WEBVTT - Power Doesn't Corrupt Leaders — Pressure Does [Encore] 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:04.440 I think that authenticity can sometimes be an excuse for 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:07.160 not growing and not changing. I think most people when 0:00:07.160 --> 0:00:09.920 they talk about authenticity, they're talking about their values. How 0:00:09.960 --> 0:00:13.040 do you keep your values intact while continue to grow 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:15.440 and rediscover and reimagine yourself. 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:23.239 Heyba fam, I am so happy to introduce you to 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:27.760 my guest today, Sabina Noahz. She is an executive coach, 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:32.160 has worked at some incredible companies like Microsoft, like Google. 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:36.560 Not that brand names matter, Okay, it's nice. It's nice 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:39.839 to know that someone's come from some elite institutions. But 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:42.400 Sabina has written a book. And you know what, My 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:44.920 five year old son loves this book. I've had it 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:46.960 around the house while I've been reading it and he's like, 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:49.880 you're the boss. Like he's just learning how to read. 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:53.800 These are some sight words for him. I was like, yeah, baby, 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:55.760 you know how to say the word boss. But the 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:58.920 book is you're the boss, become the manager you want 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:02.360 to be, and other need being a welcome to Brown Ambition. 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:05.520 Well, thank you so much, Mandy. And I cannot help 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:09.320 but notice, since you mentioned visuals, you're in red, I'm 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:09.960 in yellow. 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:13.360 Are we not a little ketchup? And mustard moment. This 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:18.360 is like a match made in heat. They are who 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:21.840 knew there's some there's a reason that those colors are 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:26.160 so ingrained, you know, in the culture. So yeah, beautiful. 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:29.880 So talk to me about your path from corporate, because 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:32.959 I actually have a similar path. I left corporate in 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:35.880 twenty twenty one and I became a career coach. 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:36.400 You. 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:39.920 I don't know when you left corporate, but I have 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:44.039 loved that transition was unexpected but also really fun for me. 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:46.360 But I'm curious, what was your path like? Did you 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:49.559 always know you wanted to step away from that traditional 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:52.400 like corporate role and then help executives be better at 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:53.160 their jobs? 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:57.960 Oh gosh, No, My undergraduate and graduate grease are in 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:02.080 computer science and electronics and systems engineering. And I started 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:06.960 my career at Microsoft in software engineering. Oh okay, yeah, 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:09.639 So I did that, and I managed teams and worked 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:13.680 on products like Windows and MSN and Internet Explorer and 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:17.280 a bunch of version zero products that never went anywhere 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:22.799 for over nine years, and then switched careers into HR 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:27.440 at Microsoft, where I ran the company's executive development, worked 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:31.359 with Bill and Steve running succession planning for the company, 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:34.840 management development for the eleven thousand managers we had and 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:38.160 so on, so it was a whole different career shift. 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:40.400 I did that for about six years, and for the 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:43.600 past twenty years I've been on my own coaching CEOs, 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:51.079 doing leadership training, large keynotes, writing for Harvard Business Review, Forbes, 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:54.360 Wall Street Journal, and then of course, most recently, writing 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:54.800 the book. 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:57.640 Gosh, it took you that long to write a book, 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:03.600 this's your first one? Yes, even too busy doing the work, right, Okay, 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:07.880 that's incredible. Okay, so well you're I mean, you're my 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:11.320 goals then to have a couple of decades under your 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:14.200 belt of making it on your own, all right, So 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:16.000 talk to me about the book. I mean, this book 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:19.880 is very much I feel like targeting, maybe not CEOs, 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:23.640 I mean maybe CEOs, but also just like women of color, 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:26.480 especially who want to be CEOs and want to be 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:28.720 blowing up that ladder and how to do it in 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:31.520 a way that they're successful. But also what I've taken 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:34.880 away is like, you're not sacrificing who you are or 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:37.600 giving up who your authentic self is along the way. 