302. Reframing Failure and Success with Anne Marie Anderson

Audacity isn’t about being wild; it’s about taking bold risks that are worth it for the season you’re in. We sit down with three‑time Emmy Award‑winning sports broadcaster and author Anne‑Marie Anderson to unpack how leaders can move from second‑guessing to decisive action without ignoring reality. Anne‑Marie shares the simple test she uses to separate worth‑it risks from reckless moves, and why the outcomes you fear are almost never at the extremes your brain imagines.

We get practical about failure, too. Anne‑Marie reframes rejection as data and shows how celebrating “misses” publicly builds trust and performance on teams. You’ll learn how to name and disarm your inner critic, why small experiments beat grand plans, and how to choose challenges that stretch rather than shatter confidence. For anyone wrestling with imposter syndrome or highlight‑reel comparison, this is a grounded path back to action.

Then we tackle the quiet twins that stall growth: time and money. Anne‑Marie breaks down the urgency fallacy and gives a repeatable approach to reclaiming your day with four focused 15‑minute blocks. We cover honest audits of calendars and bank balances, plus a re‑evaluation loop across career, health, and relationships so your progress matches what you actually value. The conversation closes with a powerful tool—the “front row.” Learn how to curate people who know your goals, push with care, and hold you to your commitments, and how a single clear ask can unlock surprising opportunities.

If this resonated, tap follow, share this with a leader who needs a nudge, and leave a quick review to help more people find the show. Your next audacious move starts now—what’s the one small swing you’ll take in the next 24 hours?

🌐 Connect with Anne Marie:
• Website: https://annemarieanderson.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anne-marie-anderson-3557ab39/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annemarieandersontv/

📚 You can purchase Anne Marie's book on Amazon:
• Cutivating Audacity:

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening: Why We Hold Back
• 0:36 Meet Anne‑Marie Anderson
• 3:46 Audacity vs Recklessness
• 6:46 Failure As Data, Not Finality
• 10:48 Normalize Rejection And Public Misses
• 14:48 Leaders Modeling Vulnerability
• 18:39 Dismantling Imposter Syndrome
• 21:26 The Four Barriers: Fear, Time, Money, Inner Critic
• 25:04 Time Boundaries And The Urgency Fallacy
• 30:20 Auditing Time And Money With Honesty
• 34:22 The Re‑evaluation Loop: Career, Health, Relationships
• 39:24 Defining Success On Your Terms
• 43:03 Build Your Front Row Of Accountability
• 48:00 Make It Public And Ask For Help
• 52:36 Rapid‑Fire Wrap And Resources

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:01

Have you ever held yourself back from going for something you really wanted? Because you were already playing out the worst case scenario in your head. Have you ever looked at other people's highlight reels on social media and thought, they're just braver than me, more confident than me? Maybe they're just built differently. Or maybe you're a leader who knows your team is capable of so much more, but you can feel fear, doubt, and the pressure to play it safe, holding everyone back. Today we're going to dismantle some of those doubts. I'm honoured to be joined by Anne-Marie Anderson, a three-time Emmy Award-winning sports broadcaster and the author of the book Cultivating Audacity. How to dismantle doubt and let yourself win. Anne-Marie is going to give us all tips on how we can overcome our own doubts and stop listening to our inner critic. Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Leadership Project. I'm greatly honored today to be joined by Anne Marie Anderson, and we're in for a real treat today. Anne Marie is a three-time Emmy Award-winning sports broadcaster who's covered six Olympics and the Super Bowl. And she's pivoted to be a public speaker and an author of the book Cultivating Audacity: How to Dismantle Doubt and Let Yourself Win. Now let's be honest, all of us have doubts. All of us. We wouldn't be human beings if we didn't. But it's the ones that are able to push through those doubts and take action, are the ones that are true high performers. So without any further ado, I I'm dying to get into this content. Anne-Marie, would you please say hello to the audience and give us a little flavor of your own personal journey of audacity and what inspired you to write this book?

Anne Marie Anderson: 1:58

I'm delighted to talk with you today, Mick. Well, so as you mentioned, I'm a broadcaster. I've been in sports broadcasting for over 30 years. Uh when I started, it's typically a male-dominated field, of course. And one of the things that I learned when I went in, I was kind of shy and introverted. And I learned that being in the locker rooms and boardrooms of some of the most successful coaches in sports, as I was as a producer before I went on camera, there was this shared trait that I saw amongst the highest performing uh leaders. And that was audacity, which really is the willingness to take bold risks, the kind of risks that are worth it and not the ones that are just reckless. And so I started to apply that to my life. And even though I was fearful and shy, I started to take bigger swings. And I was really surprised by the relationship that I had with failure and rejection and being able to recalibrate it. I thought I was always going to be so thin-skinned. But once I started to take big swings and fail more, I got more data and it allowed me to succeed more. And so I wanted to kind of share that philosophy with people who want to do the same things.

Mick Spiers: 3:09

Oh, that's amazing, Amory. There's two major things that I'm taking there. The take more swings, first of all, I immediately think of one of my favorite quotes. I'm going to ask you at the end of the show what your favorite quote is, but from Wayne Gretzky, that I missed 100% of the shots that I didn't take. So taking more swings, but then the impact of failure that you lent into failure, that you had to fail to become successful, which is where I think a lot of us have some limiting beliefs. Now, but before we go any further, though, I want to understand what you meant by the difference between audacity and reckless.

