IDL76 Season 2: Leadership Gravitas with Eric Pfeiffer

How does personal responsibility create a trusted environment for vulnerability? Why should you choose significance over success? What is the mark of maturation in a leader?

In this episode, I’m excited to introduce you to my new friend, Eric Pfeiffer. He is the author of Leadership Gravitas and the co-founder of MPWR Coaching. One of the things I really appreciated about Eric’s book is how much the experiences he had paralleled my own. As Eric explains, being in a period of adversity really forced him to look at the world around him and address his blind spots. Throughout this episode, Eric highlights the four different quadrants of leadership: and the importance of taking personal responsibility.

Meet Eric Pfeiffer

Eric Pfeiffer is a leadership coach who works with leaders and teams to increase personal and organizational health to maximize performance and productivity. He is Co-Founder and Senior Consultant at MPWR Coaching.

After spending almost two decades improving the operational leadership culture of hundreds of organizations, Eric knows the bottom-line value of building the most important part of any business
platform - the people.

Eric has partnered with hundreds of organizations, executives and teams to transform their culture from hostile to life-giving, from burnout to breakthrough. As an expert in communication, conflict engagement, and emotional intelligence, Eric is held in high esteem by all of his clients for his ability to help them move the needle of personal and professional growth.

Visit MPWR Consulting and connect on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

IN THIS EPISODE WE DISCUSS:

• Personal responsibility in leadership - 06:10

• What is the mark of maturation in a person? - 11:48

• Vulnerability leads to greater connection - 16:05

• Significance over success - 28:48

• Sustaining employees - 38:42

Personal responsibility in leadership

Taking personal responsibility for your actions and behaviors is something that needs to be taught because it is a skill that you can learn and develop.

Taking accountability and responsibility is one of the first steps of being a great leader and setting the best example for those around you.

How do you act under pressure? Who takes the driver’s seat in your mind when the heat gets turned up? It is that person that you need to keep responsible, and it’s that person's actions that need to still align with your values.

What is the mark of maturation in a person?

You cannot control everything in life.

You cannot control what happens but you can always control how you respond.

One of the starting points of maturing as a person and developing emotional intelligence is accepting that you cannot change the world, but that you do have control over yourself, and this is how you achieve radical freedom.

Vulnerability leads to greater connection

A positive consequence of taking personal responsibility and accountability is that it creates an environment for healthy vulnerability, and these two ingredients are vital for successful leadership.

To create genuine vulnerability, you need to create a safe environment for it to be practiced in and protected.

Significance over success

Sometimes in the pursuit of narrowly defined success, people burn themselves out by sacrificing their mental, physical, and emotional health.

That is not true success, because burnout will force you to fall back down after you achieved the goal.

True success and progress are sustainable. It becomes significant when it can be sustained.

Sustaining employees

Social media is not an accurate depiction of what life is like as a young person in the workplace.

The older generations need to learn the value of integrating health into the workplace, and the younger generations need to learn the value of hard work and discipline.

Each group can learn from the other when the environment is well-managed.

Resources, books, and links mentioned in this episode:

BOOK | Eric Pfeiffer – Leadership Gravitas: 12 Essential Skills to Expand your Impact and Influence

BOOK | Donald Miller – Hero on a Mission: A Path to a Meaningful Life

BOOK | Alan Stein Jnr. – Sustain Your Game: High-Performance Keys to Manage Stress, Avoid Stagnation, and Beat Burnout

Visit MPWR Consulting and connect on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

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Check out the Impact Driven Leader Youtube Channel
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.

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What is most important is that we have to accept that one of the starting points of emotional intelligence is accepting that you can’t change the world but that [you] do have control over yourself.

