Your Leadership Wake: Is Your Impact Getting the Results You Want? With Grift Krehnbrink, Thoughtium: Show Notes & Transcript

Welcome back to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business! Looking for Marketing Smarts? You’re in the right place. After almost 4 years of helping to make you savvier marketers, we decided to broaden this podcast to include more business-oriented topics that will make you savvier business leaders.

In this episode of Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business, We wanted you to learn from a guest who coined the term – your Leadership Wake – so we welcomed on Grift Krehnbrink. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review!

• Episode Summary & Player
• Show Notes
• Marketing Smarts Summary
• Transcript

Strategic Counsel: Your Leadership Wake: Is Your Impact Getting the Results You Want? With Grift Krehnbrink, Thoughtium

You’re very familiar with leadership. Do you have a high degree of awareness when it comes to your impact on others as a leader? When teams are in a dysfunctional state, this is always a good place to look first. We wanted you to learn from a guest who even coined a term for this phenomenon – your Leadership Wake – so we welcomed on Grift Krehnbrink. He’s a Partner and the Chief Commercial Officer at Thoughtium, a human-centered experience design firm that helps organizations bring strategy, leadership, and learning to life through immersive experiences. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

• The conflict between ambition and leadership
• The power of vulnerability
• The power of choice
• The Golden Handcuffs paradox
• Purpose vs goals

And as always, if you need Strategic Counsel, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at: ForthRight-People.com.

Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below:

Show Notes

• Your Leadership Wake: Is Your Impact Getting the Results You Want? With Grift Krehnbrink, Thoughtium
  
  • [0:00] Welcome to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business
  • [0:29] Introduction: Your leadership wake and addressing team performance
  • [1:49] Meet Grift Krehnbrink Partner at Thoughtium and leadership development expert
  • [3:33] What is a leadership wake? Understanding your impact as a leader
  • [6:40] Case study: High-performing leaders and the wake they create
  • [10:54] The conflict between ambition and leadership
  • [14:06] Choice and agency: Building your own scorecard for leadership
  • [18:13] Leadership as a muscle: Everyone can become a better leader
  • [20:03] Building awareness: How to understand your leadership impact
  • [24:05] The power of vulnerability and authenticity in leadership
  • [28:13] Trust in leadership: Intimacy and other-orientation matter most
  • [32:21] Curiosity as a leadership superpower
  • [36:17] Your personal brand and continued self-development
  • [40:02] The power of choice: Creating your leadership scorecard
  • [47:26] The golden handcuffs paradox and making intentional choices
  • [54:34] Purpose vs. goals: Finding what drives you as a leader
  • [59:11] The high-performer paradox: Why you always feel behind
  • [1:05:25] Quick Fire Questions with Grift
  • [1:08:39] Connect with on Grift Krehnbrink!
  • Make sure to follow Strategic Counsel on your favorite podcast spot and leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts
  • Learn more at ForthRight-People.com and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn

What is Strategic Counsel?

Welcome back to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business! Looking for Marketing Smarts? You’re in the right place. After almost 4 years of helping to make you savvier marketers, we decided to broaden this podcast to include more business-oriented topics that will make you savvier business leaders.

Thanks for listening Strategic Counsel. Get in touch here to become more strategic.

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

00:01

Welcome to the Strategic Council by Forthright Business podcast.  If you’re looking for honest, direct and unconventional conversations on how to successfully lead  and operate in business,  you are in the right place.  In our discussions, we push on the status quo and traditional modes of thinking  to reveal a fresh perspective.  This unlocks opportunity for you, your team  and your business. Now let’s get to it.

 

00:29

Welcome to Strategic Council podcast. I’m Anne Candido. And I am April Martini. And today we’re going to talk about your leadership wake  and specifically addressing if your impact is getting the results you want. So when teams are performing, leaders can tend to blame a lot of things like lack of funding, lack of time, lack of qualified or capable team members.  And actually, I these could all be realities. However, a big lack that’s oftentimes overlooked, but

 

00:55

Who caused significant trauma to a team is a lack of external awareness of its leader. So when teams are in a dysfunctional state, this is where we always start. Yes, and that is because the leader sets the tone and the culture for the team. It’s their diligence in establishing and holding everyone accountable, including themselves,  to operating principles, rules of engagement, and values that can transform a dysfunctional team into a highly effective one.

 

01:23

And this starts with getting clear on your personal brand and how it’s shaping your ultimate leadership style.  It’s also about being intentional in the way you show up. So ultimately the performance of a team starts and ends with the leader. Yep. And we say that a lot and we have a great guest to discuss this with us today. And his name is Griff, friend Brink. He’s a partner at Thodium and Griff, it’s awesome to have you here today. You want to introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit about your story.

 

01:49

Absolutely. Well, it’s fantastic to be here with you both. I started my career in finance, quickly found out that I wasn’t very passionate about moving money between bank accounts, although I do recognize the importance. It wasn’t necessarily a passion to go back to one of the threads of the intro to the episode. Just from a series of great interactions I had along my career, which

 

02:13

I recognize the wake of, let’s call it leaders around me who had just a positive impact on helping me find my own way. ah I stumbled into the world of learning and development and leadership development, which I’ve been doing for the better part of the last 11, almost 12 years.  And I’ve had just the good fortune of working with leaders across industry, across company size, across geography.  And  what’s been fascinating about

 

02:40

that journey  in working with so many individual leaders and their teams has been  the unique circumstances each one of those leaders  has presented  and the general similarities and how to approach those  situations. I’ve heard recently and it’s something that’s really become part of my own zeitgeist, like you learn everything that you need to be a good leader by the age of 12. ah

 

03:04

And then the rest of your life is just ensuring that you’re contextualizing those behaviors to be great in the situation in front of you. So um I can go into more detail on what I do at Thodium, but at the end of the day, what I always tell people my purpose or my passion in life is just to help make better leaders. I love it. And we’re going to do that today. And Griff, let’s start with just the basic understanding of what a leadership wake is, because that’s actually your term. We stole it for the title, but it  really has something

 

03:33

very compelling about it  very insightful. So can you give us a little bit of an explanation about what that is, what that means, why it’s important for leaders? Yeah, absolutely. Well, um I’m a person who thinks pretty much entirely in analogies. And so that’s just the way my brain grabs on to any concept or to  anything. um

 

03:55

We kind of, we kind of determined the best analogy to describe what the impact a leader has on the organization that they’re a part of and the teams that they run or the teams that they sit next to as this idea of wake. If you think about what happens when a wake gets created, right? Like a lot of times a boat is moving towards a direction and it’s moving with pace. It’s moving with speed.

 

04:18

And a lot of times like the boat is moving forward, but it’s not always looking behind it to understand like the ripples or the waves that are being created. And, know, if you have like someone back there on a tube and you’re not paying attention to the type of waves you’re creating, like you could send that person 15, 20 feet into the air if you’re not careful. And, uh, and very similar to, uh, maybe late games and in tubing is the world of leadership. And, um, and so when we talk about what leadership is.

 

04:47

Leadership wake, excuse me. What that is, is it’s the true recognition of a leader understanding the displacement they have  in any room, in any situation, and not just in the moment, but over time. I think it’s easy for folks at times to understand the wake they might have when they go into a particular room or a scenario. But we think about leadership wake as the culminating impact that a leader has had, the impact crater they’ve left behind. When it comes to being a really great leader, the first thing you have to have is awareness.