Anne Marie Anderson: 3:46

Yeah, worth it and reckless, right? Audacity being the willingness to take risks, but a risk that you take, let's say when you're 26, might be worth it then, with no kids, no mortgage, whatever it is. If I were to take that same risk now, that would be reckless. So for me, as an example, when I was 26 years old and living at ESPN's headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut, I decided I didn't like the snow. I didn't want to shovel snow. I left my job, hated the location. So I made the push to be Los Angeles bureau producer. And my boss at the time said, no, you know, we already have an LA bureau producer. And I was like, yeah, I know. That's why this makes it so awkward, you know, just that typical brashness of a young kid. But I decided that I wanted to make a decision for my life, not just my job. And I wanted a better quality of life. So I gave my notice, quit, essentially, and moved cross-country. For me to move cross-country now, at this age, with children and a mortgage and no job, would be entirely reckless and unwise. But at 26, with none of those burdens and a little bit of savings, it made sense to me to have a better life. And what ended up happening with that audacious risk is that when I arrived in LA five days later, ESPN hired me back, freelance for a few things here and there. And within a year, they had hired me back full-time and double the salary. That was a risk, right? Turned out great. But I wouldn't take that risk 30 years later with different accommodations. So you have to know when you consider all the possible outcomes, can you live with all of them? And that's what I mean by worth it.

Mick Spiers: 5:27

Okay. So we've got a almost like a worth it versus recklessness equation here as to what am I putting on the line and is the outcome going to be worth it? Okay, all right. So how do you how do you process that, Anne-Marie? Talk us through it.

Anne Marie Anderson: 5:41

Well, you need to know all the potential outcomes. One of the things I say about audacity in terms of building it, and I I write cultivating it because I do believe you have to grow it. I don't think anybody comes out of the womb necessarily audacious, is that audacity itself, people loved the word mindset. I think there's over 30,000 books in the US alone that have the name, the word mindset in the title. And mindset really is just optimism, right? It's just the belief that things will work out. And to use the sports analogy, if you're playing basketball and you're down by 12 at the half, why do you come out even in the second half? It's because you think maybe if things work out, you get your offense together, your defense solidifies, you might be able to win the game. But that no matter what happens, you'll still be okay. That's the optimism. And so when I talk about worth it versus reckless, can you live no matter what the outcome is? What if I had moved to Los Angeles and never got a call from ESPN ever again? Would I be able to live with that, find work otherwise, and continue my life? Yes. And so I think you have to weigh that. No matter when you look at the full range of potential outcomes from this audacious move you're considering, will you be okay no matter what they are? Maybe not happy about it, but will you be able okay with it?

Mick Spiers: 6:59

Yeah, okay. All right. This makes a lot of sense. So what one of the things that does play against us, our brain is wired to be more fearful of failure than it is to succeed. So our appreciation of loss can be five to ten times greater than our appreciation of gain. But what I'm hearing, or what I want to play back to you, Anne-Marie, is play out all those scenarios. And I'm hearing like what's ringing in my head is what's the best thing could that could happen if I take this audacious step? And what's the probability that that will happen? And then what's the worst thing that could happen? And be honest about the probability of that happening. And could I live with it if it did happen?

Anne Marie Anderson: 7:44

Yes. And knowing that it probably won't be either one, right?

Mick Spiers: 7:47

No, it'll be somewhere in between, right? Yeah, okay.

Anne Marie Anderson: 7:51

It'll be somewhere in between. It took a lot for me, Mick, to really recalibrate my relationship with rejection and failure. It took a lot because for me at the beginning, failure, like a lot of people, seems like an end point. Like I tried that, it didn't work, and so I'll have to try something entirely different. And after a while of working through this, it is, I tried that, it didn't work. What did I learn from it that I can try differently? Maybe to get back to that same area or with a slight adjustment. Failure is not finality. And I think for a lot of people, when you're so fearful of it, it feels final. And for me, no sometimes means not yet.

Mick Spiers: 8:33

Hmm. Okay. That's an interesting frame, reframing there as well. Failure is not final, and no doesn't mean not forever, it means not yet. So tell me how that plays in your decision making.

Anne Marie Anderson: 8:47

Oh wow. I, well, so I mentioned family, right? I have three children and I used to only show them the successes, you know, or they'd only see the successes, right? That's all people really see from you, especially with social media successes. And I started to teach them about the failures and the swings as we talk about and racking those up like a badge of honor. So I literally will tell my family, my 13-year-old will walk through the door and she'll be like, hey, mom, how's your day? And I'll be like, it was great. I got rejected six times today, this, that, the other thing. And she'll be like, right on. And it took a long time to get there. But she knows that if I'm saying to her, hey, I got rejected six times, that means I took 15 swings, if you will, at particular opportunities. And that's the reframe. That's how you kind of get there is if you're not being rejected or failing at some things, then you're not dreaming big enough, you're not swinging hard enough and high enough. So it's about just training yourself. I always say, Mick, go after the biggest opportunity first, the one where you're most likely to get rejected. Because if that's the fear that's standing between you and doing the thing you want to do, go get rejected right out of the gate. And people look at me like I'm crazy. But once you get rejected for that, you survive it, you have some information, and then you can take maybe a little bit more reasonable decision-making and choices for yourself.

Mick Spiers: 10:12

Yeah, really good, Emory. So that there were two things that I took from that. The first one was around rejection and putting yourself out there almost purposely to get rejected. And then I'm gonna say this, Emory. What watch what happens the next day? I'm gonna say, open up your curtains of your of your room and watch, did the sun still rise the next day?

Anne Marie Anderson: 10:33

Yeah.

Mick Spiers: 10:34

And the answer's gonna be yes, right. So rejection is not the end of the world. We sometimes feel like it, but process it. Get out there and and get rejected and then process it and realize that tomorrow's another day and you get to start all over again.

Anne Marie Anderson: 10:50

Yeah, and I think you really hit it. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but it's like what if you never get rejected, you're not playing big enough, right? So if you take that big swing, because you were saying like almost as if you'll get rejected, take the big one where you're, I mean, 95% gonna get rejected. And then you can peel it back a little bit rather than like turning the temperature up a little bit at a time. I'd say turn it to a boil and then dial it back from that point.

