IDL51 Season 2: The Leader’s Mind with Phil White and Dr. Jim Afremow

How does a self-confident leader create confident employees and teammates? What is the relationship between vulnerability and self-awareness in leadership? Why is encouraging the correct mindset integral to effective leadership?

Today I sit down with the authors Phil White and Dr. Jim Afremow and we talk about their book, The Leader’s Mind. Their book showcases not only the authors’ own unique perspective on leadership, but also the experiences and wisdom of eight other individuals. The three of us reflect on the leadership process; in particular, how a strong leader employs empathy and selflessness to push their teams forward.

Meet Dr. Jim Afremow

Dr. Jim Afremow is a high-performance consultant and the author of several best-selling books on sport psychology and leadership. He provides mental skills training and leadership services to athletes, teams, and coaches at all levels of sport, as well as to corporate “athletes” and professionals across all achievement domains.

For over 20 years, Dr. Afremow has assisted numerous world-class athletes and teams. He has represented a number of major sports, including the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, UFC, MLS, PGA Tour, LPGA Tour and WNBA. Additionally, he has mentally trained several U.S. and international Olympians, and served as the staff sport psychologist for two international Olympic teams.

He is the co-author with Phil White of The Leader's Mind, and the author of The Champion's Mind, The Champion's Comeback, and The Young Champion's Mind.

Visit The Champion’s Mind website and check out their App. Connect with Dr. Afremow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Meet Phil White

Phil White is an Emmy-nominated writer and the co-author of The 17 Hour Fast with Dr. Frank Merritt, Waterman 2.0 with Dr. Kelly Starrett, Unplugged with Dr. Andy Galpin and Brian Mackenzie, and Game Changer with Fergus Connolly. Phil co-hosts the Champion Conversations Podcast and Basketball Strong Podcast and is also a frequent contributor to Onnit, Momentous, HANAH, StrongFirst, TrainHeroic, and TrainingPeaks.

Phil lives in Evergreen, Colorado, with his wife and his two sons. When not writing about himself in the third person, he can be found hiking, sipping stout and single malt at Revival Brews, paddleboarding on Evergreen Lake, shooting hoops with his family, or swinging a kettlebell.

Visit Phil White’s website and connect with him on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

IN THIS EPISODE WE DISCUSS:

•      2:55 Vulnerability in leadership

•      9:00 Mindset

•      17:57 Being a secure leader

Vulnerability in leadership

Great leadership is self-aware. Leadership that nourishes people and the business is more effective when it welcomes the opinions of others.

Great leaders know that they are only human, that they have limitations and blind spots, and are therefore welcoming and willing to listen to other people’s perspectives and ideas because they know that each person can bring something to the table.

A secure and healthy leader wants to surround themselves with people who are also good and even better at them in various aspects. They need to be vulnerable to create a space of confidence in themselves and their employees.

Mindset

Teamwork and leadership are integral to the success of a team, business, or organization, especially when it is blanketed in the mindset of “one for all, all for one”.

Grounding your leadership in a community-based mindset is what can help you elevate your employees and connect with them more authentically.

being a Secure leader

If you feel unsafe you are more likely not to be vulnerable therefore you close up, avoid risks, and refrain from sharing your perspective.

Being secure and self-aware is not only good for your employees but also good for you as a person who leads, because it enables you to bring your ideas to the table and be willing to listen to those of others.

Secure leaders set their fellow teammates, staff, and employees up for success because they want them to rise and be successful. It is the insecure leaders who want to keep everyone under them and never move on.

Resources, books, and links mentioned in this episode:

BOOK | Dr. Jim Afremow and Phil White – The Leader's Mind: How Great Leaders Prepare, Perform, And Prevail

BOOK | Dr. Jim Afremow – The Champion's Mind

BOOK | Dr. Jim Afremow – The Champion's Comeback

BOOK | Dr. Jim Afremow – The Young Champion's Mind

BOOK | Rick Crossland – The A Player: The Definitive Playbook and Guide for Employees and Leaders Who Want to Play and Perform at the Highest Level

BOOK | Jim Collins – Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

BOOK | Daniel Coyle – The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups

Visit The Champion’s Mind website and check out their App

Connect with Dr. Afremow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn

Visit Phil White’s website

Connect with him on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn

Listen to the Basketball Strong Podcast

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.

A rising tide lifts all boats, so by lifting other people we end up lifting ourselves as well.

