Effective Leadership: How To Be More Present & Positive To Build High Performing Teams

✅ Navigating Anxiety in Leadership: Be Where Your Feet Are

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Key Takeaways: 📌
🥕 Living Presently: how to stay grounded and present in each moment, whether at work or with family.
🥕 Work-Life Harmony: techniques for balancing high-pressure work with meaningful personal life.
🥕 Positive Impact on Mental Health: Learn how a leadership style, focusing on assuming positive intent and fostering a culture of support, leads to a healthier work environment.

Dive into the challenges and triumphs of maintaining wellness & mindfulness in the demanding world of sports and entertainment. A must-listen for anyone looking to enhance their leadership skills and mental resilience.

📣 Featuring Scott O'Neill, his career spanning leadership roles with the NBA, Madison Square Garden Sports, and now as CEO of Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, brings a wealth of knowledge to the table. His book is an insightful resource for anyone looking to thrive in both their professional and personal life.

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Transcript

You know when you have a show about gratitude, you've got to be grateful for your sponsors. And in that life of gratitude, you know, we all have guides, somebody that guided us through our lives, that made us appreciate those things that we have. And that's why I'm so delighted and so grateful for our sponsor, Lifeguides. Lifeguides is a peer-to-peer community that helps people navigate through their day-to-day stressors by providing a place of empathy, listening, wisdom, and support with a guide who has walked in your shoes experiencing the same challenge or life experience as you. A true life guide. And because you're listening to our Gratitude Podcast, if you go to their website, lifeguides.com forward slash schedule a demo and add the code healthy2021. The code is healthy2021 in the free text box. You'll get two months of their services for free. Two months for free. So sign up, show your team you care, get a life guide. Be grateful for those guides in your life as I am grateful for our sponsor, Life Guides. Welcome to the Anxiety at Work podcast. I'm Chester Elton and this is my co-author and dear friend, Adrian Gosling. We hope the time you're going to spend with us is going to help remove the stigma of anxiety and mental health in your work and your personal life. We invite experts from around the world of work and life to give us ideas and most importantly tools to deal with anxiety in our world. Our guest today is our good friend Scott O'Neill. We've known Scott for a long time. He's a Villanova and Harvard Business School educated CEO. We first met Scott when he was the Senior Vice President at the NBA. He then moved on to become President of Madison Square Garden Sports, the world's most famous arena. Today, he is CEO of Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment, which owns the Philadelphia 76ers and my favorite hockey team, the New Jersey Devils, as well as the Prudential Entertainment Center. He is also the author of Be Where Your Feet Are, Seven Principles to Keep You Present, Grounded and Thriving. Throughout his career, Scott has built a reputation as a leader of leaders, and we have been impressed with how he has impacted the lives of so many young sports executives. He's an amazing builder of high-performance teams, a great husband and father, and we are very, very proud to call him our friend. Scott, welcome to our Humble Podcast. Well, Chester and Adrian, first off, I'm humbled to be here, so thank you. Secondly, I'm a, as you both know, a huge consumer of your content, and I've read every one and every page of several of your incredible books. The latest book, Anxiety at Work, which I know comes out in early May, I cannot wait to read. And I'm a huge fan. I think what you're doing in terms of this podcast, what you're doing in terms of your book and what I read and consume from you online matters more today than it's ever mattered in the world. And not surprising that two thought leaders would be driving into a topic when we need it more than ever. So thank you for that. Well, this already may be the best podcast we've ever done. Thank you, Scott. That's awesome. And we really are thrilled. We've this is a mutual admiration society. We've followed Scott's career for many years and for those of you don't know Scott. He's appeared on many of the you know, the most powerful and innovative people in sports lists and yet, you know Scott like the rest of us, you know, you're trying to do it all right. You're trying to balance work. You've got a home life and you start your new book with a quote from Maya Angelou that I love. She wrote, the wisest thing you can do is to be present in the present gratefully, which we love that. So talk about this idea of being where your feet are and maybe how that's helped you and with your stress that you have to feel in your high pressure job. You know, I was once out in California meeting with Barbara Streisand's manager and an amazing guy, older guy, he's been her manager for 45 years and he asked me if I wanted to know the secret to life. Who wouldn't say yes to that? So of course, as I normally would, I'd pull out my phone and I'd start recording him, which he thought was a little awkward at the beginning, but he warmed up to it. And he said, number one, when you wake up in the morning, You're so passionate about what you do at work that you get your feet on the ground and you sprint out the door to get and tackle your day." And I thought to myself, I can do that. I completely