Transcripts
Well, welcome to the Potential Leader Lab, 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 kind of broadly as taking actions to create a better world for those we care deeply about. So this would mean that we not only believe leadership is not reserved for those with titles or authority, but we also believe that every single person has both the capacity, and I would argue the responsibility, to lead each and every day from wherever we are. It's about action, influence, and owning the moments when leadership is required.
Perry Maughmer [:And we are all about evolution, figuring out what it really takes to unlock the leader within you because the world needs you and it and it needs what you have to offer. Now this lab is for the relentless few, willing to explore edges, experiment with boundaries, and evolve through perseverance, transforming the world in their wake. We believe leadership is not something you become, it's something you do. And here in the lab, we're going to explore and experiment with just 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. And today, we're gonna explore something very near and dear to my heart. It's called Echoes in the Dark, processing our inner voice for leadership. Alright.
Perry Maughmer [:So today, we're gonna talk about something I spend a lot of time talking about with folks. I spend a lot of time thinking about myself, which is what we'll call head trash, That persistent, most often negative narrative we have in our minds. Now in order to do this, I am going to do this, I find most of my inspiration for thought comes mostly from literature and music. And so, when I find a particularly interesting lyric, I'll listen to the song over and over again, and just think about the implications for me. And so, what we're actually gonna start with is I'm gonna read you 3 stanzas of a, 3 verses of a song by a group called Sons of Bill, and the song is called Hymn Song. And so, just listen to the lyrics as I read them, and then we're gonna kinda break down some of the very particular pieces of those, and I'm gonna share with you what I think it means in context of how we struggle with some of these things as leaders. So here are the 3 verses of the song. All the years I lost to sadness, all the years I lost to rage.
Perry Maughmer [:Like a dog that bites its master, have you rattled at your cage? All the words you left unspoken gather around your brain to grieve around the slowly fading picture of the man you couldn't be. When we reach our proper station, will we have to shield our eyes from the background radiation underneath these silent skies? Or live as dust beneath the altar so forgotten and discreet, with no chance to ever falter underneath your savior's feet. We're convinced that there's a cadence to the murmurs in the dark, wrapped in patient arbitration between our weary head and heart. Until our spirits cease their raging in the silence of the night, we will look for love and logic in the dying of the light. So again, that's Hymn Song, all one word, by Sons of Bill. So, I wanna start off with the very first line, all the years I've lost to sadness, all the years I've lost to rage. Kind of as an example of wasted time consumed by unaddressed emotions. I think there's 2 quotes I'll give you.
Perry Maughmer [:One's anonymous and one's from Sigmund Freud. Freud said, unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways. And a more contemporary way to say that would be this one, which is anonymous. If you don't heal what hurt you, you bleed on people who didn't cut you. And so I know from the last 10 years and from my own experience, my the last 10 years talking to leaders and the the 25 years before that being in leadership roles, Unresolved emotions are a real thing and can actually lead to ineffective decision making and things like poor relationship management. And I think it's important because we have to get down to the root of why we don't wanna talk about emotions, why they're why they are, in fact, unresolved. And that's usually because of our need to avoid them in business, in the workplace, and and really not just there, everywhere.
Perry Maughmer [:You know, we tend to not wanna talk about emotions. We don't wanna talk about things that are, quote, unquote, emotional. Why?
Perry Maughmer [:Why do we avoid that? And I think if
Perry Maughmer [:we dig down, it becomes very simply we don't wanna appear weak or vulnerable. Right? We we have this misconception that talking about emotions, that feeling emotions, that, oh, you know, God forbid, we actually act emotionally and share those emotions. I can tell you when I first heard this song, I can I know where I was? Right? I remember where I was. I was actually in Springfield, Ohio. I was driving over with, with Lisa, and I was helping her with something. And I was sitting she had gone in to to actually talk to somebody in one of the we drove separately because we were doing a show. And she was inside talking to the folks at the show, and I was sitting in my
Perry Maughmer [:car, with tears running down my face. And I listened to this song, like, 4 or 5 times in a row. And I think it's interesting because when we think about we think about being vulnerable, we
Perry Maughmer [:think about being weak. We we connect those two things for some way, vulnerability and weakness, which, by the way, I'm just gonna share this with you from Brene Brown. Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they're never weakness. Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. Now, I want you to think about those words. Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity, and it's the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity.