Dr. Jim Afremow

Podcast Transcription

[TYLER] Welcome back to the Impact Driven Leader podcast. This is your host, Tyler Dickerhoof. So excited that you're joining here, the 51st episode, we're into season two, this is 2022, what a wonderful start of the year. It's been our second episode releasing and I sit down with the authors, Phil White and Jim Afremow. We talk about the book The Leader's Mind. This is a book that they co-authored. What I find is so intriguing about this book is not only is it this perspective that Phil and Jim worked together, in the process, you're going to hear that in the interview, distilling out these ideologies from leaders. But you're going to hear from I believe, eight different leaders and what they're going through when they prepare, they perform, they prevail. So it isn't just this ideology from an author, but you're hearing what counts from actual leaders in their place. I hope you get tremendous value out of it. I was so excited when this book released and be able to talk to Phil and Jim about the book. I hope you enjoy this conversation, and I'll see you guys at the end. [TYLER] Welcome Jim and Phil, Jim Afremow, and Phil White, the authors, the brainchilds behind The Leader's Mind. As well, you guys have written several other books. Jim has a lot about the mindsets, about the mind, Phil you've written a lot of performance books as well, and I'm glad to have you both here as the co-writers, co-authors, collaborators per se of The Leader's Mind, and so excited to discuss that book and really the topics that it brings up that can help a leader perform at their best. So guys, welcome. [DR. JIM AFREMOW] Thanks so much, Tyler. We're glad to be with. [PHIL WHITE] Thank you. [TYLER] So let me first start off in this, and this is kind of a question, as I kind of prepared for this and got into the book a little bit and I want share this for audience too, is getting into it and the interviews you did. What surprised you? [DR. JIM] Well, what was really fun about the whole project is how giving these leaders were in terms of their time and sharing their story and being vulnerable with us. I guess that's part of what surprised me. We interviewed some really successful leaders across different achievement domains, and they were so giving. We talk about servant leadership, but they demonstrated it with us and they wanted to help us, but also help the readers to learn more about what makes them tick, what they've learned about leadership and how everyone can potentially benefit. [TYLER] I mean, I love that. To me that's kind of the, if we look at the healthy leader, which I'm about, and reading through The Leader's Mind is really about helping leaders create the fertile, healthy ground from their mind, and then display it out. I don't think you can be a healthy leader without being vulnerable. [DR. JIM] Yes. I think Phil and, I in terms of these interviews have real realize that in order to make an impact or connect with others on an emotional level, we have to open ourselves up so they could connect with us. So that does take some vulnerability to let people in, but that's where the magic happens. [TYLER] Phil, what about you? [PHIL] I think one of the interesting things about this was that every leader in there, in his or her own right, is an elite level performer and leads other elite level performers to be better. The focus for them is, let me help you identify your strengths and weaknesses. There's also a thing around A players around not just empowering their people to be the best, but for themselves. Zaki, former Apple exec and now has a great podcast and a lot of excellent books always talks about that, the insecure leader, the egomaniac leader and a leader with a lot of blind spots who is not an A player and is really a B player, hires C players because he or she doesn't want to be challenged. He or she doesn't want those weak spots exposed. Then the C players hire D players and the D players hire E players. So we go, and this is how organizations that were strong at the beginning weaken over time. So I think it's quite interesting that all of the leaders we talk to are true A players, but they want to hire A plus or A plus plus players to not only make up for the deficiencies that they see, because all the leaders we talk to, I think Jim would agree, have very few blind spots and want to be told about them so that they can fill in the gaps. But they're not scared of being challenged. Actually they want to be challenged. They want someone to go after them. They want iron to sharpen iron effectively, to use the biblical metaphor. [TYLER] Man, you touched on so many books that I reference daily and things that we go from Jim Collins, Good to Great and The Level Five Leader. What does the level five leader want to do is they want to surround themselves with other leaders that are as good or greater. You brought that up, the law, the lid, if you're a five, you can't bring in a six or a seven and that's because you're trying to hold back everyone else. And from John Maxwell, and I think that's so wonderful you bring that up because as you guys saw across the different industries, it's all the same. This is all people. It doesn't matter if it's sports. It doesn't matter if it's service business, doesn't matter if it's research business, you had all those, and it was across everyone, I'm gathering, you found that, not one industry different than another. [DR. JIM] Yes, I would say good leadership is good leadership and the same thing with mindset that the same principles apply across all different achievement domains. It's just some of the language might change a little bit, but the keys are still similar. [TYLER] It's actually, as I just stopped and thought about that, it's probably what I loved most about the first season, not so much the second season, it is what it is. The first season of, oh my goodness, [inaudible 00:06:36] [DR. JIM] Cool. I haven't seen that yet. Everyone's telling me to see that. [PHIL] That me neither. Jim and I are the only two people that have not seen it. [TYLER] Oh my goodness. Okay, well, I will share this, one, because to me it is the best cinematic display of leadership that I've ever seen. And I say that, because here you take this football coach, there's kind of a encouraging Rob Raw guy, and you throw him on a fledgling premier league soccer team. There