moment choice, then let's start exploring
Perry Maughmer [:relentless consistency. Ditch the hacks and show up every damn day. So here we go. Here's the quote to set us up. The secret is there
Perry Maughmer [:is no secret. Consistency over intensity, progress over perfection, fundamentals over fads over and over again. Now that means no hacks, no quick fix quick fixes, no secrets, no shortcuts. There are none. If you wanna achieve something real, you gotta buckle up for the
Perry Maughmer [:long haul. That's all there
Perry Maughmer [:is to it. There's no there's no shortcut to anything meaningful. And nothing meaningful is done quickly or easily or without a little bit of pain and bleeding. So are you ready to play that game for real? Because this isn't about finding hacks, it's about showing up and grinding every single day. It's about developing and maintaining in a sustainable manner the will to act. Not just will you do it today, will you do it tomorrow, will you do it for the next 6 weeks, will you do it forever? You know, the relentless few, you're done when you're dead. Are you ready for that? So the first thing we're gonna do is is kinda bust out that myth of the secret. If there was one, you'd know it by now.
Perry Maughmer [:If there was one way to do it that worked for everybody,
Perry Maughmer [:how many books will be written about it? How many podcasts would
Perry Maughmer [:you have? When you googled success or leadership or whatever you wanna Google, how many results do
Perry Maughmer [:you get? 1? No. Because there isn't one. Now so what is it about this that we fall that we that we're suckers for? Alright? So
Perry Maughmer [:recent research around cognitive biases and and kind of an addiction and a novelty.
Perry Maughmer [:Right? People wanna believe in secrets, news flash, because they're afraid of hard work, they're afraid of failure, or they're afraid of just being average.
Perry Maughmer [:So there's something called social comparison status anxiety. And and to me, this this this speaks to Teddy Roosevelt. Now this was, you know, Teddy Roosevelt was around the turn of the from the 8 from the 1800 1900 is when Teddy was around. And he said back then, comparison is
Perry Maughmer [:a thief of joy. Now imagine that phrase today, isn't comparison the thief of joy? Isn't aren't most
Perry Maughmer [:of the things we get wound up about when we're when we're in the deep recesses of our of our brain, we're comparing ourselves to other people? We're comparing our company to other companies? We're comparing our kids to other kids? How does that work? I mean, I I realize it. So we're naturally inclined to do that. And social comparison theory developed by Leon Festinger, we we constantly evaluate ourselves in relation to other people. And in in a society where success is often marked by visible things like wealth, recognition, achievement, being average can feel like you're being left behind. We also fear judgment when it comes to that. That averages means we're less than. We're not good enough. And especially in this in this so hyperconnected world of social media, that comparison is amplified, Especially when you're comparing your normal life to the highlight reels of other people, those feelings of inadequacy come rolling in.
Perry Maughmer [:We also have, as part of this kind of looking for the secret, a cultural obsession with exceptionalism. Author Barry Schwartz in the paradox of choice argued that this obsession with being extraordinary leaves many people feeling unfulfilled and anxious, because the majority of people cannot meet those inflated expectations. We our culture idolizes high achievers. From, you know, sports stars to tech billionaires, that's all we see and hear. So then we start to think that's what's normal, and that's what everybody should strive for, and it isn't. You know, we also have this kind of winner take all mindset, and it it drives us to think that only the best matters. Now if you wanna deep dive into my thoughts about better and best, check out episode 34, better serves us best, because there's a whole episode just about that, about how it twists us up. And then we have this narrative of personal exceptionalism.
Perry Maughmer [:We we grew up hearing we're special. We're destined for great things.
Perry Maughmer [:And then when life turns out to be mundane, then we think we failed, even if we're doing great. See, that's the thing. We're not we're not failing. We're actually doing great, but we're not doing awesome, so, therefore, we're a failure. That's one of
Perry Maughmer [:the dangers of telling everybody they can be whatever they wanna be when they grow up. They can't. That's not reality. This ain't Lake Wobegon. Everybody ain't above average.
Perry Maughmer [:So we really have to think about what we tell people because it sets us up for failure later in life.
