IDL42 Season 1: Turning Insecurities into Strengths with Alan Stein Jr.
How do you reach your full potential by working through insecurities? How can unaddressed insecurities block the formation of authentic connections? What does empathy in business look like in practice?
Today we have a great book for you, Raise Your Game, by Alan Stein Jr. His book really gets at the heart of a concept Alan and I discuss today, something I really feel is the catalyst in leadership — insecurity. Developing an awareness of insecurity is really what helps us develop empathy towards others. As an ex-basketball performance coach, Alan has worked with some of the biggest names in the NBA - Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Kobe Bryant - and now he’s teaching and applying these principles in keynote programs, workshops, and his book.
Alan Stein, Jr. teaches proven strategies to improve organizational performance, create effective leadership, increase team cohesion and collaboration, and develop winning mindsets, rituals, and routines.
As a veteran basketball performance coach, he spent 15 years working with the highest-performing athletes on the planet (including NBA superstars Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, and Kobe Bryant).
In his corporate keynote programs and workshops, Alan reveals how to utilize the same approaches in business that elite athletes use to perform at a world-class level. He delivers practical lessons that can be implemented immediately.
His clients include American Express, Pepsi, Sabra, Starbucks, UGG, and Under Armour, as well as numerous college athletic programs like Penn State Football and UCONN’s Men’s Basketball.
The strategies from Alan’s book, Raise Your Game: High Performance Secrets from the Best of the Best, are implemented by corporate teams and sports teams around the country.
Visit Alan Stein Jr.’s website and connect with him on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and LinkedIn.
Visit the Stronger Team website.
Visit The Sideline: A Survival Guide for Youth Sports Parents website.
IN THIS EPISODE WE DISCUSS:
Reaching full potential through insecurity
Drop the armor
How do people receive feedback?
It takes practice
Reaching full potential through insecurity
“I think one of the biggest gifts that the therapist helped me with was leading me to a much more heightened sense of self-awareness. A big portion of that self-awareness was me admitting, acknowledging, owning, and staring [my insecurities] dead in the face. ”
View your insecurities as places that you need to uncover and spend time healing to get to know yourself on a much deeper and more fulfilled level.
Beneath insecurity lies the parts of yourself that need attention, time, and energy. Listen to them and invest in yourself by caring for your mental energy.
If your livelihood, family, career, and simple joy in life are dependent on you functioning at an optimum level, then you need to be prepared to dig deep and uproot things that are hindering you and your progress through life.
“Once I started to pull those things up it was like opening Pandora’s box, but it was the most liberating thing I’ve ever done [and] at the same time one of the most helpful.”
Drop the armor
Every person has insecurities. People who seem like they do not have them have wrapped themselves up in armor.
What they do not realize is that dressing yourself up fully in armor to pretend that everything is fine and that you are the best even when you are struggling, hinders you from creating an authentic connection with those around you.
“If you and I can share the fact that we’re insecure about something and share the courage to be vulnerable and truly open up with each other, it’s going to allow for a much deeper connection.”
You must drop the armor to let people in because you find an authentic connection with people when you both share your experiences, and sharing experiences means sharing and being open about things like insecurities.
Dropping the insecurity armor also enables you to be more empathetic to those around you, and empathy is a core tenet of maintaining healthy and flourishing personal and private relationships.
How do people receive feedback?
“As a leader you have to be chameleon-like enough to speak other people’s love languages … in a work environment … how does this person on my team best feel appreciated? How does this person on my team best respond to being held accountable? ”
As a leader, it is imperative to your work and business relationships that you learn how to communicate – as much as possible – to your team members in the ways that best suit them and how they hear something.
It does not matter how you want to say it, if you are leading a team and you need to communicate something to a team member, it is up to you as the leader to pull them aside and know them well enough to give them the information in a way that is beneficial to them, not you.
This is how you can start practicing empathy.
It takes practice
Empathy, and practicing self-awareness, are daily works-in-progress. Any type of good work will take time, therefore do not put timelines on yourself.
“That’s one of the most important acts of leadership, to model the behavior you want to see in others. ”
Make it a daily small commitment to practice what you want to incorporate into your lifestyle and how you want to relate to others and yourself.
Resources, books, and links mentioned in this episode:
Visit Alan Stein Jr.’s website and connect with him on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and LinkedIn
Visit the Stronger Team website
Visit The Sideline: A Survival Guide for Youth Sports Parents website
BOOK | Alan Stein Jr. – Raise your Game: High-Performance Secrets from the Best of the Best
BOOK | Gary Chapman – The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate
BOOK | Liz Wiseman – Rookie Smarts: Why Learning Beats Knowing in the New Game of Work
The Impact Driven Leader YouTube Channel
Join the Impact Driven Leader Community
Connect with Tyler on Instagram and LinkedIn
Email Tyler: tyler@tylerdickerhoof.com
About the Impact Driven Leader Podcast
The Impact Driven Leader Podcast, hosted by Tyler Dickerhoof, is for Xillennial leaders who have felt alone and ill-equipped to lead in today's world. Through inspiring interviews with authors from around the world, Tyler uncovers how unique leadership strengths can empower others to achieve so much more, with real impact.