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:43.200 Yes, yes, the book has few key things as ways 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:46.160 to remember this book is targeted. Mandy to people who 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:51.080 are already successful, the people who have made it, who 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:54.160 have a long track record of being right and getting 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:57.240 promoted on that. And yet there are things that none 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:00.640 of us knows at every stage of our career. So 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:03.760 the three things to be aware of one that promotions 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.360 at the riskiest time in your career. Two that it 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:10.480 is not power but pressure that corrupts you. And three 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:15.520 that pressure then isolates you from the impact of those 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:18.960 behaviors that you are showing up with under pressure, because 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:24.800 nobody will tell you until it's too late. As women 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:28.880 and women of color, you're likely to receive even less 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:34.640 feedback when things like this happen, and they have the 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:36.279 power then to derail your career. 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:39.480 Maybe I'm reading it through my own lens, but I'm 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:41.520 wondering if like a better way to describe the book 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:45.320 is also maybe how to prevent some of the common 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.640 pitfalls that can happen when you are succeeding. And then 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:51.080 I want to hear what have you seen happen? You 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:55.120 say promotions are the most vulnerable or the riskiest parts 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:58.920 of your career. What have you seen happen to high 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:02.400 achieving women their careers when they do get that successful stage, 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:04.760 and then they are, you know, given that opportunity and 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:08.240 what happens next m M yeah. 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:12.440 So the tricky part with promotions is that, of course 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:16.640 it's a time for great celebration as well, and once 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:21.200 the bubblies settle, the very strengths that have gotten you 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:24.240 to the level at which you're promoted are going to 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:27.960 be seen very differently from the next that are training up. 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:33.039 They're going to be seen less charitably. For example, you're 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:36.279 a woman who pays a lot of attention to detail, 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:39.159 Suddenly you're going to be seen as a micromanager. Let's 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:43.080 say that for's someone who's very calm under pressure. Now 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:48.120 your at risk being seen as backing, passion, detached aloof 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:52.960 not interested. On the other hand, let's say you're super passionate. 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:56.840 Now you're going to be seen as overly emotional, which 0:05:56.880 --> 0:06:01.159 we often get feedback on anyhow, So you haven't changed, 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:06.400 but your position has changed. With that positional change, people 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:09.159 are going to view your strengths from a very different lens. 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:13.440 This was the case for one of my clients who 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:19.080 was incredibly strategic. She owned meetings not because she went 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:22.800 in there with guns blazing, but because she watched the landscape. 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:25.920 She understood what people were looking for and then spoke 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:29.880 up and tailored her messages appropriately so people wanted to 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:33.960 follow her. And when she got this big promotion, people 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:39.000 suddenly started thinking of her as manipulative instead of strategic. Oh, 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:41.680 she's watching which way the winds are blowing, what the 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:45.239 senior person is saying. She doesn't make a decision until 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:50.839 she's got it all settled in. She was shocked when 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:54.120 she got that feedback. When I interviewed people on her 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:57.120 team about how they perceived working with her, and they 0:06:57.120 --> 0:06:59.280 were talking about how they were not trusting her as 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:02.440 much because they thought she was manipulative. That was really 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:05.239 shocking to her because of course, up to this point, 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:08.720 she had been promoted for that very reason. So then 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:11.240 we had to work on how do you reduce what 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:14.600 I call the power gap, the distance between you and 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:18.000 those who report to you, so they better understand what 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:20.360 you're doing and what your intentions are. 