Change the narrative to alter the trajectory of your success journey and maximize your leadership potential as you learn to overcome doubt and use it to propel you forward. If you have ever struggled with growing pains along your entrepreneurial journey, this episode is for you! Join host Erin E Hooley and special guest, author, speaker and high performance executive coach, Robin Pou as they dissect leadership and doubt.
Change the narrative to alter the trajectory of your success journey and maximize your leadership potential as you learn to overcome doubt and use it to propel you forward. If you have ever struggled with growing pains along your entrepreneurial journey, this episode is for you! Join host Erin E Hooley and special guest, author, speaker and high performance executive coach, Robin Pou as they dissect leadership and doubt.
Welcome to the conquering chaos podcast. I'm your host, Aaron e Julio President and founder of multimillion dollar e-commerce children's clothing line. Bailey's blossoms. So what turns out I'm pretty good at business, but what really lights my soul on fire is providing other entrepreneurs and mompreneurs with the tools they need to truly succeed. So if you have a business or have one on your heart, you're in good company, pull up a chair or dropping some earbuds and let's conquer some chaos today.
Speaker 2:If you are multitasking today, you might want to stop because I promise you today's episode is jam packed with things that you're going to want to take some mega notes on if you have ever struggled with the growing pains along your entrepreneurial journey, this episode is for you. Today I am speaking with author, speaker, and high performance executive coach Robin Pew about leadership and doubt and changing the narrative to alter the trajectory of your success journey. Robin, thank you so much for joining me here today.
Speaker 3:You bet, Aaron, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Well before we get started, I'd like everybody to kind of know a little bit about you. So three fun facts that you think that everybody needs to know about who you are.
Speaker 3:Oh Gosh. Well, uh, married to my high school sweetheart and we've got three Kiddos, which is really fun. They are ages 11, 13 and 16. So we have a very busy household. And uh, our last name is Pew. And so I refer to us as teen Pew. We like to keep things pretty low key, which means we say no to a lot of things. And yet, uh, we're focused on building memories, so not so focused on material things. And we've just gotten back from an incredible summer vacation. We did a missions trip to Spain. There's a, a, a pilgrimage called the Camino de Santiago. And so we were able to work with a group in Spain to actually participate on that missions trip. And if you're in Spain, you've got to go to Paris for about five days. My kids are soccer players and so we got to see the women's World Cup. We saw two games, so that's awesome. I don't know if that's three fun facts, but that's,
Speaker 2:that is fantastic. I have to say that is on my bucket list. We've been talking about when are our kids old enough? We would love to start doing mission trips and other type service oriented things to help them see more of the world and remember it.
Speaker 3:So we did our first family missions trip last year when my son was, uh, 10 you know, nine just turning 10 and my whole thought was when will he be old enough? And I fear waited two years too late. So I would encourage people to go sooner than they think that their youngest is able to handle it because they just do great. They, they, there are a lot more resilient than, yeah,
Speaker 2:no, that's good to know. That's good to know. I'll have to connect with you and see what some of the tricks of that trade are because we've been talking about it for years. Awesome. Okay. So as an executive coach, you talked to many different people in many different industries. What are some of the pain points that you find yourself over and over again?
Speaker 3:As I was thinking about just preparing for our time together, I didn't know that that was an exact question that you were going to ask, but I just happened to sort of thought about that topic. And I think the issue that I run into the most is that we as people and therefore leaders, leaders of ourselves, our teams and then our organizations, we fall into the trap of making assumptions. We assume that things are true, that we don't actually have the facts. And typically it's rare in regard to the people that we're working with, either the teams that we're leading or our strategic partners or the other individuals that are interacting with our business and we interpret their actions to actually be their intention. I end up having a lot of conversations where I'll be talking to the leader and I'll ask her, uh, well, what's going on? And she says, well, I'm really having a hard time with this particular person who reports to me. I think she's trying to undermine my leadership. So this is ripped from a conversation a couple of weeks ago. And I said, well, that's very interesting. How do you know that she's trying to undermine your leadership? And she goes, well, I just know[inaudible]. I said, well, respectfully, how do you know? Like, like what information do you have? And the leaders will typically just describe the actions of the other person. Hmm. Which is only one indicator as to whether or not there's bad behavior, one perspective, one perspective or right at one set of data points. And I said, well, have you ever asked them? No, this is the way they operate all the time. This is what they do routinely, their past pattern and behavior and practice. And I said, so you really don't actually know. And, and she'll say, no, no, I, I don't know if that's what you're getting at, but I just know in my bones. And I said, well why don't you ask them? And she goes, oh, I don't like conflict. Which is hilarious because the leader is fomenting conflict right there. And then using the fact that she doesn't like conflict in order to not go. And address the issue directly with the person.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. I think we could all be, if we're all honest, we're all probably guilty of this at one point or another. The number of times I've said I don't like conflict. But then in trying to please everyone, I make everybody upset.