Eric Pfeiffer

Podcast Transcription

[TYLER DICKERHOOF] Welcome back to the Impact Driven Leader podcast. This is your host, Tyler Dickerhoof. Whether you're watching on YouTube, how you doing? Are you listening, wherever you listen to podcast, man, I'm glad you're here today. I'm excited for you to listen this conversation with a new friend, a true new friend, man. We have really hit it off. Eric Pfeiffer. Eric is the author of Leadership Gravitas. He is also the co-founder of a coaching organization, MPWR Coaching, and works with clients throughout the US and has a long history of being in the space. One of the things that I really enjoyed from this conversation with Eric is, I didn't know this until reading the book, how much the experiences I had paralleled his own, meaning he got kicked in the guts one day and lost one of their clients is he talks about in the book, and that really forced him to look at the world around him, address those blind spots. He'll talk about it in this interview, the four different quadrants of leadership gravitas that he goes through. The first one is self-awareness. I think that is the biggest probably tool that any person and or leader, and remember, everyone's got to lead themselves first, so you're a leader, can really tap into to grow and develop. We talk about that. We talk about a lot of other factors and part of that self-awareness is taking personal responsibility. You are where you are. As a previous book that we talked about in the Impact Driven Leader book club, Hero on a Mission is like taking agency. I encourage you to take some notes today. [TYLER] Man, if you could share this episode, I know I'd be grateful. I know Eric would be grateful and to add value to someone's life. If you get value out of this let me know. Rate, review this podcast wherever you watch. Comment on YouTube. I'd love for you to do that. Let me know what you think, what value you got from this episode. I'll see you as we wrap this one up. But stay tuned and listen in to this conversation with Eric Pfeiffer. Eric, welcome to the Impact Driven Leader podcast. Man, I'm excited to have this conversation with you and thankful that our paths have crossed and as I have gotten to know you and our previous conversation, reading your book and everything is like, man, we are two people cut from the same cloth as I can see, as we've talked about before. That's exciting to me because it means that I'm not a complete fool when it comes to this leadership stuff that actually the stuff that I'm learning and figuring out other people are grasping where I've grasped too. [ERIC PFEIFFER] Absolutely, buddy. Well, Tyler, it's great to be with you. I know we shared a brief conversation leading up to this podcast, and I think we did determine very quickly that actually we're friends already, so, yes, I'm excited to jump into the conversation and happy to follow the journey wherever you want to take it. [TYLER] I'd love to first start off about you and a lot of it is in your book Leadership Gravitas, which just released earlier this year. That's how I got to know a little bit more about you. We have mutual friends that spurred that connection there. But I'd like to know just share for the audience yourself, your experience in leadership and as you describe in the book, man, I can relate so much. I've been through that same path that led me to the same places but I'd love to take the audience through that journey as well. [ERIC] I'll give you some different details if you want more, just ask more. I'm 45 going on 46, so I'm in that midlife season and doing a lot of reflection, man, on the journey I've been on. It's a pivotal juncture for I think most people in their careers, their lives, their families. I've been married for almost 21 years. I've got a 19-year-old daughter and a 17-year-old son. They have played a very much a significant role in my own journey because I believe leadership is really a synonym for influence and so my journey of being married and in having kids and friends, that's all been a part of the background of my journey and what comes out in the book. I've led for a lot of years and a lot of different context in the non-profit world and the for-profit world and I think like a lot of people, I spent so many years realizing that my leadership journey was not going to be determined by everybody around me like I once believed. I like to blame people and project responsibility on my successes and failures on everybody around me but through mentorship and a lot of help, I realized I'm actually a lot more in charge of my own leadership journey than I realized. So that started me down this path of studying and learning from a lot of different sources, more about myself and about my journey and what it meant to take responsibility for my leadership journey and in every area of my life. So what comes out now, either in my coaching business, in my book, and a recent, not a recent, but an e-course that's coming out actually this week, which is exciting is really the overflow of what I've learned from people smarter than me and from my own journey in hopes to help other people unlock their own personal potential and to be set free from the victim villain mindset that we often fall prey to when things aren't going our way. [TYLER] All right, that's a whole can of a lot of things that we can dig into and relate to. I mean, as you're sharing that, it's like, yes, I relate there and there as we've talked about before. So let's go back into this, you mentioned it briefly there. It was the, I don't want to say the crux, but really the development of your, oh man, I got to get better at this. I got to figure out my problems, as you described in your book. That's that personal responsibility. If I were to label it was the armor that you put on as I believe we all wear insecurity and we guard, we all have insecurities. We guard that with an armor. For you, as you mentioned, it was putting blame on others, and you had to come to the day to take personal responsibility. So as a person that I would call a young Gen X and older millennial, I'm right in that same boat, a lot of our listeners are as well, going through that same pattern path of you as you have, that I have, explain to me why you, it was such a struggle at first to take personal responsibility, but then really what happens once you did? [ERIC] Well, I mean, I want to begin by saying that I think personal responsibility is a skill that we can develop. I think maybe some of us, based on our personality or natural wiring might be more naturally disposed. But it was something that I didn't grow up learning about, quite frankly. It wasn't something my parents invested a lot of amazing stuff into me and my four siblings but this wasn't an area that was spoken a lot about. It wasn't an area of discipline it wasn't talked about. So I think like most of us as human beings, I think we all have self protecting mechanisms. I think in general, as human beings, we don't want to be seen as flawed or failures or inadequate and all that kind stuff. It exposes insecurities and even more now in our social media driven world. I mean