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:24.000 Yeah, that really resonates with me because I was, I mean, 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:25.760 I guess I was a younger manager. I was a 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:28.560 senior director. I was managing a team of thirty staff 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:31.840 and like one hundred contractors, and I was unusual in 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:36.040 that I came to that point through an acquisition. I 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:38.840 was at a startup where I was like, I think 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:41.000 I managed two full time staff and then a bunch 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:45.320 of freelancers and then brought into this bigger company given 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:48.520 the gift and the privilege to build a team from 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:50.600 the ground up. And in my mind, I sort of 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:52.640 saw myself as like, I have an opportunity. I'm a 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:54.560 woman of color in this position of power, I can 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:56.480 dictate who gets hired. I'm going to do it the 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:58.480 way that I would love to see it done, which 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:01.480 did involve like a I mean, I was very enthusiastic 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:05.680 about everything, and people saw that as pushy and saw 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:08.120 it as just calm down, like we're going to get 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:10.840 this done. And I was like, I was also I 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:13.040 have like New Yorker energy, even though I'm from the 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:17.000 South and my parent company was in Charlotte, North Carolina. 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:20.280 And they were a bit like what like, let's do 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:22.040 small talk first, and I'm like, no, I need this 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:26.160 this da da dada, and yeah, I mean it was frustrating. Also, 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:29.600 it's really hard to feel misunderstood. And I also felt 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:32.040 like there's a lot of like discourse now about how 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:34.080 we shouldn't have to change the way we are. We 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:36.640 shouldn't have to care what people think. We should be 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:38.319 able to say things the way that we want them 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:41.240 and get stuff done. But in effect, it doesn't always 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:43.800 work best as a leader as a team because it 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:45.760 kind of does matter how people feel about you. 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:51.200 I mean, business, business is personal. It starts there. If 0:08:51.240 --> 0:08:52.959 you could be in a room by yourself and get 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:55.920 stuff done and have pizza slid under the door at 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:59.679 meal times, then sure, don't worry about anything else. And 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:03.360 this leads to the point about authenticity. For me, authenticity 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:06.400 is not singular. It does not exist in singular form. 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:09.559 I mean, if you think about it, are you exactly 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:11.880 the same way with your five year old son as 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:15.000 you are in this podcast, as you are with your 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:18.160 best besties, when you go out for an evening, as 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:20.640 you are with your partner, as you are if you 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:25.000 were speaking on a big stage. They're all you, they're 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:29.160 all authentically you, but they're different expressions of you. And 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:33.520 if we were truly wedded to a singular, rigid definition 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:37.520 of authenticity, then it's not just your son. You would 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:39.400 be like your five year old son, and maybe you'd 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:42.080 be throwing a temper, tantrum on the floor, anytime you 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:42.880 didn't get your way. 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:48.120 Oh my children, never ever, of course tantrums. That's bad parenting. 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:52.640 Yes, yes, there you go. But yeah, I think that 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:58.000 authenticity can sometimes be an excuse for not growing and 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:03.000 not changing. So it's about how do you keep growing 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:06.360 whilst I think most people when they talk about authenticity, 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:08.440 they're talking about their values. How do you keep your 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:13.360 values intact while continue to grow and rediscover and reimagine yourself. 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:16.160 That's such a good point. One of the best things 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:18.319 I did at that point because I was so frustrated 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:24.120 and I was really feeling challenged, and I asked for 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:27.600 a professional development fund to do I think I did. 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:31.440 It was a week long leadership and development training and 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:34.400 my company, you know, paid for it. And it was 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:37.480 the first time in my career that I because I 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:40.719 was at a startup right there wasn't budgets for management 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:43.520 training and things like that. And then I'm being thrust 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:46.640 into like a much bigger institution and it was great 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:50.920 to have that time just to devote to understanding how I, authentically, 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:54.679 like in my core self, approach things and then how 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:56.800 I can approach them as a leader. And how those 0:10:56.840 --> 0:10:58.719 can be. It can still be authentic, but I need 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:02.480 to have a different style as a absolutely, And that 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:05.160 was it really humbled me, and it opened me up 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:07.800 to the idea that I still had lots to learn 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:10.720 and that I needed to be more coachable. I was 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:13.400 resistant to that feedback because just like you said, I 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:16.840 thought that being changement, that I was wrong and I 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:20.000 wasn't good at my job, right, you know, right. 