Mick Spiers: 11:18

Yeah, okay. And you can later on you can say, Well, I've been through this before, yeah. I can do it again. I can push myself again. Yeah. And the other part I picked up was the celebration of failure. And I'm gonna go further and say the public celebration of failure, telling you telling your family, telling your friends, yeah. I had six misses yesterday, but I had six tries too. I I went out there and I tried, and yeah, I didn't succeed, but I learned something. And guess what? I'm gonna go again tomorrow. And what I loved is I'm gonna use the word normalized it. You normalized it with your family.

Anne Marie Anderson: 11:54

Yeah, I always say, like, don't call me lucky. I've failed more times than you've tried. You know, it'd be nice if we had a different social media channel that was like just for the misses, you know, and just to put on there all the misses so people would know to keep going and keep trying and how many swings it takes. As you mentioned, Wayne Gretzky's quote, another one in basketball is it can't go in if it doesn't go up, right? If you don't even take the shot, it's you're not gonna make it. And so I feel like for for whatever reason, we hide those. We don't want people necessarily to know that we're not getting everything we need, that we're not successful the first time. And that's just so backwards. That's so backwards. You need to be able to be public and to have your support system around you to be like, yeah, I tried for this, didn't work out, tried for this, it didn't work out. Here I am still standing, and here's what I got from those two misses that I'm gonna put towards the third try.

Mick Spiers: 12:52

Yeah, really good. So, two things again there. So uh you're making me think of all of my favorite quotes today is really good. So, Gary Player, uh famous golfer, showing my age a little bit here, but famous golfer, and he had a uh an incredible shot on the 13th hole, and and a journalist had asked him, Oh, you you got really lucky on the 13th hole today. And he said, you know, the funny thing is, the more I practice, the luckier I get. And that's life too. If you don't practice, you're not gonna get better. You're not if you don't push yourself out of your comfort zone, you will never get there. You will never get there. Yeah, very good.

Anne Marie Anderson: 13:31

Yeah, and you know, it's funny as leaders, since you're the leadership podcast, I think as leaders especially, we get a little paralyzed by sharing any kind of vulnerability or any kind of misses because people look at us like we're supposed to be perfect and we're supposed to know it all because we're leading and we should know the right answer the first time. And I think that's an absolute myth.

Mick Spiers: 13:50

So I'm gonna use this as one of our biggest takeaways today is normalize. Normalize failure, normalize mistakes, own it, stick your hand up and say, you know what, I didn't quite get this one right today. And what it does is it normalizes it for everyone else to also do it, and they will take more calculated risks if they realize that it is okay to make a few mistakes along the way. And secondly, it builds trust, Anne-Marie. If you're a leader that sticks up a hand and says, Sorry, team, I didn't get this one right. This is what I learned from it, this is what I'll do differently next time, this is how I'm gonna fix it, it builds trust. It doesn't erode trust, it builds trust. So you're feeling that if I admit that I made a mistake, what are they gonna think of me? They're gonna think more of you, not less of you. How does that sit with you?

Anne Marie Anderson: 14:38

Right. Because audacity builds a culture fueled by courage. That's really what it is. And the leader has to show some courage along with their vulnerability. We didn't get it here, but here's what we did. So then you're gonna get employees who are willing to think outside of the box, who are willing to take some swings, feeling safe, knowing that if they don't quite get it right the first time, they're not going to be worthless to you as a leader. They're going to be somebody who you see as courageous and who's willing to take another risk, and maybe that one will hit. So yeah, you need to, as a leader, fuel, create a culture where that is led by courage.

Mick Spiers: 15:18

Yeah. Okay. So cultivating a culture of courage and p where people take steps despite the fear, not the fact that the fear doesn't exist. There's no such thing as a fearless leader. You're taking steps despite the fear because it is, I'm going to use your term, worth it. They've done the calculated risk and go, you know, actually, this is worth it. This is worth having a shot at. Yeah, really powerful. In the title of your book, you talk about how to dismantle doubt. This is one thing that many of our leaders, and if you're listening to this show right now, it's okay to admit this too, they do suffer from, you know, the dreaded imposter syndrome and whether I belong and am I worthy? Let alone is this challenge worth it? Am I personally worthy? You brought up about social media before. I deeply worry about this, Amory, about an Instagram world where people are showing their successes every day on Instagram and other social media, and they're not showing their failures. How can we help leaders today overcome imposter syndrome and get out there and stop comparing themselves to someone else's curated world on social media?

Anne Marie Anderson: 16:28

Right. It's an awareness of one of the four main barriers. I talk about four barriers that stand between you and the thing you want to do, the way you want to lead. Fear, one of them we've already talked about. Time, money are others. I call those twins because they're very similar. And the final one we're touching on right now, which is your inner critic. And it was interesting just listening to you kind of phrase the question where you were saying, Am I good enough? Am I ready for this? Because that's that voice, that inner critic that we all have in your head speaking about questioning, you know, am I ready? And that's the whole point is, and you hit it earlier. I've been here before. When you have taken big risks and some of them have worked out and some of them haven't, all of a sudden you start to be able to tell yourself, I've been here before. I haven't maybe dealt with this particular problem, but I've gotten myself out of other sticky situations. And so that's how I can do it. And I'll tell you, Mick, the key that I learned to really silencing your inner critic is to separate it from yourself by literally giving it another name. And it sounds so childish and patantic. I did this with my child picking her up from school. I think she was 11. And I said, Hey, honey, how is school today? And she's like, Well, I can't do math. I'm stupid. And no, by the way, I'm fat. And I was like, Okay, well, get in the car. And uh, as we're talking, the obvious questions we've all been taught, like, would you say that to someone else? Of course not. Right? Well, if that isn't something that you would say, then that's not your voice. That's not Mick's voice. So let's give it another name. So for my daughter, I said, let's give it a name of somebody else who you don't know, by the way. I always say, don't give it the name of a real person because you're not going to give that much power to somebody negative in your life. So she named her inner critic Jerry. And so I said, okay, what would you say to Jerry if he walked up to you and he said, You can't do math, you're stupid. And oh, by the way, you're fat. And she said, I would say, shut up, Jerry. And I said, exactly. So whenever I hear her, still two years later, if she's at the kitchen counter doing her homework and I hear her go, Oh, I can't do this. I will yell down, shut up, Jerry. And she'll be like, Oh, fine. You know, it's frustrating for her, but she does realize it pulls her right out of it. Like, yeah, I was listening to this voice that really doesn't have any footing in the real world. It's just doubt, and I'm not gonna let doubt drive the car.