we're constantly trying to keep up with the Joneses in a whole new way. That puts us oftentimes in a position where we want to hide our struggles rather than expose them. So I think it's pretty common, I think, to most people, the experience of hiding those inadequacies. We're going to find one way or another. So for some of us we're going to project that responsibility onto the people, the circumstances. I mean, we can go as far back as saying my great, great, great, so and so did this, and that's why I'm where I am at today. Obviously, I think things actually do float down river. I mentioned this in my book. But I also think the other flip side is some people want to project responsibility. Some people take too much responsibility and they heap all of the blame on themselves and they become self-segregating and they become self-pacing. There's always what I call two gutters on either side of the road that we're trying to be on. Again, it was part of my journey of coming to the place where I had used all the tricks of my trade to protect myself until I hit a variety of circumstances that forced me to either drown in those old tactics, or to be open or become open to some new ways of dealing with my shortcomings. Thankfully I discovered a way that actually led to radical growth transformation. Now that's what I spend most of my time helping other people do. [TYLER] So let's take that next step and you talked about personal responsibility of being probably the factor that limit your ability to influence and lead and help others. I want to bridge a gap here for maybe someone listening, what are some other factors that you see daily working with people, or if you've experienced that really diminish the ability for people to have influence or their ability to make an impact? [ERIC] Yes, that's a great question. Well, the first thing I would recommend to anybody is to get the book Leadership Gravitas and read through those opening chapters, because, and that's really where I pour out all these different ways that we as human beings respond to the pressures of life that cause us to hide. Here's what I say in my book, and here's what I often tell people. As human beings, every day we're getting triggered. We all know we get triggered and we're impacted in some way mentally, emotionally, and physically. Sometimes those triggers, either there's a big enough trigger or enough of them mount up and we get hijacked. That's where I talk about how the worst version of us jumps into the driver's seat. When we find ourselves in those places, we're under pressure. I think part of the maturation journey as human beings is how we, or is determined or revealed by how we handle ourselves under increasing pressure. Now, life is pressure, marriage, family, significant relationships, business, finances, health, politics, social issues, it's all putting us under a lot of pressure. I think there are a lot of different defense mechanisms, coping mechanisms, default mechanisms that we explore, some of them, which become very familiar to us but at the end of the day, all of those are really robbing us of the opportunity to take a hundred percent personal responsibility for our attitudes and behaviors. We can't actually, we can't control the world around us. We can influence it, we can't control it. I've tried, and it's a thankless and a never-ending failure but what I tell people is I do believe as human beings, part of our growth journey, part of this journey into maturity or emotional intelligence is recognizing I actually can and am responsible to control myself. I actually have authority over my attitude and my behavior. So whatever our protective or defense mechanism is, what I tell people is most important is that we have to accept that one of the starting points of emotional intelligence is accepting. I can't change the world, but I do have control over myself. [TYLER] Well, I think, that one of the things that I wrote down here in preparation for this is leaders can't be controlling for long, because you can try to control, you can try to do those things. I think there's a certain human element. When we stop trying to control all the things, Alanine Stein Jr., we are talking about his book, Sustain Your Game, and he talks about that is the moment that you give up the desire to control man, how much easier your life gets, the stress releases. I think as a leader, you talk about gravitas. You go on and describe that, the ability to hold that credibility and standard. When you stop controlling people and just try to be in community with them, fine, oh, how can I serve them, man, it gets a lot easier. [ERIC] It does. I would use the word, there's an illusion that we can control the world. I mean, even video games nowadays, and we really love to create environments in which we are now in control of the experience. I think it is an illusion and I think whether it's people controlling, in other words, I think one of the temptations is we want to impose ourself our will, our desire, our expectations into the circumstances around us. My wife and my two semi-adult children can give you thousands of examples of where good old dad or husband has tried to do that and at the end of the day, you end up with what I call a win-lose scenario. Whoever has the greatest authority or power or the ability to impose their desire they win and they get what they want, maybe, but everybody else around them loses. Then there are other people, maybe it's not aggressive or domineering behavior. Maybe it's the other extreme passivity or passive aggressive, or people withdrawing from opportunity or responsibility. I mean, I watch people, when I'm working with executive teams, I watch people in meetings all the time. I love to study people in meetings. You can watch people's body language, their tone of voice. Can you see the people who their default is? When I'm not getting what I want, I overpower. Then other people, their default is to actually render themselves powerless. I think, again, I either default, whatever our defaults are, the moving beyond the illusion that I can control my environment, but really settling into the fact that I can control myself. In doing that, Tyler, there is such a radical freedom mentally, emotionally, physically, when we realize the best thing that I can do in this environment is to bring the best version of myself to this environment. Or what I say in the book is learning to play our cards and let the chips fall where they may. [TYLER] Well, to me, that, and it's one of the keys that you have stepping forward as having this self-awareness and then interacting with people. To me, what you just described is willing to be vulnerable, and it's doing so not to dump on people, but just saying, hey, take me as I am. A friend of mine says, and I've said before here, I'm throwing my arms open. I'm saying, it is what it is. If I have sweaty pits, I'm not trying to hide them. It's okay. I think there's such an endearment that our society has, and it's been popular the last few years. It's been popular with people that you talk about that are actually like, no, you want to have a good, healthy, leading