150. From Limiting Beliefs to Leadership Breakthroughs with Andy Hite

💭 Are you having trouble with scaling your business?

Andy Hite helps leaders to find their full potential and to live full lives by working on the principles of leading powerfully, loving deeply and living fully. As we dissect his philosophy on scaling minds, it becomes clear how leading with conviction, loving with depth, and living a life of purpose can not only revolutionize our approach to leadership but also infuse our everyday interactions with profound meaning.

In this episode, Andy and Mick also put the spotlight on the magnetic power of vulnerability, authenticity, and the courage to choose love over fear in our quest for personal and organizational growth. Whether you're at the helm of a business or steering your own ship through life, this conversation offers a compass for charting a course toward breakthroughs that go beyond our limiting beliefs.

🌐 Connect with Andy:
• Website: https://www.scalingminds.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andy-hite/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andy.hite/

Book Mentioned:
The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A. Singer

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:26

Hey everyone and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm greatly honored today to be joined by Andy Hite. Andy is the Founder and a Leadership Performance Coach with Scaling Minds. We're gonna unpack a little bit of that today. What does that mean, Scaling Minds and he helps leaders to find their full potential and to live full lives by working on the principles of leading powerfully, loving deeply and living fully. So, and we're going to unpack all three of those as well today. First of all, Andy, please do say hello to our audience, and I'd love to know a bit about your life and some of the things that happened in your life that led you to the point where you help other human beings in this way today.

Andy Hite: 1:09

Well, hello audience. Thank you all for having me. Thanks, mick, for having me. Excited for the conversation today. So that's a big one, my life leading up to helping people. You know it's interesting.

Andy Hite: 1:22

I grew up in Virginia, I grew up in a small rural town and I think my passion for helping people really came from watching my father, my father sort of my hero growing up and I never quite understood why he would give people in the community, people in our church, family members, so much of his time and attention.

Andy Hite: 1:44

He just got such great joy from supporting people and seeing them thrive, you know, whether that was helping them in a yard project or like just sitting down with a cup of coffee and mentoring them. It's interesting that you asked that because I never really thought about it. But that's really what pops right now is. My father was and is thank God he's still with us one of the most generous, loving, giving people, and to this day I'll meet people and they'll say your dad or your parents, my mom too, like we look up to them so much. They give so much of themselves. So I think it was instilled in me at a really early age to be selfless, to give, to be a good, civic member of the community and to be a part of this idea that a rising tide raises all boats.

Mick Spiers: 2:31

I love that quote there straight away for a starters. But I love it when you talk about your parents. And I've got to share something with you, Andy, because those that are listening on the audio podcast here wouldn't have picked this up, but the glint in your eye when you spoke about your father, that was really quite amazing. And I've got to say, when I hear that story, I'm going to say your father unlocked the joy code and it takes a long time for people to realize this. It took me a while as well, but joy comes in the service of others. Like you can have amazing accomplishments yourself, but when you enable and inspire someone else to achieve their dreams, it's triply I don't even have the right number, the multiplication of the joy when you've helped someone else to have a beaming smile on their face. That's almost indescribable. How does that sit with you?

Andy Hite: 3:20

I could not agree more. You know, one of the things that I was literally just talking to my teenage daughter this is probably a month ago and she was a little down and one of the things that I said is try and find something to do for somebody else. It'll cheer you up because you'll see a smile on their face, like find an active service that you can perform for someone else. I believe that that is part of living loving deeply right and living fully. You talked about the three phrases that I have and leading powerfully right. The active service, I think, is underrated and I've literally seen people go from a depressive state into sort of homeostasis just from getting out of their own thinking and going out and helping some people.

Mick Spiers: 4:04

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's wonderful, Andy, and the look on your face as you describe it is beautiful. One of the things that I think thinking about right now. We've had Ivan Misner on the show before the founder of BNI, and many people that listen to this show are BNI members, so they might resonate with this as well. Here's this one of his values is give is gain right, and a lot of people look at it from a business perspective or if I give to others and I help others, I'll get it in return, and that's true, but that's not the real return. The real return is the joy and fulfillment that fills your heart when that happens.

Andy Hite: 4:38

Yeah, yeah, there's just something and I can't really explain it. It's above my pay grade. There's just something so beautiful when there is an exchange of positive energy from one to another. Right. That is an act of love, that is an act of generosity, and I think that opens not to get way too woo-woo too early, but it opens a portal for it to be to come back to you. Givers gain right. It opens the door for us to receive it too.

