Speaker 1: Welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we give you insights
Speaker 1: into the mind, brain, behavior and creativity. I'm doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, and in each episode I have a conversation
Speaker 1: with a guest. He will stimulate your mind and give
Speaker 1: you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world
Speaker 1: to live in. Hopefully we'll also provide a glimpse into
Speaker 1: human possibility. Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast today.
Speaker 1: It's really great to have Doug Conant on the podcast.
Speaker 1: Conant is the CEO and founder of Conant Leadership, a
Speaker 1: mission driven community of leaders and warners who are championing
Speaker 1: leadership that works. He served as the CEO of Campbellsuit
Speaker 1: for ten years and is also the former president of
Speaker 1: Nibisco and former chairman of Avon. He's a New York
Speaker 1: Times bestselling author and his new book is called The Blueprint,
Speaker 1: Six Practical Steps to Lift your Leader to New Heights. Doug,
Speaker 1: so great to chat with you today. I'm so glad
Speaker 1: we could work so good we could work it out too.
Speaker 1: That's a reference to our listeners. We're having some difficulty
Speaker 1: getting the Skype chat to work, so we went we
Speaker 1: went through all sorts of different measures, and here we are, Well,
Speaker 1: this is actually kind of relevant because your own, your
Speaker 1: own journey has has not been such a straight path
Speaker 1: to where you are today, right. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: Skype problems early in life, so to speak. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I think I think we all have. And then we
Speaker 1: see people who have kind of worked their way through
Speaker 1: those and we just assume it's always been that easy.
Speaker 1: In my case, it was quite the opposite. I can
Speaker 1: remember my first performance review in my company when I
Speaker 1: started right out of business school and entry level job
Speaker 1: at General Mills. Five months in, I had a performance
Speaker 1: review on my boss that I was doing a satisfactory job.
Speaker 1: But my boss's boss just had to review the assessment
Speaker 1: and then wrote one sentence and and and that sentence
Speaker 1: he said, you should be looking for another job. And
Speaker 1: that was my first performance review, and it was a
Speaker 1: real wake up call. I slogged through that, and I
Speaker 1: was with the same company for nine years, General Mills,
Speaker 1: and then one day went into work at one of
Speaker 1: the subsidiaries and they sent me to the receptionist said
Speaker 1: could you go up and see the senior vice president
Speaker 1: of marketing. At the time, I was the director of
Speaker 1: marketing and senior vice president said, Doug, your job's been eliminated.
Speaker 1: You need to be out of here by noon. And
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you know, in a snap, my
Speaker 1: life had changed. I went home to my wife, my
Speaker 1: two small children, and my one very large mortgage, feeling
Speaker 1: every bit the victim, devastated, bitter, and what a wake
Speaker 1: up call. And so that's sort of Those are just
Speaker 1: a few of the stories that of choppy seas that
Speaker 1: I encountered, and you know, we all encountered those choppycs
Speaker 1: and it's about how we navigate through them that sort
Speaker 1: of ultimately determines our legacy of contra I conpletely agree,
Speaker 1: and it's great that you can kind of see that
Speaker 1: from a personal perspective as well as a theoretical perspective.
Speaker 1: Now you argue that to unlock our potential in life,
Speaker 1: we often it's required a turn inward. What do you
Speaker 1: mean by inward? Well, I really believe that you know,
Speaker 1: your life story is your leadership story, and I don't
Speaker 1: think most of us adequately reflect upon our life story
Speaker 1: and all that we've learned from it. When I was
Speaker 1: fired from my company, they sent me to an outplacement
Speaker 1: counselor named Neil McKenna. The first thing Neil did was
Speaker 1: had me handwright my life story and my family story.
Speaker 1: And as I went through that exercise, I was overwhelmed
Speaker 1: by the things that I had not contemplated since I'd
Speaker 1: experienced them as a child and even a young adult.
Speaker 1: I was thirty two at the time, and as I
Speaker 1: captured everything I could think of with my life story
Speaker 1: and my family's story, I came to understand in a
Speaker 1: more deep and resonant way how I thought about my
Speaker 1: life and what I hoped to do with my life.