Speaker 3:Well yeah cause my comment on that one as well. How's that working for you? Right. And so it's, it's a challenge because I get that people are not either equipped or like I'm confronting people and there's a difference between conflict and confrontation. If I believe that you're undermining my leadership and the example that I gave you, I've got to confront you with that. Otherwise we're destined to have conflict. Right. But just because I confront you doesn't mean that we're actually going to have conflict. And so people and leaders, leaders are people too. They don't want to confront the situation for fear of the impending conflict.
Speaker 2:So we dance around the elephant in the room.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And, and then on top of that, as if that wasn't bad enough, we make it worse because then we make business decisions based on those assumptions
Speaker 2:and feelings.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Feelings are real. They just don't always tell us the truth. Right. And so it's, it's great to have that gut instinct by way of appealing. But let's go get the facts.
Speaker 2:I like that there's, you're reminding me of a book that we recently read as an executive team. Uh, the five dysfunctions of a team. Yup. And it talks all about conflict. And this was such a huge point for us where we went round and round. It was such a novel and opening thought for me because when I started my business, I would be lying if I said I started and I wanted to be an entrepreneur because I wanted to lead people. I knew I was a terrible leader. I am a head down in my own lane, driving as fast as I can down highway 65 and everyone else's in the desks. And I turned around thinking I'm being a leader. And then realizing that that is a terrible leadership style. I'm not leading anybody. That book was fantastic in that mindset shift for me, understanding the difference between, as you said, conflict and confrontation.
Speaker 3:Well, what's so great about Pat Lensioni, the author of that book is that his model in that book, five dysfunctions of team, the very apex, the very top that he gets you to at the very end is that all good relationships, business or otherwise are built on trust. Yeah, and so when you as the leader really work hard to build a trusting relationship with your people, you're going to have a climate inside of that relationship where some of these things, these traps are obviated. Because if you have a big relationship through trust, you're going to be able to say, hey, I feel like you're undermining my leadership and I know I might be off base, but I need to be able to communicate that with you because you have a history in a pattern of this relationship through trust, being able to endure a lot of conversations, both positive and challenging.
Speaker 2:Right? And what ends up happening is either the people who are not truly invested in the company and the mission and the values either weed themselves out or you grow stronger and you move together in unison. Correct. It's really interesting too. One of the Ahas I had because my husband left his corporate career to come and work with me is when he's in the meeting with me, I'm much more comfortable to have those tough conversations. I have that trust with him. We've been married for 15 years. We're very, very good at working through conflict resolution, but when he's not there, I'm much more passive in my leadership style, much less, much, much more reserved in addressing the hard things. And so when I realized, wow, I'm almost using him as this safety cushion, that was a really interesting, uh, an important moment for me to realize, okay, I'm, I'm capable of this. What does it look like when I don't use him as my crutch?
Speaker 3:Your trust crutch, my trust crutch. Hard to say. Um, and so why do you think that you pull back when he's not in the room?
Speaker 2:I've always wanted everybody to see my heart of heart intentions, to know that I am, I have their best interests at heart, but I also have big goals. And I've realized through this process that when there is, when I walk into the office and 20 people come running to tell me 20 different problems, my initial instinct is to go and fix all the problems. But what I'm doing is I'm robbing them of the opportunity to become leaders themselves. And the more I have educated myself in this sphere, the more I'm realizing, okay, I understand that's wrong, but understanding something is wrong and having the, the, the principles equipped to be able to move forward and change it are two very different things. So I feel like right now I'm in this personal wrestle of, I know what I need to do, but the tangible steps to get there are, you kind of feel like you're grinding your teeth a little bit and you're fighting with your natural instincts.