Mick Spiers: 5:07

Yeah, brilliant. All right, I love it, andy. So I can see what drives you, and it's written all over your face as you describe it. I wanna now unpack some of those words that I used in the introduction. So, scaling minds. When a lot of people think of the word scaling, they instantly think scaling a business. They go, oh, we're gonna take our startup and now we're gonna scale up, or we're going to grow our business, et cetera, et cetera. But you're not saying that. You're saying scaling minds. What does scaling minds mean?

Andy Hite: 5:33

So I work a lot with entrepreneurs, right, and we talk about scaling all the time. And one of the things that I know and I bet you do too in business, if there's a stagnation, if there's a bottleneck, it's usually because of the founder or the leadership team. They're creating it right. And so the way beyond that is through our mindset, is through the things that drive us, and so I have always believed before we can scale anything properly, we must scale who we are. We must grow as leaders, as business owners, as mentors, whatever. When we grow, things around us grow. And so I chose scaling minds to really focus in on the first step of creating a life of prosperity. It is us, it starts with us, first. Let's scale that. And I wanted to play on the sort of business implications of scaling right, we don't wanna just grow, we wanna rapidly grow.

Mick Spiers: 6:32

Yeah, I love it, Andy, and let me reflect back to you what I'm taking from it, and I want you to challenge me if I've gone on a tangent, by the way. So what I'm picturing here is a lot of these startups. They get to a certain size, they get to a certain size and then they wanna take it to the next level and they do realize, some of them, that what got them to here is not what's gonna get them to there. So that's one of the realizations they make, which is good. But then often what they start working on is they might bring in a consultant or something like that and go what do we need to do differently? And what I'm hearing from you is it needs to start with. What do we need to think differently? And before we reset our mindset, our limiting beliefs are gonna. What holds us back from doing the things that we need to do to scale? How's that reflection to?

Andy Hite: 7:20

Oh, it's dead on. I mean, that's exactly right. So many of us are looking what do we do differently? And it doesn't really.

Andy Hite: 7:28

I, literally a couple of hours ago, put out a newsletter talking about how oftentimes people get frustrated with personal or professional change because and I draw a metaphor of a computer right, we can read the latest books or go to the conference or do X, y or Z the doing that you talk about and still be frustrated because we don't get any lasting change. That's like putting a program that, say, book or conference or whatever is like putting a program on an individual person's operating system that's not compatible. It's like trying to run the latest version of Adobe Acrobat or Photoshop on Windows 98. It's just not gonna work right. And so the thing that we actually have to do, first and foremost, is upgrade our internal operating system so that it can be compatible with these new sort of self-help or professional growth programs. Right, and that's changing our thoughts, our beliefs, our attitudes, perspectives, values, our mindset, so that it can actually handle and assimilate and integrate some of these new, perhaps, habits that we want to embody.

Mick Spiers: 8:40

I love it. All. Right, I love this thought of upgrading the OS before you start applying the latest AI tool Like, ai is the big buzzword right now. Oh, ai will scale my business. No, you need to do some base work first. Right, I love this.

Andy Hite: 8:53

That's right.

Mick Spiers: 8:54

The next story that jumped in my head when you were saying that is the power of the story that we tell ourselves in our head about ourselves, and it could be about our business. Right, it doesn't have to be just individually. There could be entrepreneurs saying, oh no, no, no, no, that's not all the way we do things. Why not? Why don't you do things? So I'm hearing you challenge this story that you've told yourself for years and you need to reframe it with some challenging questions. How does that sit with you?

Andy Hite: 9:21

Dead on. Yeah, oftentimes, you know, because everyone, usually from a very early age, creates a filter through which they see the world Right and how we do one thing is how we do most things. So we're going to see it both in our personal life and our professional life, and we have to challenge those beliefs that drive us Right, whatever we think we believe, whatever we believe we become. So we have to really work on the information that gets into our minds and in our psyche, because that's the thing that's going to create the beliefs and then our results. The thing to do is to step back and transform all of those, and then we transform who we are.

Mick Spiers: 10:01

So, whatever we think we believe, whatever we believe we become. So how do you help someone? You, andy. What's your method for helping someone to grab hold of that pen and rewrite the story that they're telling themselves?

Andy Hite: 10:14

Excellent question. It's what gets me so excited and out of bed in the morning. I love it when you know folks will come in with all kinds of challenges. You know, whether that be through their teams, whether that be their own personal beliefs or fears, imposter syndrome, I mean. The sky's the limit in terms of what the challenge could be. And oftentimes what we do is we just dissect it. Right, I remember when my kids were younger they'd run into our bedroom and they'd say, daddy, there's a monster in the closet. And what did we do? Took their hand, got a flashlight, opened the door and looked See, there's nothing here.