Mick Spiers: 18:58

Yeah, really powerful. I I'm gonna embrace this one as well. So everyone listening to the audience, here's your homework. You're gonna name that inner critic. We all have it. We all have it. I'm gonna call I'm gonna call mine negative Nancy. I'll just come up with that'll do for today. I'll come up with a better word or another name another day. But yeah, just to say, uh and the question you asked, would you use those words to another human being, that inner critic that just told you that you're not worthy and you're you can't do this, would you say that to another human being? Of course you wouldn't. So why would you let yourself say it to yourself? And you're supposed to be your own best friend. Why would you let yourself say that? So yeah, really, really powerful.

Anne Marie Anderson: 19:39

Right? The question we're asking is are they right? Are they right? Like is it is it right? Well, you can be curious about it. Well, can I not do math? I mean, I don't know. Let's try math again, let's try a different way, let's try to to figure it out. Maybe math's not my strong suit, and you relax with that. Stop expecting to compare yourself. To somebody else who is does have that particular skill. So that's the where the real inner critic comes from. There's part one is the voice. And the second question is, are they right about me? And so it is well, let's find out with action. Because the mindset's that first step. You can be optimistic sitting on your couch all day long, and nothing happens unless you take action. And then when you take that consistent action, that's when you start to build an audacious identity.

Mick Spiers: 20:29

Yeah, yeah, really good. And what what I'm hearing there is to test the validity of the statement and then push it and test it and go, well, okay, well, what let's try it. Well, let's test if it is right. But I'm also hearing elements in here, Emery, of a reframing of stop thinking about what you can't do and think about what you can do. So if you think you're if you think you can't do math, well, what can you do? What's the first step that you can do? Let's use another tennis analogy. I love tennis, Emery, and I keep on pushing myself out of my comfort zone. So in the seven scale levels of tennis players, I I'm a level four, let's say. I love playing against level five tennis players because they push me. And I always play better when I play against level five. I'm not about to call Novak Djokovic or Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal and challenge them to a match. That would be ridiculous. But I do need to go, well, what can I do? Well, I can push myself. I can push myself against a level five player. And that doesn't mean that I'm a terrible tennis player. That means I'm getting better at tennis. How does that sit with you?

Anne Marie Anderson: 21:37

Right, of course. That goes back to the growth mindset, of course, which is a very popular term, but is rooted in real truth. It's incremental improvement, and that's ties back into failure. Like the more times that you fail, the easier it is to try again because you've been here before. So it's the same idea.

Mick Spiers: 21:58

All right. So you spoke about the four barriers, and we've spent a bit of time on fear and inner critic. So the four barriers were fear, time, money, and inner critic. So tell us about the twins, the time and money. How do we let that creep in and what can we do about it?

Anne Marie Anderson: 22:13

Yeah, time and money, I call them twins because you have to approach them both the same way. You have to know how much you have of each before you can delegate it or reassign it appropriately. So time, for example, people, you'll always hear, I'm going to do the thing when? And it's like, when? When is the right time? When I have more of this, when I have more of the qualifications. And here's the truth the right time is never coming. You don't need more time, because you're not going to get more time. You need better barriers, better boundaries, I should say. So again, I'll say it one more time. You don't need more time, you need better boundaries. And that's about figuring out what's really important to you. And there's something I call the urgency fallacy. If you have something urgent to do, Mick, and you have something important to do, which do you do first? Typically.

Mick Spiers: 23:09

Most people go to the urgent, I gotta say.

Anne Marie Anderson: 23:12

Urgent, right? Because it's urgent and it's due and you have to get it done right now. And I totally understand it. But here's the deal urgent will actually always get done, simply by the nature of the fact that it has a time that has to be done. It's reactionary in nature. Somebody texts you, they email you, you have a report to turn in, a bill to pay, whatever it is, urgent will get done. And what we tend to do as people is say, when I get through all of my urgent tasks, then I will do the thing that's important to me. But here's the trick urgent never ends. It never ends. It's a complete cycle. I mean, people who have, you know, four kids, two jobs, they don't have extra time to do something. People who have no pets, no kids, no plants don't have extra time. And so it's about how you allocate that. So my theory, right, as a mother of three, uh, a full-time broadcaster, I'm still broadcasting. I am a full-time keynote speaker and I decided to write a book. Like in my free time, you know, it doesn't exist. And so, like a lot of people, I thought originally, okay, I'm gonna get up at 4:30 every morning and write from, you know, 5 to 6 a.m. before the kids get up. One hour a day, and that's how I'll get this book done. And that didn't even last a week. You know, it turns out, shocking. I'm not particularly inspired to write at five in the morning, you know, and it just was, it was just planned and it didn't work. But I knew I needed that hour. So what I ended up doing, and this is where the urgency fallacy comes in, is I ended up carving out 15 minute blocks four times per day that I would devote to writing because whatever is urgent, the bill, the report, the email, the text response, can usually wait 15 minutes. And so I would literally set an alarm on my clock, on my phone. When it went off, I'd shut everything off, write for 15 minutes, then return and take care of some more of those urgent tasks. That way, the important didn't get pushed off until tomorrow or the next day, or that mysterious when I have more time.

