Episode 68: How to Accomplish Goals By Being Intentional ft. Ian Brooks

Dr. Ian Brooks is the chief executive and founder of Rhodes Smith Consulting, leading transformations of people and organizations for over 24 years. Ian has extensive experience in executive and leadership development, change management, business performance consulting, and communication planning. His new book Intention offers a practical guide to transformational change through meaningful action.

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 [Intro]: You're listening to the Rich State of Mind show, the podcast made to make you the total package in the entrepreneurial world and give you what we call a rich state of mind. If you are here looking to learn about real estate, investing, marketing, elevating your business, and developing your mindset to get to the next level. Then you are at the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join our community on richstateofmind.com. Now here's your host, Anthane Richie

Anthanē Richie: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of Rich State of Mind, where I'm talking to Dr. Ian Brooks. Ian is the chief executive and founder of Rhodes Smith Consulting. And he's been leading transformations of people and organizations for over 24 years. Ian has extensive experience in executive and leadership development, change management, business performance consulting and communication planning. His new book, Intention, offers a practical guide to transformational change through meaningful action. This is a pretty cool episode because I like how we talk about living with intention. I'm really big on that in life. Making things intentional. But not to where you're stressing yourself out, trying to do so. Breaking it down from a person that studies it for a living, right? Dr. Ian Brooks. So not only am I able to - in my mind throughout my life, I've applied it just from my life experiences, but from a clinical aspect, we get to hear it and how to apply it in life as well. So I think this is pretty cool. Definitely a humble, humble guest. He breaks it down in such layman's terms that you'll feel like after this episode you'll be able to tackle anything you need to do in life. So thank you for listening and please enjoy.

Hey Ian, thank you for taking the time this evening. Well, evening for me, afternoon for you being in California. And actually not far from where I used to be at in LA. So if you could please tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Ian Brooks: No, Anthanē, pleasure being here and glad to have a conversation with you. For those who don't know me, my name is Dr. Ian D. Brooks. I'm the owner and CEO of Rhodes Smith Consulting, which is a professional and personal development firm, as well as the author of the book Intention: Building Capabilities to Transform Your Story. My whole impetus behind my purpose and drive is to transform people's behaviors towards something that they want to achieve. In particular, aligning their passions by creating clarity and purpose with their every intentional movement to create efficient and focused purpose as they move forward.

Anthanē Richie: Awesome. And so, break down to me your life a little bit as far as what got you into the degree that you chose and your journey getting a doctorate.

Ian Brooks: Sure. You know, I've had a long journey as it relates to my career. But one thing that has stayed true is that I've always cared and wanted to help people. Since I was 13 years old, I wanted to be a psychologist. I always was curious around why people did what they did, what contributed to their thoughts, their behaviors, to how they even interacted with others. And that took me on the journey of getting into the clinical psychology field. And in that respect, I learned a lot more about people and how they thought; through intelligence testing, through personality testing, through one-on-one coaching, both in adults as well as with children. It afforded me an opportunity to work with clients in a 24 hour lockdown ward. So I was doing therapy for individuals who are coming straight off the street, who had chemical imbalances who we could control in certain ways around what they did and when they did it.

From that experience, I thought to myself, you know what? I want to work with higher functioning people who didn't need my assistance because they needed it, I'm wanting to work with people because they wanted it. And that want is a lot different conversation. Because it speaks to drive, it speaks to development, and it speaks to where do I want to take my life and journey? And so, as a result of that clinical experience, I then transitioned and got a PhD in industrial organization psychology, focused more specifically on coaching, personal development - thinking of it from an HR perspective - training, even technology changes where we're embarking upon going into organizations and doing culture changes or changing the way people are doing their job. All of it aligned to the same purpose I had as a 13 year old. And that being, helping people be better tomorrow than they are today, but also influencing them, understanding who they are and actually getting them to move forward, potentially with or without their own knowledge.