Andy Hite: 10:46

Oftentimes we do the same thing with our own limiting beliefs. Really, what's true about that belief? Right, working with a client on some money scarcity beliefs, you can imagine if you think that money and grew up listening to a parent that there's never enough money and that you're going to adopt a belief that money is scarce. Well, that almost always will translate in building a business there's never enough, it's never going to grow big enough. So we have to just look at the belief and the thoughts that fuel it. And what is real If there's three founders in a row doing the same thing and two are successful, and I'm setting there or not, it's probably not because I'm any different than them other than what I believe I can accomplish, because the accomplishment is possible. We see it.

Mick Spiers: 11:35

There's three things that I'm picking up there, andy, that I'd like to play back to you. The first one funnily enough, your positive reinforcement, or your reinforcement from your parents, was very positive and you've learned values and attributes from your parents that are very virtuous. Some of these values and limiting beliefs that we do learn, they learn behaviors that we've learned for a very long time the relationship with money, the way that we treat other human beings. All of these things have been ingrained with us for a long time, quite often from parents or other role models early in our development.

Mick Spiers: 12:07

And the second one that leads me into we don't always see it ourselves. We don't always see it ourselves. Even if we look in the mirror, we don't see what other people see. And then the third one is I'm seeing the power there of the coach. And when you spoke about the child with the monster in the closet, it was the coach that grabbed their hand, opened the cupboard, parent, but say coach, opens the door, flashlight. And what I'm hearing from you as a coach you're grabbing hold of the hand of the entrepreneur, you're helping them become aware of the monster in the closet. And then that monster in the closet isn't real.

Andy Hite: 12:42

Yeah, that's exactly right. You're so good at listening to a conversation and distilling it down to its key elements, you must be a coach. Well, yeah, maybe you're good at listening, but yeah, that's what we do. Clients will come in and they will be hitting a wall of some kind. That's where they are. We help them define. Well, where do you want to be? Oh well, I want to be on the other side of this, where you know, I now have a book of 20 clients or whatever. That could be Great. What's in the way, what's the thing that is getting in the way of you moving from here to there? And it's usually some sort of belief or perspective that is challenging to them and preventing them from moving forward.

Mick Spiers: 13:26

Yeah, I love this challenge of the why not? Why you're already there, and I think that's what's missing, quite frankly, andy, in a lot of organizations approach to strategy. So they think about okay, we are here, they do a from to analysis, that's pretty good, they are, we are here, we want to be there, how do we get there? And they talk about the steps to get there and they neglect to think about why aren't we there already and what's been holding us back from getting there? And these are the limiting beliefs, the fears, all of these things that are holding them back. And if you don't have that, why not conversation? You will never address the beast in the closet, the monster in the closet.

Andy Hite: 14:01

Yeah, and what's really interesting because you talk about this on an individual level you know, oftentimes the individual doesn't know what they don't know. Right, a team, an organization is the same thing, right? They're a living, breathing entity. And the leadership team, for example, they don't know what they don't know. They don't know why they can't move forward. They don't understand their own blind spots or perhaps how different leaders are at cross purposes and not everybody's rowing in the same direction. They can't really diagnose because they're a little bit too far in it. And that's why working with somebody like what we do is we can come in and help them, get some perspective and some altitude to show them oh, this is what's happening. You know you are at cross purposes here. Or you guys, collectively, as a leadership team, have a very limiting belief on what's possible and therefore you're not moving. Could be any number of things. But yeah, just like an individual has their own limiting beliefs, an entire team, an organization, can as well.

Mick Spiers: 15:01

And now it's a collective one that can have reinforcing behaviors, because they bounce off each other, and they can either bounce off each other positively or they can bounce off each other negatively. Now let me unpack that. I'd love to know your technique for this, then. One of the dangers of addressing the why not and the limiting beliefs and fears is that conversation can turn into a negative conversation of why things can't be done. How do you help them then challenge it and reframe it?

Andy Hite: 15:29

One of the things that you can maybe see about me is part of my essence is possibility. We can choose to look to what's predictable or impossible, or we can choose to look what's possible. I choose the latter, and so when I'm working with clients, we'll sit there until we find the possibility, because there's always a way, always, and so what we do is we work until we find it. We cannot stop at the limiting beliefs, or our work is done.