identify with that. And I said, what's number two? And he said, at home, you are so passionate about your family and your partner and your children and all that is there that you sprint home with equal passion. For that to me was a really simple lesson, but had a meaningful impact on how I see the world. I think when sometimes as the world is evolving, and it is evolving very quickly, even ex-pandemic, but let's take the pandemic, the line between work and home, and church and community was blurring or fading a little bit. During the pandemic it's been completely eliminated as we've seen our pets and our bathrooms and our robes and everything in between. But I think when we are at our best, when we we are at work, we're at work and we're at home, we're at home. If we have to take a break from work and make a call to our daughter who might be struggling with something or calling to celebrate something from school that we are entirely 100% with her. We are we are a hundred percent where our feet are and here's the challenge though because we're oftentimes have one two or three screens in front of us I oftentimes work with a phone and two iPads that's how I work and so I can be talking on the phone and have full range of motion to go scroll through social media and check my texts and my emails at the same time I'm talking to somebody. Now, if I'm doing that, how effective am I in that conversation with my daughter? I'm not. And so, and by the way, if I want to check social media, I should be entirely engrossed in social media because part of my job is understanding what the sentiment of the marketplace is and that's an important part. And by the way, staying connected with people on my email and on my text, that's an important part. It's just the way the brain works. You can't do all three at once, not effectively anyway. So I find that when I'm at home, I wanna be at home, when I'm connected with my wife and we're at dinner, I'm not picking up my phone. And when I do, by the way, she's an incredible reminder because she says to me, two words, I'll wait and that to me is the magic sense of extreme guilt And I know what she's trying to say and I know where she's trying to leave me and she's right And she says hey no no seriously Scott if there's something more important on your phone and that text is more important in this conversation Go ahead and take it. I'll wait. I'm here and And so so two lessons there one is get people around you to tell you the truth and and get some real feedback. And secondly, stay grounded and be present. Can you imagine this podcast? I'm with two of the great thought leaders of our time. Can you imagine if I was checking sock quotes right now or cruising through Twitter to see what was up with the Devils game tonight? That's not a good use of my time. And it's not a good use of your time. And so I think, you know, to be able to be where your feet are and stay grounded gives us quite a competitive advantage. You know, I love that. I know Lisa, and I can picture in my mind's eye exactly that conversation. Oh, wait. No, seriously, Scott. If there's something more important than me, just let me know. Yeah, it doesn't feel great. Hey, listen, there's a lot of talk in the workplace and just life in general about wellness and mindfulness. And it's been a tough year for everybody, whether you're schooling your kids or you're working from home and all those adjustments that we've got to make. We get caught up in the death scroll through the news cycle and that news does not tend to be positive if at all. So what are some of the ways that you've found to stay grounded and be present in the tough times other than Lisa saying, I'll wait? Yeah. Well, I have a couple of little tips and tools, but first I will say that as difficult as this year has been for everyone, there have been some incredible moments and for me, really impactful opportunities. And I do like to call out the family dinner, the lost art of the family dinner. And I'm in a business where I work 100 to 150 nights a year. Oftentimes I get home at midnight, and for the last 365 days, I've had family dinner every night. I mean, what a blessing that is. And so to be able to connect and ask questions and talk, I mean, I have teenagers. So for those of you who have teenagers out there, the conversations usually start something like this. So honey, how was your day? Fine. Well, how was school? It was good. Okay, well, what did you learn? Not much. You know what a family dinner does? Doesn't allow for that anymore. And so we have topics. We talk about what inspires us. What have we read? What are we studying? What do we want to learn? How are we growing? And we have made chicken soup, if you will. And I think, you know, my daughters are very creative, so we've had theme nights as well, which may not be inspiring to some, but they've been dress up as your favorite movie character, they've been dress up as your favorite color, they've been see how many articles of clothing you can put on in one sitting. So we have had fun and it's never dull, but in all the difficulty and all the stress and all the anxiety, I have found peace in my own home, which has been a gift and a blessing. And having that connect time between Zooms, the crazy Zoom life, has been wonderful too. So that 10 minute break between calls or that 15 minute break between calls, which I script in, just tip number one, is stop scheduling hour meetings and stop scheduling half hour meetings. It's the simplest thing you can do if you're overscheduled. 