Speaker 1: And quite frankly, had I not gone through this crucible
Speaker 1: moment and been challenged to really reflect on my life story,
Speaker 1: I personally think I would have missed the boat. And
Speaker 1: so what we do with our work is we encourage
Speaker 1: people to look within so that they can build a
Speaker 1: stronger foundation that's going to allow them to deal with
Speaker 1: the winds that are going to sweep across the landscape
Speaker 1: even with greater force going forward. You know, Brene Brown
Speaker 1: has a great quote and I won't give it justice here,
Speaker 1: and Brene, as you know, is written extensively on vulnerability
Speaker 1: and daring, daring greatly and she has a great quote
Speaker 1: that says, you can either stand within your own story
Speaker 1: or you can stand outside your your own story, and
Speaker 1: and sort of oh, I'm going to drop the ball
Speaker 1: on this and chase your uh you know, I'm going
Speaker 1: to leave. I'm going to let it go. I can't.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna point is. Our point is that you really
Speaker 1: need to get inside your own story before you can
Speaker 1: start influencing others with their story. And I've found that quote.
Speaker 1: It really spoke to me. And so as I've gotten
Speaker 1: into all this work, I find that all of us
Speaker 1: have the seeds of contribution already in us, and it's
Speaker 1: just a question of how do we tap into that.
Speaker 1: I don't know that we're all made to be CEOs,
Speaker 1: but we're all made to be doing more and contributing
Speaker 1: more than we are contributing. And so this whole, whole
Speaker 1: book is written with an eye on helping people find
Speaker 1: their own seeds of greatness within them and start to
Speaker 1: nourish them and bring them to life. Yeah. I really
Speaker 1: like that. And you talk a lot about you know,
Speaker 1: this idea of bringing your whole self to the table
Speaker 1: is something that you don't hear that often or frequently
Speaker 1: in the leadership field, and you know, we have all
Speaker 1: these different identities, different sides of ourselves, and you do
Speaker 1: make the case that we should merge our work self
Speaker 1: with our other selves, what you call real self, into
Speaker 1: one cohesive identity. I'd love to get some of your
Speaker 1: thoughts on how people can merge those and and also
Speaker 1: I'm personally a bit skeptical there's any such thing as
Speaker 1: our real self, you know, I wanted to get your
Speaker 1: thoughts on how you've defined the real self. I don't
Speaker 1: know that there is an ultimate real self. I think
Speaker 1: you know, it's a spectrum. And I would say we
Speaker 1: only show a part of ourselves in our work. That's
Speaker 1: your name, that's one's nature, not your nature. One's nature
Speaker 1: was my nature was I thought, here's how I'm expected
Speaker 1: to show up at work, okay, and I'm not going
Speaker 1: to cross that imaginary line wherever it is. And what
Speaker 1: I've discovered in the fullness of time is that in
Speaker 1: fact is an imaginary line, and I'm imagining it, and
Speaker 1: that I can bring more of myself in more in
Speaker 1: a more complete way to contributing in my workplace than
Speaker 1: I am. And so what we try and do is
Speaker 1: help people show up more fully. I don't know that
Speaker 1: you ever get to the ultimate real self. You know
Speaker 1: that you'd have to You're going to have to bring
Speaker 1: Freud in to complete that conversation, and maybe you can
Speaker 1: do that, but I can't. But I do know that
Speaker 1: the leaders that I've been exposed to now over forty years,
Speaker 1: the best leaders were more fully integrated than not, and
Speaker 1: so they were showing more of themselves at work and
Speaker 1: in collaboration with other people than some of the other
Speaker 1: leaders I experienced. Many of the other leaders I experienced
Speaker 1: who were very narrow and very controlled and how they
Speaker 1: presented themselves. So we just encourage people. The more comfortable
Speaker 1: you can get in bringing more of your true identity,
Speaker 1: however you define it, into your work life, the more
Speaker 1: fulfilling it will be. You know, all of my work
Speaker 1: in this leadership space with both when I was working,
Speaker 1: which was for forty years, but in study, which has
Speaker 1: been for thirty years, I have come to believe that
Speaker 1: we have the potential to connect better with people if
Speaker 1: we reveal more of ourselves to them, and it tends
Speaker 1: to inspire better collaboration and more trust. Ultimately, I think
Speaker 1: there are three things leaders Hunger, for today. And this
Speaker 1: is just my observation from teaching, and from coaching and
Speaker 1: from life. You know, they hunger to be more effective
Speaker 1: at meeting the needs and wants of an enterprise. They
Speaker 1: also tend to want to show up in a way
Speaker 1: that speaks to them, which feels more The word today
Speaker 1: is authentic, and they hunger for a fulfilling journey, and
Speaker 1: they're beginning to feel like that's a pipe dream. And
Speaker 1: so what we try and do is help them be
Speaker 1: more effective, do it in a way that feels more
Speaker 1: authentic than the way they have been doing it, and
Speaker 1: do it in a way that, in the fullness of time,
Speaker 1: promises to be more fulfilling. We don't ever get all
Speaker 1: the way to brite. That would be a fool. They
Speaker 1: aren't trying to. In fact, we very carefully say forget perfection.