Perry Maughmer [:It sets us up I don't know. It's not failure, but it sure is emotional duress. I think this just my own personal rant, but I I think that this also shows up in the marriage industry,
Perry Maughmer [:in the wedding industry. I mean, think about these lavish and I say lavish. I mean, when I
Perry Maughmer [:got married, it was just Lisa and I and the mayor of of, of Huron, Ohio. And so we didn't have
Perry Maughmer [:a lavish wedding. He was the witness, by
Perry Maughmer [:the way, and he took the wedding picture. He was multipurpose. But my point is, if you have a lavish wedding, I just think of the letdown afterwards. Because after everybody goes away, and the gifts, and the pomp, and circumstance, and the center of attention, and all those things, then real life sets in. And sometimes they might look around and go, this is it? Like, I like that better than this. We like the event better we like the wedding better than the marriage.
Perry Maughmer [:Marriage is hard fucking work. Worth it. It's hard work. Like anything of meaning. Something that's going to that's gonna last 50 years, you better you better be damn well committed to and ready to work. And it's awesome,
Perry Maughmer [:but you gotta be ready to work. Now this is my favorite reason that people want a secret, that we wanna find a hack. It's the fear of irrelevance and mortality. Now, existential psychologist Irvin Yalom says, humans have a deep seated fear of death and insignificant, and the drive to be exceptional is in part an attempt to stave off this existential anxiety. We somehow think that if we're special and significant, that death doesn't pertain to us. There's such a thing as mortality salience. If we believe being average equates to being forgotten, it triggers this fear. Average is forgotten, exceptional isn't.
Perry Maughmer [:We wanna be remembered for other forever. We fear death. And, you know, Viktor Frankl argued that humans need meaning to avoid despair. Being average can feel like a failure to create meaning in a world that equates success with being extraordinary. Like, think about what the definition of success is. Think about what yours is. Do you have one for yourself? Or are you just taking societies? Are you letting that vacuum be filled by other people? So that's why you have to have a very clear idea of what success is so that you're striving towards that. You're optimizing towards that.
Perry Maughmer [:I mean, think about perfectionism and the fear of failure. Many if if everybody equates being average with failure and everybody's driven by a deep fear of inadequacy, then we have this perfectionism.
Perry Maughmer [:And perfectionism is insidious. It's heinous. Right?
Perry Maughmer [:Being is being perfect reasonable? Is that a reasonable standard to uphold, that everything you do is going to be right? Flawless execution. Anything less is unacceptable.
Perry Maughmer [:I mean, just think about it, and some people wear it as a badge of honor. We also have imposter syndrome. You know, being average is a manifestation of internal fear that they're frauds waiting to
Perry Maughmer [:be exposed. So, they have to somehow give the perception that they're far above average. We we just don't do by and large, we're not doing great things. As Mother Teresa said, one of my favorite quotes of all time, none of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.
Perry Maughmer [:And that's what, if you wanna use an old phrase, makes the world go round. Doing small things with great love.
Perry Maughmer [:And in this particular case, the media doesn't help us because of success narratives. That's what we talk about all the time. You know, the the startup unicorn or the latest 20 year old influencer with millions of followers. And we see that success as extreme or fast, and it distorts our view. It distorts for the for the other 99% of the world, it distorts our view and makes average feel like failure. It actually warps our expectations
Perry Maughmer [:of what normal is, of what success is, of what successful should
Perry Maughmer [:look like for the 99.8% of the people in the world. I don't we and you already know about curated narratives. I mean, what you see on any platform, whatever you see anywhere is the very best that people have
Perry Maughmer [:to offer most of the time.
Perry Maughmer [:And then we just want it all now. We have an instant gratification culture. We don't we don't think it should take any time. We don't think it should be hard work. We don't wanna wait. And this is where we bring in, you know, explore, experiment, evolve. We're gonna bring in exploration. Because achievement begins by exploring what it really means to be committed.
Perry Maughmer [:It's about digging into yourself, figuring out what you want to show up for every day. The secret isn't out there. It's figuring out what's in here. And if you're willing to explore until that becomes an obsession, what does it mean for you? That's why everything I do is is descriptive, not prescriptive, because I don't know what you want. Only you know that, and you've gotta you've gotta sit with yourself and answer that question. What do I want most? Are you gonna ask that uncomfortable question and then answer it? Because exploring what's real and avoiding all that bullshit is where achievement starts. What do you want most? What do those you care most deeply about want most? Are those things aligned? Do you have a shared vision of success in the future?