Speaker 3:So what's the one thing that you're doing right now in order to move the needle on this issue for your leadership?
Speaker 2:Honestly, reading has been huge for me. When I became a mother and my husband would always poke fun at me, said, wow, another, another book about parenting. And I said, well, the only way I know how to be a parent is by what my peers stead. And while they were great parents, they weren't perfect. And I need, we only have enough time and energy and resources to experience one set of things. So if I read other people's experiences, I can glean insights and wisdom from them and then pull out all the different pieces as to what kind of mom I want to be. And I feel the same way in business. I need to read other people's experiences. Um, and the way they balanced, the way they time manage the way they lead for me to say, oh, that would work for me over here. Maybe this wouldn't, but what would, and then I can evolve from that. As I progress as a leader, my business rises in tandem with me. So if I stopped growing, likely my business isn't growing either. So that's been a very interesting acknowledgement to see that parallel. And also to feel that burden of, wow, I need to be constantly improving in order for my business to improve.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So a continuous improvement and lifelong learner, those are great attributes of a leader who's progressing. Cause you're right, you have a on your leadership and as you see to gain more information and additional skills, you're going to be able to, as you rise, have your team and your organization rise. Um, that I might add to your mix is to go to your team individually and perhaps collectively and ask them how they would like to be led as leaders, we, and you're describing it, the burden when you walk in the office, problem, fire, etc. Let's go into firefight mode. Let's go into fix it mode and to your intellectual conceptual knowledge. If you were to step in, shoved them out of the way, fix it. You're robbing them of the learning opportunity. Because I'm here to tell you that as a leader they're only going to be able to do it about 85% as good as you would be able to do it if you're doing it yourself. So by delegating and by having somebody else do it, you're already losing some percentage of quality than if you were to do it yourself. And you just have to live with that. It may not be actually true, but conceptually as the leader, that's the way you feel. And I say you meaning the royalties. So what happens is we end up making an assumption about what our leadership role is without even knowing, we're making an assumption. How do we overcome those assumptions? You go to your people and you say, how would you like to be led? And the information that you will get will be profound. Now just because somebody says that that's how they like to be led doesn't necessarily mean that that's what you're going to accommodate, but at least you have the information. Interesting. How many times do you feel, and does this boil down to communication? I guess I should ask that first. Is this all just the way we communicate? Yes, and communication and further ends up building that trust relationship that you were just talking about. So I get lots of comments from leaders about, oh my gosh, how much do I have to communicate? We just did an engagement survey and they want more and more communication. I told them, I've told them, I've told them. And so we have this gap between the leader and what they believe they've communicated and the team and their need for information and that. And what comes by way of this head are called communication. What they're really saying, humble opinion, experience is that they want that trusting relationship. And so when they feel like they don't have the information, it leaves open this opportunity to question and then question turns to doubt and then doubt may turn into full blown. I don't trust you. And the employee or the leader or both? Well, both. But I mean it works both ways. So communication is very important as a vehicle for that trusting relationship. So a lot of leaders are saying, well, I don't have time to communicate as much as I perceived that they need to be communicated with. When you go to your team and you say, how would you like to be led? You're communicating a couple of things. One, I care enough about you to pause and find out what you actually need. Right? I'm listening to what you have to say and I'm at least open by way of the question to modifying the way that I'm engaging with you to meet that need. Well, that's a step towards a full blown trusting relationship. The other piece is that I encourage my leaders to Nair rate what they're doing and why they're doing it. So inspire, teach, training coach if they know how to do it, if you have inspired them and so they're on the team and you have taught them what they need to know and they have trained meaning. They practiced it and they moved to a level of mastery that they can do it on their own, but they're failing to do it. Then we've got to coach them. There's some other issue in there. I find that the coach pieces, I know what to do. I'm just not doing it. And I would say based on the work that I've done, that this single element of paralysis for failing to do what you know you need to be doing is doubt.