Mick Spiers: 25:22

Yeah, really powerful. So the urgency fallacy, I'm gonna say that there's gonna be people listening to the show, leaders, that fall into this trap. I sometimes also call it the autopilot trap. They might start the weekend, Marie, with some really important things that they want to achieve this week, and then they get into this rhythm, and in this case, not a not a virtuous rhythm, a something that's more like a chaotic rhythm of they go to the office and they end up dealing with 27 urgent things, and they go home at the end of the day feeling like they didn't get anything done. They didn't get anything done. And then what I'm hearing from you is intentional time blocking, and you're only talking about 15 minutes. When I talk to people about time blocking, I talk about 60 minutes, 90 minutes. You're talking about 15 minutes. Everyone can find 15 minutes.

Anne Marie Anderson: 26:12

You can find 15 minutes. Exactly. Because I I talked about what's urgent, right? All those things that are immediate, and there's this great satisfaction in checking things off our to-do list. I mean, I know I learned from speaking, I'm not the only person who will make a to-do list, check things off, and then I do something that's not on the list, and I go back and I write it on the list just so I can have that satisfaction of checking it off, kind of thing. But things that are important a lottimes aren't on that list because they're too big. They require more thought and consideration and time. And they don't have a deadline necessarily, but they have real consequences if they're ignored. Whether it is creating a new project or writing a book or creating some time for your health, whatever it is that you want to do. And so that's why you have to create the space. However, it can be three 20-minute blocks, four, you know, 15-minute blocks, you talk about 60 minutes to 90. I can't really do that and turn things off for that long. But creating that space for that time because you're claiming it's important, then why are you pushing it off? Because you can answer things to other people in reaction. And so you can there is space for both, but that's where I talk about you need better boundaries, not more time.

Mick Spiers: 27:30

Yeah, I love the boundaries. Let's unpack that a little bit more as well. The other thing that is screaming in my head when I hear you, Amory, I'm thinking about all the things that distract me, urgent tasks. And if I was to classify the majority of them, I'm gonna say that urgency is normally someone else's priority. And important is something that is an investment in myself. So I'm letting other people's priorities hijack my day. That's what it feels like. Yeah.

Anne Marie Anderson: 28:02

100%. That's exactly what it is because urgent is reactionary. I mean, again, if it's like paying a bill, right, that is important to you in the end. But, you know, it's also important to you to keep your job and have that relationship and return that text. But they are triggered by, and I think this is what you're getting to, it's all triggered by external factors. That's the difference. And when you look at it, urgent is triggered by an external factor, whereas important is something that is from the inside out.

Mick Spiers: 28:32

Yeah, really good. All right. Now, in the book, you talk about auditing your time. So people might be listening to this and going, oh, shit, it sounds like Anne Marie's talking about my life. How does someone audit their time so they can understand where it is going?

Anne Marie Anderson: 28:47

Yeah. Well, and it is the simplest way, right? You've got to chart it. You've got to keep notepads and just for a week write down how you actually spend your time. I have, you know, in the book, there's several charts that can show you ways to do it as a bar graph, as a pie chart. I have on my website where I'm sure we'll get to it at the end, but where you can get the first chapter of Cultivating Audacity for free. There's also a workbook, a companion workbook you can download for free that has these charts for you. Because if you don't know how much time you're spending on different things and you need to be honest about your scrolling, I need to be honest about mine. I spent an hour last night in bed that I didn't have scrolling, you know, and so it's like being honest about what you're finding so that you can find where to trim, perhaps sometimes. You have to audit your time and audit your money. When I talked about money, as I didn't quite talk about that when we mentioned twins. The other thing about money, very similar. I have a friend who really had a poor relationship in her family growing up with money. It was very kind of twisted. And so she kept her head in the sand. And I know a lot of people are like this. They they don't want to know how much money they really don't have, have or don't have. And so what she did was she worked, and I thought it was brilliant, into her morning routine every morning, she would look at her bank balance while she brushed her teeth. And if there was$10 in there, she would say, Thank you for being here. And then if there was a$100 or$1,000, whatever it was, but she said the first step for her in getting past money as a barrier was not sticking her hand, head in the sand about how much she had or didn't have. And looking at our own debt, looking at, you know, maybe the lack of resources that we have or waiting to have more resources can be a real problem. You have to look at it and assess what you do have before you can decide your next step of action. So when I talk about time and money as twins, that's the way that they relate to each other as a barrier stopping us from doing the things we want to do.

Mick Spiers: 30:53

So I'm hearing a couple of things there around actually some gratitude of being grateful for what you do have, which is interesting. But then the awareness. And I think this is another one where if we're honest, a lot of us end up on autopilot and we don't pay enough attention to where did our money go? And did it go onto the things that are important to us?

Anne Marie Anderson: 31:15

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And just not being, again, it goes back to fear, not being fearful of knowing the truth, knowing the truth about our money and what we have, what we don't have. And I understand everybody's money story is very different. When I started working at ESPN, I was making$15,000 a year, which was, I think,$3,000 above food stamps at that point. And I was literally tracking every penny that I spent so that I could afford the things that I needed to afford, like rent, just the basic necessities.

Mick Spiers: 31:50

Yeah. Okay. All right, very good. Now, the next thing you talk about in your book is about a re-evaluation loop. So tell us what does that mean and how do we step into that?