relationship? Just be appropriately vulnerable. That's one of your biggest key tools, but yet people don't want to do that. [ERIC] Yes. Well, it's interesting. I mean, you've looked through the book. Here's what I would say. Obviously, it's vulnerability, a healthy measure transparency opens the door to greater intimacy. To know and to be known, I think is one of the, a way of talking about the core of what human beings are longing for, to know and be known by others. I would say vulnerability within a framework of safety, because I think a lot of times we ventured out into vulnerability. Like we shared with our best friend in middle school some secret about some girl or boy we had a crush on, or somebody that was bothering us and we didn't like them and then that person sold our vulnerability out for their own game, and we got burned. Or we we dated someone for a while and it didn't work out. We tried to reconcile with a parent or a friend, it didn't work out. We put ourselves out there and went for a job or a promotion that didn't work out. So I think vulnerability is absolutely a key for us, creating healthy relationships and building trust but I also think that if we as a society and the culture don't pay attention to the framework that preserves the safety of that vulnerability. I tell people vulnerability is a little bit like a fire. In the right context, it's beneficial, it's helpful. It provides heat, warmth, it provides cooking but in the wrong context, it starts a forest fire and burns everybody's house. [TYLER] Well, I mean that's where it's got to be appropriate. It's the right measure. It's like you described, just the right amount of fire, or the right amount of salt to a meal. You oversold it's tastes horrible. You undersold it's bland. To me, that's that piece. But that comes back to the first step that you identify in the book, which to me was a huge factor. In all of this unlocking for me, was the self-awareness and I made to this mention last night or last week. I'm going to butcher it now. It's the Mark Twain quote of, "It isn't what I didn't know. It's what I knew that isn't so." To me, that's that piece of self-awareness. I butchered that but you hopefully got the point that once you understand that and you're self-aware, you understand what your insecurities are, then you could pinpoint them, identify them. I know how my insecurities show up. My insecurities show up, if we're in a social setting, I will just verbal vomit. I will share what I know instead of just sitting back relaxed. It's cool. We're all good. I have my place here, and I got to check myself on that. Yet I've recognized that now, and I know my insecurities we're showing. To me, that's as you talk about the idea of self-awareness, if we can go there, well, then we start to understand where to be vulnerable, how to be vulnerable and not be protecting. [ERIC] That's right. I mean, one of the phrases that I challenge all clients that I work with to memorize is you can't change what you can't see. I think as human beings, we'd all admit there are things about ourselves that we think need to change, should change, want to change but if we can't see those things, we can't change them. You can't engage in the things that you don't see clearly. Along with that is this other challenge around, we can't see ourselves clearly and perfectly and holistically, which means we need help. We can't practice self-awareness in a vacuum. So, again, the vulnerability required to find people, to invite people, to allow people appropriately, of course, to help us check our blind spots. I mean, that's why we have rear view mirrors in the car and the backup camera now and the 360 camera. I'm so thankful for those, because I promise you I've bumped many of cars and curbs in my day. But creating an environment, again, this is the framework of safety, is how do we create an environment around ourselves that actually helps promote and protect healthy vulnerability? I think for most human beings, again, I am absolutely convinced I have met, I mean, maybe one or two human beings ever in my life that I was convinced they don't really want to be honest. They don't really want the freedom that comes with being known, appropriately seen. Most people I think, desperately want this. Yet because there's been a lack of safety, in a health context or environment, they've been burned, they've been abused, they've had people really abuse that privilege of their openness and honesty. People are reluctant. Now you put them in a workplace environment where there's competition and there's all the fears of disqualification. It only intensifies the natural desire to self-protect. But again, that's why I say let's fight for self-awareness, but constantly in a context or an environment that is protective of it. [TYLER] So as I'm thinking here and just people watching on video see my face that shows my cards, but it's like how much the flip side of that is learning to be manipulative, meaning there's the people that are like, I can't figure this out. I was in that boat. As I explained to my wife when we first met, I don't even know what manipulation is, much less how to do it. I am, you see what you see. Unfortunately, a lot of that was the armor build up of, oh I'm tough, what I shared earlier, how I express my insecurities. But then when you come across people, when you engage with people, you work with people that are manipulative, and you're like, oh, I see what you're doing. But yet I'm confused in it because you're trying to accomplish the same thing, but you're puppeteering everyone as opposed to being that vulnerable, hey, however, the chips fault, I'm okay. As you said earlier, these are my cards. However, the chips fault, it's good. I can react to it. I know how to react to it appropriately. It's fine. As opposed to those people that are always positioning so they are in control. It's the opposite of this being self-aware. It's the opposite of being willing to identify your blind spots to grow. It's more of like, ooh, how do I shadow those because if someone finds them out, well then, I'm even in a worse place. [ERIC] That's right. [TYLER] We've seen that in leaders a lot. [ERIC] I think that's why I'm not concerned about having a recession proof business because people, regardless of what's going on, that's a normal human experience. I think all of us at some level deal with this this desire to again, self-protect and to create a boundary between us and the world whether it's manipulative or passive because manipulation really is a, I'm going to project my desire into the world where passive is more. I'm going to withdraw from it. Again, either gutter that we fall into. I've seen leaders at the highest levels of any organization fall, literally, CEOs fall not into the manipulative, we all assume this, every CEO of a company is going to be manipulative and aggressive and overbearing. Not so. So many of them actually, their default is to become passive, not to deal with necessary conflict to let their executives or leaders run amok, not to address difficult issues in the trajectory of their financial journey. So