45 minutes and 20 minutes and give yourself a break and stop jamming yourself call to call to call to call to call. It's not healthy and it's not productive. But generally, I will say that my trick of the trade and something that if you work with me at HBSE, you'll hear just about every time I speak, is that I think the formula for your best opportunity for mental health and wellness is around doing something for your body, something for your mind, and something for your soul every day. And something for your mind is probably the simplest because there's so much content out there. This podcast, for example, might be something somebody listens to that isn't directly related to work. It isn't directly related to how you pay your bills, but it makes you smarter, stronger, and makes you think, maybe challenges initial thought. But if there's a great podcast or a great book like Anxiety at Work coming up, or if you have a great social media feed like Chester has, which is one of my all-time favorites on LinkedIn. If you have a TED Talk, those types of things, just do one a day. I'm asking you to commit five minutes of your time to learning something or being enlightened by someone. The body, to me, is simple as well. It's like, what is your commitment? We need to get our heart rates up. And whether that's, you know, in the prime time when things are going well, it's my 6 a.m. hoop run at work. And yes, I am 51 years old, and yes, I can no longer guard a stop sign. But the mouth is still running like a 25-year-old Scott. But that is my favorite sweat. I've kind of relegated myself to incredible walks with Lisa through the woods behind our house, and I've become one of those crazy Peloton junkies. But, and it doesn't matter what you do, it just matters that you do it. And so you've got to commit to our body. And the second thing is oftentimes uncomfortable for people to talk about at work, not so much for me, and that's your soul. And I define that very differently. For some people it's really simple. You know, you read your scriptures, you get on your knees and you say a prayer, and that is wonderful if that touches your soul and that's the way you take in the world. But there are otherwise, other ways to touch your soul. One might be through yoga, for example. Runners oftentimes find that stillness. Some people like to meditate, another great tool. Sometimes you might just sit outside and listen to the birds chirp in the spring air, and that's wonderful. But that stillness, that five minutes a day, I can tell you we all need. And so that's my simple formula. And it's been something that I've espoused and lived. You know, it was really surprising when I read the introduction to your new book, Scott, which is wonderfully written. It was surprising to me. I was not expecting, you know, we know you as a high powered executive in sports, and you were writing about the world during the pandemic stilled, and the world needed it. And we've been talking about that in my family as well, isn't it interesting with all the terrible things that have gone on, the world actually needed this moment to regenerate, and we did as well. And in most cases, we just didn't even notice it, did we? I think that's really astute. I do think that we needed it. I don't think we needed it for this long. Yeah, agreed. I definitely don't think we needed this many people to pass away or this many people to suffer, but we needed a pause, and I think we all did. And so our challenge as thought leaders and our challenge as, now I consider myself an author now, with my fellow authors, we need to help people appreciate and understand what they learned. Because life is full of missteps and potholes and troubles. When I was a young man, I had this vision that everything was just going to go right. I read all the articles that said, every CEO has been fired, every CEO has bankrupted a company, every successful person has fallen off the map, and I was like, yeah, that's them. But that, no, and I used to read, no, but you can learn great lessons, and I'm like, those are not the kind of lessons I actually want to learn. And what you find out when you go through life, and I say this about work and life, is that it's just, your line, your trajectory line is not linear. And I wish it were, it would be so easy. Can you imagine? You wake up, you're like, everything went well again today? This is awesome. But unfortunately, we have, life gets in the way. And life is messy. And it's okay. And being okay with messy gives you perspective and teaches you incredible lessons. And I mean, that's why when you get older, they say you're more wise, just because we've walked through the fire a little bit. I think that we'll look forward, five years from now and ten years from now, and hopefully we'll look back and count the blessings and count the habits we formed and count the changes of behavior or the incredible relationships we've created and things we've learned through this time. Well, it brings to me one of the concepts you talk about in your book is the seesaw, which I thought was really good. You know, we have times where we do have more, we need to focus maybe more on our personal life or times where more on our work life. So, you know, as somebody who is a leader of leaders, what are some tips you give to managers who are listening to this, to help them maybe leave their work at home when it's, or sorry, leave their work at work when it's appropriate or focus when necessary? What do you tell the people in your care about that idea? Yeah, that's a great question. I usually tell them to be where their feet are, for one. Secondly, I think managers and leaders need to make sure that they know the people that work for them. And it's been different now. You know, as we, again, I mentioned, we get to see their whole world behind them. But do you know their