Rate, review and subscribe here on Apple Podcasts or subscribe on Stitcher and Spotify.
One of the things that’s important within insecurities is the acknowledgment that everyone has them, even the most successful people on the planet still have insecurities.
Alan Stein Jr.
Podcast Transcription
[TYLER DICKERHOOF]
Welcome back to the Impact Driven Leader podcast. This your host, Tyler Dickerhoof. We are on to another month, the month of November. So excited to share this book with you. Just got all off interviewing this author. I think this book is going to be a great book. We finish out this year. The book that we're going to go through is Raise Your Game by Alan Stein Jr. Now I will have to say this, last year's been a little bit of a pivot and go. Maybe you've heard the podcast with David as I go through his book, but this book, I really thought brought out a concept that Alan and I talk about today.
It's something that's near and dear to my heart, something that I believe is really the catalyst in leadership and that's insecurity and it's practicing empathy. Alan and I go through a 30, 35 minute conversation talking about those two items that he's well written about in his book. One of things that I really took away, and I hope you pick up the idea of understanding our insecurity. That awareness is really what helps us be empathetic towards others. Those two items, the insecurity and empathy are key in leadership. You're going to read all about it in Alan's book. I hope you enjoy this. I'll be back with you at the end to let you know how you can go deeper with us into this book and learning about insecurity, empathy, and how it all ties to leadership.
[TYLER]
Thanks for joining me Allan, appreciate it, man.
[ALAN STEIN]
Absolutely my pleasure. I've been looking forward to this since we put it on our schedules.
[TYLER]
So I'm thankful for the connection that Jordan made. Excited and as funny as just, you start going through the lists of, I think world and our age, you start to find this like spider web of connections. Your name has come up through many different other people. I saw you were just on with Ryan Estes. Ryan and I have had a chance to build a relationship as well. I mean, go on down the list, I could imagine. So it's exciting to build a relationship with you. I want to just, as I mentioned to you before we get started, want to talk about really insecurity. You talk a lot about it in your book, Raise Your Game. Talk a lot about it in regard to leadership and athletes. But I want to talk about Alan, if that's all right, because I think when we speak from ourselves, as I have on the show before, and I imagine this conversation will as well, I think that's when we really start to envision what insecurity and then by virtue of that empathy looks like. Is that cool?
[ALAN]
Oh, that's more than cool. Absolutely very much welcomed to be honest with you.
[TYLER]
So I'll just kind of plant those seeds and I'll kind of be like I'm in the back of the boat with a rudder and we'll see where this goes, if that's all right, because as much as I want to sit down and I view this podcast, a lot of times just sitting down, dude, we're having coffee and we're talking about it and we're brainstorming and taking our ideas and going with it. And when we chatted about having know this podcast come up and having you that's really, what's been on my mind to say, let's just sit and chat about it. And I believe we get value out of it. Other people will too. So help me, first you write a lot about the ideas of insecurity and empathy and how they play out on a basketball court. You want to just start there and kind of your experience, where you've seen players and athletes and performers, you've worked with ultimate world class athletes. How has that kind of been a part of their evolving leadership in their game?
[ALAN]
I think one of the most important things that we have to learn to address is, and I know Brené brown started a movement with embracing vulnerability many years ago, and her work has been very influential to me. And I look at vulnerability and courage and strength kind of right in line with insecurity and empathy. I actually think these things are all kind of spokes off of the same wheel. I'm 45 years old. So I grew up in my heyday as a child, primarily the eighties and of the nineties and most of the coaching culture back when I was an athlete was more of that old school mentality of you hide your secrets, you hide your insecurities, you hide your weaknesses. You don't show weakness. Emotional intelligence has certainly become a buzzword, if not something that's at the forefront of what we do in leadership today, but 30 to 40 years ago, I think that was much rarer back then.
[TYLER]
So let's put a picture on that. So as I think about that, I think of the Bobby Knight, I think of the Chuck dailies, I think of the Mike, I think of those coaches that we grew up and whether it's our coaches tried to model and emulate it's kind of that tough gruff; don't show any weakness, don't cry, don't be a wimp, but all rubbed dirt on it. There's no blood. It's not hurting. But that was probably, as I look back toxic to a culture, toxic to a generation in many ways.
[ALAN]
Oh, absolutely. And incredibly toxic to young men in particular. I mean, that's obviously the vantage point at which I can speak because I was a young man. I guess, depending on how you define it might still be at the young age of 45. But yes, that was through, and let me say this too, that was through no fault of anyone. I think that was kind of a culture that had been created even generations before that. I played for some wonderful coaches, coaches that I know really and truly cared about me, but they were still from kind of that old school way of approaching things and that emotional intelligence and sharing your feelings just was something that wasn't done.