everything's like, well, it's not football and he was hired to fail and yet he brings care. He brings let's work together. He brings all the elements of a team. He doesn't need to know anything about the sport to have success, as long as he surrounds himself with people that do understand the notes, his job is to motivate, his job is to encourage, his job is just to lead. To me, what was so great about that is again, this kind of, trying to bring this subject back up, is in leadership or from industry to industry we can fall into this trap in my opinion, that it's so different. Yet again, the people are people and it's not. No, it's not. If your desire is to serve people, then man, you're going to find that path. [PHIL] Yes. I love Rich Sping, obviously multi time CrossFit games champion, and would've been more, had it not been for the knee and back injuries. Then the first one he went where grip gave out on the rope climb. I mean, he could have won 7, 8, 9, and I think him and Matt Fraser, would've had some battle Royal S even beyond what they did, but even Mr. Sunday, himself. So through a combination project mayhem, his gym, and then Froning farms, his bison farming operation. There is a series of shirts with one big word and one of them is serve, another one is prey, but I really love the serve and the prey ones, because it really brings someone's core values and their philosophy down to it's very essence. And then there's a little Bible verse further down that gives a bit more context, but yes, I'm going to get a couple of those shirts and I think that it goes back to Martin Luther King's thing about everybody can be great because anybody can serve. [TYLER] I had one of those shirts. I love it. It brings great conversation. So I appreciate you weaving that in because it really kind of is this okay, if our mindset, let's talk about the mindset, if our mindset, as a player, as a performer or a leader is say, I got to get mine. I from experience, I think you guys, through your interviews through all the research you've done, it's like, it may get you a step forward, but it's not going to last long. It's not going to get you to the end of the race. It's not going to help you perform over time. It's that idea if I go to serve, if I go to be a part of the project, if I go to lead and influence and impact, man, I'm going to last a lot longer. Is that something you guys have seen? I'd love for you guys to start to unpack the mindset around those ideologies. [DR. JIM] Well, I think you really hit the nail on the head there, Tyler, in terms of we all benefit from being part of a winning team. So if we're all about me, me, me, instead of we, we, we, short term that might be to our advantage, but long term, it's not going to pay off. So we've all heard this expression, a rising tide lifts all boats. So by lifting others, other people, we end up lifting ourselves as well. So it's truly is a win-win and that's what I love the idea of one for all for one kind of deal. So I think that's just a great philosophy of kind of teamwork and leadership. [TYLER] Yes. [PHIL] Absolutely. I think if you look at Paul Radcliffe, one of the most successful coaches in women's soccer and in college sports in general at Stanford, he said, "It's not Paul Radcliffe's culture. It's everyone's culture." Because in interviews, people will say, well, what's the secret to Paul Radcliffe's culture? I don't think one is a humble Englishman, he'd like to talk about himself in the third person, but he said, no, that's a fundamental mistake. It's everyone's culture. Then Nick Gill at the New Zealand, All Blacks, obviously you know, for folks that aren't aware, it is not only the best rugby team in the world, but has the highest win percentage of any national team in the last 150 years in any sport. He talked about how culture needs to not just be, you know plant the seed, embedded in and then water it and occasionally weed it, but it's a living breathing thing. And one person can throw that off and can start to tug at the roots or break off flowers and pedals. So that's why the all blacks have that no decades rule. Like there are some players who do not make it that are physically gifted enough because they have a reputation for being disrupted about their organization and so they just don't make it through selection process. [TYLER] The talent should not supersede it. Phil you talked earlier about the strengths. You talked about that. That's one of my beliefs totally is that you have to protect the culture. The culture is what you've made it and allowed it to be and it's dictated by the people there. So if it becomes cultural, normal to be a jerkass, to be a jerk, to cut on other people, well then that's the culture you have. You can say it's something different, but no, that's what lives and exists. If I plant a seed and it's an Oak tree, and I go and tell you, Phil, no, it's pine tree, you're going to look at me and be like, "No, that's an Oak tree. Are you an idiot?" That to me is the same essence with culture. It's everything that's living and breathing within that organization that creates culture. If you want to change the culture, then you have to change the people and not just the few pieces and parts of it. You have to change everyone in their mindset. [PHIL] No, I agree. I mean, it's kind of like the Biblical example of what Jesus said about good trees are known by their fruit and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit and vice versa. So if the tree is diseased, it's going to produce rotten fruit, or just tiny little bits of fruit that aren't going to be marketable and sellable at market. Whereas if it's a good tree it's going to produce not just bigger fruit, but better fruit. Also it's trunk is going to be solid. The branches are going to look as they should, the leaves are going to look as they should at that time of year, but if the tree is diseased it's going to bring forth bad fruit or no fruit at all. [DR. JIM] Well, and Phil brought up Paul Radcliffe earlier and he's someone we feature in the book and he's the winningest coach in Stanford soccer history. So he works with the women's team and they've won three national championships, but here's what he shared with us. I love this kind of along these lines, he said that he identifies the strongest leaders on the team and then what they'll do is he'll have them put down