Perry Maughmer [:That's where it starts. That's where the path begins.
Perry Maughmer [:It doesn't begin with what's on Facebook or YouTube or anywhere else. Any kind of media outlet. It it it starts where you say it starts.
Perry Maughmer [:So now we're gonna talk
Perry Maughmer [:a little bit about how consistency wins over intensity.
Perry Maughmer [:Consistency is a weapon. It's not sexy, but it is deadly effective, because people burn out with intensity. Consistency doesn't burn out, And we have to
Perry Maughmer [:fight our own brains on this one because we can get our brain will actually thrive on habit, but it will also thrive on novel novelty. So, we got to be careful. Now, I also want you consistency is not a bad word. It doesn't mean static. It means continually experimenting within your own rhythm and finding out what sticks and what doesn't. So, again, it isn't static. It isn't boring. It's finding out what sticks in your own rhythm.
Perry Maughmer [:Right? It's experimentation all the time on the process. I mean, you can there there's tons of research out there to support this. There's all kinds of I mean, one of my, so there's a a great, jazz bassist and composer, Charlie Mingus, and he said, you can't improvise on nothing. You gotta improvise on something. So that means you gotta have something, some process, some structure, some framework to improvise. Something like explore, experiment, evolve. You have to have a framework that you can improvise within. I mean, you know, Kay Anders Ericsson came out with a 10000 hours.
Perry Maughmer [:Now there's a lot. I'm I'm not gonna get into the whole depth about 10000 hours. Does it work? Does it not? But he did talk about achieving mastery. Right? And something he called deliberate practice, which is worth looking up. If you there's 3 or 4 components to it. It's it makes perfect sense, and it isn't just about 10000 hours. It's 10000 hours of deliberate practice, which is which isn't just showing up and doing stuff. But our brain is wired for neuroplasticity.
Perry Maughmer [:It forms new connections, and it's maximized when when things are consistent but not rigid. Wendy Wood, a leading expert on habit formation, shows that while consistent behavior helps solidify routines, introducing small experiments keeps the brain engaged and responsive to change. Again, testing different approaches within a framework. So you have on one hand, you have consistency, and then within that consistency, you have experimentation. And that's what helps us become adaptive and resilient. It isn't having nothing, it's having a framework within which we can be innovative and creative. That's where we develop, the the bigger picture of consistency and underneath the experimentation. But we have to have something to experiment on.
Perry Maughmer [:We have to have some consistent thing that shows up every time. And the last piece of that is the power of small wins, because our brain
Perry Maughmer [:likes to win. And, when
Perry Maughmer [:you experiment within a consistent routine, you create opportunities for those small wins. And and these victories, no matter how minor, reinforce your habits by boosting your motivation, and they make the routine more sustainable over the long term. So it's a it's it feeds itself. But experimenting allows you to identify those small shifts that lead to progress, creating a positive feedback loop. And every successful experiment, no matter how small, becomes a win to reinforce the routine. And this motivates you to keep going, ensuring ensuring that your habits stick over and evolve over time. And they don't feel monotonous that way, because a lot of people avoid this because it oh, what's I don't wanna do the same thing all the time. That's not what we're talking about.
Perry Maughmer [:We're talking about finding we're talking about exploring and experimenting within the framework, within a framework that is consistent. So, quit looking for the next big thing. Pick your routine, experiment within it, and keep moving. Experimentation isn't a one time deal. It's it's woven into your daily grind. Every day, you can weave experimentation into your daily grind. This, to me, is the best example of how we're a kind of our Sisyphean nature. You know, Sisyphus' external eternal labor, you know, rolling a rock up the hill.
Perry Maughmer [:But it's so interesting because one of the the last couple things that Camus says about this is that, he because the the thing is, Sisyphus persisted in his efforts, finding purpose and meaning in in pushing the boulder up the hill. And Camus says these two things. 1 must imagine Sisyphus happy, and the struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. It isn't about winning. It isn't about it isn't about the ultimate goal. It's about the work. So let's talk about progress over perfection. Perfection, by the way, is for amateurs.