Speaker 1: What we're hoping to do with the blueprint is to
Speaker 1: promote enlightened iteration as you reflect on these things and
Speaker 1: you learn from your experiences, and you continue to learn
Speaker 1: and grow. So I don't think there's a real self,
Speaker 1: but I think there's a more real self than the
Speaker 1: self you have today. The other thing I try and
Speaker 1: do with it is to do it in real time,
Speaker 1: as you and I both know most of the leadership
Speaker 1: work that's done. You read the book, And then how
Speaker 1: am I going to act on this and how am
Speaker 1: I going to bring this to life in the middle
Speaker 1: of my kakamami life which I have no time to
Speaker 1: do anything. Everybody I work with is swamped, you know.
Speaker 1: They get up, they check their emails in the morning,
Speaker 1: they feed their kids breakfast, they get them off to school,
Speaker 1: they go to work all day, They come home, they
Speaker 1: have maybe a quick dinner, and if they have kids
Speaker 1: still at home, they maybe spend an hour together. Then
Speaker 1: the kids go off and do their work and the
Speaker 1: adults go back and do their emails or watch a
Speaker 1: basketball game and go to bed and do it all
Speaker 1: over again. Who has time to lift their leadership profile
Speaker 1: to new heights? Who are you kidding? And so what
Speaker 1: we've done with this, and this is because I've lived
Speaker 1: it as a practitioner for forty years. We've endeavored to
Speaker 1: do this so that to create a model that you
Speaker 1: can approach, which is elegantly simple, and you can pursue this.
Speaker 1: It nests, It's designed to nest perfectly in your kakamemi life.
Speaker 1: The way it is right now. So we've tried to
Speaker 1: be very realistic with it and to the point of
Speaker 1: where it could be argued that it's too simple. But
Speaker 1: life is so complex. If you introduce more complexity into
Speaker 1: this equation, it goes nowhere. So we've opted to keep
Speaker 1: it simple. We have six what we call practical steps,
Speaker 1: very intentionally to lift your leadership to new heights in
Speaker 1: a way that nests perfectly in the Kakamemi life that
Speaker 1: we all live today. And it's a tall order. But
Speaker 1: now I've now been doing this for in earnest for
Speaker 1: about fifteen years and we found our way to a
Speaker 1: better place. I'm excited to see where it goes because
Speaker 1: it'll be even better fifteen years from now. So so
Speaker 1: can we go through the sixth? Is that okay? Can we? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I can do a quick sure, yeah, yeah, we it's
Speaker 1: it again. It's intentionally, very straightforward, and the notion is
Speaker 1: the concept of the blueprint is drawn from architecture, where
Speaker 1: an architect creates a blueprint of the building and intentionally
Speaker 1: builds a very strong foundation so that building can withstand
Speaker 1: the forces of mother nature. Our blueprint is a blueprint
Speaker 1: for leaders who want to have a magnificent career of
Speaker 1: contribution and we help them. We're helping them build a
Speaker 1: very strong foundation for that career to build upon. And
Speaker 1: so we have six steps in the process. The first
Speaker 1: one is to we call it envision, and that's all
Speaker 1: about trying to create a deeper understanding about what is
Speaker 1: your boldest dream of leadership success, What is your purpose?
Speaker 1: Why are you choosing to do this. We have some
Speaker 1: quick exercises that get you started on the journey. That's
Speaker 1: the first step. The next two steps are reflect and study.
Speaker 1: You've identified your purpose, Now, what life experiences have influenced
Speaker 1: my leadership beliefs. We're starting to dive deep into leadership now,
Speaker 1: and what have you learned from your own personal life experiences.
Speaker 1: All of us have been affected by people who have
Speaker 1: had a profound influence on our life, and we're asking
Speaker 1: people to reflect on that and draw conclusions from it.
Speaker 1: After you've sort of harvested the learnings from the reflection phase,
Speaker 1: which again it's an hour or of work and you're done,
Speaker 1: we move to step three, which is, Okay, I understand
Speaker 1: sort of my life experience is now I'm going to
Speaker 1: lift my head up and look at the world around
Speaker 1: me and what leadership leffons beyond my own experiences can
Speaker 1: I learn from the world around me? And we challenge
Speaker 1: people to look at places of interest that intrigue them
Speaker 1: and to begin to draw conclusions from that. So and
Speaker 1: then we move into step four. Steps two and three
Speaker 1: help you codify your core beliefs about leadership. What have
Speaker 1: I learned from my personal experience and from my study?
