Welcome to this episode of The Growthcast. It is me, Jackson Campbell. Joined here again with Dallas Pua for another extended cut episode. Today we're gonna be diving into more of extreme ownership by Jocko Wilin and. La Babin. We're gonna be diving more into the principles that we're learning in that book, as that is our book of the month this month.

But for those of you that are just joining us, welcome. We're very happy to have you here. I'm very happy to always have new listeners here on the Growth Cast. If it is your first time here, let me give you a quick breakdown of the Growth Cast. The growth cast is Monday through Thursday. We hear from Dallas Pruitt, my co-host today.

He go, he gives. Three to five minute long episodes, again Monday through Thursday that are mindset, powerful principles that he teaches us again, Monday through Thursday. On Friday, we get to hear from Tyler Deveau, the powerful Tyler DeVere on mindset principles and multi-family real estate as well.

I get the opportunity to sit down with him on those Aloha Friday episodes and interview him on a whole array of topics. Also, on those Aloha Friday episodes, you'll notice that Tyler. He interviews some high level individuals on that, on those episodes as well. So definitely tune into those. Very impactful and there's always something to take away from those interviews that he does as well.

And then Saturday, you're here with us today for the extended cut extended cut episode where I get the opportunity to interview Dallas, like I said, about the book of the month that we're diving into this month. So this month, like I said, we're diving into. Geez, I just lo just left me.

Don't tell me. Dallas, we are diving into extreme ownership by Jocko Wilin and La Babin, and today we're gonna talk about ego and leadership how leadership can sometimes turn into ego and what leadership and ego, how they actually come together and play together. But Dallas, I'll go ahead and turn the time over to you.

Give us a little intro about what we're talking about today. Yeah, my first. My first memory of Jocko Wilin was his Ted Talk that he gave, I think he gave it at the University of Nevada. And he talked about a story when he was serving in Ramadi and how friendly fire ensued and. They ended up shooting some of their own guys.

Yeah. And the chaos of war fratricide, I think is what it's defined as. And they, him telling the story is pretty impactful. And he showed up. He had to show up obviously to his leaders after this situation. And he was looking, he talked about like the thought process in his head of like blame oh man, was this person's fault, was this person's fault?

And he basically came to the conclusion that it was his fault, right? He was the leader and he didn't think about all the contingencies, he didn't think about all the complexities that could have come about. He didn't plan properly. He took ownership of the situation.  and it's pretty powerful TED Talk.

If you haven't ever listened to it, you should go listen to it. It sums up this book pretty well in, in a TED Talk. But ego specifically is what is that? Is that fuel that was feeding the blame piece peace that he was talking about in there, right? Yeah. Ego is usually that piece. In our brains, we're looking to point a finger somebody else's incompetency, somebody else's mistake, somebody else's lack of judgment.

Or even just like coincidence that happened that screwed everything up. Some reason outside of ourselves, right? The ego wants to protect itself. And the sting that comes from, owning a mistake and owning the outcome and owning the situation. And when I think of ego, I, and I think of an antidote to ego, I think of humility.

And it's just necessary. It's just necessary to be a good leader in any situation, to be humble. And. For that humility. And I think a lot of the times that humility comes from a yearning to just want to do the right thing and wanna learn. Yeah. And be your best for other people.

Be your best for other people. And it's a lot easier said than done. But that is ego. And it's something that we all we all really should be aware of. There's a. Principle that I teach to a lot of the people we work with it's called, I just titled it, smother Your Ego, right? Ways in which we can smother our ego.

And one of those things is service. Yeah. I think that, and I don't want to jump into that too early per se, but service to the mission and service to the people who are serving in that mission with you. Yeah. Dale, before, before we dive into these things, I do want to dive into these actionables, so we will get there.

I do wanna dive into these actionables of things that we can do to catch our. So we don't have an ego. But I wanna point out something that you just said that really stood out to me. A lot of times I think, I don't think I'm the only person that has a hard time def or def differentiating ego and confidence.

I don't think I'm the only person that has a hard time figuring out what's the difference between ego and confidence. But what you just said, you said a lot of time what was happening with Jocko was that ego. Was fueling the negativity to place the blame. So I just wanted to point that out, that a lot of the times if Jocko was going into that situation confident, he would've been very able, he would've been able to see where.