From that experience, I've been able to work with the who's who of organizations, both as a consultant as well as an employee. From IBM, to Bank of America, to Nike, to Netflix, to Shondaland, to Illumina, to Sony, to Warner Brothers, all giving me an opportunity to work with different people across different genres, industry, but with all the same purpose of improving their story. And one of the things that really spawned my writing this book of Intention and becoming an author - which really was not part of my intentional plan, to say the least - is I was just noting to myself all of the challenges that people were consistently having around those who I was coaching and speaking to. And just noting to myself, how could I streamline my own thoughts around the process so that I can actually articulate it better to my clients? And getting it to a modality, model or even a thought process.

And by way of me just jotting down those thoughts, it spawned this guide of a book of which I created for Intention. Which was also not only helpful for my clients, but also helpful for me as I was embarking upon my own business journey and actually getting my voice out to the public and being seen in ways that, as a therapist, we don't necessarily allow ourselves to do. So that's been my journey up to this point. And it's been one heck of a ride that I've learned quite a bit, stumbled a lot. And quite frankly, it's been a continuous opportunity for me to learn about myself and move forward.

Anthanē Richie: Throughout your consulting career, would you say that maybe you've learned a little bit more about yourself as you've helped others?

Ian Brooks: Absolutely. I'd be remiss to say I didn't learn about myself. Especially from a consultative standpoint and more specifically, from a psychological standpoint, as I'm looking at human behavior and the interactions. There was oftentimes when I'm in a client situation and I'm hearing a client talk or hearing their anxiety and it's triggering something in me around, oh my God, it's either triggering my own fear or my own judgment or my own confidence.

And so throughout that journey, I had to be very conscious of that moment. I'm very conscious of conversations of, specifically, how is it impacting me emotionally? What was I thinking? Was I being pushed too far? And what was I now re-anchoring myself on? Based out of fear and my own personal survival. It afforded me an opportunity, or continues to afford me an opportunity to really take stock in what I think and feel. And as important, what impact I'm having on others and making sure I'm bringing my authentic self to the table in a way that really matches my voice with my actions and my true purpose, going all the way back to what I mentioned earlier, I do what I do because I care. And if I keep that mentality and demonstrate and show up in that authentic voice and version, I'm going to win more often than not.

That doesn't mean that it's going to be easy or be easy conversations or comfortable conversations. It does mean that I'm coming from a place of support and help and partnership, versus a place of me versus you. And that's something I've had to learn across my consultive experience. As oftentimes in the business world, as we know, there's this dichotomy of ROI, you know? Who's got the contract and who doesn't. This constant comparison and constant competition. I'm of the belief that there's so much out there for everyone that we can all win. It's just about how are we winning? And I don't need to trample on someone else to win as much as I need to be authentic to my purpose in my pursuit of helping to be fulfilled and to demonstrate my own purpose and growth in my consultant experience.

Anthanē Richie: And so you said that you deal with high performing individuals that seek out your help. What are the most common things that you notice in high-performing individuals that they seek out for you? What are the highest or most common reasons?

Ian Brooks: Sure. I think if I were to categorize it, it's about expansion. These individuals, especially from a corporate perspective, they're looking to do so much more. They're already successful in what they've done between the title perspective and the companies of which they work at. They're now looking - from an individual standpoint - to now refine either their communication skills, how they create engagement, how are they demonstrating value? How can they actually show up with their peers, show up with their leadership team? So that they can communicate their strategies a little bit better. They're establishing new foundations of which expand them beyond what they're good at, tactically speaking, in a silo, and now looking to demonstrate their expertise and mastery as they move forward in their career. Or mastery in their particular field as leaders, which is a different skill set associated with mastery. And especially as we climb the proverbial ladder.