Perry Maughmer [:I don't know about you, but I hear lots of business leaders asking for those things in their workplace.
Perry Maughmer [:Accountability, authenticity, empathy, courage, creativity, hope, those are all things that everybody wants. Well, we just figured out that the birthplace and
Perry Maughmer [:the source of them are vulnerability. So what the hell are we doing here?
Perry Maughmer [:And and we and this isn't about just letting it out. This isn't about just going around, you know,
Perry Maughmer [:going around telling everybody how you feel. This starts with self awareness. Right? Self awareness of how do you feel, because that will impact what you think and how you act. And if we don't have the emotional granularity to understand that, we got a problem. And the research will tell you that self awareness leads to things like understanding your own strengths and weaknesses. In companies, it can lead to better financial performance, improved decision making, leadership maturity, building stronger relationships, establishing healthy boundaries, and more effective communication.
Perry Maughmer [:Now how are those things not relevant to what we do every day? They're very relevant.
Perry Maughmer [:And that means we have to work on being emotionally regulated. We have to be able to regulate our emotions, and that's simply the ability to manage and respond emotional experiences in a healthy and constructive way.
Perry Maughmer [:And not only if we do this do we show other people how to do it, But
Perry Maughmer [:we can leverage emotions as fuel and something positive regardless of if they're if they're what we would determine good or bad emotions, because
Perry Maughmer [:I don't think there are good or bad. They're just emotions. They're good or bad on how we process them. Now how do we do that? Well, we have to have some self reflection, a mindfulness practice, feedback from trusted colleagues.
Perry Maughmer [:I mean, a daily practice of just checking your own emotional state, ask yourself a couple questions. What am I feeling? And why am I feeling this way? I mean, if you wanna think about self awareness, start there. What am I feeling? Number 1. And get granular. Don't just use one word. Use 2 or 3. If you need a list, you can look it up. You can find a list of emotions.
Perry Maughmer [:It's very interesting actually if you would do that. If you keep that list around and when you feel an emotion, the next time you feel 1, stop and ask yourself, I'm gonna pick 3 to 5 of these to describe it. It will be very eye opening for you
Perry Maughmer [:as to what you're truly feeling. And then why am I feeling this way? Because that will affect how you behave in your decision making. And and this awareness gives you space, which is what you desperately need to regulate your emotions before they manifest them manifest themselves negatively. Like, you need space.
Perry Maughmer [:You can I'll tell you what, the best way to do this is pause.
Perry Maughmer [:Pause. Because here's the thing I wanna tell you, being decisive isn't about time. Right? It isn't quickness. It isn't urgent. It isn't doing it immediately. That's not what decisive is, but that's what we've confused it with. We've confused it with speed. And so if you wanna I know that most people wanna be, perceived as decisive, but decisive people think.
Perry Maughmer [:They commit. And so having that pause built in, and when we talk about a pause, I'm not talking about an hour. I'm not talking I I'm talking seconds and minutes.
Perry Maughmer [:I mean, give yourself 90 seconds. Why wouldn't you? If it's something meaningful, why wouldn't you want to think about it? Because if you're in a back and forth conversation with somebody, and and you're just playing ping pong by knocking that thing back and forth, you're not thinking, you're reacting. And, by the way, you're not listening. Because if I'm listening to the other person, I can't formulate what I'm gonna say that has any meaning. I'm preloading my response regardless of what they say. So just chew on that one for a minute. But I would implement a pause strategy.