children's names? Do you know their pets' names? Do you know what their hopes and dreams are? Do you know what they aspire to be someday? Do you know what they're reading? Can you help them on build a development plan? I think as managers and leaders, you know, understanding hopes and dreams is a really effective tool because some people want to go to the moon and you should help them get there, and other people want to appreciate the job they have and get home and coach soccer on Saturday. And that's wonderful too. But really truly understanding what people are all about, what's their, what I call their WMI, the what's most important to them, will help you as a manager and leader, help them find that kind of connected point. Yeah, I mean, you know, we talk about know your team and now you're talking about know your team on a deeper level. I love that. You know, one of the most touching chapters in your book is when you talk about your best friend Will and I had the privilege to meet Will and how you lost him and medical problems that affected, you know, a close friend's son and it was very touching. And even about your failure with Hoops TV, which was a great idea, right? It was just the timing was a little off on that. So we advocate for leaders to become able to reframe things and learning opportunities. You've talked a little bit about that already. And you sometimes say you've got to change the race, which I thought was really an interesting perspective. So if we live long enough, we all face that heartbreak in one form or another. You know, my dad used to say, nobody gets out of this life unscathed. You know, we've all got stuff, but what are some of the lessons you've learned to help change the way you look at failures and how you overcome those failures and that natural urge that might exist to sweep that under the rug? Like you say, just have that perfect trajectory, that Facebook life where everything looks great all the time, right? No warts, no moles. I'd love to answer that after I tell a brief story about your dad, Dalt, which appears in the book also. Okay. It's one of my favorite stories. Okay? So a young Chester, and you can't even imagine, those of us that know Chester can't even imagine a young Chester, first off. So a young Chester is walking across with his dad, Dalt, who he had incredible admiration for. And they're walking past a park where a lot of homeless people were. And this woman who appeared to be homeless was carrying what seemed like all of her belongings in her bag. And Chess was like trying to drag his dad, like, let's get to the other side of the street and avoid her as quickly as possible, as a young boy might. And unfortunately, her bag broke. She kind of tripped and everything fell out. And Chess kind of grabs Dad's arm and like, let's go. And Dad, Dalt, breaks away and helps this woman gather her things, says something, whispers something in her ear and makes her laugh. And she was on her way. And as he walks over to, as Dalt walks over to a young Chess and says, Jess says, dad, we can't talk to her, what are you doing? And he says, one of the things I'll never forget, the story you told me was, Jess, everybody's having a bad day. And what, to me, I literally get the chills every time I think of that story, because it's so meaningful and applicable to the question you just asked. Because oftentimes there are people in our life who are struggling. And it could be a perfect stranger like this woman at the park. It could be your mom who's feeling isolated or someone, you know, a colleague at work who is afraid to come to a Sixers game or is having anxiety about going to a grocery store or has an at-risk family member at home and it's making them really anxious. And that dulled attitude, if you will, the palms up, the I love you attitude that you can have for a perfect stranger. When you bring your light and life into other people's world, and it could be helping someone who's tripped with a bag, or it could be sending a simple text, or writing a note, or picking up the phone, or knocking on someone's door, God forbid. And we have this opportunity to just be better and do better. And so as I can transition that to answer your question, I will say the world is hard, and I've learned a lot. And whether it be several of the instances you mentioned, I never even knew what grief was until Will took his own life. And then I would find myself in a meeting and someone would say something that had nothing to do with him and I would break into tears and leave the room. And I had trouble getting out of bed and I was struggling. And so it's the first time I really understood what some sort of depression slash anxiety slash grief really was. I typically bounce out of bed with a big smile on my face. I'm just one of those people. And so I learned, I learned to take care of myself. I learned to get help. I learned to talk to people. I used writing as a way to heal. I was seeking out stories from people. That's how I got this story about Chester, your dad doll, because I asked, because I wanted to learn life lessons. Because for me, learning was a way for me to understand what I was dealing with. And so I think we're blessed with these pitfalls. And when they happen to you, I think we're, I always say, I say this about my daughter sarcastically, I always say, so you're the son, right? Meaning, not the son as in son and daughter, but you're the son and we all revolve around you. But I think generally that's how people see the world, is they are the center of their own universe. And what happens when you're in the center of your own universe is your lens is too small. And so the notion of I don't see the forest through the