either way, understanding those are the two temptations on either side. Then to ask the question, what does it look like for us individually? Then obviously whatever context we find ourself in, how do we create this what people would say it's either or, but rather let's do it both. How do we create an environment where we're able to promote this simple practice of vulnerability, transparency, and a healthy degree of self-awareness? But also to do that in a context where we're not constantly under threat and fear of what if whatever's going to be found out is going to disqualify me from future promotions or opportunities where I'm going to get fired, or it means I'm going to be passed up over other folks? That's, which is very difficult, which is why I think many organizations are in the state they are, where there's not a high degree of psychological safety, in other words where people feel safe to engage in an appropriate amount of vulnerability and transparency to practice self-awareness, honesty, humility. But at the same time, you can encourage people to do that all day long, but the moment people start getting burned on account of it, people will shut down. That's what I find is that now both end, you can tell people or make them to read all the books and say, we need to be self-aware, but self-awareness comes with the price that you've got to build the infrastructure of safety as well. [TYLER] Well, I think as you're sharing that, and I'm thinking of personal accounts of, I've described that Malawi talked about that at Ford. He walks into Ford and they're used to, if there's a problem, you just get axed, you get cut, the trap door opens, you're gone. He had to rebuild that corporate trust to say, bring your problems to me. We're losing a boatload of money. There's got to be problems. It took a while to build up that safety. I was reflecting recently a story about an individual in the military, and he was saying that yes, you want to be vulnerable and go get help, but you can't because if you do, it shows weakness. Yet, once you get to a certain level, then there actually, well, that is good. It's just that double-edged sword that you're constantly fighting with. It happens in a lot of organizations. We look at it right now at, you go back to the Olympics and Simone Biles, she talks about her mental health and people were on two ends of the pulse, either, well, great, good for you that you went and admitted that. The other people were like, you're a professional athlete, I mean, Olympic athlete, you should be able to deal with that. There's a little grace in our society for, hey what's right for the person? That's what matters, not having the empathy to understand, to walk through them. I know that's one of the things that we commented, we shared this idea of humility and empathy being the real answer. Once we've identified our own issues, we help lead ourselves and then we go into others like, man, we got to do so with humility and empathy. So I'd love for you to bridge that gap. How did you discover that personally because I also know that you had to learn empathy. I've had to learn empathy. I've had to develop empathy. I can sit here and I know you can admit to this as well, empathy is absolutely a skill that you can develop. If somebody tells you you don't have empathy, then that's fine. Tell them to come back in a few months and you can have more. But I'd love to know how that evolved for you. [ERIC] That's a great question. Well, to springboard off of the Simon Biles example, it's a great example, it's not just her. She really opened the door for so many other people to come out and say, "Hey, I'm struggling with mental health issues." I think what we're discovering with all of these people coming out and saying, hey, I'm struggling too, we call this the struggling too movement. I think what it's doing for us is it's helping us as a culture. The North American culture in my estimation is a success-driven culture. We're measured by our success. We love our celebrities, we love our social media influencers, we love the people that somehow represent some form of success or notoriety that I think all of us probably at some point secretly wish we had. I don't think there's something necessarily wrong with it all, except when we choose to, what I call choose one over the other. When we choose productivity performance over mental health, for example. We sacrifice mental health on the alter of performance. Well, what happens is, inevitably those people are going to burn out. So even if they don't say something about it, the number of athletes, actors, actresses, CEOs, people who are significant influencers in our world, who have burned out on the altar of trying to produce one more thing because their identity, their sense of personal self-worth was tied up in that. Again, I love productivity. I love the idea of being profitable but when we choose either or, what we find is we undermine the opportunity for long-term sustainable success, which by success, I mean, success has to include both productivity and health. [TYLER] Let me jump in and say, it's the difference between success and significance. When you're chasing success, you're not going to find it. When you drive for significance, it's what you're describing, in my opinion, that significance is like I do have value in meaning. [ERIC] Yes, so here's what I'm doing, Tyler. Again, this is just my approach. Some words are worth redefining, fighting for, redeeming, some words are worth finding new words. I think what has happened is people are starting to say, it's not just about success, it's about significance. That's like saying, we're going to use a new word so that we can actually redefine what we mean by success. I love it, I agree with you. I think we're saying the same thing in two different ways. I'm choosing to redefine success and success has to be at both and pursuit --- [TYLER] Does it go back to the Earl Nightingale. So Earl Nightingale's definition of success is the worthy pursuit of an ideal. If you are a success because you are progressing towards an ideal. That was his definition of success. As I'm hearing from you, it's like, man, let's go back to that as opposed to this image and picture of success means in our world today, you'll love it. A success in our world today is you're flying on your private jet. The success in our world is you have this big monstrous mansion that overlooks the ocean. Oh. That you aren't successful if you don't have those things. [ERIC] Yes, and what I would say is, I think there are just as many people who, their definition of success is if I can just put food on the table, and I work six jobs [TYLER] A hundred percent, [ERIC] So I think for me, and you'll see this in the book I wrote, you'll see this in all of our coaching, we're trying to push people beyond the either or. It's either like the celebrity and you're on your private jet and you're at all these parties or I'm at home and I'm just, I'm healthy, but I'm not successful. So I'm just trying to push to people to say, success is what I think all human beings are hardwired for and what I think we need to do is