Perry Maughmer [:Count to 10. Count to 15. Step away and think.
Perry Maughmer [:I I've had this time and time again. I'll be in a one to one with somebody, and they'll they'll be talking for, you know, minute, 2 minutes, and they're explaining something to me, and they stop talking. And then I'm I'm just kinda sitting there looking at them, and they go, well? And I said, well, I'm thinking. Give me a minute. I'm processing everything you just shared. It was a lot. I just I don't have a response, like, keyed up. I gotta think about it.
Perry Maughmer [:I guess I want I want my response to be something meaningful. Another way is I know people don't wanna hear this, but it's develop empathy
Perry Maughmer [:for the other person. That's really what allows us to
Perry Maughmer [:understand the emotions of other people and then turn that insight into our emotional responses. But we have to understand. We have to be willing to understand. I read a great, great quote the other day about sympathy and empathy because every you know, oftentimes people wanna know what's
Perry Maughmer [:the difference. And for me, I'm not gonna go through the quote.
Perry Maughmer [:It's a pretty long quote. But, essentially, the interesting part of it was sympathy is you have sympathy from a position of power, which I thought was fascinating. And empathy is when you realize when you're when you get down and you look at that person eye to eye, that could be you if it weren't for luck. And I think that gives some pause to people to understand that, you know, empathy is about understanding that person's scenario and that you could you could just have easily has been in it. You could just have easily been in it if if it weren't for some luck. I'm not taking away hard work and all that bullshit we tell ourselves, but I am telling you there's an element of luck in all of it. So ask yourself a couple again, back to questions. Right? The best way to pause the best way to help other people is to ask questions.
Perry Maughmer [:The best way to help yourself is to ask questions as well. Ask yourself this one, what might that other person be feeling right now? What might be contributing to their actions?
Perry Maughmer [:Because your mind, your brain has already made up a story that is not to either of your favors. You've already got an answer, and you've you've taken action based on the the incorrect,
Perry Maughmer [:in factual fairy tale that your brains made up about why they did what they did. And if you take a pause and you ask yourself, what might the other person be feeling and what has led them to this? And you entertain some other options than the one you immediately think, you might get a much broader view of the situation and, therefore, a much different response from the other person that could be much more favorable than you would have anticipated. So next line we wanna look at, like a dog that bites its master, have you rattled against your cage? Now to me, that speaks to self doubt and fear of failure.
Perry Maughmer [:Self imposed limits, however we think about ourselves. I mean, I just love the line. Right? Like a dog that bites its master, have you rattled at your cage? I spent years rattling at my cage, cage of my own creation, but a cage nonetheless. And so how do we get out of that? Well, there's a couple ideas. And, by the way, I know that and it's interesting because there is no easy way to do this.
Perry Maughmer [:I mean, these I'm not telling you anything. You're like, oh, my god. I've never heard
Perry Maughmer [:of that before. We've heard of all of these. We just won't do them. I mean, just do one of these things. Right? Just try one
Perry Maughmer [:of them, but it takes a different behavior. If you want things to be different, you have to do different. That's that's the formula. I don't wanna oversimplify it, but that's pretty much it. If you want things to be different, you have to do different. And it it's always amazes me that people that go see, you know, coaches or or even when you go to therapists I mean, I've I've seen a therapist, and they give you tools. Well, you have
Perry Maughmer [:to use the tools. Like, it's not gonna fix itself. It doesn't
Perry Maughmer [:you don't go to somebody and talk for an hour 5 times in over a month, and then suddenly you're different. It takes hard work. You have to change your behavior, which, by the way, is not a light switch. It'll be starts and stops and ups and downs and 2 step forwards and 6 steps back. That's why relentless is is so key
Perry Maughmer [:to this. Right? Because you have to be oppressively constant with your effort. So, digress a little bit, back to the back to the, the ideas or tools here. A cognitive reappraisal through journaling. Right?