Perry Maughmer [:Perfectionism is a trap for people who are too scared to move. Real, real players know that progress, not perfection, is what separates winners from wannabes. I mean, there's all kinds of research. You can go look it up. But real achievers focus on progress. They just keep moving. They're like a shark. They just keep moving because there's a lot of downside to perfectionism.
Perry Maughmer [:Paralysis, which leads to procrastination. Because perfectionism and achieving perfect results leads to overthinking, leads to procrastination and avoidance of things altogether. So when people have tell you they they they're they're they wanna move slow because they want it
Perry Maughmer [:to be perfect. Okay. I mean, I I take them at their word, but it's never going to be
Perry Maughmer [:perfect. Humans were never designed to be perfect. Our work can never be perfect. So, to continue to think that and strive for that and set that as a goal is a folly.
Perry Maughmer [:It actually prevents great work. Perfectionism tends to perfectionists tend to
Perry Maughmer [:follow safe, proven methods rather than explore new ideas. Exploration is not on the plate for a perfectionist. I know what works. It's predictable. I know the outcome. That's what we're doing. It actually stifles creativity. Because great new ideas come from experimentation and failure.
Perry Maughmer [:Perfectionists don't like failure. You have to embrace failure as part of the innovation process, and that's not on
Perry Maughmer [:the plate for them. And the most kind of heinous piece
Perry Maughmer [:of this is the damage to mental health and sustainability. I mean, perfectionism creates an unsustainable cycle where people push themselves beyond healthy limits, and it leads to reduced productivity and burnout. Because they're constantly trying to do things perfectly. Imagine that imagine being in that state of mind. Imagine thinking that all the time that everything you're doing has to be perfect. It would be a it would be a mountain of stress. It would be all consuming. It prevents great work because great work requires consistency, balance, and long term effort effort.
Perry Maughmer [:But perfectionists are more likely to burn out before they reach their potential.
Perry Maughmer [:It's just too much, it's too much stress to to be right all the time. Evolving is the name of the game.
Perry Maughmer [:Progress is about constantly evolving, not into something new, but into a better version of who you already are. But, evolution is messy, filled with missteps, but it's the only way forward. Evolution does not work perfectly. We don't go from point a to point b in 1 in 1, you know, 1 by 1 by 1 with no steps backwards. You know, whenever if I've talked about this with lots of people. You talk about a j curve. And if you have where you are and where you wanna be, and one is higher than the other, where you start, you don't go in a straight line up, you go down and then you go up. So it looks like a j, hence the name j curve.
Perry Maughmer [:But that means, over time, your performance dips as you try something new, and you stick with it. And then, and only then, can it rise up to that new height that you aspire, because you can't go from mountaintop to mountaintop without going down in the valley. Perfectionists don't like that because there's an emotional component to not being good at your job. And if we view that as our identity, and our identity is that we're really great at what we do, then how often are we gonna try new things and not be great at them? To ultimately get to where we ultimately wanna go, which is the best version of ourselves, which isn't the current version of ourselves because we have untapped potential we're not realizing.
Perry Maughmer [:So what I would I would tell you is stop hiding behind the badge of perfectionism. It's not a bad badge of honor. It's a crutch. And if you're serious, embrace progress
Perry Maughmer [:and let the process evolve you. Understand that it's gonna be explore, experiment, evolve, and there will be bumps in
Perry Maughmer [:the road. That's
Perry Maughmer [:okay because it's the only path forward. Now let's talk about fundamentals over fads.
Perry Maughmer [:Fundamentals are boring, and that's why they're kinda brutal. Right? They're also bulletproof. They're boring, but bulletproof. Fads are short lived because they don't work. They're not you know, I tell people, if
Perry Maughmer [:we wanted any strategy we we choose should be both sustainable and scalable. So can I can I scale it? Can I can I get more than 1 person do it? Can a bunch of people do it? Does it work at a small level and a big level? And then second, is it sustainable? Can I do it for a year? Can I do it for 18 months? Can I do it for 24 months? Can I do
Perry Maughmer [:it forever? And if it doesn't meet those two criteria, we probably shouldn't do it. But that dopamine hit from novelty is so great that we shoot past the fundamentals. We get addicted to novelty, to newness, to something different, when in fact most of
Perry Maughmer [:us in our own space know what the reality is. We know what works. We just don't have the will to do it. But those fundamentals are like the bedrock. You get that if you're building a house, you want a solid, strong foundation. Then you can build on it. Then I can add on later because I've already built the foundation. But if I if I build this tiny little foundation and then I build this huge house on top of it, it's in it's unstable.