So I think folks had very noble intentions and they were doing the best they could with their level of consciousness and the tools that they had at the time. But I basically was brought up in a culture that you hit all of that. And it wasn't until my late thirties that I even attempted to start to reverse that. One of the main impetus for that was, I've been divorced, very amicably divorced for six years now and when we started going through the divorce process I went in to see a therapist, a psychologist as part of that process, and certainly got some help with the relationship portion. But then I started to go in weekly by myself and I think one of the biggest gifts that, that therapist helped me with was leading me to a much more heightened sense of self-awareness.
A big portion of that self-awareness was me admitting, acknowledging, owning, and staring dead in the face, my insecurities. And that was some really tough work. I mean, there were some serious tears shed on many occasion. I would get out of therapy set, and I kid you not Tyler, I would be every bit as exhausted as if I had just got done a two-hour basketball practice. Wasn't a physical exhaustion, but it was a mental and emotional exhaustion. I remember I'd have to block a couple hours after a therapy session to not see any clients or not work with anyone, because I knew that I'd just be completely spent. It was that, it was learning how to figure out what are my insecurities, what are these things that I've done, such a masterful job of pushing down and repressing and resisting and suppressing to the point that I wasn't even acknowledging they were a part of me.
And once I started to pull those things up it was kind of like opening up Pandora's box, but it was absolutely the most liberating thing that I've ever done but at the same time, one of the most helpful. Now at 45 I've never been happier, more fulfilled, never felt more of a sense of inner peace. And it's because I've learned to accept those insecurities and find ways to love myself nonetheless, and give myself some grace and some compassion. Because one of the things that's important with insecurities is the acknowledgement that everyone has them. Even the most successful people on the planet still have insecurities. Now we, as the general public, usually don't see them and they too in many, is very similar to how I did; became a master at masking them so that you never know. They don't put those things on display. Most people don't put their insecurities on Instagram or TikTok. They keep those as tight to the vest as they can. But yes, I find it incredibly liberating to kind of be able to own those things.
[TYLER]
Okay. So let's take that for a little bit. I believe this, and I want to play this out and I want to hear your feedback on it. We just kind of toss this around a little bit. I believe in a leadership role, we do see leader as insecurities, but we don't know what it is. We can see how they act and maybe they're again, that persona of, I had a guy share this with me one day and it was the greatest lesson to envision this. He goes when a CEO is standing in front of a room and they're in the starch suit and everything is perfect, not a beat of sweat, that's the insecurity armored in a picture as opposed to the guy that's sitting there saying my armpits are sweaty. I don't know what I'm doing, but we can all do this together. That's a level of vulnerability. So I think if we go back to those circumstances, if we're in a role with a superior working with others, and there's this almost this armor of like, you can't get through to me, it's all of a sudden, it's like, I know there's an insecurity and once someone admits it and I'm like, yes, there it was.
[ALAN]
Oh yes. Well, and that's the thing. We know on an unconscious level that everybody has these insecurities, but depending on the person's level of mastery at hiding them and masking them, we don't know what they are. I love that you actually use the analogy of armor, now, because with armor, that's something that you can't penetrate. If we go with that analogy, that's going to make it much harder to create an authentic connection, especially with those that you lead. It's like I kind of look down kind of this trail. So we start with insecurity that everybody has. And my guess is they all stem from some version of I'm not good enough, or I'm not worthy of dot, dot dot, and you can fill in the blank. I'm not worthy of love, or I'm not worthy of success, or I'm not, whatever it may be, but those are most likely the root causes.
Now they're going to flare up in different ways. So you and I could share an insecurity of we're not good enough, but yours might lean in one direction where mine is in a different direction or yours might manifest in one way, but it's still the same route. But once you kind of have that insecurity, then I think kind of the next in that line is it takes courage to acknowledge it, and courage to face it. And doing so is ultimately what vulnerability is. Then that vulnerability, once again, this is as Brené Brown says, not as Alan Stein's Jr says, that's, what's going to lead to true connection.
If you and I can actually share the fact that we're insecure about something, or we can share the fact that we have the courage to be vulnerable and truly open up with each other, it's going to allow for a much deeper connection. This is incredibly valuable, obviously in an intimate relationship, with your spouse or with a loved one. This is incredibly helpful. I've seen this firsthand as a father of three children and my ability to connect with my children. I mean, my kids are young. They're still kind of in that age where daddy can do no wrong. I mean, they almost look at me like I'm a superhero which on one hand is, is enduring but on the other hand, I feel it's vital for me to say, "Hey I love you more than in this world, but I'm not a superhero. I've made mistakes. I've got some flaws." And have some really deep connective conversations with my children. Then of course, even for those that work on your team, your colleagues and your coworkers if you want to increase buy-in and believe in, I really believe a major pillar of that is allowing yourself to be appropriately vulnerable. And it all stems from those insecurities that we all share.
[TYLER]
So give some examples, I mean, we talk about yourself, we talk about generalities, but where are some examples of guys, because you mention a few times in your book different athletes who have kind of overcome this point. And it really kind of puts in their abilities and their leadership qualities, their ability to work together as a team into hyperdrive, which I think is a great example to say, "Hey, you and I can do the same when we acknowledge that in athletes doing it within a small group of five man starting group to a 12 man, roster on a basketball team." Where have you, some of those examples that you've talked to people, or you've seen them help them go through that?