Perry Maughmer [:Set aside again, not a ton of time. I'm not saying take an hour. Take 5, 7 minutes, and then write about what you're thinking. What are those self limiting beliefs or situations that you that you experienced today where you felt inadequate? And then ask yourself, is this this is I I love cognitive behavioral therapy, but it it's based on is this thought based on fact or fear? Do I have any objective data points to back up what I am concerned with, the the the bad thoughts that are running through my mind? Do I have any objective history or data that supports that actually happening? And oftentimes, I'm not saying never, but oftentimes when you do that, you actually find contradictory evidence to the positive, and then you dismiss it somehow. But write it down. I cannot tell you the power that comes from writing your thoughts down, because thinking things and writing things down give you way different perspectives. Because once you write them down, if you actually wrote down your self limiting beliefs, you would see how asinine they were. You would actually laugh.
Perry Maughmer [:I I I dare you. Write them down and show them to somebody who knows you and say, this is
Perry Maughmer [:what I believe about myself, and see what the response is from the other person. But we don't wanna do that because we like it.
Perry Maughmer [:We wanna believe it. So another another idea is, it's called temporal distancing. You can you can shortcut it and call
Perry Maughmer [:it the 10 year reflection. When you're thinking about something that's going on, right, think long term. Thinking about the future changes the present, and ask yourself, how would I view this situation 10 years from now? Will it still matter?
Perry Maughmer [:Because oftentimes, we just let whatever's in front of us blow up to be
Perry Maughmer [:everything because we don't have a long view. We're not thinking about what we want most, we're thinking about this is right now. Now another really cool question after that is, how will my future self of have overcome this?
Perry Maughmer [:I mean, think about that. Think about who you're going to become, who you're going to evolve into, and how would that person address this situation? How would the person you're striving to become act now? Be that person now. There you don't need anything else to be that person. You're choosing different behaviors. And then the last one I'll give you is just mindfulness based stress reduction. Right? So this is just mindfulness, and this is understanding that you're going to have thoughts, you're gonna have negative and limiting self limiting thoughts, you they're not you. Your thoughts are not you. You are not your thoughts.
Perry Maughmer [:So you can have those thoughts, and and they the the goal here is to have them and then let them go. They're just thoughts. They're not you. They're not real. They're not true. They're not facts. They're only facts if you believe them. You're gonna have self limiting thoughts.
Perry Maughmer [:That's okay. Oftentimes, it's beneficial. It's telling you what to watch out for, but you have to be able to let that go.
Perry Maughmer [:Think of them as balloons. They kinda float in, and they float out. Don't grab ahold of them and anchor yourself. Alright. On to the next one. All the words you left unspoken of the man you couldn't be. So closing the loop on unfinished business. What do we do about it? Adopt a learning, not regret mindset.
Perry Maughmer [:Right? We can reframe past decisions as
Perry Maughmer [:learning experiences. We cannot change the past, but we can change what the past means.
Perry Maughmer [:And that significantly reduces the feelings of regret, because we can look back and say, what did we learn? And here's the thing, most of our I guess we call them failures.
Perry Maughmer [:Most of our significant failures in life
Perry Maughmer [:are where we learn the most. That's where
Perry Maughmer [:we that's those are the those were what, what they call crucible moments in our life, the where we were formed. Right? A crucible is is an environment where something is formed out of
Perry Maughmer [:destruction.
Perry Maughmer [:But that's we learn. We whenever we're in the middle of it, you know what they say, if you're going through hell, just don't quit. Don't quit. You know, keep moving. There's only one way there's only one way out, and that's through. So we have to be aware that this too shall pass. No. And, usually and you can bay go back to cognitive behavioral therapy.
Perry Maughmer [:Every time in the past, did it suck? Absolutely. Did it feel good? Absolutely not. But did the sun come up tomorrow and that was
Perry Maughmer [:the earth still spinning on its axis? Yes. And as I think it was I forget who said it.