 

05:17

before you act, you have to be aware. And  what we found is most leaders haven’t done the due diligence on themselves to understand the way that they’ve created. Yeah, I think that that is  so right on. And you’re speaking our language, although I’m less the analogy person that will be more and that’s me.  We could probably have a whole conversation just based on analogies, Griff. Yeah, would just like roll her eyes. And that would be I guess that would be episode two.  that could be the extenuating episode? I’ll let you two have that episode and I will.

 

05:46

I will bow out gracefully on that front. anyway,  outside of that piece,  definitely speaking our language. And I think that accountability piece,  plus what I said in the intro, right, we talk a lot about personal branding on our side and that that helps you build your awareness to really do the homework to figure out who you are and then how to lead through that.  So totally agreeing with you. But I would love if you could.

 

06:11

through, I mean, I we all have confidentiality, right? We coach too, but  just an example or something that brings to life this whole idea, because I think you’re right. It’s not just in specific one-off instances. It’s a culmination of how leaders show up over time. And we’ve all probably had good ones and bad ones. And so through your work,  give us a case study, maybe without mentioning names, just to kind of show people what we’re talking about here and where things go well or maybe not. Yeah, absolutely.

 

06:40

Maybe I can speak in this time in archetypes  as opposed to just- Oh, April loves archetypes. do love those That’s her are my language. Yeah, there you go. You can speak all kinds of languages, Griff. I know, look at that. You’re like a little chameleon. Multilingual leadership is the new  title of this episode, I think.  Well, you know, so  what I find fascinating is uh groups of leaders I get to work with a lot are high achieving,  high performing,  moving at fast pace type of leaders. um

 

07:11

One of the things that just is inherently true about that population is they are passionate. They’re purposeful. They’re again, moving with pace  and,  um,  and all of that is great to a certain extent. What we tend to find is that people tend to, when they get the, let’s call it the initial spark of awareness, that initial spark of awareness generally comes with self-awareness. So you’ve, you’ve unlocked some direction you want to have in your life or you’ve unlocked some.

 

07:41

passion that now has become front and center for you. And that’s great. That’s where awareness starts. The challenge is a lot of people leave it there  and they leave it at the level of like, I now know more about myself and what I want to make out of this, you know, this grand game that we call life. And I’m just going to run full stop towards that. What we tend to then find is they’re not necessarily considering again, like the ripples or the wake that come from.

 

08:08

someone who’s moving at that pace with that level of fervor. And so what, know, a lot of times we work with  high performing individuals, maybe ironically, or maybe  not as  intrinsically for them,  we start with a lot of uh self to other orientation switching. And what I mean by that is,

 

08:29

It’s great that you as an individual, this high performer, this highly motivated person has found so much of your calling and you’re able to use that to drive energy, enthusiasm,  and, and, and, and, and be a catalyst. But you also got to remember that everyone around you isn’t exactly running at that speed. And, um, you know, a leader that is moving at a hundred miles an hour for 30 seconds can feel really invigorating when you’re sitting in the co and the, in the co-pilot seat.

 

08:58

that leader running at a hundred miles an hour for say like three hours, like can be kind of nausea inducing.  And the challenge is if you as a leader are not checking in with your team or you’re not using the power, we  call  the super power of noticing.  Like situational intelligence as a leader to understand your leadership wake is the power of noticing. And so,  you know, maybe just to make it a bit more tactical, we spend a lot of time with high performing, high potential leaders.

 

09:25

in that space of understanding how the awareness of themselves and what they want to get out of whatever they’re doing, how that then needs to be oriented towards the people around them. Because the reality is as a leader of anything, you’re ultimately leading people, right? And if you’re not taking the time to understand how you are being experienced, you’re never really going to understand how to get most out of a group because you’ll always be running at your speed. But if there’s anything that’s true, it’s that you can go fast on your own, but you can go far.

 

09:55

further with people alongside you. Yes. I mean, it’s so very insightful. And I recall, I was recalling a story from my young leadership days at P &G,  where I was given the role of,  I think I could say it now. I mean, it’s been so long ago where I was developing one of the self,  or sorry, single cup coffee brewers.  And  I couldn’t be more passionate about like really  developing this appliance and bringing this appliance to life despite the fact that I don’t like coffee and

 

10:24

really never drank it. That’s what I was going to jump in and say, like, yeah, that’s a little ironic, but you know,  but I remember coming back  and we were all supposed to be evaluating this machine.  And I looked around and like, there’s nobody else here but me. And I went to my boss and like, nobody’s helping. And they’re like, he’s like, because you basically have cut everybody else off.  So part of being a leader is that people need to follow you. And then he called me Mussolini. But now it’s because I’m small and I’m Italian.

 

10:54

All that being said,  it was a really great reminder that when we are becoming leaders, we have to really evaluate our ambition because there’s a huge conflict between leadership and ambition because as a leader, you almost have to care for your team more than you care for yourself. And if you’re going to be stuck in your own ambition  and that is going to be what fuels you and drives you, you really need to consider whether or not you’re going to be a good leader because a lot of times in order to move up in a company,

 

11:23

we kind of just matriculate people into leadership and management that never should have been there. And that’s frankly what I thought P &G has done it really well, where they have a management track and they have a technical track. So if you wanna be heads down and you wanna be ambitious and you wanna just develop really good, it’s not just, it’s really, really important to the company and you wanna develop really good innovation, there’s a track for that.  And then if you wanna be a manager, there’s a track for that. When you start crossing those over, I believe it’s where that ambition

 

11:52

and that leadership kind of like start to kind of like fight each other  is where we start getting those problems. So I don’t know, does that resonate with you, Is that kind of seen when, especially when you’re talking about leadership wake and awareness and all that kind of stuff? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there’s a lot of different layers of what you just said that resonates with me a lot, not the least of which  you equating yourself to Mussolini because you’re small and Italian stature, but

 

12:21

I  think,  like, so  one of my favorite quotes uh to use in pretty much any leadership context  is  one from Thomas Edison, and it says simply, vision without execution is merely hallucination. The context I think that it applies to in this conversation is by definition, a leader  is leading people, right? Like, it doesn’t mean that you have to be a direct leader of those individuals, but

 

12:49

You are leading something that is pushing a group towards doing something, achieving something, not doing something, which is oftentimes just as important as doing something. And what I have just found time and time again at both the individual and at the company level is that the effort put into  the idea or the place we’re going to go  is  oftentimes  so much larger than getting the people.

 

13:16

in the organization to want to go there or to feel ownership and going there.  I think so part of this is a strategy conversation, which is how do you can anyone can create vision. I maybe this is controversial, but I think there are a lot of people with a lot of great ideas out there. Like, I don’t think it’s ever the idea that tends to be the differentiator. It’s like the person who is able to take the idea and contextualize it enough for a group of people to want to run through a wall.

 

13:43

And that’s leadership. That’s leadership. frankly, better leader is someone who could take the mundane  and make people want to run a wall, run through a wall to do that. ah And so like I, when we talk about leadership and the idea, I like this idea of like marrying or maybe the frustration between ambition  and how do you describe it in? The conflict between like the ambition and leadership. Like you have to like really. uh

 

14:06

address your personal ambition in the context of leadership, because then it does expand. It becomes then the team’s ambition, not just your own personal ambition. And a lot of people use the aspect of team to help forward their own personal ambition, which always tends to blow up, right? Yeah. And  I would contend, I don’t think this is a perfect formula for this, but one of the biggest underpinnings of tying leadership and ambition together, or to maybe let’s call it like socialized ambition on a team,  is authorship.

 

14:35

Like how much do I feel part of what’s happening here? How much do I feel like I’ve been included and where we’re going?  And um I think part of understanding your leadership wake is like looking back and seeing  is everyone still motivated to go where we said we’re going to go? And if not, why? And I think that  the  identification of your leadership wake is both a  moment in time thing.