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:23.560 Right right? Yeah? And good for you that you then 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:28.480 went into that learner mode and opened yourself up for that. 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:31.200 It goes to a point I talk about in the book, 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:35.400 which is around the tool called multiple meanings, that it's 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:39.200 never one story. There are multiple ways to look at 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:42.920 the story, you know. So in your case, one way 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:45.560 to look at it is, yeah, this means I'm a failure, 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:47.320 or this means I'm wrong, they're right. 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:49.600 Or I thought I was going to get fired every day. 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:53.720 Yeah, exactly, exactly. And you know what, if we dream big, 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:56.320 if we play big, of course we might get fired 0:11:56.960 --> 0:12:01.240 or we might feel that way. That's a sign that 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:02.360 you're doing something right. 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:04.600 Feeling like you're going to get fired is a sign 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:07.560 that you're doing something right. Man, I was doing something right. 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:15.160 For a lot of it really, like so much of 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:18.040 it is about mindset and looking back. I mean I 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:22.480 thought I was so mature and like so advanced, but 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:25.920 now looking back, I'm like, oh girl, just relax, like, 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:29.840 just give yourself some grace to you made a mistake, 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:32.840 you know. Yeah, I'm curious. So one of the I 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:35.079 mean you mentioned the multiple meetings, what I wanted to 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:38.080 talk about was the idea of pressure because you said 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:42.040 that power doesn't corrupt pressure does. What is the what 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:43.880 are you trying to tackle there, Like in terms of 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:45.840 that idea that when you get more powerful, you're going 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:48.120 to be corrupted, And then like, how does pressure play 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:48.480 a role? 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:51.280 Yeah, yeah, it's not power that corrupts you. You're not 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:54.320 getting corrupted when you get more power. You're getting corrupted 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:56.840 when you're under more pressure. And think about this. Just 0:12:56.880 --> 0:12:59.800 about everybody I know says they're under tremendous amounts of pressure. 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:02.800 Everything that's going on in the world, in the country, 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:06.120 in your organization, in your life, in your job, there's 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:08.480 a lot of pressure. Have you ever done something when 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:10.880 you're under pressure that you're not proud of? In hindsight, 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:13.920 just about everybody we flip our finger in traffic. When 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:16.320 we haven't budgeted enough time and we're running late and 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:20.720 somebody cuts us off, we raise our voice, maybe louder 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:24.920 than we should have. Sometimes, when we are losing patience, 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:30.079 we provide feedback in ways that may not be as 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:33.600 kind and compassionate to other people. I know for me, 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:37.960 when I came back from parental leave after my first kid, 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:41.720 and the first day after leave, I'm putting on lipstick 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:44.760 for the first time. My assistant calls me, where are you? 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:47.840 Steve expects you in thirty minutes. That's Steve Bomber, the 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:51.160 CEO of the company, and she reads me the memo 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:54.080 as I'm hitting warp speed getting to work. And that 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:56.719 set the tone for the pressure that I had at 0:13:56.760 --> 0:14:00.600 work with an infant at home, no sleep, no peace, 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:03.440 no patience, and thinking to myself, I don't have time 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:06.560 to give detailed instructions to people, let alone repeat them. 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:09.160 There'll be time for empathy later on. They're big boys 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:12.640 and girls. Let's go, let's work, Let's get this done 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:16.480 like you like, Let's just go and execute. I started 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:19.760 micromanaging because I was worried myself or my team would 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:25.880 look incompetent to senior executives. And the scary part is 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:29.200 I thought, like you were saying, Mandy, that I was 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:34.200 doing a great job, I was being efficient, when in reality, 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:36.600 my colleague Joe comes to me one day and says, 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:39.040 Pack is crying in his office because of something you said. 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:42.040 How you said it. That's when I realized. When I 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:44.520 went to talk to Zack and apologize, and his eyes 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:48.600 brimmed with tears, he realized, Ah, this is what I want. 