trees, which is something we've heard our entire lives, I think a better way to say that is just like, just pull the lens back a little bit. Because when you're looking at whatever you're dealing with, you know, you, you fail a test, you, you have a bad breakup, you go through a divorce, even as severe as a miscarriage, we've unfortunately been through several of those in my family. And or, you know, you're you have a you get a disease or you have a COVID, whatever the case may be, it seems to be the most important thing in the world and it isn't. And we lose perspective on all the amazing, incredible blessings we have in our life. And so I always point to my youngest daughter, Eliza, who keeps a gratitude journal, which is really simple, right? I mean, we've heard that the value of gratitude journal, I mean, we got the apostle of appreciation right here with us. So, I mean, the value of a gratitude journal seems so simple, but to do it for not miss a day for three straight years, 14 new things, it's never repeated a thing. That works for me. You know, she also has a positive thoughts clicker. Think about this. So if you go by her, if you go by her bedroom at night, you'll hear click, click, click, click, click, click, click, and that's her positive thought clicker. Oh. And by the way, if you knew her, if you met her, she's not the most positive person. She isn't. You know? And so she knows that she needs to fuel, she's got to feed the beast. Yep. And so she knows she needs to do that so that she can wake up seeing life for what it is, which is full of all these incredible blessings. How old is Eliza? She's 14. Oh, so she's going to be our future CEO here. Yes. That's awesome. Love that. Yeah, I told her I don't want to work for her though. That's awesome. Good call, man. Hey, yeah, kind of the tough kind of times leads us to the analogy of the purple water buffalo you use in your... We've heard you use it with your teams and now we get to read it in your book, Be Where Your Feet Are. And so walk us through that analogy and how you use that with a team and what that means, if you could. Absolutely. So when I first was hired as president of Madison Square Garden Sports, it was a difficult time for the company. They had gone through some pretty high-profile PR fiascos. And so it was a time for change. So I came in with a mandate to change. And one of the notions was, let's see if we can lift up this culture. Knowing that there would be some turnover, unfortunately, and knowing that we would go through some intense periods of change, and that we'd have the chance to reset the vision and mission for who we are and what we wanted to be, I came in with that platform, which makes life pretty easy. And by the way, what a, I mean, I'm a New York kid. I mean, can you imagine like a New York kid gets to be president of Madison Square, the world's most famous arena, New York Knicks, New York Rangers. So it was one of those pretty incredible opportunities, dreams of a lifetime. And on my first day, they didn't do a lot of all staff meetings and all communication. So I brought the 500 some odd people together in a big ballroom and I put on a video. I saw it open for two minutes. I said, hey, some of you know me, some of you will get to know me. I do want to play a video, a short video. It's nine minutes long. It's a little gory, so stay with me. And I played this video and it takes place and it's called the Battle of Kruger Park and 25 million people have seen it on YouTube. And if you haven't, I strongly suggest you And essentially it's shot by some tourists. And they're watching this incredible herd of water buffalo kind of come up into this watering hole. And the tourist notices that a pride of lions are crouching in the grass waiting to attack. And sure enough, they do. All narrated throughout by this tourist. And they of course go after the the smallest weakest buffalo a little baby and they jump you know three line jump on this Little buff buffalo and it topples into the water and and they're trying to get that thing out back on land so they can have leverage to have their lunch and just about as they drag it outside a big croc comes and snaps on the the leg and a tug-of-war ensues and the Lions win and you can hear the tour say the Lions have won the Lions have won like he's commentating a sporting event. And then he pans back the camera and you see this herd of water buffalo, about 300 of them going shoulder to shoulder, and they're anxious. You wanna talk about anxiety? You can see, like, they kinda come up and then one, like, moves to the back. And then they kinda go up together and they move to the back. And then they come in one by one, they use their horns and they pluck the lions away and the baby miraculously gets up and rolls back into the herd and they walk away. And then I just showed one simple slide and the top of the slide said, who do you want to be? And do you want to be a tourist? A tourist watches things happen. Do you want to be a lion? You prey on the weak. Do you want to be a crocodile? You stomp on somebody when they're down. Or do you want to be a water buffalo? The ultimate teammate. And I asked them a simple question, and I said, who do you wanna be? And I said, here's the great news. You don't have to be anything you don't wanna be. But if you're not a buffalo, you just can't work here. And so that is the story, and I truly believe in that. I believe that I've seen a lot of people. I manage a lot of young people. I get the privilege of running a big company. And I found that to be successful at work, there are three core things you need. You have to be willing to work unreasonably hard. You have to be intellectually