 

15:05

Like it’s both like to understand what the leadership wake is that you’ve had over the course of history with your team or with individuals with your company.  But it’s also like a momentary game, which is always checking in and again, using that super power of noticing to say like, Hey, are people still as engaged or are they still as bought in to  what we all seemed really gung ho or jazzed up about going to do six months ago? And again, if not, why?

 

15:31

What’s my understanding of the root cause of what might be driving that? So it’s both, let’s call it a longer term understanding of the wake you’ve had as well as a momentary identification. Yeah, and I’ll tell on myself too, otherwise Ann will probably do it anyway, but  early on in my career,  I had someone  similarly point out to me  that no one was behind me anymore, right? No one was following.  And

 

15:58

as a visual  person that hit me exactly the way that it should have, right?  And I think the thing we often talk about is making sure that people  see their role in it, but also realize how much more can be done when it’s not just them trying to do it. And I remember that being an eye-opening thing for me, right? When all of a sudden it was like, oh, we can do bigger projects. We can…

 

16:22

get to better creative ideas, we can get to bigger clients.  There’s all these opportunities when I stopped trying to go after it by myself.  One of the things that I find when I’m coaching people now  is reminding them that getting people to follow you is one thing, but also making sure, like you said, Griff, you’re checking in and saying things to them in a way that they can actually hear and understand.

 

16:47

because I feel like that’s one of the misses that also happens. It’s like, as the leader, you may be a hundred percent right in your conviction in the way you think about it, but if the person on the other side isn’t able for whatever reason, they don’t prioritize those things the same, or they’ve never had that experience, whatever it is, you have to slow down enough to take the time to bring them along in a way that they can hear the message and then internalize it.  And I think the…

 

17:13

point about vision, the last thing I’ll say here is important as well, because I do think that while ideas can come from anywhere, truly visionary people, I think, have a strategic lens that not everyone does have. And so sometimes when you’re trying to bring people along as the leader, you have to remember that you’re not asking them to be you or to understand it at the level you do or be responsible at the level that you are as that leader,  but you need them to buy in enough that they want to run through the wall, as you will say, for you.

 

17:43

and stay committed and at least get it enough that they feel passionate beyond just this is my job and these are the things I do. Yeah, well, and I think  maybe it’s also a good time for us to remember too that being a good leader is working out a muscle that we all have. And while we all might have different predispositions to the size of that muscle when we’re first born or when we’ve gone through the experiences of our life, we all can make it  more conditioned. We all can  ensure that we’re becoming the leader we want to be. And I think sometimes

 

18:13

you even if you go to that example, like visionary leaders,  like, well, I just, I don’t, I, I’m the product visionary. don’t, I don’t really, you know, I don’t jive with leading a team and being, I’m like, well, that’s kind of BS because you built a product that people love. In order to do that, you had to get really clear with what those folks were trying to do or the motivations you were trying to help them achieve. And yet why don’t you just use that same frame of reference for the folks you’re trying to get to move towards the broad ambition of your, of your company. And so I think sometimes people like,

 

18:42

They fall prey to just saying, this is who I am, or this is how I am. don’t think about things like empathy, or they don’t think about these skills, like noticing as actual skills that can be developed and built. so, you know, if there’s anything that I get really excited about, it’s that like leadership is going to be, regardless of what happens in the of technology,  we’re still going to need people to lead people.  And  dare I say also, we’re getting into a,  a,  an age of work where that’s going to be even the more, even more important than it has been.

 

19:11

It’s been very important to be very clear, but when you have  a bunch of the administrative minutia of work kind of being stripped out of the system and done, you know, done by technology and  back rooms and what’s going to be left is like how well people inspire, like how well people communicate, how well people listen, like all of these things are going to be the new super skills  of 2027 and beyond.  And um I think that gives.

 

19:37

folks in my world like a lot to be excited for because there’s going to be a lot of skill building that’s going to need to be done. Well, let’s start at the let’s call it at the beginning because we mentioned several times about needing to have awareness in order to be able to build upon that based on what you just said. Obviously, the skill building comes next and we’re going to talk about that here in a minute. But I love to spend a little bit of time about.

 

20:03

how do you become more aware? Because a lot of times for a lot of leaders, this is a blind spot. And a lot of times it’s like, I’m doing a good job, I’m delivering on the results, why isn’t that good enough? Why isn’t everybody else kind of conforming to my style of leadership? So all those kinds of questions are probably brewing in people’s heads, especially those insecure overachievers, which makes up 95 % of the people at P &G.

 

20:31

And people who are ambitious, who want to do a really good job and feel like that it should just be all in the results. So help people  figure out how do you kind of peel it back in your own  self?  And then how else do I mean, you use the people around you to really become more aware. Yeah. Well, you said something there, that I’d love to circle back to around high potential folks always finding themselves maybe in like the…

 

20:58

maybe the uncomfortable growth moments. like  we talk a lot about this concept of hypo paradox. So maybe I’ll just put that Easter egg in there if we want to come back to it at some point in the conversation.  So I think  the first step I would offer anyone up is, look,  I don’t think this stuff matters. I’m driving results. I’m doing great. You know, the things are there, the proof’s in the pudding, so to speak. The first question I can always ask people was like, when you look at  people who have changed your life,

 

21:26

Like people who have helped you see something about yourself or people that have made you want to run through a brick wall for some kind of idea or goal. Like, do you think they  didn’t have this skill? So like the first thing you can always do is point to someone that people revere in their own life and show them like, that person  had the thing we’re talking about. think the second piece is recognizing that  building awareness is a very uncomfortable and uncomfortable thing.

 

21:55

Becoming more aware of yourself is a little bit like, you know, opening up all the cupboards in your house.  And, um, and some of them have like really cool mementos from like your childhood and you’re like really excited to see them. And like, some of them have like dusty cobwebs and like maybe like a snack bar that was left there like way too long.  It’s a kitschy analogy, but it’s sort of like when you go into the depths of yourself, like you, you remember things that have been. m

 

22:23

rewarding in your past, but have also been very trying and very challenging. And that’s a pain that can be both an exciting and a painful endeavor. So building awareness is not for the weak hearted. The good news is though, that like when you do it and what I, what I tend to tell people to do it is do this work, not just by yourself, like do it on yourself, but don’t do it by yourself. Cause what you’ll find is like a lot of people, again, we talked about this at the beginning of the episode, but a lot of people are going through the same things.

 

22:51

We think that our situation is entirely unique. And there’s a lot of things about each one of our lives that is  unique, but  maybe the crux of a lot of the challenges that we face,  the  intimate emotions we feel going through certain things in our life, like we can all relate to that with one another. And when you go through the level of building awareness for yourself and you do it alongside others, like it can just be such a powerful bonding moment.

 

23:17

So what we  oftentimes, maybe just to bring it back to more tactical, is when we have leaders who go through this self-awareness exploration for themselves, we have them take back like a similar type of exercise and do it with their teams. And  without fail, every single time a leader goes and does that, they’re like, I thought I knew my team and I thought they knew me. We didn’t know each other and now we do.  And now it feels like we’ve been in a foxhole together.

 

23:43

And it’s like just something simple as like having a core values exercise, which we can get into the depths of like how to do that, but it’s not, it’s not a rocket sciencey exercise. So maybe like I’ll summarize some of those things to bring it back to your question, Anne, but it’s like awareness. can see it in the people that you respect when you go through and you build the awareness, it’s uncomfortable, but rewarding.