Perry Maughmer [:I think it was Robert Frost who said, the one thing that I have learned about life is summed up
Perry Maughmer [:in 3 words, it goes on. And it does.
Perry Maughmer [:But if you're gonna adopt that learning not regret mindset, then take time to reflect. Reflect on what worked, what didn't, and what you learned every time. If you do that all the time with with things that work out, you know, good or bad, if you do it all the time, you normalize the discussion with yourself. If you just do a debrief after everything, what worked out well, what would I do better, What went well? What didn't? What would I do better? Those three questions. Just start there. And I think that that there's 2 more things to do about closing the loop, and one is practice
Perry Maughmer [:a proactive decision making. Now what you
Perry Maughmer [:need for that before you can practice proactive decision making is have a thoughtful approach and have a framework. You have to have something, a framework that you're working on for it
Perry Maughmer [:to be proactive. That way you can reflect back on you can improvise on it. You can change a process or a framework if you have one.
Perry Maughmer [:If you have none, it's hard to go back and learn from it. Because when you have a decision matrix or you have a framework, kind of like Explore, Experiment, Evolve, the choices are always gonna be well informed and deliberate because you have a process. And the final one, which I really love, is resolve unfinished business through open conversations. That is after something happens, don't just try to resolve it for yourself, resolve it for everybody that's around you. Reach out and and initiate these kind of open, candid discussions around the issue. Let everybody close the loop. Let everybody talk about what went well, what didn't go well, what would we do differently. Are they yeah.
Perry Maughmer [:Are these gonna be you know, I I would argue they are gonna be fun conversations, but they'll also be challenging conversations. But think about being able to completely discuss something that happened and then move on after that. Everybody moves on. Everybody has the opportunity to share how they feel and what they thought, but we don't do that because of our sense of urgency. We gotta move
Perry Maughmer [:to the next thing. Oh, it's all about the next thing. Move on. And, well, quite honestly, we don't we don't like talking about, failure. So, especially, when something doesn't go right, we tend to move on pretty quickly. Alright. The the next piece I
Perry Maughmer [:wanna talk about is the when we when he talks about when we reach our proper station. And I think that speaks to continually realigning
Perry Maughmer [:our identity and our purpose. And and I
Perry Maughmer [:think that that means that we, as somebody who wants to lead, are constantly reflecting on who we are versus who we wanna become to be. Who we wanna become. I'm sorry. Who we wanna be, who we wanna become. And I think that's con that's that's really gonna be connected to the people that are involved, the people that we care deeply about, and who do we have to become or be for them, for us, for all of us? Where does self actualization overlap with self transcendence? How do I become the best
Perry Maughmer [:per the best version of myself in service to other people? And
Perry Maughmer [:leadership is not about reaching a fixed destination. It always involves continuous evolution and self discovery, reevaluating, and adapting along the way, which is essentially the definition of evolution. It's not about achieving a goal.
Perry Maughmer [:It's who you become along the way of achieving that goal that matters. And I think David David Hawkins said
Perry Maughmer [:it very eloquently when he said, we change the world not not by what we say or do, but as a consequence of what we become. We we change the world not by what we say or do, but as a consequence of what we become. And that that's the difference between a true calling versus external validation. We have to have that measurement of how we're going to of how we're gonna evaluate what we're doing that does not rely on external validation. Because only we can say if we're aligned with our deeper mission. But reflect on that, what that term proper station looks like. Consider the path that you're on now, and your core values, and your purpose. From my version of this, I ask people what, you know, what do you want most? What I want most versus what I want now.
Perry Maughmer [:And if we're if we always have what we want most right out in front of us, we'll make decisions that better support what we believe in.
Perry Maughmer [:Not all the time, but we'll never wake up panicked and wonder how we got here. Because we only do that when we don't have clarity around what I want most, or what you want most, or what we want most. When there is no clarity around that, the world will tell you, nature hates a vacuum. So if you don't select it,
Perry Maughmer [:it will be selected for you.