curious. And you have to be an extraordinary teammate. And that's what being a Water Buffalo is, being an extraordinary teammate. And it's more fun. You know, we have watched that video. In fact, we've used that video in some of our trainings and asked those questions. I do love that. Who do you want to be? I mean, it's one of those questions that's almost like, you know, what is the secret of life, right? What do you want to be? What's your projection? You know, one of the things you taught us years ago, me in particular, is the concept of assume positive intent. And we love that so much, don't we, Adrian? I've even heard your daughters say, API, dad, API. You know, and it's this idea that, look, people come to work and they want to do a good job. And in trying really hard, they're gonna make mistakes. You know, is it safe to admit those mistakes, to learn from those mistakes? We talked about, you know, all of us at some point. We need a little grace We need a boss to say look. I know you're trying hard. It didn't go well And they give us a break Explain to us as you do so well How you've used positive intent to build these amazing teams and strong relationships and in doing so reduce people's anxiety Sure, yeah, I actually read the term in an article, Indra Nooyi, the former, I think she's the former CEO, now chairman of PepsiCo, she was saying that her dad taught her that. And it stuck with me, I heard it about 15 years ago. And in fact, if you come to our house, when you leave the house, on top of the door, chiseled into a slate is API. So we talk about it quite a bit at home, and we talk about it quite a bit at work. And what does that actually mean? I can tell you, because my daughters have used it against me in the wrong context. So I remember one of my daughters was going to the Country Music Awards in Texas with my brother and her girlfriends. My brother was working for the Dallas Cowboys in Texas Stadium at the time. And she came down and she was not wearing something that I felt was inspiring. And so, it's something called a romper, which I didn't even know what it was, and cowboy boots. And so I said, yeah, this isn't happening. Go upstairs and change. And she said, API, Dad. And I said, uh-uh. It's not about assuming positive intent. Get upstairs and change. So, they do use it with me, but I would like them to use it appropriately. Well, I think assuming positive intent is to me anyway, it's giving people the benefit of the doubt and truly assuming that a person is smart and honest and has high integrity and that they're hardworking and that they want to do what's best. And I truly believe in my heart that that is who people are. Now, are there exceptions? There are exceptions to everything. And as a leader and a manager, and as a dad, and as a leader in the community, I don't manage to the bottom 5%. I manage to the top 5%. And so if you think about how this might translate to you in your life, here's a scenario. So your wife or husband, your partner, says, hey, can you pick me up some milk on the way home? You're like, I'm working 80 hours this week. I've had five games. You're a stay-at-home mom. Are you kidding me? Now that's not assuming positive intent. Okay, assuming positive intent is, Lisa's got her hands full. She manages the house, runs the house, pays all the bills, manages everything in my life, and allows me to do one thing that I love more than anything and that is work in the greatest business in the world, which is sports entertainment. And she gives me the gift of knowing that my children are raised and cared for at a world-class level. I would say, if I'm assuming positive incentive, I say, is there anything else you need or anywhere else I need to stop? Because I know how hard she's working and I know this is a partnership. If I'm not assuming positive intent, I'm already mad. And so what is a better outcome? Because you know I'm stopping for the bread anyway. It was milk, by the way, Scott. See, you're right. I'm probably doing the wrong thing. That's the beauty of it. But I might say, if I'm assuming positive intent, hey, can I pick up dinner on the way to? Sure. At work, you know, we've had so many instances and circumstances where we can either assume positive intent or not. If someone is late for work, misses a meeting, dials in late to a Zoom, she's lazy. She doesn't care about her job. She's not focused on this company. She's selfish. Really? Or do I say, we're in a global pandemic, for goodness sake. Life is hard. Let me celebrate. Let me send her a text on the side and say, is there any way I can help you? Let me check in with her offline. Let me make sure that she knows that she is loved and respected as part of this team." It doesn't mean you don't hold people accountable. Of course you do. That's our life. That's our job as managers and leaders, but it's where that energy emanates from. I think that the world is better when we assume positive intent. I love the way you explain that. For those of you listening, Scott O'Neill, the author of Be Where Your Feet Are, Seven Principles to Keep You Present, Grounded, and Thriving. Where can people find more about the book and follow you and cheer for the Sixers and the Devils? Oh, thank you, Chester. So you can follow me on Twitter, you can follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, you can buy that book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or my favorite place is your local indie bookstore, because Main Street is getting slaughtered by COVID, and they need your help, and they need your love. So you can go online and find that through bookshop.com. Excellent. You know, one more story I wanna share with you, and it's another