Speaker 1: And typically people have five to ten core beliefs around leadership,
Speaker 1: so they've defined their purpose in the envision phase. They
Speaker 1: get their core beliefs from reflect and study. And then
Speaker 1: the next step is, I'm going to build a plan.
Speaker 1: You know, it's amazing to me. All of us in academia, nonprofits,
Speaker 1: for profits, federal government, we have plans for every thing.
Speaker 1: You can't run an enterprise without a plan, right, Well,
Speaker 1: we run our leadership development by the seat of our pants.
Speaker 1: And my observation is we need to do better, and
Speaker 1: so we have you craft a leadership plan. And the
Speaker 1: centerpiece of this plan is actually developing your own personal
Speaker 1: leadership model. Now I'm sitting in my office here in
Speaker 1: Philadelphia with hundreds of books. You've been here and there
Speaker 1: are hundreds of leadership models. Here's how you ought to
Speaker 1: do it, Here's how you ought to do it, how
Speaker 1: about this way? And yet, interestingly, for me, none of
Speaker 1: them speak to me, and I say, why is that? Well,
Speaker 1: that's because they're not informed by who I am, where
Speaker 1: I come from, and what I aspire to do. So
Speaker 1: we have people draw conclusions from their core beliefs and
Speaker 1: design their own leadership models, their own personal leadership model.
Speaker 1: This is how I want to walk in the world,
Speaker 1: based on my purpose, my core beliefs about leadership. We
Speaker 1: give them prompts and help them work through this. They
Speaker 1: design their own leadership model, usually with five to eight elements,
Speaker 1: and interestingly, we've done hundreds of these. No two of
Speaker 1: them are the same because all people are unique. They
Speaker 1: all have different needs, wants, and aspirations, and this is
Speaker 1: the way they're viewing leadership. So they develop their own
Speaker 1: leadership model. And then we say the fifth step is, Okay,
Speaker 1: how are you going to bring that leadership model to
Speaker 1: life on Monday? And we have them identify signature practices
Speaker 1: that they can use to bring that model to life,
Speaker 1: those elements of the model to life that will start
Speaker 1: to impact the world around them. In the way that
Speaker 1: they actually want to impact the world around them. The
Speaker 1: sixth step is building a continuous improvement framework, which includes basically,
Speaker 1: at this point, I've done this model a zillion times.
Speaker 1: I can go through in ten minutes and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: how am I doing? Is my purpose still right? Have
Speaker 1: I envisioned this right? Yeah? Okay? Is there anything more
Speaker 1: to get from the reflect step that I missed? No?
Speaker 1: Is there something more to study? Yeah? I want to.
Speaker 1: I want to study Stuart Freeman Friedman's work at Warden
Speaker 1: on leading a more purposeful life. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: go do that. And then how does that influence my model?
Speaker 1: Do I want to tweak my model? Is it working?
Speaker 1: And then what other practices can I use to bring
Speaker 1: that model to life? And you iterate through it constantly
Speaker 1: making it better and better and better in a flywheel
Speaker 1: sense of way. One other thing you will do in
Speaker 1: this process you develop your own model, but that in
Speaker 1: and of itself is not necessarily sufficient because you're going
Speaker 1: back into the real world wherever you work, they have
Speaker 1: their own leadership expectations of you. So what we help
Speaker 1: you do is design a re entry plan that helps
Speaker 1: you bring your model to life within the expectations of
Speaker 1: the enterprise you're returning to because the real world is
Speaker 1: not necessarily enamored with your model, but they don't need
Speaker 1: to be. This is what works for you, and so
Speaker 1: we help you harmonize your approach so that it can
Speaker 1: actually be effective in the real world. We go through
Speaker 1: these prompts takes there's about nine to twelve hours worth
Speaker 1: of work in this in total, and then you can
Speaker 1: start bringing it to life and within a week you
Speaker 1: can start acting on your learnings, and then you can
Speaker 1: do it in the middle of your kakamemy life. So
Speaker 1: that's the model, and that's the blueprint process. The first
Speaker 1: guest in the Psychology podcast to use the word kakami.