Mick Spiers: 16:01

I like this art of the possible. It's really cool. And now I'm picturing in my mind almost a couple of paths, and they don't have to be incongruent with each other, so one is okay. So why can't you do this? And challenging, and is that limiting belief real? Is that a real limitation or is that just a story that you're telling yourself in the head and stopping you from doing that? So the challenge, the belief. But then I'm also hearing a reframe. To well, what can you do? So if someone says, oh, we can't do that, okay, well, what can you do?

Andy Hite: 16:30

It reminds me of what my mom used to say to me, and then what I used to say to my young kids don't tell me what you don't want. Tell me what you want right, because we can stay stuck in. This isn't working, or I don't want this, or we don't like that, but it does nothing for growth and momentum. Great, we know that. Now, what? Now, what do we want? Brilliant, we can't go that way. How can we get there?

Mick Spiers: 16:55

Yeah, love it. Yeah, it's really powerful, andy, and I hope people listening to the show are thinking both in the individual and the collective. As Andy said, think about your own beliefs whether they're real and if you've got these limiting beliefs, challenge them. Think about whether they're real and then think about what you can do rather than what you can't do. I love that. And then think about the next team meeting you're in and see whether you're also stuck in a myriad of limiting beliefs that are just holding you in a circle of what can't be done instead of working out what can be done. All right, andy, I want to transition now to the three powerful phrases that all over your website, by the way, which is wonderful. I want to unpack those three phrases, so I'll reframe them for the audience now, just to restate it. So it's lead powerfully, love deeply and live fully, but I want to unpack one at a time. What does lead powerfully mean to you?

Andy Hite: 17:46

So I really do believe that leadership can change individual lives and truly change the world, because when we effectively show up as a leader, our job in that moment is to bring out the best in those around us. So I want myself, first and foremost, and then those that I'm working with, to lead powerfully. What that means is authentically, vulnerably, courageously. It's not about getting it right, it's about being in the game, and so one of my greatest tenants is to lead powerfully in everything I do. How can I support those around me to become the best? How can I be the best version of me? And I think when those two things happen, really, really good things happen.

Mick Spiers: 18:28

So I love that definition, andy, and I'm glad that you described it in that way, because I wanted to challenge a little bit about where it could be misinterpreted. So what I'm hearing from you is powerful, is authentic and vulnerable, and it's about creating the environment where people can do their very best work and where you can draw out the best of them and the best out in you. There are going to be some people, andy, that hear the word lead powerfully and they're going to think about the fist pounding CEO who's Alpha X and all of these things. Where they're powerful, they're strong, and that doesn't always serve well. So let me hear your view on that scale. Tell us.

Andy Hite: 19:04

And I don't even see that as leadership, I see that as autocratic, I see that as dictatorship. I think the old school ideas of leadership, where it's charismatic and commanding, like okay, it doesn't inspire me, so that leader wouldn't be a leader to me. What I want is somebody that's a human and somebody that's going to bring out the best in me, somebody that's going to show up with their very best authentic, vulnerable, empathetic and also, you know, with some power. I think leadership is whatever is needed in the moment.

Mick Spiers: 19:38

Oh, good one. Okay, really good, andy. Now I love every word that you're saying. I now want to ask you advice on behalf of the audience there's going to be. We've had generations I'll put an S on the end a little bit there. We've had generations of that model of leadership, but I think it's improving now, like more recently. It's improving and we're seeing courageous, authentic, vulnerable leaders right now. But we've had decades of the former right and two things that worry me. One is there's going to be people that maybe they've had a awakening of self-awareness and realize that they themselves have fallen into that trap. And the second part, which relates to that, is we've got many people coming through into the senior ranks right now where the only model of leadership they've ever seen has been that one, and there's a high risk of them mimicking the behaviors of those before them. How do we break them all?

Andy Hite: 20:37

Courageously right, and I think I mean I think there's a lot of data to show the old school is just less scalable. Right, and partly too, because the complexion of the workforce is changing. Covid, if it didn't show us, it showed us many things, one of which is people. They are kind of putting up their own barriers and they're demanding more from their leaders, and so nowadays, I believe the old sort of regime of leadership where it's commanding and pounding the fist, I don't think it's scalable because I think so many in the workforce are taking back their power. It's not just show up as a sheep and follow. It's like no, I want to be creative as an employee, I want to have some say and some autonomy and believe in what I do, not just do it for you. And so I think the data points that out and I think any leaders that really want to meaningfully step into a new role and lead by far the best way to get buy-in from your team.