on a piece of paper, all the values that they think are important for the team. Then they'll kind of go through those together and then that becomes part of the culture of the team in terms of everyone's values. So it's kind of a give and take process and it's working with what you got instead of trying to force your own values, always onto the people that work with you or for you. [TYLER] I love that. I love that process because I think if you've been through that situation, seen good and bad cultures. It doesn't really happen until people take ownership and buy in. And as you talked about he's having players right now, which are the values that you think are important? All of a sudden, somebody thinks, writes down in this soccer situation, scoring goals. It's like, he just is about you. It's like scoring. It's like, , y sorry. You no longer fit because ultimately it's not the goals that you can score. It's the goals that the entire team can score. If that's just a value and he can identify from that, it's like, okay, this person either fits or doesn't fit and what we need to do to evolve that? Are they going to be someone that over time is going to fit in or are they going to find themselves fitting out? You know, seeing that going on the sports world right now, I'm a Browns' fan, a self-professed Browns' fan. With Al Beckman, it's like, are you fitting in or fitting out? He seemingly chose to fit out and it's amazing how that organization is kind of, I think they'll become stronger. I believe when cultures kind of create those boundaries per se, it actually makes people feel more comfortable, safer of what is in --- yes. [DR. JIM] I love what you said there, because that's how you find out whether a culture is strong or not, is when adversity strikes. And exactly what you're saying, is it going to be something along the lines where there's fingers pointed or is it going to be, hey, we got to figure this out and come together. If we do that, then we could overcome a lot. It was kind of like with the Atlanta Braves this year. They go on and win the world series, even though they had pretty much a 500 record for most of the season and then they lost one of their best players, if not their best player. Then all of a sudden they rallied together and said, "You know what, everyone's counting us out. Let's see what we can make possible." Part of that was, they were so close to each other and they really cared about each other and then they were able to make kind of the impossible possible by ending up winning the world series for the first time in, was it 25 years? So it's amazing what could happen when adversity strikes. It could build you up or break you down and that depends a lot on the leadership and the teamwork and the culture. [TYLER] Man, this is really an attack on my sports allegiance. You know, you have to go there and bring back the pain of the Cleveland Indians, losing that world series when they were up. But that's all right. I get it. It fits in. You're exactly right. To me, you made a great statement there, is everyone in a culture where they feel cared for and everyone cares they'll accomplish way more than the sum of their parts. [PHIL] It is that feeling of safety. Like we, both Jim and I both recently reread Dan Coyle's excellent book, The Culture Code, and even just the the Greg Popovich chapter alone would be worth the price of admission there. We can only hope to emulate down and his great writing and his great case studies, but I love his approach. We both do. He talked about how Popovich makes people feel safe, makes them feel welcome. It's the old playground analogy of the kids with no boundary, kind of all hurtling together in the middle. They're scared to go on the slides and the swings and everything whereas the ones who have the clear boundaries around the perimeter, they're all over the playground, doing their different things. Yes, I mean as kids, we crave that and we know that those who come out of broken homes or homes where there's substance abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse do not feel safe. Therefore that's a lot of the reason why they act out and why they have behavioral problems and the cascade and that systemic, whose systemic problems continue. So I think feeling safe is as important as feeling valued in a way. [TYLER] So let's talk about that, because I think you mentioned something earlier about security and I'd love to talk about the subject of insecurity. I think when we talk about safety, there's very much an element of how insecurity plays into that. From your interviews and from what you've seen and going to some of your mindset work, how does this idea of safety and security really start to break down personal insecurities when it comes to a performer and as a team element? What have you seen in this stuff that you guys have interviewed and done? [DR. JIM] Well, I think that one thing is, if you don't feel safe, you're going to close up and you're not going to take risks and you're not going to share things. So information is power. If you're not sharing your ideas or your thoughts, or what you think could make things even better, then no one's going to win in that scenario. And I do think unfortunately, a lot of people, whether in corporate America or depending on where you work or what sport, or whether even in the classroom you don't ever want to feel like a productivity machine. You want to feel like a person that's valued and cared for, and that you could be yourself, but, and again, in a true win-win kind of relationship where everyone is part of something special. And maybe you have a different role than someone else, but you're valued within your role. So I think that's just so important. Then that's when we start to flourish when everyone feels like cared for. I know in the military, one of the expressions is, it's about, it's not so much of about the hardware, it's about the human. So we want to take care of the human more than let's say the hardware, or just what can they do for me? So I know that a lot of athletes that I've worked with when they feel really cared for by their coach they're willing to go through a brick wall for that coach. I've heard one even say, I love my coach so much. I would go through a brick wall for my coach, come around fix the brick wall and then go through it again, because I care that much about my coach. So