Perry Maughmer [:Alright. Moving on. We're convinced that there's a cadence to
Perry Maughmer [:the murmurs in the dark.
Perry Maughmer [:It's difficult dealing with ambiguity, uncertainty. We tend to avoid it. We don't like it.
Perry Maughmer [:So, couple things to think about. Obviously, one that we've referenced many times in many discussions, is the growth mindset by Carol Dweck. You know, look at adversity as an opportunity. In a growth mindset, failure is an inevitability. We seek failure because that's the point of opportunity. That's where we get
Perry Maughmer [:to learn. So we we chase it. We want it. Because then we can go, oh, there it is. There's my chance. There's my chance to grow. Because if I never find it, a lot of people say they have
Perry Maughmer [:a growth mindset, but they surely don't act like it because they don't wanna fail. Just think about when you get to that scenario, when something does go wrong, think about the question. Again, back to asking yourself some questions. What can I learn, and how how can this challenge me to grow as a leader? How does this situation challenge me to grow as a leader? Those are great questions, and and and they're great ways to look at adversity. Another way is benefit finding or you can call it, you know, technically, you could call it positive reappraisal. And that is simply saying that things don't happen to you. They happen for you. So in any situation, it's like, why did this happen to me?
Perry Maughmer [:Why did this have to happen to me? And think to yourself, well, how did this happen for me? What does it enable me to do?
Perry Maughmer [:What are the what are the hidden benefits of this experience? If I dig in and I can see behind it, what's the benefit to me and the people that I care about? How do I make this mean something? Nietzsche said, suffering is what we do in life, and and our goal is to have that suffering have meaning, to make that suffering have meaning, which is essentially what we're doing with this. I'm in a bad I'm not trying to minimize the situation. I'm not saying it's a great situation, but what what greatness can I take out of it? And then finally, with that, connect to your larger purpose. Go back to what you want most. If you view all of these things you're going through as challenges and part of your greater journey, whether it's serving your team, organization, community, whatever you're doing, you'll find meaning in it. It's like Odysseus, when, you know, where the word odyssey comes from. When Odysseus took his 10 year journey home, he he faced innumerable numerous number of challenges, but none of those mattered because he was still trying to get home. So he was gonna overcome them.
Perry Maughmer [:He was going over, around, through, below, or under. It didn't matter. He was getting through the challenges because he wanted to get home. Well, what are you trying to get to? Because that way, it turns the mountain into a molehill. Because if I'm looking way off in the future and the distance to the thing I want, then if I have that if I have that view way way ahead, then whatever's in front of me looks this big because the thing I want is this big. But if I don't have this, this becomes this. And I'm doing little hand motions if you're not listening on if you're not watching on YouTube, I'm making the molehill in the mountain reference. Right? So whatever if you have nothing beyond today, then whatever happens today is the mountain you can't see around.
Perry Maughmer [:If you have a mountain clearly in view that's way off in the distance, then anything right now looks like a molehill.
Perry Maughmer [:Next next verse. Wrapped in patient arbitration between our weary head and heart. Just remember,
Perry Maughmer [:the longest journey you ever takes 18 inches from your head to your heart. We struggle with reconciling what we'll call logical decision making and emotional integrity, and this is not an either or, it's a both and.