Anne Marie Anderson: 32:02

Well, a re-evaluation loop is you're not going to be staying at the same place in your entire life, right? There's not uh an audacious goal that you want to get to, and then you just stop when you get there, or even if you don't, or if you realign. It's about knowing how you feel, how your life is working for you. I mentioned at the beginning of the show that when I left Connecticut to move to Los Angeles, it was a move for my life, not just for my job. And so in the reevaluation loop, I look at breaking your life up into three categories. You can certainly do more for me. It's career and professional, health and wellness, and then relationships, quality of your relationships, not just romantic, your friendships and such. And evaluating your level of satisfaction and fulfillment in each of those areas. So you can figure out how to rebalance your life. And it's it's gone throughout my life. It ebbs and flows. Even when I wrote the book and I created this assessment, it's very simple in the back of the book. Career and professional, going well. Things are good. Health and wellness, good. Relationships, terrible. When I looked at it, terrible, because I had had my head, you know, nose to the grindstone, working so hard that I had been ignoring a lot of my friendships and relationships. There was no time for social connection. And so when I really looked at that, I was like, wow, I need to recalibrate that. And just like what's important to me, urgent versus important, I could work on urgent all day long. I can work all day long. So I have to schedule in connection time with my friends and with my relationships. My family, my kids, I always made time for. But anything beyond that, I wasn't making time for. And so reevaluation loop is figuring out not just how you're spending your time, but how it's serving you and where you might need some adjustment. And I has a scale in there, Mick, in terms of like uh minor tweaks needed. I mean, certainly you hope that you don't need a major overhaul, but there is, there are a certain point number for that. But it's it's constant evaluation. And, you know, maybe you do it once a year, once every two years. Mine is kind of continuous going on. I might take the assessment every six months or so, just very quickly, takes five minutes to know if my life feels the way that I want it to in full, not just in work or not just in health or just in relationships, but as a unit.

Mick Spiers: 34:36

Yeah. I really feel like it's easy for us to get out of balance if we're not paying attention. And if we don't take the time to stop and look and you wake up one day and go, Oh, I've got this part of my life sorted out, but wow, I've let my health slip, slip lately. I've, you know, I'm not happy with where I'm uh how I'm looking after myself. Am I getting some exercise in? I used to love exercise. Why aren't I exercising anymore? Is that's the kind of thing I'm hearing here. Or I used to like going out with my friends and connecting. I haven't done it in months or years. What happened? And and then taking action. But if we don't stop and do that check-in with ourselves, it might continue in that trajectory that it's going. How does that sit with you?

Anne Marie Anderson: 35:18

It does. And here's the other thing. I'm not placing a judgment on which things you should have or shouldn't have. I mean, maybe your life is rich with social connections and your health and your career. You're not looking to drive it forward more. Well, then you're good. Your re-evaluation loop will show you that you're good and you're happy and you're satisfied. It's about how it sits with you. And that's why it's a point system based on your reflections about how it's working for you. Maybe you're somebody who doesn't like to have a lot of social connections outside of your family. As long as you figure out when you're doing that part of the evaluation that it works for you, your scores will reflect that.

Mick Spiers: 36:00

The most important word I heard there was the word you. I'm going to talk about career. I'm going to talk about social expectation. That's what I'm going to talk about. When you do that scorecard, is are you happy? Are you happy with where you're at? And you might be in a job where actually, you know what, I really like this job. And I I don't want the next promotion. I I'm really I just want to get better at what I do today. I can still learn and grow within my current job, but I like my job. I like my job. And it's okay to admit that and say, that's fine. And what I didn't hear, Anne-Marie, is you I didn't hear any externalization there of going, oh, you know, I need to get that promotion because uh what will others think of me? Or there's an expectation that I'm 40 now. Why aren't I an executive yet? It's not about external factors. Are you happy? The word you.

Anne Marie Anderson: 36:51

Yes. That's it, that's exactly it. And it's it's about other people's expectations. I have a number of friends who really are very happy in their current situation. They have no desire uh professionally to elevate at all, but they do have a desire to travel more. And so that's where their audacity needs to be cultivated. I certainly see it in a lot of societal pressure for people who say, Well, you need to have children. Well, maybe they don't want to have children. That always makes me crazy. For my friends decided they don't want children. Other people are like, but you're this age. You should have this by now. And so the most important part for me about audacity is dismantling the doubt that's maybe coming from other people when you're saying, I'm perfectly happy with the way things are going on in this area of my life. It's this area that I want to do, you know, make we're part of the society of this, like grow, grow more, do more, be more. And part of audacity is being able to set your own desires and set apart everybody else's expectations and say the risks that I want to take that are worth it to me are very personal and they're not based on somebody else's scale of success.

Mick Spiers: 38:10

So even with that, with the growth, check in with yourself. Is the learning and growth that you're doing in yourself, is it something that you're doing it because you want to do it, or are you doing it because there was some kind of perceived expectation that you're brought on yourself by perceiving what others expect of you? Come back to Instagram or anything else uh around those external expectations. I was even thinking there on the health one, anyone that's listening to this podcast and they're in the gym right now and or you're out running and you're listening to this podcast, I just want you to pause and say, are you running because that's what you're doing because others expect it, that you wanna, I don't know, lose a few pounds because you feel the pressure of social expectation, or are you doing it for you? Are you doing it for you? And if you're doing it for you, that's the right reason. How does that sound Amory?

Anne Marie Anderson: 39:03

I mean, that's that's the beginning in chapter two is examining your motivations because if they are external to make somebody else proud of you or to prove somebody wrong, those are the worst possible reasons that you can do it. And it's such an important part about why I talk about creating your front row. And your front row is somebody, is a group of carefully curated people that understand who you are, what your goals are, and what you want to do. And it allows you to knock out a lot of that other noise. And here's the thing about your front row it's probably not your mom. And it's probably not your best friend because they want you to be safe. And a component for being in your front row is someone who's going to push you to do the things, to make the audacious decisions that make you happy when you're talking about fitness in the front row. It's not somebody who's going to say, Why are you not a size fit? Fill in the blank of whatever size it is that you think society needs. It's somebody who's going to understand your goals for your health if that's where you want to create your audacity and support you in those ways. And it allows you to block out all the other noise. It's the people who are going to call you out too. I have a fitness front row. I have several front rows in my life, right? I have my personal front row. I have my career front row. I have my fitness front row. And because I work in sports, I work with a lot of athletes. And so my fitness front row or two of my close friends who are both Olympic athletes. And if I don't show up for my workout, they are texting me, hey, where are you? And I always joke with them. I need new friends. Like you guys are just not the right people, you know. But they understand I'm not an Olympic athlete. I'm not trying to be an Olympic athlete. I'm not going to lift as heavy as you are. But I do want to be able to climb mountains and do all the things I want to do fitness-wise. So that's why they're in my front row supporting me for those goals, even though those goals aren't the same as their goals.