Mick Spiers: 21:38

So the data is spelling that out.

Mick Spiers: 21:40

I've seen like 911% as one factor towards this multiplier of when you are in a multiplier organization instead of a diminishing organization, as an example. And the two things that I'm hearing from you there, andy, is in both directions. One is that it's putting a cap on the organization's possibility, so that limiting belief that alpha-style CEO they're a human being, they've only got 24 hours in the day. Do you want to be limited by their 24 hours or do you want to multiply the 24 hours by how many people you've got in your organization, so that the uncapping of the organization's potential so that they can scale up. Then the second one comes from below, which is people are speaking with their feet and they're setting psychological barriers and boundaries and expectations, now that, hey, I'm a human being, I have choices, I want to be creative, I want to make decisions, I want to be empowered. So there's a voice coming up from below and there's a realization from the top that if we keep on doing this, we're just going to stifle the organization's ability to grow.

Andy Hite: 22:50

Yeah, I mean, I'm seeing it everywhere, and what I'm really seeing too is you talked about some of the statistics when the leader really creates a shift and embodies the values of the organization, which is what creates the culture, when those things become aligned, teams start to thrive. There's this magic sauce because the organization, there's psychological safety, there's autonomy, there's creativity. That's what people buy in. That's when people buy in and will really come and give you eight hours of good work.

Mick Spiers: 23:25

Why do you think that is so when we put values in action? What do you think is the secret source that unlocks that power?

Andy Hite: 23:31

Well. So, whether we do it on purpose or not, we're driven by values and there is a culture. Typically, if we're asleep at the wheel, we're not going to bring our best right. We're going to be driven by many of those blind spots. We're not going to be leading in a way that is inspiring. I typically find those organizations are the ones that are just hammering revenue. We got to make more revenue. And are you doing the thing right? Are you doing it on time and are you doing a good quality? That just doesn't scale well. And so when we are conscious about the values that we say, we espouse and we live them out on purpose day in and day out, that creates a culture that people can really buy into, where they do feel safe, where they do feel valued, where they do feel like they have a why in showing up every day. And when that happens, it unlocks a key, some magical key that transforms an organization.

Mick Spiers: 24:31

So there's a few things that are popping in my head as I hear you talk, andy. One is the environment that you're creating, which I think is great. I'm going to say that that environment is also, then, based on a bit of trust, because instead of values just being on the office wall plaque, they're actually lived values, values in action. There's an element of trust that comes with that, and when the leader is authentic and vulnerable, it builds trust. And then the word that was in flashing lights as you were talking was the word belief, and we spoke about belief earlier, and what you believe in. What I'm hearing now is people will believe in the cause, so they believe in the purpose of what we're doing, but they also believe in themselves, because the leader has empowered them and told them that, hey, I believe in you, I know that you can do this. They've empowered them, they've enabled them, they've energized them, they've inspired them to believe in themselves, and when you believe in yourself, you can do it.

Andy Hite: 25:23

Oh, it's all about belief, right? What we believe we become, and if we believe we're capable, if we believe we're talented, if we believe we have a valuable voice, those things are going to become alive in us and in our team.

Mick Spiers: 25:38

Brilliant. All right, I'm going to go onto the second one now, and I think it connects in some ways, by the way. So tell me about love deeply. What does that mean to you?

Andy Hite: 25:46

I mean, if we're not, if we're, you know, we have 80 or so spins around this rock and we don't experience, I think, the most important gift that we're giving, which is love, what's the point, right? And so my people and they come to me wanting this too want to live the fullness of what life has to offer, and I think loving deeply means romantic relationships. I think it remains getting up excited in the morning to do the thing that you're meant to do. I think it means leadership, I think it means caring for oneself, right? I think it's really having a value of love for every moment that we're gifted on this planet, and when we can see that, when we can appreciate that and live into that, that's really where life like sparks.

Mick Spiers: 26:35

Yeah, I love it. It's one of our five fundamental human needs the need for love and belonging. And love unlocks such powerful endorphins and chemicals in the brain that just makes us feel good. So we want to love, we want to be loved and we want to feel like we belong to something bigger than ourselves. And the way that's curated is it's love. It's love and respect and to feel like we matter. We matter because someone else cares about us and I care about them. How does that sit with you?

Andy Hite: 27:07

Yeah, I have a manifesto on my wall with has a bunch of different things that are important to me, and the first two are lead with love and love to lead.