[ALAN]
Well, most of what I end up seeing it manifests when the pendulum swings all the way in the other direction. So on this end, you've got what can be considered crippling insecurities and fears and so forth, the things that keep you up at night. But when you're willing to do the work and you kind of cross over that threshold and the pendulum swings in the other direction, then you have what I think is a trait that most people are looking to have, which is confidence, an unbridled and genuine confidence. I was actually on Twitter a couple days ago, having a nice dialogue with a few colleagues that I really respect and admire about confidence and where does confidence come from and how can we actually build it? I don't think there's a person on the planet that doesn't aspire to have a heightened sense of confidence, even if they're already confident in general.
It comes from things like our self talk. How do we talk to ourselves? That's especially where insecurity comes into the play. If you're constantly in a negative or a critical frame of mind, and you're constantly talking to yourself through that lens, you actually make the insecurity bigger and it becomes more crippling and like pulling a heavier sled when you can actually give yourself some grace and some compassion. Acknowledge and be aware of the fact that you have this insecurity, but don't be embarrassed by it, or have any guilt or shame. Those are other toxic emotions that when you start tacking guilt and shame, and I'm not good enough on top of already an insecurity, now it becomes this massive mountain. Whereas if you take it and you can actually go in the other direction and say, yes, I'm insecure about this and let me do a little digging and research to figure out why, let me start to be compassionate and have some grace with the way that I talk to myself. And at least have an awareness of when I'm saying things to myself, whether silently or out loud, that aren't serving me at least have an awareness of it so I can change that dialogue.
Then on the other end, you get a tremendous amount of confidence. Confidence does comes from our self talk. It comes from our preparation. It comes from demonstrated performance. It's knowing that I'm capable of doing this because I've done it and now I'm going to tell myself that I'm good enough to do it again. So to me, it's amazing to watch somebody go from where insecurities are really holding them back, swinging to the other end, where they've just kind of taken off that emotional wake vest and now they feel so much lighter and more nimble.
Same thing I mentioned, at this present time my life I'm happier, more fulfilled and more peaceful than I've ever been. I'm also more confident than I've ever been in every area of my life. That's not a coincidence. These things are all interrelated and it's only because I was able to kind of stare these insecurities in the eye that I believe had been holding me back for 30 plus years. And I say, believe because they were never holding me back, it was the belief, my own self-belief that these things had power. That's what was holding me back.
[TYLER]
I believe. For me, it was much of how I showed up to others. It was how my insecurities affected me, this armor per se, this protectiveness. For me, it was much put my head down and push. That's how I got through things. That's how I dealt with some of the tough parts of life. Well, that ended up pushing people away, rather thinking, oh, if I open up and admit and find my value in what uniqueness I have, well, then I can start to actually be better and help people in a bigger way. One of the things that we touched on a little bit earlier, and I want to hear your definition and talk about it and see how the two of them combined, but how do you define empathy?
[ALAN]
I define empathy as making an attempt to look at the world through someone else's eyes and through their lens and how they feel. So empathy is feeling sorrow or sadness for someone. So if you have a loved one or somebody close to you pass away, I'll actually experience both emotions. I'm going to have sympathy for you because I feel really bad for your loss, but I'm also going to have empathy, which will heighten my sympathy and theory, because I'm going to say, boy, how would I feel if I lost the person that I was that close with? What would I be going through? To me, that's one of the most important parts of servant leadership, is to be able to empathize and say, I'm not trying to look at the world through my own lens.
I do that 24 7 anyway. Let me step outside of myself and really try to think, how would this person feel? What are they going through right now? And I think it's an incredibly important connective tool, and that's why it's directly related to this entire concept of insecurity, being able to approach someone else and go, okay, I know they got some insecurities and some fears and some flaws. I may not know what they are right now, but I know that they have them. And if they're working overtime to try to mask them or suppress them, that is exhausting, and that's going to cause them to alter their behavior or put on a front or do some things differently. So in order for me to have empathy, how would I feel if I was trying to hide my insecurities and vulnerabilities? So it's, again, it's a great piece of connective tissue when you can lead with empathy. And I think if I had to come up with a list of traits for leaders empathy's always going to be one of the top tools that I recommend they pull off of their utility belt.
[TYLER]
So I want to get your feed back on this. I would describe empathy as the willingness to put your arm around someone and walk with them.
[ALAN]
I love it.
[TYLER]
And I believe when we conceptualize and think of it that way, it's really hard. If you put your arm around somebody to drag them, that's not going to work out well. If they're dragging you, it's not going to work out well either. But if you're willing to walk together, you're willing go through that process together, one, you have to get rid of some of your insecurities. You can't be armored up and put your arm around somebody. And I think that's what often happens, especially in the leadership role. We want to take this person with us, but we're not really willing to let go of our insecurities to be able to put our arm around others. That's how I've envisioned it. Yes, go ahead.