Mick Spiers: 41:03

So what I'm hearing here is someone in your front row is not someone that's there to keep you safe. It's someone there that's going to push you. But the key element that I heard, Anne Marie, was they're going to push you because they know it's important to you. They know you, they get you, they know what you're trying to achieve, and they're going to hold you to account for what the things that you said that you wanted to do.

Anne Marie Anderson: 41:27

Yes. Sometimes they may not know you, but they know your goals. I'll give you an example of that. For my career and professional, when I decided that I wanted to become a more consistent keynote speaker, I've always spoken, right, being in television, but I wanted to become a paid keynote speaker many, many years ago. I actually reached out to a couple of people through Instagram who I did not know, but said, Hey, here's the situation. Do you have some time that I could talk with you? And two of them did make time for me to talk. And they are actually still in my professional front row now, even though one of them we've never met in person, and the other one very briefly so, because they understand what my goals are, I've expressed them to them. And so they have said, okay, if these are your goals, here's what I see you doing that's helping you towards those goals. Here's what I see you doing that's leading you away from those goals. What are you doing? And that's the way that your front row can hold you accountable. Because here's the key with social media and with all these things we have now, ways to stay connected, but not really connected, when you ask someone, hey, will you be in my front row? You're giving them a role in your life, a significance in your life, so that they then want to check up on you because they know you, they have an important place in your success. And who doesn't like helping somebody else find their own personal success?

Mick Spiers: 42:54

Yeah, really great, Amory. So the few things I'm hearing here is that you can have multiple front rows. It does not have to be one, it can be in the different factors of your life. For everyone listening to the show, have a think about who is in your front row. And are they people that just love you and are gonna tell you the things that they think you want to hear, or are they the ones that are really gonna challenge you because they understood what your goal was and they're gonna give you the sometimes the the confronting truth of the the little push out of your comfort zone to make sure that you are taking the steps that you said that you're gonna take, that level of accountability. And if it's not a cheer squat, it's an accountability squat, is what I'm hearing, Anne-Marie. Does that make sense? Yeah.

Anne Marie Anderson: 43:38

Yeah, and they're not letting their own fears get in the way. I mean, that's why I say not your mom and not your best friend, because they want you to be safe and they may be being bringing their own fears into the relationship. Just because somebody's not in your designated front row doesn't mean they're not your best friend. Doesn't mean you don't love them. At the same time, there may be people in your front row who don't even deserve to be in the room. Like you feel like they need to be there, but they're actually not somebody who has your best interests at heart. And that can be really heartbreaking when you think somebody is in your front row and then you realize, nah, there's competition or jealousy or whatever it is. You have to kind of slide them out of it. So a front row can be a little bit fluid, but it's your decision to decide who gets to sit there. And it isn't a huge group of people. It isn't. But when you make a decision, your front row needs to know. That's where you make it public. That's where you say, here's what I'm going to do. I have one friend who every time I post something on social media about the front row, she always responds to it with, that's me, because she knows like that's where she belongs. Is somebody's going to do it? We're not in the same profession. She's one of those Olympians, so we don't have the same fitness level by any means. You know, we have very different socioeconomic things, but she knows she's in my front row because she understands where I am and where I'm trying to go.

Mick Spiers: 45:04

So we're having a conversation with them to make sure that they know that they're in the front row. How do we empower them, Anne-Marie?

Anne Marie Anderson: 45:11

I literally say it like that. Hey, would you be in my front row? And when I'm speaking, I'll give you an example. I was speaking to someone at an educational conference, and a woman came up to me afterwards and she said, I've been a teacher for 28 years. I want to move into administration. I'd like to be an assistant principal now. And I said, Okay, great. What needs to happen? And so we talk about that. And she says there's an opening, and uh, I need to talk to my principal. Actually, he was here. And I was like, wait, your principal's here. Yes. Did he hear me speak? Yes. Okay, so you need to go up and ask him if he'll be in your front row. And she's like, Okay, I will. And I was like, Yeah, no, now. And she's like, Oh, you know, she immediately regretted coming and talking to me. And so for the rest of the conference, I found her three more times and I said, Have you spoken to him yet? And told him, making it public, hey, I want to move from being in the classroom to being an assistant principal. And finally I said to her, Look, there's a snowstorm coming. We were in New Hampshire. There's a snowstorm coming. We all have to get out of here soon. I'm not leaving until you do this. Give me your phone because I'm going to take a picture of you in the moment that you're brave enough to speak to him. And so I stood kind of in the background with her phone and I took a picture as she went up to talk to him. And she came up afterwards and I said, You did it. And she said, Yeah, I used actually those words. I want to be an assistant principal. Will you be in my front row? Since he understood the verbiage at that point. And he said, All you had to do was ask. And three months later, I got a message from her through my website saying, I start my new job as assistant principal July 1st. I'm so thrilled. Because she made it public and she gave somebody the significance by simply using the words, here's where I want to get. Can you help me get there?