 

24:05

And then inherently, when you build awareness of yourself and you’re able to think in your own,  maybe let’s call it the third dimension, which is a very easy at times to picture yourself in the here and now, and just, this is who I am. But when you bring the third dimension of time, you know, of your experience, of your lived experiences, of your peaks and valleys, it just naturally makes you more willing to see other people that way too.  And, um,  I’ll use another, maybe another kitschy analogy here that like,

 

24:33

part of becoming a great leader is to see people as  comets and not stars. Like you see the trail that brings them to the moment of interaction with you, as opposed to just like this thing that’s in the here and now. And when you do that, you build a ton of empathy and you build a ton of understanding of what other people are trying to get out of their own journey,  which then allows you to get closer to your own leadership wake. So it becomes a domino effect of becoming a great leader. Yeah, I mean, the thing that…

 

25:00

keeps running through my mind as you’re talking is the whole idea of authenticity and vulnerability kind of mixed together, right? And so  we follow a very similar approach.  And typically when we’re coaching, we take people, said, through the personal brand exercise, right? So identifying your characteristics  that then informs your appearance that really leads to the behaviors and actions and the things people see in you each day, right? And it’s that cumulative effect.  But inevitably, when I’m working with people  on this

 

25:28

specifically in the coaching arena, I find that there’s always a point where we run into a wall, right? Where we can’t finalize it or we can’t quite get there. And that’s always when we bring other people in. And so  we have, we do the exercise with them on their own and then we do similar to what you said and they’ll do one-on-one interviews or group,  all different processes to do it, right? But basically what we’re looking for is turning that lens and having other people speak into

 

25:58

what they know to be true about you. And I feel like that is  such a powerful thing, especially when we’re talking about those people that are the high achievers, I wanna run, I wanna keep moving, right? They often don’t take the time to stop and lean into that authenticity and vulnerability.  And a lot of times I think it takes other people  to help them get there, right? So I had a leader  recently  and I mean, even I was scratching my head, I’m like,  ah, like I’m in with him and now I know him.

 

26:26

And now I’m like, oh yeah, I want to be on his team, right? But there was some rub that was happening where that wasn’t the case with everyone. Well, what we ultimately got into was there was some self-preservation, right? Going on around this, I’m the boss. And that was all it is. And then it was breaking that down to get to like, well, if you just show up as yourself and then by the way, here’s the personal brand that we’ve identified for you. And it was like unlocked totally new potential and excitement and energy and all of that. And it just kind of snapped things right into place.

 

26:56

I do think there’s just so much about all of this that’s, mean, maybe it sounds corny, but it’s leaning into our humanity, right? To your point about technology and all of those things to be like, all right, what is it about all of us? Will we all share this thing we’re human? And that’s where I think you start to see those patterns or, I’m not totally comfortable or  I’m not ready to share that all those things. Yeah. This is, I think it’s a really good call out, April. And to me,

 

27:22

This is another thing that comes out of  any program I run with leaders, which it sounds so simple, but it’s so powerful. Like they go back and we give them a number of activities to go and just explore the learnings they had about themselves, how they want to grow,  feedback they’re looking for.  Every time they do that with their team, they feel a heightened level of trust.

 

27:45

That’s not, it’s not by happenstance. I mean, when you go back to your team and you show the vulnerability to  be a work in prog and progress, like I don’t think people recognize that they’re not, people aren’t following you because you have every single answer. They’re not following the smartest person in the room. Like they’re following you for something else. And frankly, they’ll follow you further. If you admit that you’re working on things. Yes.

 

28:13

Um,  we,  we, we talk about the concept of trust in leadership all the time. Like you, cannot lead without, uh, an extreme level of trust, particularly in uncertain times. Like people can get away maybe with a low level of trust when everything is gung ho hunky dory. When, uh, when the chips are down and when, know, the numbers aren’t all green and all those things start to show up, like people follow people, not just for knowing things and being reliable, they follow them because they feel a level of intimacy and safety with that individual.

 

28:43

And they also feel like when times get tough, they won’t tuck and run and save their own hide.  And I think those two last, uh there’s a common trust equation, which brings in credibility, reliability, intimacy, and other orientation into uh sort of the  mixing pot  of trust. And credibility and reliability are oftentimes the ones that we in our own mind over rotate on why we think people trust us.

 

29:08

But the reality is most of the time it’s the intimacy. It’s feeling like I actually know you and have built a relationship. And it’s the other orientation. Like I feel like you’re in it not just for yourself, but you’re in it for me as well. Those two things are the trust building for the long-term where credibility and reliability are there maybe for the shorter term, like the intimacy and other orientation. Those are the ones that take you far. All right. So last unpack here, I’m going to take us down a thread. I want to go back to the humanity piece because you guys both mentioned it and there’s really

 

29:37

two sides of the humanity coin, right? I love what you said about the fact that  people are still going to lead people. I said, as  long as we have something that oversees, there’s always gonna be a person on the other side of sale. So they’re always selling to a person person, right? The other side of humanity, especially for leaders  is what you guys also both mentioned or mentioned in some  similar contexts is the self-preservation piece, right? And so that is the other side of it.

 

30:06

It’s hard as leaders not to tap into that or not to be triggered by that. So we’ve talked about this even recently where we’ve seen leaders compromise their, I would say just they compromise their leadership wake because they felt like their personal brand or their personal integrity is being called into question by the things that the teams are doing. So that’s where the blaming comes or that’s where we tried to kind of play a little bit more tighter.

 

30:33

because we don’t want what’s happening here to impact the way that people think about us and think about  how we are as leaders. So that’s the other side of humanity that we always  tell leaders, they have to be very mindful of because they almost always are triggered by something in that realm, but they don’t realize they’re being triggered. And so that leads me to the other part of it in a pack, which I’m gonna throw another word out there, but this was really the way that I pivoted

 

31:02

from that ambition to leadership was by becoming more curious, right? So  why am I feeling that? Why am I feeling triggered? Why am I feeling that tendency to  blame somebody else or to throw somebody underneath the bus or to take control of everything and  not let my team kind of learn from it or evolve from it? like, why am I feeling that? And then why are people reacting to me in the way that they’re reacting?

 

31:27

Because again, a lot of times it is a humanity play for sure, but it’s being triggered by something that’s generally in our characteristics that, know, so whether they call it your values or your principles or whatever kind of defines and makes you you, that’s now transcended into the way you’re showing up either in your parents or your behaviors and actions. And a lot of times we’re totally unaware that those things are even happening. And we don’t know until we’re kind of like, we ask ourselves, why is it this?

 

31:52

not going the way that I wanted to go. Why is my leadership now creating, know, throwing people 15 to 20 feet in the air? All I did was telling them they had to have this done by yesterday. I mean, why is that such a big deal? Right? I worked, you know, 45, 60 hours on this in the last three days. Why couldn’t they do it? Right. So there’s like an element of curiosity that I think that really helped me. But there’s also, again, that flip side of humanity that tends to kind of keep people and keep leaders kind of down in that. um

 

32:21

that self-preservation and it’s kind of all about me. So what are your thoughts there, Griff? Griff on that a little bit. Yeah, there’s a lot there. I love that you brought curiosity into the conversation because I think that might be the mega superpower of good leaders is curiosity in all parts of your life. I think, Anne, you put it nicely, the curiosity can really start and stem from being curious about your own response.

 

32:50

ah So maybe to put it in the context of some of these things that we’re talking about, we bring this concept of core values. You want to call them principles, whatever you want to call these things, but these are like the mechanisms by which you  prioritize in your life. Whether or not you know they’re there, they’re there. We oftentimes talk with leaders like you don’t define your core values, you explore and unearth them. They’re there already through your lived experiences and on aspirational.