Mick Spiers: 27:16

Oh nice, Tell us both. I unpack those one at a time. Lead with love. What does that look like?

Andy Hite: 27:21

Well, lead with love is every encounter, every person, every moment, every potential client. You know if we're conscious enough and trust me, I'm not awakened enough to be this all the time, but I try to espouse the value is, if we lead with love, good things happen because that's the positive energy that we have. It's like our positive juju right. Good things happen from that. That's where authenticity lives and integrity lives and truth lives. Lead with love. And the reason I chose love to lead is not everybody needs to lead and sometimes leadership can be challenging, right? I oftentimes draw parallels between leadership and parenting because I think primarily the job of each one of those is the same To pave the way to bring out the very best and the one that you're caring about. And being a parent sometimes is real damn hard. Same thing in leadership it can be really hard. It is so much easier to be the manager who just leads with a fist. Just do it. And so love to lead, fall in love with the process of leading.

Mick Spiers: 28:27

So I love it and I love the love to lead, but it's essentially lead properly, not just you know the fist and all those easy things. Love to lead and learn to love the process of what it's all about and connecting with other human beings. I also love that you put on the table there that it's not for everyone. Human beings are complex and if I'll say this openly it might be controversial. If you're a leader listening to the show and you find the human beings in your leadership to be frustrating and you're beating your head against the wall and you're not enjoying it and you want to get back to your craft, whether it be, you know, your accountant, you're a nurse, you're a whatever it is, whatever your craft is, If you love that more than the people element of leadership, you need to stop and think and reflect. Now it doesn't mean you need to give up, but you do need to stop and think about what's holding you back from enjoying leadership and see if you can address those things and see you might have turned left at Albuquerque and see if you can reset and if even after you reset, you're still done.

Mick Spiers: 29:29

Enjoy it. You know what it's. Ok, Not everyone has to be a leader. You might decide to become a deep expert in your field and you lead in other ways. You lead from a technical point of view or from a mastery point of view, and that's OK too. If you really don't enjoy it, have a rethink, reset, try again, and if you still don't enjoy it, you can take a different path. It's really OK. How does that sit with you?

Andy Hite: 29:54

I think that's absolutely right. Right, you know, I would much rather someone opt out of leadership than to just be in the position and abdicate their authority, because I think that does more damage. Right, because people need leaders. The other thing I'd say about that is, if you're in leadership and your experience is not great, there's probably some self-reflection to do there and areas for growth for that person. You know, in my coaching we talk a lot about you spot it, you got it. If I don't like out in the world, arrogant people really bother me, but there's probably something in my filter around arrogance. You know. It might be that I completely stay away from it, or it might be that I battle with it myself, but typically that which we see out in the world that grates us, look inside, because there's probably some version of that playing out. We wouldn't resonate with it out there if it didn't exist in here.

Mick Spiers: 30:49

Very good, and that might connect to the next question that I want to ask you. You mentioned on your website about the relationship between love and fear. Tell us what that means to you.

Andy Hite: 31:00

One of the things that I believe. I believe is there's really two primary, if we call them emotions love on one end of the spectrum, pure love, bliss love and on the other is fear, and I think we can be driven by one or both, depending on where we are in the spectrum. And so typically what I find if there is an obstacle in someone's way, there's probably some amount of fear associated with that, because fear is the thing that creates obstacles. Love opens doors, and so what we do is we get really curious around what that belief is. Now, it might not be ooh, it's too scary kind of fear, but like a fear of challenging or moving outside of a comfort zone. Right, and even the fear may be unknown because it in and of itself is a blind spot. And so I look at it most of life through the lens of is it love or is it fear, or somewhere in between.

Mick Spiers: 32:00

I agree with you. I'm going to start with that and say that they are probably the two most powerful things in our life. Love can drive us or fear can drive us. And fear can drive us in two ways. It can drive us into action this is the, you know, fight, fight or flight, freeze actions. Or it can drive us into complete inaction, where our fear of loss is greater than our perceived benefit of acting. So we stay put and years later we go oh, why haven't we moved? Why haven't we improved? Why haven't we done anything to improve our life? Because fear got in the way. How does that sit with you?

Andy Hite: 32:34

Perfect. Yeah, it's true too. Fear can be an incredible motivator and can create success for people. Right, perfectionists, controlling people, those things in and of themselves are manifestations of fear, but they get people results. The problem is is they're not scalable. We're going back to this word scalable, right, you can get results, but and you mentioned this earlier too what got you here won't get you there. So there's always a limit on that kind of motivation, and so what we try and do is keep the desired result, the desired success that's out there that we want to attain, but kind of pick a different lane to get there, not to be motivated by fear, because then it's more scalable.