dull story about Assume Positive Intent. Scott and I go to the same church. We're members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And it's a volunteer church, right? We volunteer. We are volunteer Sunday school teachers and choir directors and the whole bit My dad was the volunteer for the young men's organization and after church Every congregations got that miserable member that wants to bring everybody down and this old lady My brother Byron told me the story it comes up to my dad at the end of church and says brother Elton You think all the young men in this congregation just love you. Well, I'm here to tell you, they don't. And my dad leans back with a big smile and he says, well, thank you. And she says, it wasn't a compliment. And he says, too late. And I love that he said, you know what, Jess, at my age, I just assume anything anybody says to me, I take it as a compliment. I love that. I really do. I'll tell you a story just about young men and how you can make a connection with people. I'm in the Young Men's program as well, and I remember this young man. We have this ability as adults to make connections with people, and sometimes we take it and sometimes we don't. I've been coaching girls' basketball for 20 years, and in my first practice, we sit on the ground and we talk about what your favorite ice cream is okay? And where your favorite ride is at Disney World and so it's not exactly a you I'm going to play in the WNBA type basketball But but but nonetheless You have this special connection Where we do as adults? to create relationships and bonds and trust with young folks that and and engage in conversations that sometimes they're not entirely comfortable having with their folks. And we have this special place in our heart. And I remember this one young man looked at me and it looked like he had tears in his eyes. And this is like a strong, handsome, successful, affable, everybody's friend, confident. And I was like, hey, you want to go in another room and chat? And so we went in this other room and chat, and he wasn't born in this country. And he was born in Ecuador. And the president was elected, and he said, I'm going to get deported. I don't even speak Spanish. Jeez. Yeah. Yeah, and it gave me such a boost of love and such a boost of a feeling of, okay, what a gift. So I clearly created a relationship where he has trusted me to help him. And this is such an incredible young man. He got himself through college. He didn't have anyone in his family even graduate from high school before him and now he's about to graduate from college, fast forward. I may have suggested to him that he consider marriage while he's there to solidify his status. But I will tell you, I would encourage everybody, if you have a chance to coach, coach. If you don't know the sport, it's okay. Just coach younger kids. They don't know what they're doing anyway. And if you really don't know what you're doing, become an assistant coach or mentor or teach or tutor. Like this generation, you know, every generation seems to come up and they know more, they're smarter, but they need us more. They need human connection. They need relationships and conversations. They need that softer touch. We've had so much time spent on TikTok, making videos, which is wonderful. It's a great, great platform. I just don't want my daughters to get their news there. And I don't want them to get information there. They can go on Twitter, it's a wonderful platform. I don't want them learning about things they shouldn't be learning at in their preteens on that platform. And part of that's on us. Part of that is on us creating meaningful places and spaces for conversation. And sometimes it's a lot easier if it's not your kid. So if you have a nephew or a niece, reach out today. If you have a son who's a friend of your friend's son, reach out today. If you bump into somebody in the grocery store, have a little conversation. Keep your six feet, keep your mask on, but have a conversation, check in. Like this, you don't want to talk about anxiety at work. It's anxiety at life right now. And I think one of the anecdotes is just human connection So great Scott. Yeah, I'd Wednesday night. I I took young men from our church congregation. We all went Archery because you can do that. It's outside. It's social distance and it was great and and you're exactly right those little Conversations that you can have and you can help others so we could talk with you for hours and hours And this has been just amazing, Scott. So we give you one last word here. If you had to sum up your ideas on leading a mentally healthy workplace for our listeners, what would you say? Just a couple of things, maybe, you know, key takeaways from your new book. I would say that you can lead by example. When there's a parent-teacher conference, go to it. When your child is in the choir for a holiday show and the show is amazingly at 11 a.m., which I can't understand who sets the times of these things, attend. When it's time for vacation, take it. Don't show up for vacation on meetings. Shut them down. Make sure you know the people who you work with. Make sure they understand what is most important to you and that you understand what's most important to them. Be an extraordinary teammate. Be that purple water buffalo. Assume positive intent when you can. Be okay, create an environment where it's okay to fail because you understand the power of learning and make sure your team knows it. But more so, I think, than anything else is trust the process. Give yourself a break. I think moms have this, particularly working moms, have this tougher than most in that we judge ourselves a little bit too hard. Give yourself