Perry Maughmer [:But, see, it's kinda funny. Right? It's it's a great analogy because the foundation's under the ground. Nobody sees it. The house is the flashy part that everybody sees. So that's what we wanna concentrate on. When in reality, the most important part of this is the foundation that nobody sees and nobody cares about. That's those are the fundamentals. Are you fundamentally sound? And back to Charlie Mingus.
Perry Maughmer [:You can't you can't improvise on nothing. Only after you understand the fundamentals and the basics do you have the right
Perry Maughmer [:to improvise. See, that's the other part of this. We have this conversation all
Perry Maughmer [:the time with new folks at in organizations. Everybody's got a new idea on they they're there for 3 days, and they have all these new ideas on how
Perry Maughmer [:we can do it better. Now, I love collaboration, and I wanna value people's ideas. But here's the thing. If you join any organization, there should be kind of a a
Perry Maughmer [:a rule. Right? That we are not going to try to have any recommendations on how things could be better for 90 days until you actually
Perry Maughmer [:learn how we do them. And you've done them over and
Perry Maughmer [:over again to see those results. If if by that time, you still believe there's a way to iterate and there's a new idea that might be helpful, then feel free to share it. But don't
Perry Maughmer [:do that after 4 days. Don't come in
Perry Maughmer [:and tell us we're gonna revamp you. You guys are you guys are working in in the stone age here with this or that or the other thing. So we need to do this now. Okay. That people wanna hear your thoughts. But the first thing you have to do is learn the system, use the system, actually see the results of the system for yourself before you begin to iterate. There should be a moratorium on recommendations for at least 90 days until you actually learn why we do what we do. Because the what isn't as important as the why.
Perry Maughmer [:Because you wanna figure out the upstream and downstream impacts of what you're doing to everybody else in the organization, and that takes
Perry Maughmer [:time. Again, your your feedback's important
Perry Maughmer [:once you understand the entire context of what we're talking
Perry Maughmer [:about. Because you gotta avoid dopamine.
Perry Maughmer [:That's the addiction to novelty. When we when we find something new and exciting, we
Perry Maughmer [:get a hit. Short term rush, which, by
Perry Maughmer [:the way, reinforces the bad behavior because we want more of it because it wears off and then we want more. So then we have more novelty. So dopamine begets dopamine, and it provides that, like, quick hit of pleasure and excitement. And then it drops, then we need more of it. So it's kinda like drugs. Right? I mean, you you take a little, you get a little bit, and then you drop, so
Perry Maughmer [:you need more, need more often. It's not a good cycle.
Perry Maughmer [:I think too, we have a little bit of a social identity and and the desire to fit in here too. I mean, following fads helps you feel like you're part of something bigger. I mean, if you go back to Maslow, it's the need for belonging and social connection.
Perry Maughmer [:You know, you're you're in on it. It's social identity theory.
Perry Maughmer [:And why we're addicted? Because it tells others we're in the know. We're part of the in group. You know, fear of missing out is it amplifies this whole thing because we're constantly chasing the latest trends to maintain our social standing. We feel like we're getting left behind, and that's a real fear, and back in the day, it meant that we would if we're if we were cast out of the group, we most likely died. That's what your brain's telling you. It doesn't apply today. You should change FOMO to LOMO. Instead of the fear of missing out, turn turn into the love of missing out.
Perry Maughmer [:I heard somebody say today, make the decision to be purposefully irrelevant or or irrelevant on things. Yeah. Make yourself irrelevant on certain things. Some things should not matter. Everything can't matter. And and it just is this whole thing of instant, and there is no such thing as instant improvement that is lasting. There has to be behavior change in anything if we wanna if we want it to be long standing. And then there's the top of the iceberg is beliefs, and then the bottom of that iceberg that we don't talk about is is or at the top is behavior, and the bottom is belief.