Mick Spiers: 33:17

Very good, and let's talk about scalable, because I want to bring that to the team level now, and this is the call to action I want to share with the audience and then hear from you, Andy, what your thoughts about how to address this. So we've just spoken a little bit about the individual and how love can drive us, or fear can either drive us or stop us. Right, If you're a leader who's trying to achieve a transformation in your business and it's just not working, we're not getting anywhere. The question I have for you is have you addressed people's fears? Have you addressed their fear of loss, their fear of and, by the way, loss?

Mick Spiers: 33:54

I'm not talking about financial loss, of course, that can come into it. The bigger loss that people have when it's organisational change is their loss of identity, their loss of ego. How will they see themselves at the other end of this bridge? And if they're very comfortable and they're like, for example, you're about to change into a new technology in your business and this person's a deep expert in your current technology, their resistance might be coming from well, but I like being the expert and when we do this change, I'm not the expert anymore. How can you help leaders to get through some of those fears that are within their team.

Andy Hite: 34:30

Yeah, I did a workshop last week and one of the things that we talked about was mission alignment. You know, and in any team there is the individual, there's the team, there's the leadership team and it just grows from there, right. And so we need, as individuals, to have desires for ourselves. Where it kind of gets a little murky is when that personal desire, that self-serving bias, gets in the way of the greater mission which is the organisation's mission. And so a lot of times what we have to do is work on the individual level or small team level and get them aligned with the greater goals and mission of the organisation.

Andy Hite: 35:11

And oftentimes that looks like your example there. Well, the IT, the tech team doesn't want to adopt this because at the end of the day they fear somehow that makes them obsolete or that gets in their way of achieving what they want to achieve. And right, we see that their self-serving bias is taking precedent over the ultimate goals of the organisation. So we have to find a way to get buy-in there so that we're all rowing in the same direction.

Mick Spiers: 35:38

Yeah, brilliant. And if you have everyone rowing in the same direction, you'll dominate and you'll make real change. You'll make real change, but you ignore those fears at your peril. If you don't address those, you will not grow. All right, lovely.

Andy Hite: 35:51

And this is why, if I can just jump on to that, my favourite thing is to work with the CEO, the business owner and the highest up, because if we can touch them and help train them to be really good coaches, they can do that work down right. Oftentimes I'll be brought in to work with somebody and my first question is well, what's the CEO doing? Do they have a coach? Are they bought into all of this? Because if I work with you and they're at cross purposes with you, nothing changes. It's going to be capped, all right very good.

Mick Spiers: 36:21

Now let's get to our third Live fully. What does live fully mean to any heart?

Andy Hite: 36:26

God, embrace everything that we can right, Enjoy time with. We spend so much time talking about work and business and oftentimes I work with high performers you do too. Oftentimes they have blinders on with the main objective, which can be making money, work, career, and what ends up happening is people get really burnt out in time, and I want my people to not only work really hard to achieve there, but work equally hard to achieve in your personal life, Because that's the other hopefully good eight hours in your day where you have friends, family, hobbies, nature, travel, food, things that can really bring the spice of life that we're meant to enjoy. So don't let that go. Make sure that we're putting our oxygen mask on first, so that when we show up at 8 am we come with the very best we have to give.

Mick Spiers: 37:25

Yeah, I love that, and I love the last bit that you said, then, as well, from a performance point of view, and I always think about the analogy of an Olympic athlete, for example. Olympic athletes do not train 24 hours a day, though, and they don't even train at full capacity when they do train every day, right? So they have these periods where they're recovering and then when they're refilling their oxygen tax, whatever you want to call it and then they come out and they perform. We forget that in business. We think, oh, you know, time is money and things like this, and we grind and grind and grind, and that's not the secret to high performance and it's not the secret to enjoying life.

Andy Hite: 38:03

I love your analogy and I use a similar one, a sports one. For any athlete, game day isn't the only day right. I have a friend who is a performance coach and an ex-pro soccer player. He often says a rest day is a training day. It's as important as game day, because if you stack seven game days up in a row, you'll be out, you'll be sidelined, you'll be burnt out, you can't do it, and so a rest day is a training day. It's as important as any other day.