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:52.400 How did I morph from being caring and compassionate from 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:54.600 people thinking I'm one of the best bosses they worked 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:58.200 for to this someone that people were afraid of and 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:01.120 really didn't like very much. So it's the same person, 0:15:01.400 --> 0:15:05.520 different circumstances. Under pressure, even the best bosses can morph 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:06.640 into the worst bosses. 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:09.520 Yeah, so in that case, I mean, you're getting pressure 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:12.720 from the top, and I wonder if also because you're 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:15.200 coming back from parentally, you're not also like trying to 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:17.960 prove yourself a little bit, like not that you've lost 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:21.240 anything since you've gone off, because I do think that there, Yeah, 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:23.680 there's that fear I think as women that we come 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:27.840 back and we'll be underestimated. But how do you get 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:30.680 better about that when it's coming from up top? Like, 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:34.520 did you talk to Steve the CEO about the tone 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:36.400 that he was setting? I mean that sticy. 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:39.440 Yeah, No, I wasn't really I don't think it was 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:41.760 pressure from the top. It was pressure from the top 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:44.960 just as part of the job. There was nothing in 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:48.280 how Steve was asking me to do things that needed 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:51.200 to be changed. What needed to change was how I 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:54.240 manage the pressure. Look, you're the pressure is not going 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:56.440 to go away. If you want a dream big, you 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:58.480 want to play big, You're going to be in a 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:02.240 pressure cooker. It's not possible to be pressure free. What 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:04.360 you're after is trying to be pressure proof. 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:07.240 I love that, right, I love a catch phrase. But 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:10.560 there you go, it's not possible to be pressure free. 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:13.320 It's such a it's such a great like I just 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:16.600 want to stop there for a moment because I was 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:18.840 just talking to I did an interview with a financial 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:21.280 therapist but right before this, and she was saying how 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:24.560 as humans, we really don't like being uncomfortable, and we 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:27.040 think something is wrong if we're uncomfortable, and like we 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:29.440 want to fix it and soothe it, and like it 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:31.920 just sounds like what you're describing, you know, when you 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:35.000 are in a big position. Yeah, there's it's like accepting 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:38.400 that there's going to be a very high pressure environment 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:41.200 and it's our job to like learn how to cope 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:43.400 with it in a healthy way so that we can 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:44.480 be better leaders. 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:48.800 That's exactly it. That's exactly it. And so how do 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:51.440 you do that. One of the things to do when 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:54.560 pressure rises is to do nothing. What I mean by that, 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:57.880 most of us, when pressure rises, want to work harder. 0:16:58.000 --> 0:17:01.200 We want to buckle down, work late it, sacrifice dinner, 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:06.440 sacrifice family time, sacrifice self care, and keep going, going, going, doing, 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:09.480 doing doing, Instead, what I ask my clients to do 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:12.840 is a practice called blank space, which is taking two 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:15.680 hours a week where they step back, unplug from everything. 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:20.160 No conversation, no reading, certainly not online because research soul 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:22.919 shows that some of our best thoughts come where in 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:26.960 the shower, on our commutes, when we're working out. That 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:29.240 is when we've switched the active part of our brain. 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:32.639 And when you do that and you're in blank space, 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:36.199 you suddenly realize that all these smaller things that you're 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:40.280 getting stressed out about, that you're generating your own pressure on, 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:43.719 don't matter. It reconnects you to that north star what 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:47.320 you need to push towards. It refreshes your brain. It 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:50.119 gives you a rest and gives you bigger ideas that 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:52.639 you need to go chase, helps you be more strategic. 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:55.920 So what does that look like in effect? Like, go outside, 0:17:55.960 --> 0:17:58.080 touch grass, go take a while outside. 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:00.479 Yeah, so different people have different ways of doing it. 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:03.520 Go outside, touch grass is great if you want to 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:07.280 do it. One person lay in their hammock for two hours. 