Perry Maughmer [:So we wanna focus on behaviors, but we never wanna address the underlying beliefs. All of our behaviors are driven by some belief. For our for us, we have to figure out if we wanna change a behavior, what's the underlying belief tied to it? We have to go back and evaluate that. And for this this piece of it, like, that social identity and desire to fit in, in this whole concept, I have to share with you this quote by Thomas Carlyle, which I love. Permanence, perseverance, and persistence, in spite of
Perry Maughmer [:all obstacles, discouragements, and possibilities, it is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak. So, we can I love things that reframe? So, even if
Perry Maughmer [:you don't care about success and failure and short termism and fads and whatever, do you want a weak soul or a strong one? So, if I reframe this in talking about how strong or weak your soul is, do I then have your attention? Because, he said, permanence, perseverance, persistence, in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities. It is this that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak. Sounds a lot like being relentless, being oppressively constant. So we gotta get back to exploring and evolving. Fundamentals are about going deep, not wide. You don't need to know everything. You need to own what you know. Deep, not wide.
Perry Maughmer [:Fundamentals are not wide. Just do me a favor, and just just avoid fads, hacks. If anybody has a hack or a fad or a shortcut, just walk away. You know what you need to do in your particular area. I'm gonna guess you already know what
Perry Maughmer [:the fundamentals are. Go back to what works, explore it inside and
Perry Maughmer [:out, and evolve it until you got it
Perry Maughmer [:down cold. Remember, we're not talking about static. We're not
Perry Maughmer [:talking about just doing the same thing over and over again. We're talking about exploring what you know to work inside and out and then evolving it till you've got it down cold. I mean, you can go back to James Clear's book, atomic habits, and he talks about the plateau of latent potential, about the compounding effect. Right? Of just continuing to to grind at it.
Perry Maughmer [:I mean, that that's that's really powerful, and I know this doesn't fit. I know this is just an example, but if you start with a penny and you doubled that every day, Double the start with a penny. Double it every day. In 30 days, guess how much you'll have?
Perry Maughmer [:I'm gonna leave that loop open by not telling you. You have to go find out. But you'll be astounded at the power of compounding effort. If you look up, just Google, if I have a penny and double it every day, how much will I have in 30 days?
Perry Maughmer [:So final thing we're gonna talk about is just the grind over and over and over again.
Perry Maughmer [:Now I want to be clear, repetition isn't mindless, it's just powerful. The grind is where the magic is. Because while everybody else is kind of distracted by the shiny objects, you're building strength through repetition. And that matters. It matters because that's how your brain is wired, because cognitive science shows us how repetition supports mastery. Again, it's not sexy, but it's pretty damn effective. And, it is one of the three things that motivates us. If we create, as leaders, if we create a scenario, if we create an environment where people can have autonomy, mastery, and purpose, they are self motivated.
Perry Maughmer [:They find their own motivation. So, mastery is important. And and when we when we're able to get at bats, when we're able to get reps in for something, right, it reinforces those neural pathways through neuroplasticity. And if we repeat an action or a thought, the connection between the neurons
Perry Maughmer [:strengthens. The more you do it, you know, the
Perry Maughmer [:the old saying is neurons that wire, fire together wire together. The more automatic and and ingrained it becomes. So it supports mastery because you continually practice it. But if I'm if I'm constantly changing what I want somebody to do on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, how many reps are they getting? So how how effective or how good or how much mastery can they build? I've heard plenty of people who quit organizations over the last 10 years because they just couldn't get better at anything. They they kept getting pulled away and do this now, do that now. Today, we want you to try this. Hey, we wanna update this. And and it frustrates people.
Perry Maughmer [:They can't put up they can't put they can't tell you exactly why it frustrates them, but it frustrates them because they want an opportunity for mastery. That's what everybody wants, an opportunity for mastery. And when you don't offer that to them, then they get frustrated and leave because offering them
Perry Maughmer [:the ability to get better at something is part of building up a motivational environment. I mean, it
Perry Maughmer [:builds up neuroplasticity and muscle memory. Right? It's like it's like the old thing, playing a musical instrument, riding a bike, whatever it is. Repetition builds it up for us, like, we get to understand it, and it builds it into long term procedural memory, and that allows for more complex and creative thinking while performing the task effortlessly. It frees up cognitive resources for higher level strategy and innovation. When I can routine when I can routinize routinize those things, but I have to be able to do it over and over and over again. And it frees up my cognitive capacity to do other things while I'm doing that. But if I never get to that point, then I always have to give all of my energy to just focusing on the task that I'm doing. And I don't think that's what anybody wants, either individually or organizationally.