Speaker 1: So I like it. I like it so well. Gosh,
Speaker 1: there's there's so many places to go from there. There's
Speaker 1: one thing I didn't want to talk about. I thought
Speaker 1: it was really interesting in your book. Was this declaring
Speaker 1: yourself practice? How can people declare themselves more, you know,
Speaker 1: to build productive relationships? Oh? Yeah, very important. This is
Speaker 1: all my opinion, Scott, This is all my opinion. I
Speaker 1: have found. This is not rocket. I'm an introvert. It
Speaker 1: may sound like I'm not, but I am. Trust me.
Speaker 1: I've been tested five times and every time I've become
Speaker 1: an introvert. Myers Briggs, you know, all of us introverts,
Speaker 1: just one time. I want to test and be an extrovert.
Speaker 1: I really want that, but it's just not going to happen.
Speaker 1: But us introverts, why do you want to be an extrovert? Well,
Speaker 1: I just want to know what it's like, you know.
Speaker 1: You know, they seem to be the life of the
Speaker 1: party and they enjoy being with all these people, and
Speaker 1: I find it exhausting. But at any rate, us introverts,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't naturally express ourselves well well maybe
Speaker 1: as well as we could, and the world isn't built
Speaker 1: to hear us. So I've come up with this understanding
Speaker 1: that people in this world are not mind readers, and
Speaker 1: unless I tell them where I'm coming from, they will
Speaker 1: not know. And we've all had these experiences of working
Speaker 1: with people, and especially for people who we don't quite
Speaker 1: know where they're coming from. And what is he really
Speaker 1: asking me to do? What does she want? How am I?
Speaker 1: What am I missing here? And I have found there's
Speaker 1: a better way, both with the people that work for
Speaker 1: me and the people I work with and the people
Speaker 1: I work for. In the first hour or the first day,
Speaker 1: I just tell them not call it declaring myself. I
Speaker 1: tell them what I'm trying to do. I'm coming from
Speaker 1: what I believe, and then I invite them to share
Speaker 1: with me their perspective. Now you know everything there is
Speaker 1: to know about me. If I do what I say
Speaker 1: I'm going to do, I guess you can trust me.
Speaker 1: If I don't, I guess you can't, and you'll know that.
Speaker 1: But since I've declared myself, I'm telling you I intend
Speaker 1: to honor my commitments to you. And then I invite
Speaker 1: them to share with me what they feel comfortable sharing,
Speaker 1: and our relationship just gets going at a much faster
Speaker 1: and deeper and more meaningful rate right off the bat.
Speaker 1: And I do share with them things that you know,
Speaker 1: my private self would not normally have shared at work,
Speaker 1: of my beliefs, my commitment to family and my faith
Speaker 1: and my colleagues, and how I think about things and
Speaker 1: my values. I share with them my favorite quotes, as
Speaker 1: well as all some of my business philosophy, and so
Speaker 1: they have a pretty full picture of me in half
Speaker 1: hours of forty five minutes. I also do the same
Speaker 1: thing with organizations I'm associated with. With anybody who's willing
Speaker 1: to listen, I tell them where I'm coming from. I
Speaker 1: invite them to tell me where they're coming from. And
Speaker 1: I find that kind of transparency is incredibly liberating and stimulating,
Speaker 1: and as long as you don't do it in a
Speaker 1: heavy handed, pontificating way, it can it can catapult the
Speaker 1: relationship to a place that wouldn't normally get to in
Speaker 1: short order. So that's what I believe. I believe that
Speaker 1: people aren't mind readers. If you want them to know
Speaker 1: where you're coming from, you know, there's no substitute for
Speaker 1: telling them, and also for being open to hearing where
Speaker 1: they're coming from and then trying to find the win
Speaker 1: win in the relationship. I love that. Do you ever
Speaker 1: Can you ever run a risk though, of alienating relationships
Speaker 1: if you're too honest or you bring too much of yourself?
Speaker 1: Are there some size of yourself you shouldn't bring to
Speaker 1: the table. Well, I guess so. I think you know.
Speaker 1: We all have to monitor ourselves. What I have found
Speaker 1: is the more I lean in and the more transparent
Speaker 1: I become, the I haven't crossed the line yet. I
Speaker 1: may have gotten close at times, but there were things
Speaker 1: I might have been worried about ten years ago that
Speaker 1: I'm just not worried about anymore. And the reason is
Speaker 1: because they were fine. So, you know, I encourage most
Speaker 1: people to be as candid as they can be comfortable,
Speaker 1: because it's probably not enough. You can probably go farther.