that's based on real close, good relationships. We were kind of talking about Paul Radcliffe earlier and one of the things that we noticed from all the leaders that we interviewed for the book, The Leader's Mind is that they love helping others kind of grow into leadership roles on the team, or where they work, but then also they're setting them up for success later on in life. They want them to be promoted. They want them to be successful. [PHIL] Yes, absolutely. I think, again, the insecure leader has temper tantrums. They see clicks and triangles developing among their subordinates, or even their peers on the leadership team that don't exist. They have this weird combination of oversensitivity and resistance to criticism while not understanding that sometimes the way they treat others around them is insensitive or harsh or comes across as rude. So there is definitely, you can see trends between the kind of secure leaders who are kind of recognized that we're all a work in progress but also that they have reasons to feel safe and secure and their ego is not fragile, so it's not easily bruised. And again, they invite everyone to speak. So, you mentioned Paul Radcliffe as a great example. Or then you look at the Fire Chief, Nick in the first chapter and everyone is not only encouraged to speak, but sometimes he'll call on rookies or second year firefighters on that wildland firefighter crew to speak up and say, what do you think we didn't do well enough as a leadership team? How could we do better? How can we serve you better? And really that all comes back to their core values or if he finds out that a firefighter is allegedly bullying another member of the team, or two or three others, he'll call them in, and they'll go back to the three kind of core values, like, is this true? If it is, how does that reflect these three values? And, oh, do you remember what they are? Yes, you do. Okay. Or if you don't let me remind you. And now he won't fire them, but he'll say, I want to hear about this again. Just go out and reflect our core values. [DR. JIM] Nick Peters, he's the fire district chief manager that we interviewed. Yes, he said kind of a lot of leadership boils down to be a good person. And one of their core values is respect. So if someone's being disrespectful, he doesn't make it an issue between him and that person. He makes it an issue between them and that core value. So "Hey, as one of our values is respect, but then I saw you doing A, B and C with a fellow employee. Help me to understand how that relates to respect." So then it's not a personal thing. It's more about, "Hey we're better than that and let's get back to that." [TYLER] I love it. One of the fabric pieces that I enjoy about these conversations is how without being it planned so many things intertwined. We talked from vulnerability to culture, to safety, to being cared for and to boundaries. And I think that as we look through all those things, the opportunity for a leader to maximize each of those areas brings about their ability to lead. And I want to take for a second, Jim, you talked about coach Radcliffe and how he went above and beyond not only to care for players, but he took that next step to encourage, to help them grow as a leader themselves. And one of the things I've experienced is you can have coaches that have boundaries, which we've talked about, which established that, "Hey, does this person care for me? They're keeping me safe. There's boundaries here." They can also be combative or oppressive at times, but yet people feel cared for. I think the difference, and I'm just wondering, I'm speculating, the difference between those achieving and maybe they succeed time again, as opposed to being longstanding; is, are you caring for being people and then at the same point, empowering people to achieve more, even maybe if they overshadow you? Because I see this idea in this intersection is even the leaders and coaches specifically that their players, oh, I care for them. I care for them, but yet there's the coach, there's the player. But then all of a sudden, when you create this culture and this atmosphere it's like, "Hey, I'm going to be vulnerable. I'll admit my weaknesses. I'll lay my, go through my insecurities and say, that's just, I'm a part of the team and I'm going to help you become a better leader and maybe surpass my abilities." Man that's when you become a dynasty like the All Blacks, or like Paul has done it at Stanford. To me, that just is a major emphasis point. [PHIL] I think you bring up an interesting thing and that's around coaching trees. We hear a lot about Greg Popovich's coaching tree, Bill Belichick's coaching tree, Bill Walsh's coaching tree, this kind of thing. So in sport, what is talked about a lot, but maybe not., so in other areas, and ultimately, I think you cannot be scared if you are the head coach of developing an assistant or even an intern with the fear, oh, they're going to leave. They're going to take all this institutional knowledge. Like those great coaches have wanted those who come after them to be better than them. So they're more than willing to share all the pitfalls, all the mistakes. That's why there's a lot of great resources out there, like how to write a book from soup to nuts or how to do this and that. It really isn't often the person saying, oh, look at all my successes, but it's saying, I want to help you avoid. That's what mentoring is really. It's about helping the mentee to avoid the pitfalls or the sinkholes that you fell into and others you know fell into along the way so that you can accelerate their journey down the road, and then you can help them to go even further down the road and pick up that torch from you and take it further on. Because it's useless if you're just running in parallel. You've got to hand it to them and then let them take it. And if you are scared, if your ego is so fragile, that you're just worried about losing control of that person or to losing tribal knowledge, that they're going to get and take and use against you, that's not leadership. That's just insecurity and fear manifesting itself. [TYLER] You describe a situation, a four by four, whatever relay and they got to pass the baton. I've never run track. I was slow. I was slow, but yet I understand the concept and it's like, you have to pass the baton. In order to pass the baton, there has to