redefine success as the pursuit of productivity, profitability and whatever it is that our "mission" is because I think all human beings are hardwired for to be on mission for something. But I also think we have to integrate that with the pursuit of personal and relational health because I think as human beings, sociologically, anthropologically, we see that we're tribal creatures and all people in all history have always been about the business of something and building something, fighting for something, creating something, promoting something. So I think what I've heard people talk about this, different authors have started to use the language, like family on mission, tribe on mission, team on mission. So I think what they're trying to do is they're trying to capture a vision for success that would suggest we have to fight for both in an integrated way if we're going to be successful. Here's what I would say, is that the pursuit of emotional intelligence is actually rooted in an understanding that these two are actually two sides of the same coin. Our relational, emotional, mental, psychological health, and a relation, as part of relational health is as important and actually is responsible in many ways for our productivity, profitability and whatever our mission represents. Does that make sense? [TYLER] A hundred percent. Because tying this into leadership as a very broad topic, but yet this idea of, if you're sitting here listening, you're watching this and you're like, Oh, where does this go? How is this fit? It's like, if you're not identifying with that as an individual, then you aren't pursuing the capacity to have influence in leading that you could possibly have. Whether that is through your spouse, your children, your family members, your organization, wherever you are. To me, it's the establishment of that. It's the understanding of the emotional side is the Simone Biles that this professional athletes like, man, I'm being challenged that's diminishing my ability to have an impact and perform. I need to address that because it's not just me. There are other people that are at risk, or there's vulnerability to them if I'm not at my best. Navy Seals, you go through the whole litany of professions that it could be very, very dramatic if you're not at your peak performance, much less apparent. I look at that to say, if we're to tie this back into, if we're humbly able to accept where we're at, and then we're vulnerably able to ask for help and receive empathy from others and express empathy to others in order to walk through that, it's like, hey, I need help. Oh, and Eric's like, you're like, okay, I can help you. Well, that means I have to open my arms. You have to open your arms and now we can walk together. If you were like you were saying earlier that if there isn't that safety, in other words, if I open my arms and say, Eric, this is what I'm dealing with, I need help and you're like, Hmm, sounds like you got a problem, dude, then I'm going to turn, and one, I'm going to have this mask but I'm also going to say, well, I can't go to him when I have issues. All he wants from me is XYZ. [ERIC] That's right. So can I tie this back into, I want to tie this back into the leadership. I know this is a leadership podcast. I think the assumption, this is all leadership communication, but here's an interesting observation that I've been sitting on for years now, because you asked me earlier, what was your journey, what was part of my journey. As a Gen Xer now we're making big broad stroke generalization, so forgive me for that but I think there are generalizations for reason. As a Gen Xer, I grew up on the heels of the boomers and the builders, and I grew up in a transition. I think I represent a transitional generation between the boomer builders and then the millennial and Gen Zers and everybody else that's coming down is, I think for a long time, especially in the workforce, the mentality, the culture was you exist to serve the mission of the business. I'm going to say dot, dot, dot at all costs. So for a long time, it was just understood that you were expected to sacrifice mental, emotional, relational health on the alter of whatever was in the best interest of building the business, getting the project done, landing the client, making more money, whatever the case was. Now, thankfully, we have a whole generation that's coming into the workforce and very quickly are coming into power in the workforce, the millennials. What they're saying is there's almost, which is normal for human beings, we're creatures of overreaction, their response is, we've seen how that goes. We've seen all the divorce statistics in our culture. We've seen families fall apart. I watched mom and dad, whoever, sacrifice their personal health and relational health on the alter of the mission or the business. That didn't work well because now we're picking up the pieces of all the brokenness and dysfunction. Thankfully they're a hopeful generation. So they're coming and saying, "Hey, we want things to be different." Now here's what I've also seen. One of my business partners is a millennial so we have a lot of fun processing and together trying to model something differently. I will often share with him that my observation after so many hours of conversational millennials is I think there's a little bit of an overreaction. There's almost a sense now that my personal health, my relational health needs to come ahead of the mission or the business. Now, as is often case, when there's two opposite sides, they're going to play tug war. You're watching this happen right now, and it's pretty intense in a lot of workplaces but here's what I think the win is. I think the win is in both generations, in both, of these polar opposites pulling on each other to recognize that it's actually not either or. Because the millennial generation, if I'm honest they want to be significant at 22. I'm like, dude, at no point in history were people significant at 22. At no point in history were you the owner of multiple businesses and making millions of dollars. Also, social media has told us now we can have it all at 22, 23 years old, because a few people have found a way towards that. But the natural journey, I think for people is you pay your dues, you grow through your character, you learn new skills, you work through a variety of roles and responsibilities until you find the right fit, fine. So I think it's the older generation, this is how I coach businesses right now, the older generation recognizing, hey, you've got to integrate the value of personal health far more than you are today if you want to keep these high performing millennials around. But at the same time, I have to coach them, a lot of millennials in the reverse, hey, you need to value what that older generation learned, discipline, hard work, tenacity, staying in a similar place for long enough to actually squeeze out the wisdom and learning from light from experience that you're only going to get by being with a company more than three weeks. Inviting people to see both because that was my experience. I was in the middle and I understood the