[ALAN]
No, I'm sorry to mean to cut you off. No, I'm right in line with that. Have you read, or are you familiar with the book, The Five Love Languages?
[TYLER]
Yes, of course. Gary Chapman.
[ALAN]
To me, that book is full of empathy, saying that, all right, this person may experience or want to feel loved differently than I do, but it's not about what I like or what my preferences are or what my love language is. For me to be empathetic, I need to step out of myself and say, "Okay, what is it that they need or what they want?" One of the analogies I use in most of my speaking whether it's a keynote or a workshop is I say when I was a child, you could every kid and put them in one of two buckets. You have kids that could swallow a Tylenol pill, and you have kids that had to have it smashed up an apple sauce to take the Tylenol pill.
I always laugh. I was an apple sauce kid, too, a really embarrassingly old age. The reason I always bring that up is I tell leaders one of the first things that you need to figure out when you're working with someone or trying to lead someone or holding someone accountable or trying to challenge them is how do they take their Tylenol? It doesn't matter how you take it. You might be able to swallow that pill and be fine but if the person you're needing, leading, excuse me, needs a little bit of apple sauce with it, if they need you to soften it up and sweeten it up a little bit, then that's your job as a leader to do that.
As a leader, you have to be chameleon like enough to speak other people's love language. And of course, in this case context, we're talking about a work environment. So it's not exactly the same as the original book was intended, but it's still the same construct and it's still the same template. It's how does this person on my team best feel appreciated? How does this person on my team best respond to being held accountable? How can I best challenge or push this person on my team? And it doesn't matter how you prefer those things. All that matters is how they prefer it. So we need to learn how to start giving Tylenol in the way that the people receiving it, want it not the way that we want to take it ourselves. To me, that is empathy.
[TYLER]
I know. I think that's practicing it out for sure. I'll share one of my other beliefs is I believe empathy is a spectrum. For me, so often this armor of insecurity as we talk about to me that's that low empathy where you're just hard and callous. You could be called an a-hole. It is all about you. I've experienced that world. But I also see on another extent of it on the spectrum is the person that's a doormat. They're an enabler. They just let people walk all over them. To me, that's not healthy empathy either. It somewhere in the middle. And I think that comes back to putting that arm around a person. If you're walking together, that's practicing healthy connectedness and empathy as you're dragging them. They don't want to go there.
They're upset. It's, "Hey, this is how I love people. You're going to take it or leave it. You're going to take this Tylenol on a pill because I said so, and I go shove it down your throat," as opposed to being willing to say, "Hey, you need to take Tylenol. What are the options here? I can give you some apple sauce. I can give you some water. You can swallow it. What works best for you?" Because the end of the day, it's just about getting the Tylenol, which is going to help you. I'm just the bridge, the conduit to make that happen. I mean, that's rich with so many leadership analogies.
[ALAN]
Absolutely. I like that you went in that direction. I hadn't thought of it from that angle before. Being the doormat, being too far on the other side of the spectrum would simply be, I don't care if you take the Tylenol or not, but I know that you need that Tylenol. So it's my job to make sure you take it, but in order to do so and to make sure that we feel connected, I'm going to deliver it in the way that you prefer. So you have to take this Tylenol. That is a non-negotiable, but how you choose to take it is something that we can work together on. That's where I think you get that buy-in and believe in and commitment from others. I mean, if we parlay that into other kind of macro concepts people are always going to give a better effort and going to give better focus and have more buy-in and believe in when they feel that they're being heard, when they feel that they're helping co-create, when they feel like they're making a contribution and helping steer the ship towards that north star.
So anything we can do to make people feel like they are a part of this. This is not me leading from Ivory Tower, telling you all what to do and you do it or else, this is we've all collectively decided. This is our identity as an organization. This is who we are. This is why we exist. We've all collectively agreed that this is our north star. This is our mission and our purpose. We've all actively agreed on our core values and our beliefs and our code of conduct every single day. Now it's my job as the leader to make sure everybody feels included, everyone feels important and valued and respected, and everyone is maximizing their role to the best of their ability so that we can all get there as efficiently and as effectively as possible. I do believe that in order to do that, empathy's one of the most important tools.
[TYLER]
So let's totally switch gears, but I think it's going to show up again, this kind of idea and topic. You just got done with an ultra marathon. You trained for that. I see you signed up for a Spartan in a couple weeks. You are like all in on this kind of enduring running style. I know as part of your book, you share about an adventure long, long, long ago, what you thought you were going to be able to, and then had a stark reality smack you in the face. Tell me about that and kind of relate to the audience in regards to one, your personal growth, your leadership growth, how all those things kind of tie together.
[ALAN]
I love having something on my calendar to look forward to, and I like having something on my calendar in particular to train for. When I say train for, not just the physical component, but the mental and emotional component as well. Most of my life I've spent, I've identified as a basketball player, which certainly is a sport based on very short duration, high intensity bursts of effort followed by short rest intervals in between. I mean you can picture sprinting up and down the court once or twice and then stopping for 30 seconds while somebody shoots a free throw. So most of my life, all of my training has been to get really good at what we just call high intensity training and short bursts of high effort. So doing anything that requires more of an endurance component, more of a slower, longer sustained effort has always been very foreign to me and ---
[TYLER]
Would you call it torturous or just foreign?