be a moment of faith and trust the other person is going to ground. Only then will you be able to succeed and complete that next lap because if you go too far holding the baton, I mean, you're disqualified. There's a loading zone per se there. I think that's a great analogy for so many leaders to accept and say, "Hey, if I'm not showing people how to pass the baton and maybe run a faster lap than I did, I'm not really helping the team." And that idea that, the theory and saying that well, if I train people up and they leave, oh, then I'm going to be left without them. It's like, but if you don't train people up and they stay, that's a really bad spot to be in. And I think if you look at that without a hierarchy, if my job as leader is to train up everyone, coaches, players, managers, whatever else I'm helping the entire organization. That's a way to, I guess, process through that insecurity and to me it's being empathetic. [PHIL] And just realizing that there's a duty of care. Like with the Hippocratic oath that do no harm, well, so what is your equivalent of that as a coach? Even with creators, we see this, because we don't just talk to people in sports, obviously as the book demonstrates. So with creators, like if I go to somebody like David Epstein, who's become a good friend the last couple of years and I say, "Dave, you're still using word, using like Scrivener or what are you using?" If Dave thinks, well, I would never be able to sell more books, but if he's worried that I might, Jim and I, or whoever might sell more books than him and he thinks, oh, well, if I give away all this knowledge around my systems, then that could almost be used against me. Even on, in that kind of basis, like Chase Jarvis is a prime example at creative life where he does what he calls mentoring at scale, this podcast and the stuff he posts. And really what he's going for there is to give you everything. I've really found it useful, say with pricing, like how as a writer do you, someone says, well, how much do you charge an hour? Well, I got to the point where I'm like, well, I don't charge by hour. That's not a good way to charge and here's why, not either for me or for you. It's really his playbook. His book, Creative Calling, he does such a great job. So he's willing to share literally everything. He knows some systems to processes, to decision trees and everything because he is not scared of another photographer, filmmaker, creator surpassing him. In fact that would bring him joy if they did the surpass him. [TYLER] I think it's a major unwinding of our insecurities and it's being open source as opposed to closed. And one of the things that I've learned, and I appreciate you guys sharing this to me, this is a great discussion where we're learning and growing, we're thinking different thoughts. That's how we all get better. To me, it's a process of layered learning. It's a process of why I enjoy these podcasts, why I enjoy helping others, because it's like, well, if I bring in my unique thoughts, how I see the world, and if we all collaborate together, man, we're all going to end up better off afterwards. To me, from a mindset of a leader, if we're going in with that, I guess, ideology to lead, man, then it's not who we're going to follow me. It's, who's going to lead with me. Where are we going to go to accomplish this great vision? I think that can only happen when we start to accept some of our fail abilities and really work on our mindset in that process of right, what am I thinking here? Because what I'm thinking in here flows through here and it damages, but it doesn't matter what my actions do. [PHIL] Yes. We have a great example of a forthcoming guest on our podcast that's coming out pretty soon, Champion Conversations, shameless plug alert. It's a mentor of mine actually from the software, from the technology space and trade shows. He was vice president of sales part, of the executive team and had had a seat with two other execs, the CEO being one of them and the chief technology officer being the other at the time on a company that was wildly successful. He would just say, someone came up, he would say, "Hey, I'm mark and I'm with [name of the company]." He could have said like some other colleague did, oh, "Hey, I'm mark, I'm vice president and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah," this long list of letters. You see this in coaching sometimes of, nothing wrong with putting all your qualifications after your name but if you insist that everyone always mentions all of them, that's an insecurity problem. So for me, just seeing that humility in action as a 20 something year old and realizing that he, you know, "Hey, I'm just mark. I do what I do here. How can I help you today? How can I serve you today?" Man, that was like, that's pretty great. Then I read another one recently, it's a bad analogy, because I forget which book it was in. Maybe it was in Culture Code where the CEO calls everyone else at the company a cobos is a Cobos. But I think we sometimes see these CEOs and head coaches and fire chiefs and others, there are some really great ones and we cannot discount the importance of a strong leader and even a dominant leader like Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, who delineated like I am the manager and I am at the top of the tree and it's my way or the highway. There's nothing wrong with that kind of leadership. But at the same time, you have to be able to trust your people to do their thing and trust in their character. If you don't, you're just setting yourself up for failure because you're isolating, the saying it's lonely at the top, it's only lonely at the top if you're not willing to say, "Hey, I'm Tyler and I'm with, hey, I'm Jim and I'm with." So when this ego thing comes through, and it's all about me, I am the founder, I am the CEO and you will do as I say, you can do that, but you better have a lot of credibility in the bank that you can draw on if that's going to be your stance. [DR. JIM] Yep. And then another aspect of this is it reminds me of kind of the counseling work that I've done or the individual sports psychology work that I've done that you always ask yourself, am I sharing this or doing this in service or for the benefit of the client that I'm working for. So for example, self-disclosure being vulnerable, if I'm doing that, just because it feels good for