Speaker 1: I think we all sort of self regulate, but more
Speaker 1: candor is better than less. You know, all of our
Speaker 1: work environments sort of require a degree of candor. These days,
Speaker 1: we talk, you know, Jim Collins talks about confront the
Speaker 1: brutal facts. All kinds of leadership gurus talk about having
Speaker 1: candid conversations, and I think candor is important. I think
Speaker 1: it has to be genuine, and I think you have
Speaker 1: to create a foundation for it by doing something like
Speaker 1: what I call declaring yourself cool. And related to that,
Speaker 1: you have this quote you say, your life story is
Speaker 1: your leadership story. Can you unpack that a bit? Yeah, Look,
Speaker 1: all of us who have now I've spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time actually practicing leadership forty years, but also studying
Speaker 1: it for almost the entire forty You know, we can
Speaker 1: make this incredibly complicated easily, and it doesn't need to be.
Speaker 1: When I talk to people, I say, think about someone
Speaker 1: in your life who has had a profound influence on you,
Speaker 1: you know, and everybody we close our eyes and we
Speaker 1: think about that person. And then anybody in an audience
Speaker 1: will think about a person, and then I'll have them
Speaker 1: turn them turn to the next person next to them
Speaker 1: and describe that person. Typically it's a grandparent, mother, an aunt,
Speaker 1: a coach, a teacher, may be very rarely a boss,
Speaker 1: and they describe that person, and that person, it turns out,
Speaker 1: has had a profound impact on them and their life
Speaker 1: in some way, and they carry the message that that
Speaker 1: person was conveying to them with them to this day
Speaker 1: and it influences them. And invariably, when we get into
Speaker 1: this conversation, we observe two things. One that was that
Speaker 1: this person had very high standards. They were tough minded
Speaker 1: on standards. At the same time, they cared deeply about
Speaker 1: the people that they were dealing with, and they were
Speaker 1: tenderhearted with people. And that leads me to a conversation
Speaker 1: that I think the best leaders are tough minded on
Speaker 1: standards and tenderhearted with people. And then we get to
Speaker 1: a point where I say, you know, we can make
Speaker 1: leadership complicated. But all I'm really asking you to do
Speaker 1: is be more like the people who have had a
Speaker 1: profound influence on you, who said just the right thing
Speaker 1: and just the right way at just the right time,
Speaker 1: and had a profound impact on you. I'm inviting you
Speaker 1: to be more like them with the people with whom
Speaker 1: you live and work. You have experienced brilliant leadership. I'lbe
Speaker 1: it episodically, but you've experienced it, and if nothing else,
Speaker 1: I encourage you to be more like them with the
Speaker 1: people with whom you live and work. And I think
Speaker 1: you get to that point when you when you carefully
Speaker 1: examine your life story and we have them go through
Speaker 1: an exercise where we call it their their entourage of excellence.
Speaker 1: They think about the people who have had they capture
Speaker 1: those thoughts. And that's what examining your life story is
Speaker 1: all about, because I believe it is your leadership story.
Speaker 1: You are all those people incarnate when you show up.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you I talk to leaders all the time.
Speaker 1: I mean the world class. You know, best leaders in
Speaker 1: the world. They invariably have a story. And it's never
Speaker 1: about a coach like me or a CEO or a
Speaker 1: or a professor. Even I have one about Ram Scharan,
Speaker 1: who is my professor, but he's an exception. But they
Speaker 1: all have a story about a grandparent or an uncle
Speaker 1: or an aunt who had this incredible influence on them.
Speaker 1: And that's where I'm going with this life story piece
Speaker 1: is if you really mind your life story, you will
Speaker 1: find nuggets of just incredible brilliance that you know what
Speaker 1: that's like, and you can bring that experience to other people.
Speaker 1: What a great perspective that you just don't hear that
Speaker 1: often in these discussions. I mean, you're quite right. You know,
Speaker 1: these so many leadership books out there, I can see
Speaker 1: why they wouldn't resonate with you. After this conversation today,
Speaker 1: I think maybe I'll just end this whole interview with
Speaker 1: one of my favorite quotes of yours. The key to
Speaker 1: unlocking better leadership is found through a clear eye exploration
Speaker 1: of you, the real full you. Well, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for bringing your full self to this conversation today, Doug,
Speaker 1: and I wish you all the best. Okay, I'm happy
Speaker 1: to do it, and I look forward to having a
Speaker 1: more fulsome conversation with you next time. Thanks for listening
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