Speaker 2:Okay? So how do we overcome doubt? Because that seems like a a massive issue, right? That that lack of confidence is the nesting suit, right? Am I, that's the roadblock that we put in our way that we think is validated by all these external sources. But when we really get down to it, we've placed it there. We've inflicted that on ourselves. So how, how does one begin to even overcome that?
Speaker 3:So here's what I have discovered. All leaders experienced doubt. Hmm. We don't readily know that because leaders are not talking about the doubt that they are experiencing. So again, from the outside, we would make the assumption that that leader who operates that way and acts that way and talks that way and look so confident does not experience doubt. It's a myth. Every person, every leader experiences down, and these are successful people. And so they know what it means to be competent. And so when they're experiencing doubt, it cannot exist inside of them. Meaning they are aware of it and they're doing everything in their power to actually auratic gate that. Now. Interesting. I'll give you the the side note. If if you're 70% confident, which sounds like a lot like, oh you're, you're 70% comp, I'll ask leaders on a particular topic. I'll say, well how confident are you? And they're like, well I'm pretty confident or I'm sort of, and I'm like, why don't even know what that means? Like quantum number two it, right? And he'll say something like, well, I'm 60% confident or I'm 70% confident. Well while 70% confidence sounds very high, like that's a high confidence level. Here's the flip side of it. 70% confident is 30% doubtful and doubt changes your performance every single time. What does that look like? You're not performing your best or to your potential in that situation when you're only 70% confident. Now we're talking about high functioning leaders to the rest of the world that looks like their hundred percent to them on the inside. They know that it is not actually their best, their true potential because that doubt is causing them to hesitate or be tentative or not be fully in the fight because they doubt something about that situation. At that moment, leaders, successful leaders who are experiencing doubt will not talk about it and so they keep this dao a secret and yet a house divided against itself cannot stand correct. They are doing everything in their power to defeat that doubt, which would be a listening to a Tedx or listening to a podcast or reading a book or doing anything that they can, they might even inquired gently to their peers and some of us, somebody will say, oh my gosh, Simon Sinek start with why it transformed my life. You've got to read it. Right. So the successful yet doubtful leader will immediately read that book and may not actually get a transformational result because they're operating at a disadvantage. They don't have all the information. What do I mean? Over the course of my practice, so my clients rely on me as their chief advisor and strategist, which a lot of the time looks like an executive coaching session. Across all the years that I've been doing this, what I have discovered is that doubt is not doubt. There are actually four distinct types of doubt, and when the leader is not aware that there are four different types of doubt, when they just think all doubt is the same, that would be akin to, oh, I don't feel well, and I go to the pharmacy and I start popping any pills off of any shop. So when the leader knows that they have one of these four types of doubt, the good news is there is a very specific solution for each of these four types of doubt. And so now they can actually get on to a pathway to defeating that doubt because they've been able to identify it specifically and start moving in the direction of the specific solutions for that type of doubt. Okay, well now I'm like, I'm on the edge of my seat and Mike, what are the four types of doubt? Let's, let's do this. What are the four types of doubt? So the first one is called go getter. The second one is called scattered. The third one is called lost my Mojo. And the fourth one is called deer in the headlights. Okay. I like all the names. Yeah. Well cute by nick. And if you think about it, um, some of them are very commonplace phrases that people who are experiencing that doubt would actually utter that phrase. They're like, oh, I feel so scattered right now. Or you know, I've just lost my Mojo when I have a leader that tells me that they've lost their Mojo. Think about that for a minute. They are literally saying that there's something outside of them that they have misplaced that is the sole secret to their success. And I'm like, well, if we're relying that heavily on your Mojo, we better find it. Like, where did you leave it like that come down to, is that a, is that a misplaced belief in luck? I think up til this point, I've just been lucky. Yeah. And you know, that's not 100% true and they know it, right? Are Looking for, well, what is my x factor? And what they're really saying is I've been in the flow before, I've been in the zone and now I'm not in the zone. And so whatever caused me to be able to be in the zone, my Mojo, it's gone away. Frankly, what they're doing is they're outsourcing. They're a success to something that's outside of them. What that tells me is that they don't really have a strong appreciation or definition of why they're successful. So I've got, I've got a, I'll give two examples. So, um, or one example through two people, uh, two attorneys. One is a gregarious extroverted attorney, goes to any party or happy hour and just falls into business. I mean, it just, okay, open the flood gates. I am more of an introvert and kind of a uh, detailed thinker. Guy was training under that guy for business development for about three years to no results whatsoever because