Perry Maughmer [:Great leaders understand both components. Now I know everybody loves to talk about this next opportunity for this, for this particular thing, which is collaboration, collaborative problem solving. That's one way to incorporate both your head
Perry Maughmer [:and your heart because you're not in it by yourself, you're not in it alone, and you are tapping other people in your team, in your group, in your inner circle to offer their thoughts and feelings about the issue, ones that you can't access because it's not you. That's what the value of a team is. You need all of those perspectives, but in order to in order to listen, you have to have empathy. You have to understand that other people aren't gonna agree with you, and you have to
Perry Maughmer [:be able to take all of those disparate pieces of feedback, all those thoughts and emotions, and consider all of them. And then figure out what
Perry Maughmer [:are the important parts that you need to process in order to make the very best decision you can. Because if you're faced with a complex problem, you need different perspectives, and you need to encourage both analytical and emotional approaches. You wanna hear it all. That's what wise people do. The other thing you can do in this scenario is value is is value based leadership. Most companies have worked really hard to develop values. They just seem to forget about them after they wrote them
Perry Maughmer [:on the wall. The real value is using them during decision making.
Perry Maughmer [:And what I tell folks is I like to have again, back to guardrails. Right? I like to have guardrail on one side that is our our financial formula. How do we make money? What is our what are our expectations financially? And on the other side, we have mission, vision, values. So when I'm when we're making decisions, we just have to satisfy both of those. And if we can satisfy both of them, it's a no brainer. It's a it's quick, man. We can move. Now if we're only gonna satisfy one
Perry Maughmer [:of them, probably need to have a conversation. And if
Perry Maughmer [:we're gonna satisfy neither, we can move quickly too and just not do it. So the only time we get kind of slowed down is if something matches our mission vision values, but it isn't satisfying us financially or vice versa. We still may decide to do it. We're gonna we're gonna have to have a a a larger, slower, more inclusive conversation. Alright. So last piece before we, wrap this wrap this thing up. So until our spirits cease their raging in the silence of the night. Now, to me, this speaks to how leaders often battle with restlessness and self doubt.
Perry Maughmer [:And by the way, that can undermine your confidence and clarity. And I think these these raging spirits, we need to quiet them through mindfulness and self compassion that creates a more peaceful internal environment for us. And, and just think and and this is where some leaders struggle. Right? Not only do struggle with compassion for others, they struggle with compassion for themselves. And and Jack Kornfield said, if your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete. So it's really hard to offer to other people what you don't offer to yourself with any kind of authenticity and integrity. So self compassion, developed by psychologist Kristin Neff involves treating yourself with the same kindness and understanding that you would offer to anybody else. So, you know, practicing self compassion helps you reduce negative self talk and fosters resilience against that self doubt, but you have to practice it on a regular basis.
Perry Maughmer [:I mean, the best way I know we should never we actually should we never get rid of the voice in our head. It's necessary. It's evolution it's it's evolutionary. We need it, but we don't have to listen to it all the time. We have to be able to treat it as we should in order to in order to move ourselves forward. But here's what we can do. When you're asking when you when you have that initial response of you should do this or you do that or this is what you're doing or you're good, bad, or whatever, think about if you had a close personal friend, someone you cared deeply about, was experiencing the same situation that you were. What would you tell them? Would you tell them what the voice in your head is telling you? Worse yet, would you act on what your voice in your head
Perry Maughmer [:is telling you about yourself? That that kind of harsh self criticism. What is that what you tell other people? Because if you wouldn't tell them, you shouldn't tell yourself.
Perry Maughmer [:The other the other way to silence kind of the, you know, cease the cease the get our spirits to cease their raging in the silence of the night is the gap and the gain by, by Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy. Right? The gap is is when leaders focus on the distance between current state and ideal state, and this, this contains feelings of, you know, frustration, self doubt, inadequacy. And it emphasizes what hasn't been accomplished, by the way, which undermines motivation and self confidence. It would just keep chasing the horizon if you think about that. If all we're doing is saying, hey. And I hear this all the time. Leaders leaders will tell people in their organization, hey.
Perry Maughmer [:You did a great job, and then they follow with, but we have a lot farther to go. And I tell them, just stay the first thing. Shut up. You did a great job. Full stop.