Be it within a corporate space, or as we were speaking about, within the government or military space as well. There's a lot of different skill-set that's necessary in how one thinks and behaves in order to climb that proverbial ladder, but also be authentic to their own personal self. So to succinctly bring it back down to your question, It's about expansion, but also that demonstration of leadership behavior. More specifically, how they're thinking strategically and in particular, how they're interacting with their teams and staff.

Anthanē Richie: And so, you have a great perspective because you're more so coming from the outside looking in.

Ian Brooks: Absolutely. So from my perspective, when I'm coming in and working with my clients within organizations, I am coming in from an objective view. Number one, I'm there to help. If I'm not demonstrating or not enabling some level of help, then quite frankly, I'm not doing justice for that individual nor the company. So because of my objectivity, I don't have any bias associated with anything historical, I'm taking information as it is, and more specifically, I'm using that information from a historical reference as a point of acknowledgement of where we once were, not where we are going. And so, because of that, I work with leaders around understanding where they see their challenges as well as where their strengths are. Working with that individual's manager or leader around where they perceive potential gaps or strengths may be. As well as working with peers and those who work with that individual to get around a more holistic view as to that person's behavior and their particular style. From that foundation, I then work with that individual on a very particular plan around one; acknowledging what was said by their peers, by themselves, as well as by their leader, to now understand and to acknowledge what was said. Then secondly, acknowledge what are we willing to do about the things that are our strengths as well as our weaknesses, and build our plan around that. It takes a holistic view from an acknowledgement standpoint, not a place of judgment. And it affords us a jumping off point to move forward.

Anthanē Richie: And so, do you find yourself - and I don't know, because we do this in the Navy, we do what we call climate surveys, where we pretty much survey everybody at the command and everybody puts in their inputs, how they feel about leadership. Is it racist? Is it prejudice? Is the mission too strenuous? Are we getting enough sleep? And so do other businesses that you've helped with their leadership, do they have something similar to that so that you have some type of report? So when you have this conversation with the individual, hey, look, the studies show, based off of what your subordinates are saying, that this is the general consensus of you.

Ian Brooks: Yes. So there is that. So a number of companies do have employee surveys where those employees are assessing, one; their immediate leadership, as well as the broader organizational climate of what's working and what isn't. Is their talent pipeline? So are they seeing their own development? How do they view their leader? How well do they view the organization? Do they plan to stay? Et cetera. You combine that type of assessment, that's holistic and it provides a true lens towards your leadership as well as the immediate manager - in this case - as well. But I also leverage a 360 degree tool whereby I'm speaking directly to the leadership capabilities of that manager. How well do they communicate? How well do they engage? How clear are they with their strategy? How well do they develop? Do they have conversations with their employees?

It's those things, the reasons people leave organizations and why it's so important to be able to speak to leaders, especially early on from a foundational standpoint, so that they can one; do that with their immediate team, as well as with their peers and their leaders. Because again, as one gets higher in an organization - be it from a military standpoint or within any organization - your ability to communicate, influence and engage is so critical in your ability to move forward and actually get your thoughts out. A lot of leaders aren't trained in that respect, they just kind of trip into it in a number of ways. And oftentimes, I find in midsized and startup type organizations, they're rewarded based off - again - what they're able to do tactically speaking, which is sometimes just some phenomenal work and true expertise.

Yet they fall down and fall short in areas that really are going to enable and galvanize troops or galvanize their teams, or create engagement and influence and, actually, partnerships that are truly going to be helpful to drive out the business. And so using a 360 along with a culture survey - as you described from a military standpoint - are key conduits of information that I use from the outset and recognize with that leader and have a conversation around it. So that there's true transparency around the feedback that we're receiving, as well as acknowledging, what are we going to do with it now that we have it? And that's about personal choice at that point.

Anthanē Richie: Sorry about that, sorry to cut you off. And so what type of consultation are you providing to that leader to make sure the atmosphere that you and him are trying to cultivate trickles down?