the manner in which the gregarious extrovert will generate business is not the same useful strategy for the introvert. So he shows up and I said, do you believe that somebody that has the personality preference of introversion can actually generate? And he was like, yeah. Because of the footnote on that is people think that introverts don't like people. It's not true. They like people, they just like them in smaller formats and so we crafted a strategy whereby you do a then B, then c, then d and You can generate this business. Hmm. Well, he now is the second largest business developer inside of his firm to the gregarious extrovert. The Gregarious extroverts suffers under perpetual doubt because he doesn't know why or how he's successful. He's just an engine activity, activity, activity, activity, activity. So here's somebody that's a leading business developer in his firm. Yet he's suffering from 30% dao. Whereas the other guy who knows exactly what his processes, if I do these things, I'm going to get this result. Granted, there's variables outside of his control, likely the not, he's been able to do this thing and get this result. The other guy is just activity, activity, activity, throwing spaghetti at the wall and it's productive because he's the top business develop right zoster, right. So I'm just kind of giving that to you as a, as a contrast because um, you know, you can have two people in the same situation but have completely different results from a doubt perspective, as long as you have some doubt about your professional identity and you're 80% confident in what you contribute and bring to the table, your 20% doubtful.
Speaker 2:Oh absolutely. Cause right now I'm going all right. Uh, yes. In my backpack and my wheelhouse of things that I've picked up along the way and I'm a total proponent of constant self learner. I don't know what I'm going to figure it out. And that's gotten me to building a seven figure business, which is great. But now I'm ready for an eight and I'm thinking, okay, does my, what's in my backpack? Does what's in my wheel house? Is that good enough for an eight or for a nine or for a 10? When you're on the rise, confidence is easy. But when you plateau in any way, whether with your team or with your sales or whatever it happens to be, any, any quantifiable metric that you use to measure your success. Whenever that tapers off and you're not on the incline, that's when all of a sudden the doubt just comes crashing back in and things get a little tricky again.
Speaker 3:So Aaron, do you believe that you can captain a seven figure business? Absolutely. Do you believe that you can captain an eight figure business? I do. Do you know exactly how you're going to build an eight figure business? Nope. So it's true that we don't know exactly how it's going to come to be. But you're telling me that you are high percentage of belief that you can captain that business? Yes. Okay. So all of my work is based on the principles of sports psychology brought to the business world d d science simple at its core, thoughts lead to actions, actions lead to results with my leaders that I work with. We always start with results. You just told me exactly what you want. Eight figure business. In fact, you were saying nine and 10 right? And so let's just go with the eight figure because it's just outside of what you think is right there. And so the point is, if that's your vision, so write the vision plain on tablets. So she who runs may read it, not on paper, not on papyrus, but like edge it into the tablets so that when you read it, you can run or as you're running, you read it to be reminded that that's where you're going. But we don't know all the details about how you're gonna get from here to there, but that's your vision. Know what you want, know how to ask for it. So there your results. Now if thoughts lead to actions, actions lead to results. We got to look at our thoughts and we have to look at our actions because sports psychology or what I call it in the business world, performance intelligence. And so that was a book that I had a, that I coauthored with Julie Bowels. She's the Phd sports psychologist. I'm the business guy. And bringing that to the corporate athletes. So if it's good for golfers, it's good for the corporate athlete. Sports Psychology, your performance intelligence says that when your thoughts and your actions are in alignment, you can get consistent elite performance results, consistent meaning day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year elite meaning the best that you have to offer back to what's packed in your bag. So it doesn't mean that we don't work on teams, outsource your weaknesses, pull people into the team who do the things that you don't do well and they love doing it and they're skilled at doing it. That's your genius is to assemble the team that knows how to do all of those things. Then on the thinking piece, do I believe that I can kept in an eight figure business and then the actions, the skills, so you're scaling up, you're reading every book you can about m you're an achiever and you want to be able to skill up. Yes. That thinking piece preceding the action, there's no action that you take that is not otherwise preceded by a thought. So you have a thought and you do an action or you fail to act as the case may be in some instances. So now we're looking at your professional thought life. So everybody on the pod that's listening to the podcast and if you want to take the challenge, get a journal and write down your professional thinking for the next seven days because every thought you have either moves you closer to your vision or further away, right? You will readily be able to see which thoughts move you closer to that eight figure business or further away. And the best part about your thinking is that you can change it. Hmm.