me to talk about that but I'm putting a burden on my client, well, that's obviously not healthy, but if I'm sharing it to maybe normalize like, hey, this stuff's hard or it's human to think that way or feel that way or my story might relate to your story is in the benefit or for the benefit of that person then it's great. I've been around a lot of successful coaches as Phil has and one of the things is they'll share stories like, "Hey, when I played, man, I made more mistakes than you did." And it's kind of in a way that's saying like I understand how hard this game is. And that's one of the things that I hear from athletes and other types of performers is they'll say coach or boss, or our leader forgets how hard this really is, because they're not in the trenches with us. So that's a way of sharing that, look, I went through hardships too, and I know how hard this is. I've got your back. [TYLER] Phil, did you tip your hand that you're a Man U fan? [PHIL] I'm actually a Southampton FC fan. This is my dad's team where his family is from, but yes, I'd say Man U is probably my second team. It is definitely my brother's team, but yes, I'm a Saints' fan. [TYLER] So considering we are recording the beginning November, there's a Derby tomorrow, are you nervous? [PHIL] We just see how it goes. It depends if Ronaldo puts on his Superman Cape again, as he has done already in five games for him. So no, no, no. I'm more interested in Southampton. They managed to stifle United, City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs and that only got them one point out of each of them. So their points total is a little lacking right now but if we can start banging some goals in then up the Saints, I say. I only have half an eye on the United-City game. [TYLER] Okay. All right. Jim's just like, okay. Here's something that I realize and you hit on it, a leader's ability to connect is directly related to their ability to lead an impact. And as you, both and Jim as you described it, that leader that's empathizing, that's connecting, that, "I've been here before, I'm with you, I'm not saying it was worse. It's not seven miles uphill in the snow each way to school. I get the ups and downs." But at the same point, there's acknowledging we still have different positions. But my job as a leader is to narrow that gap as opposed to extend it because if I extend it, then I can't possibly be where you're at. But if I recognize that gap and then I go to connect and I relate to you and I am vulnerable and I shrink that gap, the better off we're able to work together. And I'm creating a vulnerability to where in my viewpoint, when you're doing that and you shrink that you recognize the gap and you say, "Hey, the buck stops with me, but I'm going to shrink this gap," there's an accountability there but there also becomes an opportunity for candor and vulnerability to say it's ultimately me, but if I create enough care, I may be wrong. And if you call me out on that's okay, because I shrunk the gap as opposed to I am here. I am only here. And remember there's a gap and to me, as you describe that, that's what I think about is the great leaders are the ones that shrink the gap so much, but yet they still recognize it's there. [DR. JIM] Well, here's an interesting example of that. So Tom Brady obviously is maybe almost twice the age of some of his teammates and here's what he said. He said the key to relating to much younger players is genuinely caring about them and wanting to help them succeed. So he gets to know them, you know, what are you listening to? What kind of music do you like? He really genuinely cares about them and they feed off of that and that frees them up to go out and perform their best instead of him walking around trying to big time everyone. So that's why he is so special, is he's one of the best ever, if not the best ever to do what he does, but yet younger guys relate to him and want to play hard for him. [PHIL] Yes, and I think, too, one of the examples from Dr. Furlike Katrina, in the book is that one of her mentors was told by somebody, well, I've heard that you let your, basically your med students who are getting ready to graduate, but are not full doctors yet take part in procedures. I'm not comfortable with that. He basically said, I'm paraphrasing it badly, but, well, if that's the case, then I guess you should go to another hospital because that's how we teach people here. So yes, this is important and your life is on our hands but if I trust this person, you have to as well. That's how I develop leaders. And that's in the most, neurosurgery obviously pretty high consequence. We seem to see the same with Nick at the fire line because Nick Peters cannot be at every spot. If that fire line is 20 miles, even if it's two miles, he couldn't possibly be his range of vision if he's on the ground, is so small that he has to have experienced folks all the way along the line. Those rookies, second year, third years, some of the who may have come from house fires to now fighting wildfires, a blazing thousands of acres per day, they have to be the eyes on the ground. And Jocko and our friend commander Walkville would say the same in Iraq and Afghanistan. Like yes, there is a Stanley McCrystal or someone at the top, but he has to delegate through the chain of command. The chain of command, people just think about it being top down. In some ways it has to be, or people can die, but it also has to be a two-way chain of communication that runs in parallel to the chain of command, both up and down. The people above have to take as gospel what the unit commanders on the ground are seeing and empower them to make decisions because you've got to be able to invest responsibility in people to help them to grow even if you're not sure they're ready for it. And if they're not ready for it, maybe you need to give them more opportunities to experiment and possibly to fail. [TYLER] I mean, that's how you're going to learn and grow, is through experience, through repetition. And I think that's that process. It's like, all right, what are we doing to create those repetitions? That's how we're going to get better standing forward. Man, I fairly enjoyed this conversation. I appreciate the time both of you have been willing to spend. As we wrap up, is there any bow, any cherry on top that you'd love to share about the books that you guys