Perry Maughmer [:But we have this we have this, fear, this unreal, this kind of unrealistic fear that if we tell somebody they've done a good job, they'll they'll stop. I don't know where we get that, but we think if I tell them they're good, they won't work as hard, which, by the way, has never been proven in any kind of measurable way by science. And then as opposed to the gap, if we live in the gain, it focuses on how far we've come from the starting point to where we are now, not on how far we've yet to go. And and this, as you can imagine, and and I've had this conversation a couple times in in the last week with folks about the last year, they've actually said, wow. When we started doing x, I never imagined we'd be as far as we are now when they sit back and look at it objectively. And if if you focus people leaders who focus on the gains, you recognize incremental improvements and it fosters a sense of accomplishment, it builds confidence, and, by the way, reduces self doubt for your team and for you. And if you regularly focus on the gain, you develop a more positive forward looking mindset that actually supports resilience and continuous improvement because you're building on what you've already done. And it aligns perfectly with psychological benefits of celebrating small wins as both focus on recognizing and valuing progress.
Perry Maughmer [:So it isn't it isn't that you're saying we can slow down. We've got there. We've arrived. We won. It simply says, we are moving in the right direction. Let's keep going. Nobody's gonna stop. Nobody's gonna slow down as much as that that that irrational fear exists for everybody.
Perry Maughmer [:So sum it all up, leadership is not about silence in the inner voice, but understanding it, transforming it from a critic to an ally. Because we're all gonna have head trash. We all have we all
Perry Maughmer [:have to confront internal conflicts, and we have to strive for alignment between our head and our heart. We have to take that that 18 inch journey that's a that takes
Perry Maughmer [:a lifetime, And that's okay. Right? We're not we're not trying to get rid of any of this. We're trying to make it work for us. So
Perry Maughmer [:the last two things that I that I'll give you, the last two kind of thoughts, as I wanna reiterate, just fostering that culture of collaboration. Leadership is
Perry Maughmer [:a team sport. You are not in this alone, nor can you do it effectively alone. Isolation is never good. And by
Perry Maughmer [:the way, when you create these opportunities for your team, you're encouraging them to grow.
Perry Maughmer [:But you have to give up some of that power. Right? You have
Perry Maughmer [:to give up some of that to other people and and pull them in and create space for them. They're not gonna fight you for it. And then the last thing I will tell you, again, back to asking questions,
Perry Maughmer [:because we all have self doubt. When you have it, turn it into curiosity. Ask, what's my inner critic trying to protect me from?
Perry Maughmer [:That's a really cool question because we're all about self preservation and safety, and if your brain is telling you some negative things about whatever's going on, more than likely if you dig into it, it's trying to protect you from something. Find answer those questions.
Perry Maughmer [:What is my inner critic trying to protect me from? And then the other question could be, what can I learn from this doubt? And this turns the critic into a source of insight and growth by treating it as a signal for exploration rather than a threat. So again, reframe it. What's it trying
Perry Maughmer [:to protect me from? What can I learn from? Don't try to don't try to change the narrative. Don't try to make it be something else. Just reframe what it means.
Perry Maughmer [:Alright. So that was that. That we, we talked about hymn song from the Sons of Bill. And, I hope it's helpful. And that's about it for today's exploration. So now it's up to
Perry Maughmer [:you to create your own experiments on your way
Perry Maughmer [:to your own personal evolution, and I'd
Perry Maughmer [:like you to remember that leadership is not 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 is for you to recognize the moment when leadership is needed and decide if you will 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, but right now, The only question is, will you act? Do you have the will to act? Now 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 own community if you want your efforts to be sustainable. And another little interesting thing, it occurred to me after some conversations with folks that listen. If you are in a kinda leadership or managerial role and you have a team, you can go back to some old episodes.
Perry Maughmer [:This is 0 cost leadership development you're listening to, because we're talking about practical steps to do things differently. So you might be amazed if you pull one episode out you like, have everybody listen to it, and then talk about it, and find out what thoughts it stimulates in other people. So we hope to 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.