Speaker 2:And I love the whole concept of your mind empowers all the things that you do. There's a lot of people who don't buy into that. And it's interesting because it's for all the reasons that you're talking about, the way that you are set up psychologically, the the words and the things and the affirmations you give to yourself give you an empower you to be able to move into that next step. Going back to the doubts. What is, what is deer in the headlights? I have to ask.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So Aaron, the headline is, I'm really suffering from not knowing what their next strategic move is. And so they, I refer to it as coming to the end of the paved road. So we're, um, individuals who kind of know what they need to do and they get to a certain level of success and they get to the mountain top, the peak, they realize, oh my gosh, there are all these other peaks that I couldn't see when I was down at the base of this mountain. Right? And so there's nothing to lose when I'm climbing that mountain you, cause you don't have anything to lose. But now that you're at the top of the peak, you've got something, you've got an organization, you've got 20 people that are reporting to you, you have stature, reputation, a couple of nickles in the bank, whatever it may be. And you don't want to lose those things. So in order to take a step in the next phase of your business, your leadership, your growth, your development, you're putting all those things that you currently have at risk. Hmm. And people pause and see the deer in the headlights is a type of paralysis where they're like, I don't know what my next strategic move is. Fear of failure. It could be I'm motivated by a number of things. It could be fear of failure, it could be fear of success at a particular level. It could be fear of loss of what they've been able to build up to this point. I mean, to me it all comes back to Dow. There's some doubts element which could manifest in a bunch of different ways about their next strategic move. And so their solution is to align themselves with people or organizations or ideas that will help them pull towards the next creative strategic idea because they're not quite as paralyzed, literally like a deer in the headlight.
Speaker 2:Okay. You've got my mind
Speaker 3:spinning and all sorts of directions. So I have to ask. Obviously you work with people of all different scales within their professional journey. Do you feel like these same issues are manifested regardless of where everybody is on their journey, just in different ways? Yes. I mean this is the point where I say that all leaders experience doubt. And when I'm thinking about a leader, because it's important to distinguish your either leading yourself and or leading a team and or leading the organization. So think about somebody who's listening to this podcast who has just a solo preneur are thinking, well I'm not a leader. Well, yes you are because you are leading yourself and you are called in some way to make an impact in the world. And uh, differing authors on the topic of leadership basically say leading is influencing someone or some thing to a particular result. So use it for good, use it for evil. And so if you're a leader and you're making a dent in the world based on what you feel like you're called to do, you're a leader. So that's number one. Number two is we all experienced doubt on some level and if all we did was focused on scaling up our actions and did not focus on our thinking, we would only get part of the formula, right? Our thought life really is where we need to start and my common is none of us is immune from experiencing doubt. It's what we do in the face of that doubt.
Speaker 2:Is there ever value in having a little bit of doubt? Is there a way to be a humble leader without having doubt? I'm just thinking of overconfidence and the pitfalls that may be that can produce as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Well, the overconfidence is usually us observing somebody who looks over competent, which is really born out of their doubt. Interesting doubt is a gift. Doubt tells you everything that you need to know about the thinking that needs to change and this skill that needs to be developed in order to achieve your results. Thoughts lead to actions. Actions lead to results. When you've got into the end of the paved road, when you're called to make a pretty significant impact in the world, chances are good. You have not traversed that path before. Right? So your confidence in your ability to do it, which was born out of being on the paved road, continuing the analogy. You've got doubt. So we run from doubt, we cower in the shadows of doubt. We ignore doubt, but the doubt is the signal. It tells us the thinking that needs to change and the skill that needs to be developed in order to have consistent elite performance results.