 

33:15

They’re the things that every day you or your mind is sort of sifting your experience through. Most folks are walking around without an understanding of that sifting mechanism. So they’re getting stressed, getting emotional,  when you get closer to those things, I’ll give you like for month for me, I, when I first did this exercise, I found out my core values, the top three core values. I, these have been true for a decade now, authenticity, curiosity, and connection.

 

33:43

Why those three things and knowing those three things are important to me is I know any single time in life when I get a chance to lean into one of those, I am going to be absolutely through the roof energized. When I can be myself, when I can feel true connection to others, when I feel I can be curious and I can be leaning into the what if and what’s possible, I’m going to be my best self. Conversely, I know when any one of those is going to be sacrificed, I’m going to have a tough day.

 

34:09

But now I have that mechanism built in. have the awareness that if any of those things are going to be sacrificed, I’m going to feel in that moment. I’m going to have that moment of pause.  And I think this got back into the  zeitgeist with Brene Brown talking about the space between the stimulus and response. I don’t know if this is the first person that brought this up, uh Victor Frankel, I don’t know if you’ve ever read the book, The Man’s Search for Meaning, but he brought this  idea forward of

 

34:37

between every stimulus and what we choose to do, there’s a space. And in that space lies your freedom of choice. And I think what doing things like self-expiration and self-awareness allow you to do is to create and elongate, even in a little bit, the space between anything that happens in your life and how you choose to respond to that with just curiosity. And…

 

35:00

It sounds like you’ve done some of that work and it’s helped you in a lot of ways, but I think the becoming aware in that, in that frame is to also recognize that like most people in life haven’t been afforded the chance or the opportunity to do just that. And so I think what happens a lot of times is like people get this  superpower,  but then they don’t  let it be an empathetic superpower. They then start to wonder why other people don’t feel the same way or why they haven’t had the same actualization.

 

35:26

And the reality is like, can be more a better shepherd of those folks by showing them with great curiosity and the ability to emotionally regulate what, good could look like as opposed to allowing it to ruin your own day. So I think like, whenever we work with leaders is like, now you have this thing, you’ve had this gift of curiosity to your point in that most people just like aren’t afforded the chance in the space and time to build, like let it out in the world, let it, let it like foster and let, let like, just let the impact of you being this.

 

35:56

this self-aware,  curious person, like see the impact they can have in the six block radius of your life. Yeah, well, and I’ll just build on that. I mean, I think the only way to be a powerful leader is to continue to push yourself to be curious, to learn more. Right. And so if you’re going to stagnate at some point, that’s going to catch up with you.

 

36:17

And Anne and I talk about it in our business all the time that we feel this inherent responsibility to the people we work with to be bringing forth all of these, whether it’s books, like you pointed out, or podcasts, or information, or  options, or tools, or things to help them go through this  time of self-exploration.  But I also think that leaders  have to kind of have a love for it too, right? Because like you said, these are my things. If I don’t have these on any given day, I have to have an honest conversation. Or this is how I interpreted it.

 

36:47

So I do it, honest conversation with myself, like, look, this is gonna be a tough day and this is why, because you’re misaligned or whatever. Let’s get back on track  and get back to being that curious person. But  I think that there is  so much  value, but also just really intentional work to become this kind of leader and lead through, I mean, we’re saying curiosity here, but just that continued moving myself forward, but with intention.

 

37:13

with the idea that that’s gonna make me better for my team, not just better for myself at the end of the day. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,  that’s really well said, April.  The reality is going through this work can change the way you respond, but it doesn’t change the things that come into the system by way of stimulus.  you’re never gonna be… I mean,  okay, obviously  you can control in some ways the type of things that affect you or that happen to you,  but the reality is only so much.

 

37:43

And what we have agency over is  the space between  something happening to us and how we choose to respond.  And to your point, we’re not always going to do it perfectly.  And also to your point, the intent of building great self-awareness is not to say, I’m going to have a shitty day doing this. I’m not going to do it. It’s hearing yourself up for a harder day.  That’s what this is really about. And  to go back to the idea  of high potential folks and folks who are trying to achieve in their life, like you shouldn’t be running from this company.

 

38:13

I  can’t remember the, there’s a uh really popular therapist. So this is me  not having the exact name of someone. So maybe this like,  the doesn’t necessarily, maybe it erodes the credibility of me sharing this, but there’s a really popular therapist out in LA and he works in the Hollywood scene and he sees a lot of the, the rich and the famous, right? The folks who like have everything but feel nothing.

 

38:38

And ah his  interpretation  of what has happened in those cases is that they’re living lives that are devoid of pain, uncertainty, and hard work.  He kind of puts it ironically, but like, isn’t it ironic that the things we run from are actually the things that give our life purpose or the things that give our life meaning?  And ah we spend our entire life trying to get rid of those things as opposed to embrace them  as the things that make us who we are.

 

39:05

And I think to your point, like that’s what’s really great about self-awareness is it never ends. Like you, change every day,  the world around you changes, therefore you change. And so it’s not about like reaching some level of competency. think maybe,  maybe to, to bring this to the world of education, one of the things I’ve always found frustrating about  getting into like high school and college level education is it became about proficiency and getting to a certain level of knowledge and understanding.

 

39:34

as opposed to just the sheer building the muscle of curiosity and learning. And I think that’s what I love about what I get to do every day is I get to exercise my own muscle of learning and whether it’s around leadership or whether it’s around other skills, I think people who seem to be really lit up in life are the ones that recognize how much they don’t know, not just what they do. I totally agree. Totally agree. I’m nodding along. I want to go back.

 

40:02

to this element of choice, because I think it’s really, really  liberating one. Because now that we’ve unpacked, like, and everybody’s kind of going through even in this like short period of time, I’m sure like, there’s some things popping up of like, Oh, yeah, I do that.  Oh, no, I am like, these are a couple of my values. And now like, Griffin and in April or toilet, like blowing up my whole entire life. Now what do I go do?

 

40:28

And I think this is where the choice, the power of choice comes in because what me and April say, and Ingrid, you may  have similar thoughts, or if you have different thoughts, that’s totally  cool too. It’s great to have different perspectives is that you are who you are. So when we talk about our characteristics, which include our values, those are really hard to change.

 

40:47

Like you said, you’ve learned everything  you know about leadership by the time you’re 12. You’ve also really kind of formed who you are by that time too.  And there’s a lot of  nature and nurture that goes into that, but it’s really hard to undo  those things. And sometimes you can’t even like think back to the time of like when they even came into conception, right? So you kind of have to accept that you are who you are and an introvert’s not gonna always become an extrovert. Somebody who is like really, um

 

41:16

happy all the time is not going to become like a sad person or kind of bring that down or, you know,  and I’m using like opposites, but there’s different  variations and levels of this and nuances of this.  I just say that all just because what we say is like your own, like to achieve those big things, which is what we talk about in the book. You have to embrace who you are, your competitive advantages, who you are in inside and being able to  cultivate that in a way that

 

41:43

brings to life what you truly  bring to the table, the value that you can truly leverage and capitalize on. But you can’t do that if you think that everything is fated for you or that you have no control over anything that you do, right? So I would love for you to talk a little bit about this  aspect of choice. And so what do people do once they become kind of aware, how do they kind of craft themselves into the leader that they want to be?

 

42:10

So was a really long preamble to that question. One of the things you shared, maybe the school of thought you both have, is like, are who you are. I would add my own caveat, which is maybe a little different perspective, but it’s to say you are who you are, dot, dot, dot, for now. I maybe am of the school of thought that things can change drastically for you in moments in time. I’ll give you an example.