Mick Spiers: 38:34

Love it, absolutely love it. And I'm going to add something and say you need to get in touch with yourself about what works for you on that one. So I've learned over time, andy, that I am incredibly productive in the mornings if I've had a good evening, right. So I'll often get something where something needs to get done. So do I stay up at night at 11 pm and do my very worst work, or do I wake up at 4 30 in the morning and do my very best work? Knowing yourself, knowing what recharges your batteries, knowing what brings you pleasure and joy, etc. Etc. And building that into your schedule instead of just grinding 24, seven, and you'll actually become more productive. It won't be more hours, but you'll be more productive. How does that sit with you?

Andy Hite: 39:18

100%. Yeah, know thyself, those old guys, the Stoics. They knew something when they quoted that. Know thyself.

Mick Spiers: 39:25

Yeah, brilliant, all right. So this has been a wonderful conversation. First of all, love the term scaling minds. Then I love this concept lead powerfully, and the way you described powerfully was absolutely beautiful. Love deeply and it is OK to love in the workplace. That's why we're here on this planet to love and live fully. I just absolutely love it, andy. Thank you so much. Is there any other final advice before we go to our final four questions? Anything passing remarks that you'd like to cap that off with?

Andy Hite: 39:53

No, I think that's pretty all-encompassing. It's just get into the arena, right that Teddy Roosevelt speech. Get in there and don't be afraid to live this life.

Mick Spiers: 40:04

Love it. Don't be afraid to live this life. I love it. Okay, let's get to those final four questions, and Andy First of all. What's the one thing you know now, andy Hyatt, that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Andy Hite: 40:15

So there's a line in my manifesto that says remember it's all a game. I wish that I knew I took things so seriously. Don't take it all so damn seriously. Right? Any perceived failure, we won't think about it in six months. Don't take everything so seriously. And when we do that, gosh, we lighten the load on ourselves exponentially, which provides for more creativity, more productivity. Just don't take it so seriously.

Mick Spiers: 40:41

Nice one. Okay, what's your favorite book?

Andy Hite: 40:44

Mick, that's like choosing my favorite child, I don't know. The books have been like incredible partners for me throughout my life. They've changed my life over and, over and over again. I'll just say I guess in this season and this is probably one of the books that I gift most often is the Untethered Soul by Michael Singer.

Mick Spiers: 41:03

All right, very nice. I don't know that one, so I'm gonna have to read that one as well. Very good.

Andy Hite: 41:07

It's great.

Mick Spiers: 41:08

All right, what's your favorite quote?

Andy Hite: 41:10

It's a Gandhi quote 'Be the change you wish to see in the world'. You know, I think it can work on the micro and the macro. You know, be the change you wish to see in your world. You want to be a better leader? Step into those shoes today, don't wait. You want to be a better spouse? Just do it today. You want to see anything change? Step into that today.

Mick Spiers: 41:31

I love that you mentioned the micro and the macro, because most people listen to that and they think about solving the world's problems, but it starts with yourself. Be the person you would be proud of.

Andy Hite: 41:42

Oftentimes, I'm working with a client and they're like well, you know I'm running a million-dollar business, but I'm going to be running a 50 million-dollar business and I don't know if I'm ready for that, and so I'll get them to describe. Who do you know that's running a 50-minute-dollar business? What are the qualities that might be different than you? Well, step into that now, Practice it. Don't wait. Be the change.

Mick Spiers: 42:03

Yeah, brilliant, love it, Andy. And finally, I'm sure there's going to be people listening to this, and they're listening to everything we've said, and they're going to be interested to know how they get on your coaching, how they get your services, how they learn more from you. How do people find you?

Andy Hite: 42:19

I really appreciate that. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn and I'm pretty searchable, Andy Hite - H I T E. I try and do my best to share valuable content there as often as I can. In my website, scalingminds. com, I've created a page just for your listeners that has a couple of assessments that might be helpful entrepreneurial fitness assessment, a leadership assessment, and if anybody is listening and is like, oh, I kind of want to have a conversation with this guy, there's a link there, Schedule some time we'll do some coaching. The best way to grow is to have somebody reflect back to you perhaps that which you can't see, and let's play that game.

Mick Spiers: 42:57

Yeah, love it. All right, and I think that that would be a wonderful move for all of you. Please do check out Andy, we'll put in all of those links into the show notes so it makes it easier for you to find them and click away, and I encourage you to do so. Andy, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for sharing your gift with us and your insights and wisdom. I feel richer for having this conversation, and I know the audience will be as well. Thank you so much.

Andy Hite: 43:22

Thank you so much for having me. I really, really enjoyed it.