Speaker 2:I love that. So what does look like using gout as an advantage versus what we're accustomed to and using it as a crutch?
Speaker 3:What you have to embrace the doubt. You have to actually be aware that you are experiencing doubt. You have to pause long enough to think about your thinking. The scientists call it metacognition. And the challenge of today and the leaders who are running their businesses is that we do not allow time to think about or think the pace of play is so fast and the competition is so great and the sense of urgency is overwhelming that we do not allow ourselves to thing about our thinking.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right. I'm just thinking of all the different ways in which this is manifested in my own business, in my own leadership journey and my own doubt journey and self discovery journey as well. And you're completely spot on. Is this whole process that you're talking about, is this in the book that you referenced earlier that you coauthored or is this in the one that you're currently writing?
Speaker 3:So leadership in doubt is the one that I'm currently writing, which like was through breaking down the fact that there are four distinct types of doubt. Okay. So leadership and doubt working title, you know I'm, I'm leading in Dow. Yeah. My leadership is literally in doubt. Am I going to be able to pull this thing out of the ditch? Um, the previous book has performance intelligence at work that I coauthored with Dr Julie Bow and that highlights the principles of sports psychology brought to the business world. So primarily the thoughts lead to actions, actions lead to results. So the second book leadership in doubt just goes deeper on one of the elements of performance intelligence, which is confidence. And the flip side of the coin, which is doubt because over these years working with these leaders, it is doubt that I have identified or discovered that is this Kryptonite for leaders performing at their best when it matters most. I think everybody needs to spend every leader who's interested in this topic can and should benefit from spending 10 to 15 minutes a day, literally journaling their thing and I get all kinds of push back. I don't have time. I'm like, well then you will persist in this day because what thinking will reveal is those things about which you have the most doubt. I doubt my vision for the future of the company. I doubt my ability to actually achieve an eight figure business. I doubt my leadership of my team in the meeting when type of conversations come up, like you'll be able to hold up pretty quickly when you pause, cause we're talking about smart people, we're talking about well who are intelligent and when they pause long enough to really understand what they're thinking, those thought will reveal the doubt that they're experiencing. Once I've identified that I'm doubtful in this area. I'm wanting you to embrace that doubt because you can change the way that you think. So with your permission, if my thought was, I don't have an MBA, I don't have the credentials, I really wonder whether or not I'm able to lead in this situation. Right? Well, what does that have to do with anything like those two things don't matter from the standpoint that you can actually say, I've gotten the business this far on what skills and strengths was I able to generate this level of success? Oh, here's a list of six or seven of them. I think I'm going to focus on thinking about keeping those strengths strong for the next journey of the business, my leadership of the business. That's what I mean by changing the thinking because you've identified that, well, I don't have an MBA, therefore I can't. That's not moving you closer to your eight figure business. Just to continue to kind of go with the analogy then what skills do you need? And so you already, through reading and doing other things where you're continually educating yourself, you're growing in your skills that you think you need to have in order to lead your business over the next you know, journey that you're on. So that's the process. I mean, I'll be it at a high level through this patients are having, but enough where people can start moving the needle and the direction of their thinking and their skills for these results. One of the things I hear a lot is time. I'm doubtful because I don't have enough bandwidth. I don't have enough time. I believe that the time component is a function of priorities. If everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. True. And we can't do everything. And if we're motivated to do everything because we're trying to please everyone else, then we will fail. Hardly yes. But if we are not trying to please everybody, we just have a really big appetite for priorities. My thought is what are your top priorities? What are your top initiatives? And then be so committed to those. So believing that that's where you need to spend your time, that you will happily celebrate the tradeoffs. Think about you got invited to two parties on Saturday night that directly overlap. One strategy is to go to one of them for the first half and this other one for the second half and race around and rush and not give your all to either, right? Because stop praying from fear, fear of missing out or sense of obligation to others, whatever it might be. When in reality we say, you know what, in this moment in time, this event is more important than this one, one and one a. But I'm going to commit to that one and I'm going to celebrate that. I'm fully committed here while acknowledging that I can't do everything.