 

42:39

A lot of times when we do this uh unearthing of values and maybe purpose  exploration work with leaders, it’s to go back through milestone, both peak and valley style of moments in their life that show them  potential changes or variations in path of where they chose to go next. And what we tend to find is in those peaks and valleys start to become some through lines and threads of what their values are, what their purpose is now.

 

43:09

that’s been highlighted by some of those like showcase moments. So while you definitely are a product of the lived experience of your entire life, there are outsized moments in your life. I can even speak personally for me, having my two children has totally changed me.  Now I’m maybe yet to the essence, I’m like the same person, but in terms of like  the  priority of my value set, like  it’s definitely shifted from a seismic impact of having

 

43:37

children brought into your life. So I think it’s good to have this understanding of who you are to this point. But I think, again, go back to this idea of continued exploration, like continue to come back and recalibrate because big things in our life do change the potential trajectory that we’re on. So maybe I’ll quickly pause and get your general reactions to that. I don’t know if that jives or is slightly different than both of your opinions.

 

44:04

I mean, I would say it’s actually not too different than what we say. I think what I would say to that is that different elements of your characteristics are emerging at different times of your life, but they are still inherently who you are. You didn’t like become a parent and as a like you’re a horrible person. And then all of a sudden you become a parent and then you’re like, oh, well, I guess I’m going to like, you know, totally change who I am. Even people who try to do that externally, there’s still these lingering things, right? You know, so.

 

44:35

and I’m gonna let April speak too, is like, it’s all in there. And yes, there can be some, the nature part that kind of impact how we want to show up, but it’s still inherently tied to our characteristics. And so the conflict becomes when we try to act differently than what we believe who we are, and there’s that conflict, that’s where a lot of this stuff kind of blows up. When we’re trying to like white-knuckle it,

 

45:02

through life because we believe we should be somebody over here or we defined how it’s supposed to be over here and we’re totally ignoring who we are at our core. So, April, I’ll let you chime in too. Yeah, I mean, I think we’re largely in the same camp. I I always give the example of being a very direct person, right? But I modulate and I’ve learned to modulate that throughout my life at different times. And so like you, Griff, like I can…

 

45:30

Well, I’ve done the work. can look back at times where that directness worked really well and when it fell off a cliff in a real bad way.  And then I can see moments too for myself where like people have told me that since I’ve had my kids that I have softened, right? Like, like there’s just a little less of that edge all the time.  Because you’re tired. That might be part of it.  Or they just wear me down on a regular basis. Anyway.  But yeah, I mean, I think that

 

45:59

If I look at, you know, in my 20s, what direct meant and that feedback about not bringing people along, that was tied a lot to that, right? Now I fast forward and I think I could never do the job that I do today if I was still operating through that lens. Yet, I would still say I am a very direct person and I value that in other people. So I think we’re speaking along the same lines and it’s all that stuff about

 

46:26

learning from what you know now, you’re different every single day, different opportunities are presented, we can make choices, all of these things. But I do think like that directness has, I mean, my parents call it stubbornness, right? Since I was tiny, it’s always been there. Yeah. Yeah, super interesting. Yeah, it sounds like we’re, I think we’re speaking from the same book here. And forgive me, because of my diatribe and asking your questions, I forgot the crux of the question that you asked. Oh, that’s okay. I was going to come back to it. You know, that’s the kind of podcast I’m trying.

 

46:55

So the question was then how does somebody with that awareness now start to  really cultivate that into the type of leader they want to be anchoring on this  whole concept that we have choice?  Yeah. See, I knew it was a really, really powerful and insightful question. That’s why I just wanted you to ask it twice. Oh, I get you. get That’s what that was. Yeah. I’m ready for a really, like, equally insightful answer. Well, so I think,  yeah, mean, choice is everything, right? Like  oftentimes in life and  I think

 

47:26

when you get this level of awareness, I think it becomes more obvious to you just how many choices you are making per day. I mean, I can’t tell you the number of leaders that I’ve worked with that have brought this idea of like golden handcuffs  forward,  which is such a weird way to describe feeling like you have to stay in your job. But I know it’s one of those old analogies, but that to me is like,

 

47:50

when someone is saying, I can’t leave this because I have these things. I’m like, no, you’re making three choices right there. And you’re making a choice every day to stay doing something. And  I think when you go through this level of awareness, when you get to a certain bedrock, you just start to actually build your own scorecard for your life, which just frees you from like  the spinning top of what the world tells you to care about. Now I’m not.

 

48:17

in any way saying like, go off the beaten path and just disappear and don’t care about others. But I think there’s something inherently really intoxicating about being around someone who has like found out their life’s purpose. And we all  know people in our life who when we get around them, we’re just like, man, that guy or that woman is just fun to be around. They are like moving towards something that they seem to really care about and they’re moving with pace and they’re…

 

48:44

And they’re also thinking about people who are around them kind of going together. And, then why don’t I have that? And  I think that  the answer is like, those folks have done the work that they figured out. They built on their scorecard for their life, which is not just about making X amount of money. It’s not about getting so many promotions. And to be clear, I’m not saying those things are bad. This is not in any way being like quit your job and go find your passion because passion can exist outside of the workforce as well. Like I think it’s just as.

 

49:13

as amazing for someone to recognize that their passion is at home.  And they want to do enough at work that allows them to lean into a passion at home, whether it’s raising a family, whether it’s having a hobby, like those are things that are amazing too. I think it’s just finding your own scorecard. And that comes from this awareness and then being able to choose against that scorecard where choice comes in. Cause at the end of the day,  most of us  get a chance to choose against our own scorecards. Now,

 

49:40

To be very clear, think the other thing about that’s really important in all this conversation is to not judge others on their choices as well. Because again, to go back to the comet versus the  star, we don’t know people’s experience. We have this amazing tendency as human beings to create an entire story of people in our life when we get like two data points about them.

 

50:04

We’re like, well, we don’t know if they have this job and they live in this neighborhood. And we all of a sudden we’ve like narrated their entire life story. And we’re like, I know exactly who that person is. And yet you don’t, you know, two data points of about a billion, maybe a trillion. And so I think like have an agency of your own scorecard, being able to choose against it also, hopefully then allows you to lean into this idea that like, don’t judge other people’s choices. Don’t get upset about how other people are choosing to live their life. Be this intoxicating individual who’s

 

50:33

exciting to be around because you found your own path and just let that be the illumination in the world around you and let that speak for itself. Yeah. I mean, well, scorecards are another one of my things. I  know you’re going to take that thread and pull on that one. That’s her. Her latest thing is scorecards.  I mean, everyone that knows me and is listening is like, oh, here we go.  Anyway, with that said.

 

50:57

I do really appreciate and obviously agree with that. And I think it’s what you said though about making that scorecard tied to your ultimate purpose, right? Because I think you’re exactly right. When you get around people that have really figured out what this life means for them, which I think is the other important point you made, you feel that about them. But I think it’s also that they’ve discovered their purpose and then they live it out through their scorecard. Meaning they make those choices to continue to live out the purpose to then continue to elevate

 

51:26

and have impact there beyond whatever they’re doing today versus tomorrow versus all the other things we’ve talked about today. And I think your other point is really well taken on not judging other people. I would just say period. Because you’re right, we don’t know. And also, I’m very careful in doing the work we do with leaders not to project what I would do on that.