written, The Leader's Mind, any of it? I'd love for the opportunity for you guys to do so. [DR. JIM] Well, I would just like to say real quick that this is such an important topic because we know that most people leave their jobs or want to transfer to a different team if they're an athlete based on the leadership, not necessarily their craft or in terms of the actual work duties that they have. Then we also know through research that around 50% of people are really disengaged at work. A lot of that is leadership related. So you don't need a title to be a leader. We play different leadership roles throughout our life, whether it's with family works or whatnot and we should all think of ourselves as a leader in some way and get better at it. And we don't have to go through the wilderness kind of braving on our own. That's why we interviewed so many great leaders to provide sort of a roadmap or some examples, some role models that we could sort of emulate while still being ourselves. [TYLER] Awesome. [PHIL] I agree, Jim, very well said. And I think yes, Tyler, thanks so much for giving us the opportunity to riff with you and been a lot of fun and we'd love to do it again and have you on our podcast as well, and continue the conversation in some of these other directions. But I think it just goes back to the Martin Luther King quote. Again, I may be getting the anybody and the everybody. So if anyone's listening, I'm tired, I got it the wrong way around, whatever, but everybody can be great because anybody can serve. So that isn't just about wearing your rich phoning shirt that says serve, but he would say, it's not a rich phoning shirt. It's a project mayhem, or it's a phoning farm's thing and that's a whole team because he's that humble. But I would say that the overarching motivation of a Daniel Le Betsky, of a Nick Gill, of a Nick Peters, of a Katrina Furic, of a Tammy Joe Schultz, is how can I serve you? In serving you, how can we together make the world a better place? So I think it's always good when closing an email to say I close it as greatly, which I got from the, I riff off of the Olympian, the Olympic paddler and gold medalist, Joe Jacoby, who's become a good friend. He always signs his with gratitude. So I kind of borrowed it and tweaked it gratefully, but it's always good to say like genuinely, let me know if there's ever anything I can do to help or serve you. Then in a week, if you think, oh goodness, well actually Jim could help me with this or Tyler could maybe help me with this, well, I'm going to text one of you guys and say, "Hey, I got to meet this new friend the other day, Sarah or Steve or whoever it is, and I think they could benefit from learning what you told me the other day about topic X. Is it cool if I introduce you?" Introduce him, do things for people to serve them without expecting anything in return. I think that's an overriding red thread throughout the book. [TYLER] I love that and I appreciate that. That's something that truly is in my heart. So thank you for sharing that. Appreciate you guys both and excited for others to read the book and see what they get out of it. So thank you guys for your time. [PHIL] No, thank you so much. [DR. JIM] With gratitude. [PHIL] Gratefully [DR. JIM] Gratefully. [TYLER] As you heard in the interview, some of the big takeaways that I have constantly been thinking more and more about as a leader is the ability to have this vulnerability to recognize strengths and weaknesses, not as like benefits and holdbacks, but to understand what we're made of. That's the key focus in the Impact Driven Leader community, is helping each other go through that process. It's a process you have to learn. But I believe that's the greatest opportunity a leader has. Some of the books that I've read and really kind of this idea of progressive leadership is not discounting people for where they're weak, but rather admiring where they're strong. I think a leader's great opportunity is to do that, to recognize the people, find the people that they work with, create an environment to where their strengths can thrive and really blossom. That's what we want to be a part of. If you think about the conversations that you've had with those that you work with, maybe your superiors, those that you're leading, the ones that are energizing is when you're talking about all the great things. Now that doesn't mean, in my past is that we have to discount all the, whatever holds us back to weaknesses. Rather, we just have to empower others that are strong in those areas. How do we expose those blind spots as we talked about in the interview in order that you can maximize the opportunity and not just, oh, we'll bury the and hope they disappear? That doesn't work. And when you create that culture, man, I have to believe it's empowering. It's exciting. And I love to see that. I love to see those empowering, exciting, uplifting cultures, because that's what I want to be a part of. That's what I want to really see in the world because I know when we do, that we're working as a leader to be healthier. We're helping those around us be healthier in our physical, in our emotional, in our relational, in our spiritual being. Man, when we're doing that, we're showing up to everyone else the best possible way we can. If you got value out of today's episode, man, I'd love for you to share it with someone. Make sure you're subscribed if you're not already. Then as well, I would surely love a rating and review. We're moving the second season here of the Impact Driven Leader podcast and my desire is to impact more people. I want to be able to share this message of insecurity and empathy and vulnerability and healthy leadership, not toxic leadership. Our world has plenty of those examples. We need to be examples of healthy leadership. And that's a process. It takes work to get there. It just doesn't happen by osmosis or overnight, but it's a process of being around people that can speak into you and encourage you to be more than what you thought you could ever be. That's part of the Impact Driven Leader community. I invite you to join us, click on the link here in the show notes, click on the link and join us at theimpactdrivenleader.com. I'd love to have you join us and can't wait to release the next episode. So be back next week, make sure you subscribe, so you get that alert and I will see you next time.