Speaker 2:So I have to know what does a typical work week look like for you?
Speaker 3:I'm in it right there with the rest of the leaders I'm working through what my formula for successes and I have been susceptible to running around like a chicken with my head cut off or trying.
Speaker 2:It's a relief.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Um, or trying to, um, uh, please people from a client service perspective, but based on an assumption of what I felt like they needed when in reality they didn't actually need it. And when I said, how can I be everything that I need to be for you and I got the information, I could actually make a change. Right? So I'll give you a couple of, for instances that just give you some details. I do not start any client meetings for the week until noon on Monday because I realized that if I'm skating in at 9:00 AM on Monday, trying to be my best for a particular client, I haven't taken the time that I need in order to prepare for everybody for the week. Or I was spending my Sunday getting ready because I'm not going to show up unprepared, which was impacting the family time in a negative way. So I set, because I could a rule of engagement that I don't start client meetings until after noon on Monday, which was a, it sounds easy now, but it was a huge shift and waited and I had to enroll my clients because I had some people that liked a Monday morning. I mean there were other, other variables. And then I run pretty hot all through the week just by energy level. I'm not worth much at by about one o'clock on Friday, which is a rare occasion that I'll take a client meeting after one o'clock on Friday because I'm not 100% in in it.
Speaker 2:I'm just impressed. It's only Friday. I hit a wall every day at one o'clock. My Gosh. Dang it.
Speaker 3:Then for this project writing the book, I know that I've got to do it sort of drip, drip, drip. So I have blocked time on the calendar that is, you know, a priority. And if there's an emergency or something that's urgent that needs to cannibalize that time, so be it. But otherwise I've got x number of hours per week. Um, and so let me net it out as I'm just kind of giving these examples. I'm very, uh, thoughtful about organizing the time on the calendar for the work that needs to get done. And so if it's not, if I'm not spending time or money on it, it's not a priority. Let me say it a different way. If it's a priority, I'm prepared to spend time and money in order to make it happen. My pocketbook and my calendar, the old cliche is I'll show you your priorities if you show me your checkbook and your calendar, how's your spending your time and your money. Right? So I flipped it around and said, if I want to achieve these things as priorities, then they have to make it to my calendar and I have to be prepared to spend some money on it.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, Robin, this has been mindblowingly perfect. I feel like I need to just follow you around everywhere and just pick up on these little nuggets all day long. So thank you for taking the time to pour into, to me and to my community. It really truly means a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 3:absolutely. I'm just honored to be asked and happy to participate. So thank you for the invitation.
Speaker 2:And Robin, for all of those people who are going to clearly want more expertise and experience from you, where can they find you?
Speaker 3:You Bet. So my website is Robin[inaudible] Dot Com and that's r o B I n p o u.com and then I'm growing in my activity on Facebook and on linkedin. So about once a week, once every two weeks I'm doing short little videos that are very much in line with what we've talked about. So you can find me in both of those locations, Facebook and linkedin. And then if anybody is interested in the book, it's called performance intelligence at work. And you can find that on Amazon. You can even just type in my last name and it'll pop up. So p o u. So that's, that's where they can find me.
Speaker 2:Perfect. Thank you so much. And also I do have to ask, when is your book coming out?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that's TBD and I'm in the throws of that. I'm working really hard to make it happen, and yet I'm also very conscious of the fact that these things take time and I want to do it with excellence. I'm hopeful that we'll have it published in 2020
Speaker 1:wonderful. Well, we will definitely be botching for that. Congratulations and things. Again, thank you for taking the time to connect with me here on the conquering chaos podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, will you please take a moment to leave a review? It's the fuel to my fire and lets me know that my efforts to net change and broaden your perspective of what's possible matter. Thank you so much for your support. If you want more content like this, don't forget to subscribe and connect with me on social media at Erin e Julio or at Aaron[inaudible] Dot Com have APN tastic day. Get out there and conquer some chaos.