Where the mistakes were and very easily be able to take ownership because he would've been able to see the entire situation a lot clearer if he went in there with confidence. But instead, he went in there with ego trying to place blame because it wasn't his fault. He didn't want it to be his fault.

He wanted to figure out where the missing pieces were. I just wanted to point out that big, the big difference between ego and confidence. If you have an ego, it's always gonna lead to something negative. It's always gonna take you down the negative path. But if you're confident, it's gonna take you down more of a productive, positive path.

That's what I just pulled outta that I wanted to shine some light on that. Cause that is powerful. And it, let's see if we can make something simple outta something that's actually pretty complex. Yeah. So you. Ego is connected with fear. Yeah. So that's a fearful conversation that you just broke down.

That jock breaks down really well. And you put yourself in any situation you've ever been in, where you go into the hot seat of somewhere at work on a project, you've been a, given stewardship over to man and you missed a deadline or it's not going well. . There's this unsettling like fear that creeps in of like failure, like fear of failure fear of the mistakes that have happened or that might happen.

And that's really like one of those key areas where ego really kicks in hardcore. You said that ego, get rid of ego. You can't even, you can't even get rid of ego. You can't even get rid. It's literally like a fixed mindset. We talked about this a few weeks ago. Fixed mindset is something that's there.

And step one is accepting the fact like, you have one and it's it's okay. The other part with ego is you have one and it's okay. Like it's not going anywhere. You're not gonna read yourself of ego, but you can recognize when it's speaking loudly and a lot of the times it speaks really loud when fear starts to kick.

Fear of failure. Fear of making a mistake, fear of looking a certain way or not looking a certain way. Fear of being something. Instead of becoming something and confidence. Right? Confidence come, comes from one's ability to make new mistakes, learn from them and fix them, or in other words, solve problems.

Yeah. Problem solve. Yeah. And it's just such a different conversation in your head when you go about your work and I would say an actionable would be to listen. To that voice or focus on increasing your confidence by helping others and yourself solve more and more problems. That help the mission grow, that help people thrive. And. So anyways, I just wanted to point that out, that one ego is not like something you can get rid of. Accept it and recognize it. That's actually the powerful move. But also ego pops in, it's your ego when you feel this desire to want to prove how good you've been at something or prove how good you are at it or, Protect.

Protect if you on your own protect Yeah. Because things aren't going perfectly. Yeah. Rather than lean in with confidence to your ability to help solve problems. To learn and to grow. So no dude. So good. So good. What you're saying right now, ego, you're thinking inwards, you're thinking about you, you're only thinking about one.

when you have confidence, you're thinking about the entire situation and everything that might be involved or affected by what's going on. So dude that's a huge, that's a huge takeaway for sure. Okay. Let's dive into some of these things. Let's dive into some of these things now. What are some things that we can do to help combat that ego then help suppress the ego down, right?

Like you're saying, it's something that's always in us. What are some things that we can do to keep that, to keep the ego suppressed to a certain. Challenge yourself. Do some hard stuff and also look to skill acquisition. Yeah, so I think, if you want to put your ego at bay, go push yourself to a limit and show yourself like, Hey, you're not.

Bulletproof and so good. I think that's great. But I think skill acquisition is also another way to increase your confidence, which again, an antidote to ego is confidence. And what are you learning? What are you doing in your space to get a little bit better to increase your skillset, to add your toolkit to, to, to your tool.

I think that's a great way to, to grow as a leader. Because again, the more skills you have and the better those skills are, the better you're gonna be at solving problems. But also, when you reflect on your day's worth of work, when you show up show up for others and show up for the mission, right?

Focus on others and focus on the mission. You were talking about inner work and outer work. I think there's also this inner part where you are really repetitive routine and strategic about self-assessing, right? You're constantly checking your blind spots. You're constantly keeping the big picture in mind.

You're constantly, checking yourself to make sure. What are you doing? That's working. Do more of that. What are you not doing well? What are you missing? And going through that checklist of what a great leader is. Are you being humble? Do you need to take a piece of humble pie?

Do you need to say less and do more? Self-assessment is a staple of great leaders. Great leaders are very self-aware. And the reason or the way they become very self-aware is that they're constantly self. Yeah. They're constantly asking themselves better, their themselves better questions and checking for blind spots.