expectations of the older generation, and yet I also was struggling internally with this desire of why doesn't anybody care more about me? So what I've decided is I can be mad at either side of the conversation, or I can say, I'm going to try and fight for a model in myself and with the clients we work with to say, let's fight for both and an integrated approach to this tension. [TYLER] Well, and I think that's the impetus behind this podcast. That's the great challenge that I would say this coming to age leaders in the Gen X, millennial, the older millennials, the Gen X, that are now in a, will say a very driving position leadership wise, that we're trying to balance the baby boomer. It's got to be like this. The millennial is like the classic, I don't want to do anything. And we're there, that leader right now is bridging that gap. I think you did a great job of describing that. It's like you need to take a little bit, the pendulums are swinging both ways to say, hey, let's temper this and say, you're both right. I think the great lesson there is to just say, hey, it isn't this way or that way, it isn't my way, the highway or some other way. It's like, how can we coexist in this to understand you're important, but also that the mission of the business is important because you can't separate the inside person from the outside person. So in other words, whoever you are at work, you are the same outside of work. Peter Drucker comments about that. Now all of a sudden, as I read that, it's coming back around, it's like, well, that makes sense. It's got to be good for everyone. Yet that's a hard concept because for generation ourselves, we saw this, hey work here 40 years, we'll take care of you and then all of a sudden layoffs happened and you're like, well, you're not taking care of everyone. Now, millennials have seen that, and they don't trust going back to the safety because you're like, well, you said you're going to take care of me. Then when things got tough, you just laid me off. So I think it takes a little bit of that total give and take on both sides to say, hey, we got to be in this together. If we're in this together, then we're going the right direction. But if we try to be at odds with each other, it's not going to work. [ERIC] That's right. This whole conversation around, for me, I mean as a leadership coach, one of the areas we specialize in is in the area of the development of emotional intelligence. I understand they're all practical skills that we need to understand that we can all grow in. But the reason it's so important is because in all of the tug of wars, the tensions that happen, whether it's intergenerationally, whether it's people from different ethnicities, whether it's people from different political persuasions or social views, or I mean, I've been married 21 years. Just the fact that we're different genders right now is like creating, it's created 21 years of tension, but in any relationship with another human being, because we are going to experience culture clash, a different set of values, expectations, the ways we want things to unfold, the importance of being able to take a hundred percent personal responsibility for my perspective, for which requires that we practice self-awareness. Then self-leadership, which is the next step of emotional intelligence, which is, okay, now that I see myself more clearly, how am I going to lead myself well? We often say to our clients, that's all internal work. The reason that's so important is because we believe you can only give to the world around you what you have first cultivated internally. So before we start trying to change the world around us and influence it and make everything line up the way we would want it to be, it would behoove us to first learn how to pay attention to what's happening internally, to check our core values, to check our expectations, our assumptions, and ask the question, hey, I'm sure there's some things I'm holding onto that are really valuable and that are in the best interest of not just myself, but the world around me. But I'm sure there's some things that I could probably change and everybody would benefit, including myself. So the emphasis in leadership, as far as I'm concerned, is we can lead others to the degree that we can lead ourselves. Therefore, the big question is, well then how do I lead myself effectively and why do I need to lead myself? How would I even begin to think about leading myself, which is what that book is about. It's just me unpacking my own personal journey, realizing I've got a lot of natural qualities. I'm naturally charismatic. I have a bright personality, I'm well spoken, I enjoy public communication, I am a visionary, all the things that set you up to be the ideal leader. Then everyone shoved me into leadership positions and I got all this responsibility. I mean, I am just leaving a trail of carnage and frustration and hurt and disappointment. Yes, I did some things well, but there was so much frustration as a result of my leadership that it wasn't until my early thirties actually that it began to catch up with me. I realized, hey, there are certain things that aren't working. I mean, I found it in my marriage, I found it in my parenting as my kids got old enough to say, "Hey, dad I don't know that I appreciate the way he talks to me or tone voice." I'm experiencing it with clients at that time. It was really a confluence of different experiences in my life where it was almost like all of these red flags were going off simultaneously, which was really looking back a gift to let me know, hey, the way you're operating, even though it might be most familiar to you, you've hit a glass ceiling. What got you here is not going to get you there, and what are you going to do about it? That was the impetus for me to go on this journey of saying, how do I become a different version of my myself? Not because I'm all bad, but because if I want to continue to elevate to new levels of leadership and influence to be entrusted with more influence, then I want to make sure that I'm doing the hard work to make sure that I'm really worthy of that influence as a human being. [TYLER] I think that comes back to having enough value of yourself that you have value to others, but at the same point, valuing those around you to say, I can't keep doing this. I think you have to have that appreciation of yourself, self-love as you describe, but humility to say, hey, other people have value too, and I can add value to them. In that conglomeration of those two, to me, as you describe that, it's like, yes, that was the path that I walked as well. I mean, if I wanted my wife on here, she'd say, yep, that's what happened. To a testament of, I walk through this, I'm like, yes and I know if it's the two of us that have been connected to say yes, there's a lot of other leaders too. I know that's what your directive and drive is to do. That's my directive and drive. Coming from two different angles, but yet the same, walking the same thing, to me that gives credence to you can transform. The transformation is possible, but the greatest opportunity, I think going forward is