 

51:51

Now, Anne will call me out because there are times where I take off one hat and I’m like, okay, do you want to know what April would do?  We’ve reached a point where we need to  move this forward, right? But it’s never with the intention of telling them to do it my way.  It’s figure out, this is what I would do as me and you know who I am to solve it. Now go figure out how you’re going to solve it for yourself. But I really think it comes from that place where…

 

52:15

You feel the magnetic draw of the people that have found their purpose and are very intentionally living it every single day. Yeah. Yeah, there’s a  there. I don’t know who said this first, but it’s  it’s stuck with me ever since I first heard it. You judge yourself on your intent to judge others on their impact. But I think that’s  that’s incomplete because I think it can be like you initially judge others on their impact. But if you do this type of work on yourself, you recognize that that judgment is asinine.

 

52:44

because you have no ground to make that judgment on whatever someone did because you have no idea why they made that decision. You haven’t lived their life up until this point. So I think in a lot of ways, doing this type of work on yourself as a leader is just so freeing because it allows you to recognize just how malarkey so much of the baggage you carry around in your head is. It’s just like narrative and assumption. And it’s just cluttering your mind with like,

 

53:12

grudges you’re holding, wishful thinking you’re doing, like all this stuff. And  to do this work is to feel lighter, like literally feel lighter. And you mentioned April, the idea of purpose. I also tell when  I do this type of work, which is work for me still, always like whenever I go into a leadership development program, I tell people like, look,  consider me like a TA in this class, because everything you’re doing, I’m doing again, because I recognize the value of doing this stuff over and over again.

 

53:41

Um, but we talk about the concept of purpose more as related back to a company, like more like a vision than it is. Excuse me, like a mission than it is a vision. Because your purpose should be something that is a pursuit that never ends. When you think of your purpose as a vision, it becomes a little bit too much like a goal or like an outcome that you’re trying to drive. Yeah. And, and, and, your purpose is more like, what is it that you’re going to get up out of bed and pursue relentlessly endlessly.

 

54:10

and not necessarily to some end destination, but it’s just the thing that you’ve chosen to make your life’s work about. And that kind of goes back to this idea of growth mindset, right? Like if you have a purpose that is never ending, you recognize that you’ll always be learning. Well, and I’ll say too, because some of the younger people that’s like, well, am I supposed to know what my purpose is when I’m like, you know, my 20s and 30s and

 

54:34

The tool that me and April use in the book, and we’ve talked about it before on the podcast, is this whole idea of your big thing. And the big thing could be goal oriented in the meantime, as you’re trying to figure out  what your broader or bigger purpose is, which if you find it out when you’re 20 and 30, good for you. I’m 50  on Sunday, and I’m still trying to kind of refine what it looks like for me,  just because the external circumstances are very powering in

 

55:03

making you think that your purpose is certain things in that moment. Like, you know, being a good employee or being a good wife or being a good parent. And sometimes those cloud what your  inner  self is telling you what your purpose is. And that’s totally fine. So like being on your purpose, like what you said, it’s a bit of a journey and it’s a bit of learning. But in the interim, you have to put things in place that allow you to start progressing towards learning what that is.  so your big thing could be

 

55:31

a promotion, the big thing could be owning your business one day, a big thing could be wanting a team of your own, it could be anything that you want it to be that gets you out of bed and gives you something to do today that you feel good about. And that has the same impact and weight on others as knowing in living, my life purpose, like, know, said Guru is one of my favorites.  That’s a man who lives his life purpose, right? So  there’s like lots of different elements. So I just wanna make sure people heard that so they’re not sitting there.

 

56:00

feeling like Griff, April and Anne are telling me I need to have my purpose now  in order for me to have some element of  fulfillment in life. Yeah. Well, mean,  and then I mean, like to build on that, think it’s not  to talk about this concept of purpose is not to say life should be void of goals and  right.  It’s just like, you know, maybe I’ll put it in the tactical examples. Like I’ve done.

 

56:25

leadership development purpose oriented work recently with like a 65 year old executive. And I’ve done leadership development purpose oriented work with a 26 year old drilling engineer.  Yep. Yep. Both of them were sort of on the initial journey of like talking about their personal purpose. But I think what like there,  there’s there’s sort of the things you go through in life, which maybe can be seen as sort of like sequential tiered, like I want to accomplish things, I want to get stuff done, I want to be seen in certain ways.

 

56:54

I’m not saying that exactly what you’re saying, but like we want to continue to do stuff. But then there is sort of like this other layer, which is like, we shouldn’t have to look at it as like we have, it’s not about a, uh an, an arrival or like a time to destination. It’s like, it’s true. It’s truly is like exploration of what, what it is the heck we’re doing here.  It’s next, right?  Yeah. And it doesn’t have to be something that happens for everyone at.

 

57:20

and you know, in their  20s or 30s or 40s or even in their 60s, like I think it’s  as long as folks are feeling like they’re having a chance to explore and go and go internally and heck, maybe you never totally figure out like what you were here to do. But you’d spend a lot of time thinking about it, which I guarantee made you a better person.  To go back to maybe to the youngins who might be listening in or the uninitiated. I would say start the I would say start the work now.

 

57:48

do the awareness building, do the exploration.  It doesn’t have to culminate in two months with you with a purpose statement that  sings from  the mountain tops, but rather that you’ve started to build that muscle of self-awareness, which then allows you to become more empathetic, which then allows you to see people as asteroids and not stars anymore. And again, you just be surprised how quickly just the pursuit of this  can help you show up as a better leader as opposed to the culmination of outputs.

 

58:18

Yeah, and a continued development of your own personal sense of self. Me and April use  in the book, I want to be known as a person who, which  just starts to provide a context for how do you evolve yourself into this higher order being that then  can live into the big thing or the purpose. So when people start to kind of identify that then.

 

58:41

there’s obviously gaps and maybe this comes back to the hyper paradox you were referring to. so feel free to kind of weave that in, but it becomes very daunting and overwhelming of having to adjust the gap. So maybe you can talk a little bit about how you help people when they’re kind of going through this process, figure out how to feel about the gaps and then what to go do about them. Yeah. Yeah. I’ll preface this by saying, first off, nice playback with the hyper paradox.

 

59:11

See? She wrote it down on her paper. I saw it happen. When I see her eyes go down, I’m like, she’s writing.  So this is not uh a  term or an idea that’s unique to the thought of you or to me or to anything right around my circle. But it’s just the concept that when you live your life  as a high achiever or someone who’s trying to go after big things, just by sheer very nature of that, you always feel behind. Yes.

 

59:40

That’s 100%. When you’re always pushing yourself to be in rooms where you feel uncomfortable, where you feel like you don’t belong because you’re like proving to yourself that you do. And yet you never, and again, this is a good thing. Like you never stop. Cause you get to that room and you’re like, actually, I think I should be in that other room where I think I should be in that other conversation. But it does create a little bit of an unsteadiness to life because you’re just constantly finding yourself saying like, I feel like I should feel like I arrived.

 

01:00:09

I think one of the things that I, you know, I’m not an old person by any means, but one of the things that I’ve just found to be really interesting in my career is like nothing has ever happened in my career where I got there. And I was like, this feels exactly like I thought it was going to feel as good for as long. Um, I told a really stupid example, but I’m going to tell it here. Cause it’s just like one that I think is maybe folks can relate to, but I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, which isn’t the biggest city in the world. It’s not small, not the smallest city, but not the biggest city.

 

01:00:38

And I felt like being able to make it out of the city and go work somewhere else was such a daunting task. I was going to prove to people that I could go somewhere else and I could be in a big city. When I was 25, I got a job in Chicago. And I remember singing in my U-Haul all the way up I-65 because I’m like, I’ve made it. Look, Ma, I’ve made it. And I remember I moved into northern Chicago and I

 

01:01:07

I took the train down the Brown line over which comes, if you’re familiar with Chicago, comes over the, the, the Northern branch of the Chicago river into downtown Chicago. You’re, you’re greeted by this amazing view of the skyscrapers of Chicago. And I remember looking around thinking, I live here. Like I’ve made it. This is so cool. That’s my experience for day one. Fast forward 13 days. I’m on the same train on a Monday morning and all I can look at is like how packed it is. Like I can’t breathe in this train.