[ALAN]
I would say just foreign. I mean, it was just so different to me and it was just amazing, like you're referencing when I described the first marathon and actually the only marathon that I've done back in, I think it was 2002. I did the Baltimore marathon. That was so, it was such a new concept to me that, okay for four to five hours, you need to run at a slower steadier pace as opposed to sprint, to run that fast break, sprint to grab that loose ball. And of course, hindsight being 2020 I didn't adapt my training or mentally or physically to the level that I needed to perform the way that I had hoped in that marathon, but it was a great learning lesson. Since then, since that was a tough lesson to learn I've attempted a few other things that are focused more on longer sustained efforts, and it's just something different to do.
I enjoy it. The funny part is I don't really love running long distance running. I love being outside. I love having something to train for and challenge myself. I actually love listening to podcasts, like your show. I've devoured so many episodes on some of these long runs. So while I'm running it's a great time to take into information or just be with my own thoughts and enjoy some quiet time away from everything. And I enjoy how I feel when I'm done. So even though I don't love long distance running, there are so many other aspects of that that I really do enjoy and benefit from.
So when I have something on my calendar, like an ultra marathon, and I know that I'm going to take three to four months to train for that appropriately, I love that. I love that training process. And I don't want to become an ultra marathon, or this is not something that I want to kind of take over and consume my life because it takes a tremendous amount of sacrifice. Especially when I was talking to some of the other runners at this event, the weekly mileage and the time that they put in every week is remarkable. And that's why they're so good at what they do. I don't want to make that commitment. I've got very healthy boundaries. As an amicably divorced father of three, I've got my time with my kids, which is incredibly important and precious. I love what I do for a living as a keynote speaker. So I've got time to work on my craft and I still have a time dedicated for a social life.
So I have some time that can be dedicated to training, but that sliver of my pie is not big enough for me to be a full-time ultra marathoner. And I'm okay with that. So for me I sign up for something like a Spartan race. I sign up for something like the Last Man Standing ultra marathon. I want to train for it, but really I don't have any goal in mind. I'm not trying to beat anybody. My only goal to do those things is to prepare for it, show up, give a great effort, have a great attitude, and just let the chips fall where they may.
I heard a gentleman named Peter Crone who's somebody whose work I really admire and study. He says, you need to learn to be fully committed, but completely detached. That really rings true for these things. I'm fully committed to my preparation and to doing the best I'm capable of, but I'm detached from any preconceived goal or outcome or result. Whatever happens, happens and I'm going to love myself anyway. So yes, I like kind of peppering my schedule with these things, having some stuff to train for and do, and I like doing things that are outside of what I've normally done in the past and things that I've actually been fairly good at in the past. So when I'm doing these things, I'm a rookie again. And I like that. I'm a complete novice in the ultra marathon world and I actually like that. That invigorates me and gives me a spark.
[TYLER]
Liz Wiseman's book, Rookie Smarts, is, I'm thinking about that value and it makes you think everything around you, new and different. I also am stricken and I think, I believe this. It's something you're doing and I believe all leaders should do that keeps you humble. I believe we should be doing something every day that just kind of models that humility. I believe humility is misunderstood. I believe empathy is misunderstood. And I think it's sometimes when you're doing something say, hey, I may go out there and embarrass myself, but it's not about that day of result. And I think that's probably an unlocking of this insecurity is, hey, if I'm not top five, I'm not good enough. It's like, I don't really care. It's about the journey. That's what I'm learning and hearing from you, which I can relate to so much.
It's like, it's not the result on that day. It's the journey am putting in the work? For me, I grew up with cows. I enjoy being around cows. That's my day to listen books, listen to your book. That's what it was a big part of listening to your book. It was taking care of cows, but it's also, I can go out there and know that that's an enjoyable endeavor, but it's also, I'm still in a way serving, but I'm learning and it keeps me humble. Last night I get home from a soccer trip with my son and it's 8:45 at night in the dark. It's raining and I'm out there doing that, partly because, hey, it's a little bit of a mindset refresh, just as much as you're on the road, you're speaking, you get home and you're like, oh, I need to go out and I'm going to put my kids to bed and I'm going to go on a 45 minute run or do whatever. Partly they're going to value it, but it's also, I have to do that to keep me humble. Those are the thoughts that go through on my mind. I don't know if I'm putting words in your mouth, but that's what I think about.
[ALAN]
No. We have so much alignment in the way that we see the world and humility is a big portion of that. If you only stay in lanes where you're in a groove and you're achieving success and you're feeling great about yourself it's easier to fall victim to losing that humility. I mean, it's not given and I'd like to believe that even in the areas where I feel fairly accomplished, I still want to be incredibly humble in those pursuits. But it's easier to fall to that temptation, but yes, the moment you step outside of your comfort zone and you have something like an Ultramar smack you in the face, if you weren't humble before you will be.