They're less scared about somebody telling them about a blind spot and more scared of them not recognizing what that blind spot is. Meaning them themselves. They're working hard for it. Yeah. And they get excited when people bring those things to light. They're not protective of it.

They're not mad, they're not angry. They're celebratory. . It gives 'em. More fuel to, to do better. And so I think that those are some really good things. I think another thing that, that great leaders do to keep their egos in check is they know that they're not always the smartest person in the room.

They know that there's always gonna be somebody else out there that knows something more, something different. Again they're fans of perspective. They're diligently like seeking it and, Again, they literally adopt the mentality of every time they show up in a room, somebody knows somebody in there knows something more than them about something.

Yeah. Maybe a lot of things. Yeah. Does that matter? Yeah. Only if you use it to the benefit of the mission and the team like. Or it could be to, it could be a bad thing, right? Like again, ego kicks in. No, nobody knows more than me. Nobody. Nobody has the answers. I have the answers. I'm the leader. That's not true.

That's not true at all. So do one of the other things that you, that I've noticed that leaders do that take ownership that, but that also don't want to have an ego, is they're always search. They're always searching for feedback as well. One of the things that you've done with me is you've asked for feedback.

You're one of my leaders, and you've asked me for feedback multiple times on things because you want to see, you want to see those blind spots. The bigger perspective, like you're saying, the bigger perspective gives you a better opportunity to take ownership of whatever the situation is.

If you can really understand the whole, it just makes it so much easier to take ownership. That's so good. One more thing that I wanted to loop back into the owner. What you were saying about smothering that ego and learning those things. Dude, I heard a quote the other day that was super powerful and it said you have to help with confidence, right?

You have to have a stack of undeniable proof that you are who you say you are, right? You have to be like, so what you're saying is continue to build those skills. To become who it is that you say you are and who it is that you want to be. Have that be so undeniably clear that's who you are and that's who you say you are.

That confidence has no other choice but to grow. I wanted to point that out. It was just super powerful. Another thing that you talked about that I wanted to point out was, as a leader, you're always looking to learn. You're always, you want to be, you want to be the, you're not always the smartest in the room.

There's always something to learn from every single person. And with that, again, if we're taking, if we're putting ownership into that, this is something that I wanted to add. Taking ownership of, noticing that you're not the smartest one in the room. Take, what does taking ownership of that look like?

I believe taking ownership of what that looks like is learning as much as you can, but also knowing that just because you don't know something doesn't make you any less. Than the person that's teaching you, right? You're a, you're taking what they've learned and you're adding it to your own belt. You're adding it to your own skills, right?

So as a leader, I think a lot of times, again, we're talking about leadership and ego. A lot of times we get ourselves in a room as a leader, as we know the right way. This is the way that we have to do it. A we gotta go A, B, C, D, from point A to point Z. This is exactly how we get it done. Step 1, 2, 3.

Understanding that sometimes you may be in a room where, oh geez, my plan wasn't the best plan, but that doesn't say anything about me. Again, taking ownership that doesn't say anything about me. What does say what speaks louder about me is if I'm combative to the solutions of problems that maybe I have created with this plan, right?

That's where the ego is. What is when it comes in and is harmful. So as a leader, you have to realize, you have to have the ownership that there is more to learn, to be able to teach your people. But not to have an ego to where you think you already know everything that your people that you're leading need to know.

Yeah. And there's a lot to learn together with your people so that you can accomplish. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that really ego's me, like you said. Whereas confidence is an us mental. Yeah. How can we succeed in the mission? How can we succeed? Will we succeed by increasing our skillsets and our tool belts and asking questions and learning together?

And, you talked about a specific example where you present a plan and you've drawn out the steps and maybe it's not accepted, and then you take a fence. Ego, ego is someone who. A version of you that takes offense to things. , and that's because, again, whether you recognize it or not, in that fraction of a moment, you're less worried about the mission and more worried about being the person who made that mission succeed or being recognized for something that contributed to the success of that mission.

And it is. It is a tough, it is a tough thing. It is a tough thing because ego is live and well in all of us. It's that natural part of us that wants that recognition. But again, the better you get at. Training yourself to be very mission oriented, to ask questions, to learn.