helping organizations transform from the inside out. That's what you talk a lot about. I appreciate and love, because you're right. There's no lack of leadership challenge in this world. As we were describing earlier, the baby boomer and the millennial and have to be as give and take. You're like, if you want to see it not work, look in our political system in the world. It does not work. That's not a indictment, that's just the reality. Can agree and appreciate and I think you do such a great job in the book, again, Leadership Gravitas of laying all that out. It's that journey, which is the first steps really. It's the first, all right, here's the steps, here's the pathway you need to walk, but then go through it and then guide someone else through it, and you're going to learn a whole lot more. [ERIC] Yes, and what the book does, I think well, is we lay out the key skills of practicing these different ideas of what are the three core skills of self-awareness and then of self-leadership, then other awareness. But it's also about creating the framework, the context for safety, so that people feel encouraged, they feel like they can take a risk and venture into these different skills because they're not afraid anymore that they're going to get burned or they're going to be disqualified or demoted because of their inadequacies. Again, I can't reiterate enough the importance of emotional intelligence. I'm honest, Tyler, it's become a hot topic conversation. Everybody, I mean Gary Vani is now, he's the EQ specialist. He was the grind, grind, grind specialist. And I love it. I'm like, yes, I don't know what happened in his life or his leadership that he decided to change his tune a little bit but what I do know is that we need more advocates. Yet it's one thing to talk about vulnerability and self-awareness, but if we don't put into the hands of everyday leaders the practical skills and for not only practicing emotional touch, but for creating a psychologically safe environment, then what'll happen is in five years from now, we'll look back and we're like, Oh, that was a cute fad and we'll have moved on to something else that sounds great, but we're not sure how to practice [TYLER] As a final point, as you look around organizations that have embodied that and done that, and the leaders that are humble, they're empathetic, they are vulnerable, and yet they're kindly strong, as I stop and think about those, as I think about that person that model, male, female, doesn't matter, whatever else, those are organizations that have actually weathered the storm the best. I think we're coming into a day and age, as you mentioned Gary V, as you mentioned, others that are realizing, hey, this hard, callous, tough male, female, it doesn't matter, they exhibit it in both that leadership style is not going to win going forward. It is a much more mature, it's a much more endearing, it's a much more embracive type personality that is actually going to move people forward. I think that's a big wrestle for a lot of, that's something I've had to go through and I'm so thankful that I have. But again, it's a transformation process for other people. [ERIC] Could you imagine if we had, I mean we do now, but if we could make the norm within the organizations, the businesses of our culture, if the norm was, we care as much about you as a human being and your personal help as we do about the role you play in helping us be incredibly productive and profitable, because that's the lie, those are not mutually exclusive. We need to fight for the both end. I think that's what we're fighting for, Tyler. We are literally fighting to continue to build a business that moves the needle on this issue, not just for a few businesses, but for the leadership culture of our country and of our world. Because I really believe if we can do that 50 to a hundred years from now, we're going to look back and be like, that radically changed the way that we do business and now people are happier, people are healthier, and the world is a better place because of it. [TYLER] Love it. We could talk for a long time. I know we will in the future. Eric, thanks so much. Thanks so much for sharing time with the audience for your book. Appreciate it and look forward to the next time we get to chat. [ERIC] Absolutely, Tyler. Thank you, my friend. [TYLER] Thank you. There's a fun fact that I want to end this episode with, and this is maybe a fact of my life. As I talked to Eric and as I shared, man, the experiences that he had in his early thirties that I experienced myself in business were, I lost 25% of my income in one day and my consulting business because I lost one client. That one client made up a large, I can relate to what Eric was saying about when he walked into his office, his boss's office as he talks about in the book, and it was like, well, that's our biggest client. What are we going to do? That forced him to really look at blind spots. I've had to do the same in my life. So when I hear that and I see that, I get excited because that means I'm probably onto something that is meaningful. If you got value from that or maybe your experience in that, man, I'd love to partner with you and walk through with you and what that looks like. I'd love for you to join the Impact Driven Leader community where we really help each other through it. One of the things that Eric talked about, and I believe this entirely, we don't know what we don't know because we don't know. The only way for we to know what we don't know is when someone else helps expose us to it. That to me is the value of the round table. That's why we have the Impact Driven Leader round table where we talk about books like Eric's books. We talk about other things in this leadership space and capacity. Why? Because I need exposed to my blind spots. I need that because I know that's how I'm going to be able to lead better for myself and others. I know I'm not alone in that. If you're feeling this challenge of now you're in this season like Eric talked about, where you're in between these generations of the baby boomers and the millennials and Gen Zs and you're like, how do I do this, what does this look like, I have to manage these directives, I know this is a place for you. That's why this podcast is what it is, is to help support and guide leaders that have had to go through the same journey that Eric talks about that are going through and have gone through. I want to let you know that you're not alone and I gladly put my arm around you and walk with you, because to me that is what this is about. It's doing it together. You got to do it for you. You got to do it on your own, but you don't have to do it alone. That's what I encourage you with as we end today. Thanks again for tuning in, for watching for listening. I appreciate you being in the audience and appreciate you allowing me to bring guests like Eric and share his story and hopefully shine a little light on this whole leadership community as he talked about. There's a great need for it and even bigger need, and that's because the world we live in. So again, thanks for tuning in. Until next time, have a good one.