And very similar to that I try to put myself in positions where I'm going to get reminders of things that I need to be reminded of. One of the things that I constantly need to be reminded of is the dangers of playing the comparison game. On a conscious level I know that. I know back to Teddy Roosevelt's quote "comparison is the thief of joy and any derivative of that," I know that if I spend my time, either in person or on social media, comparing myself to others is going to be a very short matter of time until I start to feel bad about myself. I feel like I don't have enough. I feel like I haven't accomplished enough. I feel like I'm not good enough. We all know that on a conscious level. But doing something like the Last Man Standing, when that starts to come up through my unconscious and I start to find myself playing the comparison game, it's a very quick reminder.
[ALAN]
And I like that. I want to put myself in positions and I want to surround myself with people that help remind me of these things that I need to be reminded of on a daily basis, because there were certainly times during that event where I would find myself comparing myself to someone else and saying yes, I only did 10 loops. This guy next to me just did 15. I'm less than he is. Once again, it's the awareness that then allows the trigger for me to say, oh, whoa, whoa, take a step back out and take a deep breath. It's okay that you went down that path, but we're going to course-correct now. You just ran your personal best. You just ran further than you've ever run and for that you should be grateful. Dare I say, proud.
You don't have to worry about what somebody else is doing and what their journey is. It's a good reminder for that. And same thing, even with social media. I mean, there's certain people I follow on social. They post something and for a split second, it makes me feel less, but now that I have the awareness and to me, that's the key to all of this. It's just having the awareness because you're never going to improve something you're unaware of. You're never going to fix something you're oblivious to. And that's what I have now that I didn't have a decade ago. It's just that awareness and these little triggers pop up all of the time. One of the most important things to me in my life is learning how to be in the present moment and learning how to kind of detach from the past and the future, not get distracted by what happened yesterday, not get anxious or worried about what may or may not happen tomorrow, but simply be in the present moment.
And generally speaking, I'm more consistent with being in the present moment now than I was 10 years ago but I'm far from mastering it. I mean, there's still times where I find myself consumed in either direction or I find my mind is like a squirrel. I've had a pretty steady meditation practice for 10 minutes every morning for the past several years. Some mornings I'm present and very grounded, very mindful, very aware and then other mornings, yes, I'm like a squirrel. So none of this stuff that you and I have been discussing, am I a master of not even close. I'm still a student to all of it, but I am making progress. And to me, I've learned how to reap fulfillment from progress instead of getting stifled by perfection. I know that I'm not going to be present every moment of every day for the rest of my life. I know that I'm not going to prevent myself from playing the comparison game completely, but can I at least have an awareness of it and give myself some grace and some compassion when I do play? It's a course, correct. That's kind of the journey that I'm on right now.
[TYLER]
Well, again, this idea of awareness and coming to our insecurities, I think when we start to go to the process, it's like the consciously unconscious and all of those, that quotient factor is once we start going through that process, then we have a better handle on it in total. Does it mean we're perfect? Absolutely not, but it's easier to say, oh man, I screwed that up. And when you could say, oh man, I screwed that up. I believe that's practicing empathy in itself because naturally as humans is, if we're willing to generally say, oh man, I screwed up, thank you, then people are going to naturally be empathetic.
I have not seen a situation where they're not. And I think this idea is just admitting, hey yes, dude there's a comparison or this humility playing in. When that can be held in a healthy way in a relationship, man, that's when you find champions, people that are like championing your cause, and those are the people you want to be around. And I think practicing that out personally as a leader is so important because people around you will start to see that and you start to build on it. It's like, I'm not perfect today, but I'm going to build in a routine and consistency. I'm going to work towards it and if I can work towards it's going to show up in other ways in my life that I can't even see, but others are. And when I open up myself to that to others, man, now we get to go together. It comes back to that entire leadership model that you talked about. It's like this group vision we're going to have together and the more vulnerable dare I say that we can be, we can all of evolve forward, but that really starts with your own personal awareness and acceptance of your insecurities. Where did that route come from?
I know for me through my process of growth, I found out where it came from, understood it and realized that it was a coping mechanism from a trauma. And it's how I went through life and then suddenly get to this point where like this sucks to be where I'm at. I didn't realize why it sucked. I understood it was frustrating and had that experience just as much, like you shared with your impending divorce and how that went. It's like, oh, I had to face the music in a way. Sometimes we get faced with that and avoid it. But as leaders, as we walk through that, and you have so generously shared man, to me, that's how we serve and help others
[ALAN]
Hundred percent. I mean, that's one of the most important maximum of, of leadership is model the behavior that you want to see in others. So if I am going to, going back to your brilliant analogy, if I'm going to armor up and pretend like everything's fine and grit bear everything, then that's the behavior that I'm modeling for everyone else on my team or in my family or in my organization. So they're going to follow suit and they're going to think, all right, well, this is what I need to do too. And you want to talk about a really hard way to create a connection. If I'm wearing armor and you are wearing armor, I mean, ain't nothing getting through. So yes, we want to model this type of behavior. And for me I've had so many epistle moments just on leadership in general, as a father, going back to my children.