I cannot overemphasize the learn factor, right? Like it's not rocket science, but we make it rocket science. Ego is part of what the co, where the complication comes from in making it rocket science. But take any business, take our business, take another business, take somebody's family business meaning their family and what their, mission is.

It's as simple as knowing what the mission is, being clear, very clear on what that mission is. And then in order for leaders to lead the decision making matrix, whatever their responsibilities are, whatever they've been delegated, always comes back to, will this help the mission? It's not, is my idea better than yours, or is this idea cooler than this idea?

No. What's the, Idea that helps the mission best succeed. What's the best decision now that gets us that much closer to success in the mission? And that's the type of decision making matrix that is required in for a company to thrive, for a family to thrive, for a marriage to thrive. And, but again it's just constantly recognizing that, like whether no matter what you're a part of, right there with all those things.

Your ego is alive and well. And if you aren't careful and if you aren't paying attention, and if you aren't purposeful, and if you aren't strategic and you aren't intentional about some of these things that we just broke down today, it'll bleed to the forefront. And you'll call it something that it's not when it's really ego, when it's really your ego that's complicating all of this.

And when you can shut the door to that, slam it shut, push it out, right? Of the party there, that's when you can really start to move the needle, right? That's when you again come back to skillset to be best idea wins, to, to mission to, and that's the space. That's the space we've gotta be in if we wanna win.

So yeah. Dude, Dallas. So good man. So good dude. As we wrap up here on this episode, again, just an actionable for every. That was pulled out from this episode is take some time to self-assess. Always take some time to self-assess and see where your ego may be creeping in, may be creeping in and making things a little bit more difficult for you than they need to be.

Dallas, anything else you want to end with it? Yes, I do. Okay, go ahead. Yeah, business owners and we have people who are in marriages, right? Relationships, partnerships. Man, we have lots of people listening with lots of missions that are different. They're unique and they're specific to you. I think if we could close it out with one thing, it would be, look, it's not about you, this business you started, it's about other people.

It's about providing solutions to other people. This marriage you're in, it's not about you. It's about your partner, right? It's about increasing the love you experience with each other. Whatever the mission is, wherever, whatever you're, wherever you're headed, whatever that direction is that you guys have, you decided on.

That's what it's about. It's about that mission. Your kids. It's about your kids. It's not about you. Whatever it is, whatever team you're a part of, whatever mission that is, that you're on. Just to close it out, remind yourself, write it. And it's a, it's an extremely important tactic to my day that I've really been intentional about for quite some time when I exit my house, and I've talked about this before.

When I exit my house, I have a picture. I look at it, it represents something for me. It's very intentional, it's very purposeful, but it's followed or attached to a very specific line, which is, it's not about you. It never has been, and it never will be. And I tell myself that every day. Why? Because my ego is alive and well, and you're kidding yourself.

If I told you, or I'm kidding you, if I told you that it hasn't popped up numerous times throughout the build of MF M F M, throughout the numerous times, the build of anything I've ever been a part of, my family, my marriage, that's why I look at that picture. That's why I say those words to myself.

That's why I do the work that I do day in and day out on myself, is because I know my ego is alive and well. I need to put it at bay when it pops up. And because I do things like that, I'm a lot quicker to be able to put that ego at bay. And it makes me a better, more competent leader. And I wanna strive to be just better in that aspect every day that I live.

Because people deserve it. People deserve it. And to be honest with you, It makes me feel happy and it makes me feel fulfilled to be that kind of person. Yeah. We talk about quantitative data so much. Man, I've, there's some qualitative data there that, that speaks volumes. So anyways, that would be my, that would be my closing tactic if I could give something.

Very good. So good. Dallas, thank you so much. Thank you so much for not only preparing and coming ready to. To teach everybody that listens to the growth cast. But thank you so much for being true to yourself and being passionate about what it is that you do. Cuz I know that just because you doing that inspires so many other people to also be passionate about what they do and continue forward in the growth process.

So thank you my man. I don't think we thank you enough. So thank you, brother. I'm so very grateful and I know that every single one of the listeners is extremely grateful for you as well. So thank you. Have a great rest of your day, everybody that's been listening. Please do leave us a rating and review if you haven't yet, and please do always share the podcast.

We're very grateful. For all of you, have a great rest of your day. Take care.