Ian Brooks: And yeah, that's a great question because information without using it is useless. And so one of the things that I do with my corporate clients - as well as the individuals I coach outside of the corporate world from a personal coaching perspective - is that we target things every single week. It's like, first acknowledging what someone is actually going to do, and now building a plan around it. And taking moments within a week to identify situations where one can apply new behaviors or new actions. So from a corporate standpoint, and working with leaders, it's easy to pinpoint meetings throughout a particular week where we're going to work on three to four different things from a behavior standpoint that they'll actually implement. So let me give you an example. I was recently working with a gentlemen at a media and entertainment organization, and he self-acknowledged as being shy.

And so he recently had taken over a team that he was once a peer to all of these individuals, but now he was leading them. So one of the challenges that he had was just around communicating and not stepping over people's toes while also being in meetings now being the leader of individuals who used to be his manager's peers, but now he has new sets of peers. So he had to re-establish his own voice and mark within these meetings and show up differently. So in that context, what I would do for him and what we would identify week over week, is we'd sit down and look at his calendar. We would identify the meetings that he was having. We would then pinpoint the different behaviors of which we were working on. Specifically, where he was going to communicate, what questions he could potentially ask, how was he going to create engagement and how was he going to interact with his team now that he was the new leader of this group.

And so in those moments, we were creating situations. Not doing it every single day, where he had to think about it every single day, but really having forethought around how he was going to implement these new behaviors. And as such, we would have a timeline within that week of when he would actually execute these actions. Then at the end of the week, I had him actually write down what he accomplished around those goals. The very next week, we would sit down and we'd go over what he actually did and what he didn't do. It's about self-acknowledgement, self-accountability. And when I'm working with leaders in that capacity, in that frame of mind, and those who are driven, they're okay with the vulnerability. They're okay with that expansion, because they know they're trying to get to a different place than where they are right now.

And so for this particular individual and many others of whom I work with, they're apt to say, okay, I want to try this, because what's the worst that's going to happen? And so over time, they build up the consistency of those behaviors. Now, let's also be very clear. Anthanē, they can lie to me at any moment in time. Because I'm not in their meetings. And that's just the reality. So they could tell me they did something, and I really wouldn't know. Or they could tell me, but the quality is really bad. So in between the coaching sessions, maybe a month and a half in or so, I will go back out to a subset of his or her peers or team and ask, hey, how is so-and-so doing? Here are the things we said we were going to work on. Have you seen a difference? Have you experienced a difference? And let's talk about that because that's our validation and check in certain ways. But I do - from behavior standpoint - look over it week over week to build, refine, and then check and adjust as we move forward.

Anthanē Richie: I think that's great that there's a step process to this, because this topic is very vast, and it can be a topic that you could really get lost in if you don't have the right person that's guiding you through it. Because the next level, you have an idea what it is, but you don't know the steps you need to do, sometimes, to get there. Or maybe you know on the business side what steps I need to do to get there, but the mindset side, you do not know what you need. And that's where you come in. And so I like the fact that both go hand in hand and that they acknowledge at that level, hey, this is the type of help that I need. And so one question I do have, is it ever too early to hire you? Because these people are high performing individuals. At what point do I - if I have a small LLC, is it too early to hire you? If I have 50 employees, is that the perfect time? Just to kind of get an understanding of what is the perfect time to bring somebody like you in.

Ian Brooks: Well, I think the perfect time really starts with self, right? It's far be it for me to dictate that. And when I say it starts with self, my perfect client is much like myself. They go out into the world and they're willing to try something new. They're confident, but they recognize that there's so much more to learn and grow and do. They look at the world as their sea, built to go out there and dominate. Not from a comparison point of others, but from comparison to themselves. So from a client perspective, it could be an individual who's just starting off, but that individual has to have a clear purpose. If you don't have a clear purpose and clear direction, that does not necessarily mean that I can't work with you, but it does make it a little bit more challenging. Our conversation does change.