So I have twin sons that are 11 years old and I have a nine year old daughter and certainly different dynamics with each of them. But it's really important for me to teach my sons in particular the importance of vulnerability and emotional intelligence and self-awareness because as we said, I just don't think that was taught or modeled near as often, 30 years ago. I want to be able to help change that. So I'm trying to model and teach my sons in particular, what it means to be a strong young man. And that strength comes from vulnerability and emotional intelligence, which is the exact opposite of what I was taught that showing your emotions and being vulnerable will make you weak. Same thing with my daughter. I want to be able to model for her in this light how a man should treat her and what types of traits she should expect from a future partner if that's what she chooses and so forth.
So teaching my sons in particular how to be respectful of and treat women and teaching my daughter, how she should expect to be treated by a man and tolerate nothing less is really important. So I love having these discussions with my sons and they all kind of fall in line to some of these macro concepts from leadership. And I've been able to deepen my relationship with them. I have an unconditional love for them, just like any parent has for their child. That's without question, but on a conscious level, being able to increase that connection through that vulnerability and letting them know, "Hey, if you have some moments where you're insecure, don't worry. Your daddy does as well." And it's been really helpful. And there's no reason that same mindset can't work in other areas, whether it's a basketball team or a Fortune 100 global brand or business. Those same concepts for human connection don't change.
[TYLER]
Yes. I think about, as you're saying that, the comment from Alan Mulally the former Ford and Boeing CEO that in his corporation, sometimes the people's like I love and care about you. I love and care about you enough to know that you're not a fit here. And it's partly of we need to find you a different place because I love and care about you. Just as much as you're talking about your kids, I love and care about you. So I'm going to be vulnerable and walk through it. And as I envision this idea from Alan, him saying that is really displaying true empathy in that leadership and being willing to say, "Hey, you're not, it's not right for you here. Is I'm going to find a place for you that's better for everyone because that's healthier and that's truly this kind of healthy empathy and being accepting and aware." It really comes back to, as you said, that awareness.
Man, I so enjoyed this conversation. I thank you for your time. I look forward to having more of these conversations, because I just imagine they're going to continue on, but thank you for being on the podcast and sharing so much with our audience today. Where can people find out more about you, your book, Raise Your Game, all the things?
[ALAN]
I'm pretty easily accessible. You can just go to alansteinjr.com. I also have a secondary site, strongerteam.com. You can also find me at Alan Stein Jr. On Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook. You can get the book, Raise Your Game: Aim High Performance Secrets from the Best of the Best on Amazon or Audible or wherever you get your books. And I love engaging with folks. So if there was something in our conversation today that struck a chord or someone wants to add to the conversation or even share a different perspective, I welcome all of that. Hit Tyler and I up on social media. I want to thank you my friend for, actually taking something like insecurity and empathy, which I don't think are talked about enough, especially between two men and bringing that to the forefront.
I mean, there's a variety of topics you and I could have talked about today. It's not that those topics aren't important, but I think they've been talked about enough and instead of exhausting them even more, I love that you came with a fresh and courageous approach. So let's talk about things differently. This was a different interview than I've done before, and I've done hundreds. So I really commend you and appreciate you and look forward to more future conversations. I love learning from you and certainly want to get better acquainted with your listeners as well.
[TYLER]
All right. Well, thanks so much, Alan. Appreciate it, man.
So Alan and I actually, for our next 20 minutes, talked more about just life in general and I wish I had recorded, but yet at the same point, you got the gist of it. I know Alan and I will have conversations in the future again, because just this idea of how can we work through our insecurity and our empathy. He shared one thing with me that I think is so important that I want to make sure that I emphasize here. Working through our insecurity and really developing empathy is a willingness to have curiosity. It's really hard to be self righteous and arrogant and all those things that sometimes are being masks to insecurity. When we're curious, like genuine curious, if you want to learn about someone and know about someone and why they think what they think, what they've been through, man, that's having curiosity, which is really a model of empathy.
I'd love to invite you to be a part of the Impact Driven Leader book club, a round table. Yes, a round table, where once a week on Zoom, we go through, we discuss these books. We discuss leadership challenges. We have conversations kind of like what I had with Alan, honestly, but we're digging deep into how can we be more self-aware, better leaders. To me that comes in a group. That comes through that transformation process. I invite you to join us as we finish out 2021 in the Impact Driven Leader round table. Go to theimpactdrivenleader.com. You can sign up there. You can join us.
If you got value out of today's podcast, I would love if you would share this with someone. Alan's got some great information. Obviously, he and I have a lot of common thoughts and processes. How we've come there, totally different but I love seeing that because it helps understand that that conversation needs to be told and shared. Thank you for being here. I would love to know what thought about today's podcast. Give us a rating, review, share with others. Until next time, thanks for being here. We'll catch you later.