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:10.960 Another person wanted to discover all the pie shops in 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:13.359 the city that he lived in, so he would go 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:16.200 order two pies in his two hours and sit there. 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:20.680 Someone else had a hotel that overlooked a mountain range. 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:25.239 He would go order brunch there every Thursday morning. So 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:28.399 it really looks different for different people. Someone else was 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:31.840 at a coffee shop with a box of crayons and 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:33.440 she would just draw. 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:36.119 And oh that's me. I love a doodle. There you go, 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:38.760 a magic marker. You know, I have a thing against 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:42.880 those adult coloring books that are like so tiny and intricute, intricate. 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:45.680 I'm like, yes, this is frustrating me because they feel 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:47.640 like I could finish the whole page. 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:50.119 Get you like, I want to get you. 0:18:50.160 --> 0:18:52.800 A Creola magic marker set and like one of those 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:57.239 chunky picture like coloring books from from the from the 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:01.879 drug store, and that's a their soothing activity, just colored. 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:06.360 That's a picture of this sun. It's like a meditation. Honestly, 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:07.120 it sounds like. 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:09.160 Yeah, work is meditation. 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:12.560 It's like a and I think the word meditation can 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:15.280 be intimidating, but it's like in an effect, it's really 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:19.159 just like being present and quiet. And that is so 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:21.679 antithetical to like what we think we need to do 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:24.680 to be successful and to be the boss. I'm the boss. 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:27.080 I should be doing doing, doing, doing, doing right. 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:31.760 Yeah, and we forget that they're human beings, not human doings. Yeah. 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:34.920 Yeah, So talk to me about what are some of 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:37.840 the what are some of the biggest mistakes you can 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:39.919 make when you're at like a senior executive level, you're 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:42.240 working your way up and you're you know, the stakes 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:45.280 are getting higher. Others we've talked about needing to have 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:48.600 more time and to cope with the pressure. What are 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:50.760 some mistakes you see happen time and time again. 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:53.879 Yeah, So, Mandy, as I wrote this book, it's based 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:57.000 on twelve thousand pages of data. The data I collected 0:19:57.200 --> 0:20:00.440 was through interviews over a thousand interviews of people who 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:02.840 worked for my clients. So what's it like to really 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:07.240 work for this person, the CEO? And the number one 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:10.359 piece of negative feedback was this person has a hard 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:13.040 impact on others. And this is where I arrived at 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:15.840 that it's not power but pressure that corrupts. So we 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:18.360 get rude, we get crude, we don't pay attention. We've 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:21.959 talked about that. The number two is around communication and 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:28.120 various aspects of communication. The biggest mistake executives make in 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:32.479 communication is they talk too much. The antidote to that 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:38.040 is what I call exercise shut up muscle. And there 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:40.360 are four steps to that. But one of the steps, 0:20:41.119 --> 0:20:45.680 which is you can do immediately and quickly, though not easily, 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:50.159 is to not be the first or second person to speak. 0:20:51.240 --> 0:20:54.760 Be the third person, be the fifth person. Because once 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:58.359 someone in a position of power speaks, everybody else gets 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:01.240 busy laughing at it, at it as in, oh wow, 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:04.760 that's so funny, praising it, oh wow, that's so clever. 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:07.960 Nobody's going to disagree with it, and you lose access 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:12.399 to diversity of thought, You lose access to creativity. You 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:16.240 lose the opportunity to grow the people on your team 0:21:16.240 --> 0:21:19.160 and in your organization. So shut up. Yes you're right, 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:21.600 Yes you know a lot. But do you want to 0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:25.479 continue to build this band club and a sense of 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:29.080 everyone reassuring you how great you are? Or do you 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:31.920 want to grow the entire organization? And oh, by the way, 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:35.320 when you grow the entire organization, more people can step 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:37.439 up and do some things that are on your plate 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:38.800 and reduce pressure on you. 0:21:39.280 --> 0:21:42.639 Yeah, there's this like sense of when you get to 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:45.200 I mean, I'm just thinking about me as a manager 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:48.280 and how once I was managing such a big team, 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:52.320 I was afraid. I mean I intellectually I knew the 0:21:52.359 --> 0:21:56.760