 

01:01:36

What are all these people doing bumping into me?  And it’s just like, it’s how quick you’re  not only as a high achiever, but just as a human being, are to  create relevance or relativity in your own experience. And so I bring that forward for like the hypo paradox is like, you’re constantly just going to find yourself just as by nature of being a human, like  not satisfied. And then you push yourself until you feel continuously uncomfortable and you’ll continue to kind of push yourself maybe closer and closer to the feelings of like imposter syndrome.

 

01:02:06

And I think part of the game is just to recognize that that will always exist. Like it won’t go away. I don’t want to speak for both of you, but like I know for me,  I’ve accomplished some cool things in my career. I’ve had some really amazing ah opportunities to go  places in the world, work with certain companies, like all of that. And yet  sometimes I wake up on a Monday and I’m like, what the heck am I doing running the company? Why is no following me? This is ridiculous that someone would wake up and like,

 

01:02:34

want to sign on to something that I’m trying to drive and to recognize that is to be human and also to then call yourself on it. Like in the moments I say that to myself, I’m also like, but they are, so you must be doing something relatively okay or relatively well that has people like wanting to come after you. So I think maybe the last piece I would share is like, what do they say? Like don’t take life too seriously or never get out alive. I think we like we push ourselves in those moments to

 

01:03:04

to hyperanalyze. Sometimes it’s just like call BS on your own inner critic. Yeah. I will just,  cause I know we’re running long here, but I will also say, Griff, we share that same Chicago experience, not on the Brown line,  but I did the same thing, went kicking and screaming to UC, even though my program adapt was ranked whatever. I had this thing in my head that it wasn’t enough cause I wasn’t getting out. So I moved to Chicago a couple of different times. And the first time it was the way you describe it in the beginning. And the second time I’m like,

 

01:03:32

Oh, I forgot it was gonna be winter and I’m getting blown across the street. And why did I think this is a good idea? So yeah, feel ya. I think that is, I mean, I we all have our own like stories on that one in the same kind of context of trying to rectify the fact that we’ve actually quote unquote made it, but it doesn’t feel like that. Like I had that the same thing, even though I didn’t have the Chicago thing, but it was when I left PNG.

 

01:04:01

And I started my own business. was like, gosh, dang, did I wait too long? Should I have started earlier? Because now do I have enough time to develop this into what it needs to be? I mean, yes. I mean, it never, I don’t think ends in that way. So yeah, I mean, we could talk about this forever. And we’re definitely gonna have to do a part two, I’m sure, of going into some of these details, because some people are gonna be asking us to do that. So we’ll tap you in for that one, I love it. I love it.

 

01:04:30

Unless he’s like, as soon as we hit stop, he’s like, yeah, never again. I see a couple of long form. Maybe we can, what’s that one history podcast that does like eight hour episodes. We can do like a long form if you guys are interested. just that. That’s like, is it the acquired podcast, which the one that’s like three and a half hours or four hours. I do like one every like two months because it’s so intense.

 

01:04:55

Now you’re speaking my language. everyone’s going to be like, what do you do all week running a company? I’m like, well, I just do four hour podcasts twice a week. That’s what I do. That’s what I do. Awesome. Well, are you open to some rapid fires before we let you go? I guess. Let’s see what these are. All right, here we go. Well, the first one’s pretty easy, but I asked this of everybody because I think everybody is always very interested in knowing what you’re reading or listening to right now. I am reading

 

01:05:25

a book called Drive,  rereading a book called Drive by Daniel Pink. I  love just the study of motivation.  And I think there’s always stuff to learn about how you can  get yourself closer to what motivates those around you, ah both in terms of like in professional, but also in personal. it’s all, I think it’s as important to know like what the  motivations of your friends, your family members, et cetera are.

 

01:05:53

I’m listening to a few different podcasts.  I just,  I love the like dry transparency of like  Scott Galloway’s podcast. just, I know he might be like a little controversial figure, but I just like the matter of factness with which he brings forward some topics. And then I’m,  I am like listening to a lot of audio books, which is like a new thing for me.  I’ve  always been against the audio book form. ah But I started doing it recently when I’ve been trying to get up to speed on concepts.

 

01:06:23

I read one, I can’t remember the title of it, but I just read the one that’s about the Disney experience.  Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sort of like the key tenants of what, how Disney made magic, the priority and how they did the work for, for the people around them. And I would highly suggest for anyone who’s in like a service oriented business to give that a read because man, you learn just.

 

01:06:45

the level of depth and detail that Walt Disney and then the folks after him were willing to go to, to ensure people had just like a delightful experience. And there’s a lot to learn for all of us. Good ones. Good ones for sure. All right. Second one, if you could live anywhere in the world and it would just be easy, where would that be? You didn’t have to think about any extenuating circumstances. My wife might listen into this and she’d be like, he’s going to say Chicago. I would say, um,

 

01:07:13

If it was easy, a city that just stole my heart immediately when I, when I visited there was Vancouver. ah I  liked what I loved about Vancouver was it was a big city,  but had amazing uh access to the outdoors.  was like a, was on the water, but it had snow cap mountains like right there as well. And it just seemed like a city that had a lot of diversity of thought and perspective in it. And  I loved the week we spent there. I.

 

01:07:40

I think I could make a home there if there were maybe easy ways to make it happen. I love that. All right, and this is one I’m debating. So I’m very interested in hearing what you have to say. What comes first, happiness or fulfillment? Well, I think it’s a circular reference. I don’t know if one precedes the other. I would say the work we’re talking about precedes both. Maybe that’s my cheat answer.

 

01:08:09

It is a Cheat Answer Griff. Good one.

 

01:08:14

If you made me answer the question, would say that true happiness comes from fulfillment. I agree. I love that. that. I’m glad that you made me answer the question. I kind of liked my circular reference. Yeah, I know. I wasn’t going to let you off the hook with that. Are you kidding me? We are called 4th This is our podcast. You can get all the way with that on your own podcast.

 

01:08:39

Griff, tell us everybody where they could find you.  Feel free to  put any kind of bow on this. Is there anything that we missed that you really want to make sure the listeners take away? Yeah, I would say  to anyone who’s interested in the work that we do at Thaudium, you can just go to thaudium.com. If you’re interested in what Thaudium means,  you’re probably rumbling around your head of like, what the heck is Thaudium?  Eum is Latin for the space for and thought in front of it. So Thaudium is

 

01:09:07

just rudimentary meaning  the space for thought, which we talk about creating the space for the right type of thought and organizations we work with. That’s pretty much a thought of him.com. Go check that out. Um, if you have any  burning questions on anything that I shared or that we talked about on this podcast, I’m always happy to field emails or get on the line and chat for anyone who’s interested in going deeper in this stuff. I always love to make space for, so you can reach out to me directly at grift at thought of him.com. And,  I’m always happy to jump on the line.

 

01:09:37

to chat leadership, leadership wake and all the things there within. I love that. Thank you, Griff.  And with that, we encourage all our listeners to take at least one powerful insight you heard and put into practice. mean, this  this episode was packed with them because remember strategic counsel is only effective if you put it into action.  Did we spark something with this episode that you want to talk about further?  Reach out to us through our website, forthright-people.com.  We can help you customize what you have heard to move your business.

 

01:10:05

And make sure to follow or subscribe to Strategic Council on your favorite podcast platform.