a break. Assume positive intent in yourself. Make sure that you're not putting so much pressure on yourself that you think you have to do it all, have it all, and be it all today. Do the best you can and appreciate and count your blessings. Amazing. Thanks so much, Scott. We've known you for a long time and time with you is always well spent and always inspiring. I guess we just wrap up with the mantra, go Sixers, go Devils. I appreciate you both and keep doing your thing and changing the world, it matters. Wow, this was great. I got to tell you, so many great takeaways for me. The first one for me was his wife Lisa, when he wanted to bring him back to being president, I'll wait. I just love that two-word, I'll wait. There's a place for some guilt, I think, yeah. And Scott didn't really get into this, but he's been very good in his career about getting people around him to tell him the truth. Like in meetings, he'll even plant people who'll say, he'll say, Tony, come up here. He says, I want you to argue with me today in the meeting. And you go, about what? Anything. I want you to, and he says, we've got to create a culture where we'll tell each other the truth. So he's a really good leader at that. You know what? The thing that really impressed me too is we often talk about the limitations and the negatives of the pandemic. And he talked about some of the incredible moments where he found peace and their family dinners. You know that they have. I love the themes, you know, dress up as your favorite color. Well, you do that every day. So I get orange. And yet, those became really precious moments. And taking a break, I love that he accentuated the positive. I did too, yeah. A couple of things, very practical. Stop scheduling 30 minute meetings, stop scheduling 60 minute meetings. Do 20, do 45, they're just very practical to give yourself that mental break. And then as a leader, he says, okay, get to know the people who work for you. He's very good at this. The people who work for him, we know, will walk through fire for Scott O'Neill. He says, what are their children's names? What are their pets' names? What are they reading? What do they want to develop as? And don't assume it's what you think, because he wanted to become the CEO. They may just want to go home at five and coach their kids' soccer teams, and that's okay if they're giving you 100% while they're there. Right, yeah, what matters, what's most important, the WMI, what's most important to you and to them. I love it. He said, you know, some people are going to want to go to space and you should help them get there. You know, that's the part that I love so much about Scott is, you know, being that good teammate. How can I help? How can I help? And, you know, he used an expression. We didn't talk about it much, but I hear it often in this organization about coming into the meetings and coming into situations with palms up, open to people's suggestions. I'm here to learn and I'm here to help. I just love that image of coming in with palms up. I think it's very powerful. He's very visual too. Back in the NBA, he would give people dimes. It's a phrase, of course, in basketball. If you've given assist, it's called a dime, and you know, to players. And so he would give little dimes out to, but people would have these stacked up on their cubicles because my boss noticed that I'm assisting somebody else today, helping somebody else. So he's very visual in that way, even to the idea of having API, assume positive intent, over their door at home. So as you're walking out, you're coming in, you know, you're assuming, look, everybody is smart, honest, has high integrity, they want to do the right thing. I don't manage to the bottom 5%. Yeah, I love that. So often we do. Somebody does something, we create another rule. And you're managing that lowest common denominator instead of the highest potential. And of course, I love the assume positive intent. Well, we could go on and on and on, as you said, you know, pages of notes. And this is a podcast that could have easily been three hours long. It could have. I just thought his last comments were great. Lead by example, know who you work with, be a great teammate and, you know, assume positive intent. The last one, Chess, give yourself a break, right? Wasn't that great? Yeah, give yourself a break. And the other thing is be a coach, be a mentor. You know, it doesn't matter if you don't know the sport. Young people really are smart and I love that he says they need us more than ever. So give back. And speaking about giving back, special thanks to Brent Klein, our amazing producer that keeps us on track and gets rid of all the mistakes we make and makes every podcast sound perfect. To Christy Lawrence, who helps us find the most amazing guests, and especially to all of you that listen in, and give us your time and your thoughts, and follow us on LinkedIn. We're really trying to make a difference and remove the stigma of wellness and anxiety in the workplace. And by you listening and sharing it with your friends, you help us do that. Please check out our new book, Anxiety at Work, from Harper Business, available wherever great books are sold. And also we have an online community, wethrivetogether.global, where we are trying to create a safe place to talk about anxiety and mental health at work. So we'd love you to join there. So thank you again, everybody, for tuning in and listening. Hopefully another, you know, lots of great takeaways, another great session, this time with Scott O'Neill. We thank him for joining us. And Chess, I just want to wish everybody a great week of great mental health. 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