Perry Maughmer [:And then also, repetition allows the brain to create feedback loops because then we can identify errors and correct them over time. I mean, the research in in error based learning will tell us that repetition helps individuals learn from mistakes by refining their approach and making incremental improvements with each iteration, experimenting and evolving. The brain our brain actually learns through trial and error, and repetition provides the necessary frequency for that corrective process. Without it, we can't learn to self correct. So, again, you're trying to help people self correct. You gotta give them opportunities to do the thing over and over again. And then it supports mastery because it it involves the ability to identify and adjust small mistakes, refining with each repetition. There's this great, there there's this great story, and it's a martial, a master martial artist who goes through a series of movements called akata.
Perry Maughmer [:And and the the the beginner is watching him and said, you know, master, you did that so perfectly. And the master replies with, no, I made many mistakes. I just corrected him before you saw it. That's what we all aspire to. But we we don't do that unless we're gonna offer people the fundamentals and the opportunity for reps to get better, and not keep switching them from thing to thing to thing because of a shiny new object. Understand that with experiment and evolve, right, repetition doesn't mean doing the same thing over and over again. It's about experimenting within the framework of what you know and evolving your technique. Subtle experimentation over sustained effort is what leads to breakthrough, and it reduces cognitive load, and it frees up energy for bigger moves.
Perry Maughmer [:If you're willing to put in the reps, you'll get the results. It's not about waiting for inspiration. It's not it's it's about showing up, and whether it's about showing up whether you feel like it or not. It's so funny. I learned this from my daughter, Grace, who went to Columbus College of Art and Design, because people think, oh, well, you know, creative people, she majored she majored in illustration. Whoops. She majored wow. Let me start over.
Perry Maughmer [:She majored in illustration. And so people often think of, we'll call people artists who create things like that. And they often think of, you know, creative genius just strikes it sometimes, and people wait around until they're, you know, they're struck with an, with inspiration to create something. And she told me about her classes where she would rock where she would walk into the class, and the instructor would say, here's the concept. In the next 20 minutes, I need you to come up with 10 different ideas and drawings for that, and we're gonna critique them in front of everybody. So it was creativity on demand. They were doing just what we're talking about here. They were building out those fundamentals so that person could do that on demand.
Perry Maughmer [:It wasn't, I'm gonna give you an ID or something I need. Let me know when you've been struck with inspiration to come up with it. It was, here's the concept. I need 10 thumbnails in 30 minutes, and then you gotta bring them up and show them to everybody so the whole class can can critique you. That's reps. That's getting reps.
Perry Maughmer [:So, we're gonna finish where we started. The quote is, the secret is, there is no secret. Consistency
Perry Maughmer [:over intensity, progress over perfection, fundamentals over fads, over and over and over again. You've got everything you need to achieve what you want. Stop waiting for the right time or the next fad to save you. The only thing standing between you and what you want is your willingness to explore, experiment, and evolve every damn day. Now, the only question is, are you ready to ditch the excuses and do the work? Because that's the only way you're gonna get anywhere worth going.
Perry Maughmer [:Alright. Well, that's it
Perry Maughmer [:for today's exploration. So now it's up to you to create your own experiments on the way to your own personal evolution. Remember, leadership isn't something that happens to you. It's something you step into. You already have the tools, the influence, and the potential. The only thing left for you is to recognize the moment when leadership is needed and act. So what's your next move? Where will you step up? Because leadership isn't about waiting for permission. It's about recognizing that you're already capable right now.
Perry Maughmer [:The question is, will you act? If you found today's session valuable, make sure you rate, subscribe, and share because leading is a team sport and you need to build your community if you want your efforts to be sustainable. I would also recommend sharing with other folks on your team because this is zero cost leadership development. You'd be amazed at what people pick up. We hope you keep coming back for more on how to unlock the leader within you so you can join us in creating a better world for those we care deeply about. And until next time, remember, leadership is a verb. Go do it.