Mick Spiers: 46:56

That's brilliant, Amory. And that's that's a wonderful story for us to culminate on to show how these actions, actions, they're not thoughts, they're actions, can really get us there. So thank you so much, Amory. Just summarize a few things that we've been through today about how to dismantle our doubt and let ourselves win, about dealing with the barriers. They exist. We're all human beings. We all have fears. We all have barriers of time and money. We all have an inner critic. We're going to name our inner critic. Negative Nancy for me. You come up with your name listening to the show. What are you going to name your inner critic? And you are you going to let your inner critic talk to you like the most horrible person on the world? Of course you're not. You're going to think about where is your time going? We're going to audit our time and go, well, are we spending our time on urgent things that are not important? Or are we cultivating time to work on the things that are most important to us? We're going to re-evaluate. We're going to look at all of the factors in our life and go, where are we happy? Where are we not happy? And the answer is, where are you happy? Not societal expectations, not parental expectations, nothing else apart from, are you happy with where your health is? Are you happy with where your career is? Are you happy with where your finances are? These are all personal questions to ask yourself. And then we're going to have a look and go, who is in our front row? Who is in our front row? Are they the right people that are going to challenge us in the right way? And do they know that they're in our front row so that we can empower them so they do push us when when we need that little push out of our comfort zone? This has been really powerful, Anne-Marie. Thank you so much. I'm going to take us now to our wrap it round. These are the same four questions we ask all of our guests. So what's one thing you know now, Anne-Marie Anderson, that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Anne Marie Anderson: 48:48

That failure is something to be proud of. Because the fact that you failed means you tried and you just keep that on a repeat cycle.

Mick Spiers: 48:56

Yeah, brilliant. All right, thank you so much. What's your favorite book?

Anne Marie Anderson: 49:00

Right now it's still atomic habits. I've been stuck on that one for a while because I do believe that you don't need big changes. Little micro movements are enough to keep moving.

Mick Spiers: 49:09

Yeah, very good. Yeah, it's one of my favorites too. What's your favorite quote?

Anne Marie Anderson: 49:14

My favorite quote is when writing the story of your life, don't let anyone else hold the pen. Your story is unique to you. So you write it the way that you want.

Mick Spiers: 49:25

Oh, that's powerful too. That hit really hard. I I love that. So everyone listening to this, grab hold of the pen. Grab hold of the pen. You write your story. Okay. And finally, Anne Marie, people do, I gotta say, there's many people listening to the show that do struggle with the very things that we're talking about. How do people find you if they'd like to know more and take more steps?

Anne Marie Anderson: 49:47

The easiest way to reach me is through my website, anmarieanderson.com. There's an e on the end of Anne. And there you can read the first chapter of the book for free. You can download the uh companion workbook. You can find the book on Audible or anywhere else. You can message me through there. And if you'd like me to speak to your group about leadership and courageous culture and how you as a leader can create that kind of culture in your workplace, you can find me through a booking link there as well.

Mick Spiers: 50:16

Wonderful, Amory. Thank you so much for sharing your gift of your time and your wisdom with us today. It's been very inspiring. You're inspiring me to take action as soon as we finish this. I'm going to put, we're going to have a look at, you know, the reevaluation, the auditing the time. I'm going to take these actions as well. And I know the audience will as well. So thank you so much.

Anne Marie Anderson: 50:35

Thank you for having me. I had a delightful time.

Mick Spiers: 50:38

Wow, what an energizing and deeply practical conversation with Anne-Marie Anderson. There were so many powerful moments in there. Let me quickly highlight a few that really stood out for me. First, was worth it versus recklessness. Audacity isn't about being wild or irresponsible. It's about taking bold risks that are worth it for this season of your life. And recognizing that what was audacious at twenty six might be reckless at forty six. That nuance is so important for leaders making big calls for themselves and their teams. Second, the reframe of failure and rejection. I love the image of Anne Marie walking in the door and proudly telling her daughter, I got rejected six times today. Not because she enjoys a rejection, but because it means she took fifteen meaningful swings. That's such a powerful invitation for all of us. If you're not failing or being told no occasionally, maybe you're just not swinging high enough. Third, the idea of the front row. Who is in your front row? Who have you deliberately placed in the front row of your life? The people who know who you are, what you want, and are willing to nudge you towards your audacious decisions. Not just wrap you in bubble wrap and keep you safe. And perhaps more importantly, whose front row are you sitting in? And how are you showing up for them? Fourth was cultivating a culture of courage as a leader. And there's no such thing as being fearless. They become courageous when they see their leaders model vulnerability. They share their misses and they talk about what they learnt. And they treat swings as swings and misses as data, not as death sentences. That's how we create teams who think outside the box and take thoughtful risks. So remember there's no such thing as fearless. There's taking action despite fear. And finally, the very practical tools. Auditing your time and money. Where are you spending your time? Where are you spending your money? Are they on the things that are most important to you? Being brutally honest about where your hours are really going. And reclaiming your day with something as small and doable as four fifteen minute blocks devoted to what truly matters to you. You don't need a complete life overhaul. You just need consistent, intentional micro moves. So my invitation to you is this choose one area of your life or leadership where doubt has been quietly running the show. Ask yourself, what would the audacious version of me do here? Then take one small tangible swing in the next twenty-four hours, something you can actually do, not just think about. And as you do that, take a look at your own front row. Who's cheering you on? Who's challenging you to be bolder? And who might you need to gently move back a few rows so you can hear your own voice more clearly. If today's conversation with Anne Marie resonated with you, I highly encourage you to check out her book, Cultivating Audacity, How to Dismantle Doubt and Let Yourself Win, along with the companion workbook and resources on her website. She's doing incredible work helping leaders build courageous cultures. That's it for today's episode. In the next episode, we're going to do a bit of a reflection of ourselves over 2026 and prepare ourselves for 2027. You've been listening to the leadership project. If today sparked an insight, don't keep it to yourself. Share it with one other person who would benefit from listening to the show. A huge thank you to Gerald Calibur for his tireless work editing every episode. And to my amazing wife Zay, who does all the heavy lifting in the background to make this show possible. None of this happens without them. Around here we believe leadership is a practice, not a position. That people should feel seen, heard, valued, and that they matter. That the best leaders trade ego for empathy, certainty for curiosity, and control for trust. If that resonates with you, please subscribe on YouTube and on your favourite podcast app. And if you want more, follow me on LinkedIn and explore our archives for conversations that move you from knowing to doing. Until next time, lead with curiosity, courage, and care.