Whereas if I'm working with a client who has a clear purpose and they say, hey, I'm really struggling in this area. How can you help? That's offers a little bit more clarity of where we're starting from. So I do run the gamut from an organization standpoint, which has a lot more clarity in it than say a person outside on the street looking for development. Whereby a person in an organization, it's very hierarchical. Again, no different than being in the military. You know where someone's at and what they're expected to know at that level. Whereas when I'm working with someone on the street, an individual who's driven, but wants to do something else and wants to expand, their starting point may be a little bit different because their view is a little bit different.

Their purpose may be a little bit different and we may need to clarify that purpose a lot more. So, as an example, a woman came to me and she just said, I'm overwhelmed and I think I need something dot, dot, dot. That's a lot different conversation and starting point of whom I was coaching, versus when I'm talking to an executive or someone who is a frontline leader who's just taking over their new team. And now they're expected to lead this team in a different way than their previous leader, and oh yeah, by the way, they've never led before. So those conversations are different. So the starting points, I meet my clients where they are from an acknowledgement standpoint in understanding where they are, but my clients do run the gamut across the board.

Anthanē Richie: That's great. Thank you for breaking it down like that as well. Because what I don't want people to do is - throughout these conversations - I don't want people to feel like, well, it sounds like this guy is too high level for me. I want people to feel like, okay, well maybe I do need to come back and get some more clarity and then discuss things. Which brings me to my next question where, you know, let's say I come to you and I have bits and pieces. What advice do you give people to say, hey, look, these are the things you need to do to find more clarity and then come back to me?

Ian Brooks: Yeah. And I often get that question from a number of different groups. I often tend to - when I'm working with individuals at that pace - I ask them to join, because I do group coaching, where we spend a little bit more time on that front end piece. And in particular, it's about the discovery. And I talk about it here in my book. And one reason why I talk about discovery so prevalently in this book or at least from the front end standpoint, is that I'm looking for people to get depth on what they're really solving for. Oftentimes we conceal our changes in transformation or trying to do something different solely based off of a pain point or solely based off of a definition of I want.

And the reality is that that pain point or I want is something that is an end result, oftentimes. I want to lose 10 pounds, I want to look good for the high school reunion, I want to get this job title. And those are just end results, not the path or the behaviors, or even the infrastructure associated with the foundation in order to get to that point. And we assume that our foundation is solid and that we have everything in place and all we're doing is missing this one end result. And so when those who think they have the pieces, or even those who believe they have all the answers up front, one of the things I do - and I take all my clients through it, whether they realize it or not - is an exercise of just me asking questions and gaining clarity of how did you get to this end result?

And let's talk about and challenge some of the assumptions behind that answer. Oh, you want to lose 15 pounds? Great. What's the reason you want to lose those 15 pounds? Have you tried to lose 15 pounds before? Have you actually tried - what happens if you don't? What keeps you from not losing the 15 pounds? How do you feel about yourself in those instances? No different than someone driven for a title perspective. What happens when you get that title? What happens if you don't get that title? What does the title represent? What are the steps that you are willing to take to move forward? And I think - not I think, I believe - that when we get to that true discovery of the reasons we're doing what we're doing, we now unmask an end result and now get down to the infrastructure in that foundation of who we are and what we're willing to do and what we're willing to solve. And now, those are the pieces of which we're now building our capabilities and our behaviors around, of which a title - lost weight, et cetera - are nothing more than milestones of doing something consistently.

Anthanē Richie: And I think it allows the person to be very honest. It strips them down, strips their armor away of, okay, am I doing this because of vanity? Am I doing it because of ego and pride? Or am I doing this because I truly want to do better for my family or for myself? Or to be a trailblazer within my family. And I get asked that question a lot. There's an Oxford program that I apply for every year for the last few years. And one of the biggest things that they want to know before you get into their program is why are you doing this? Because they want to find out, are you doing this - because if you're doing it just for a very vain reason that will fizz out eventually, then you're not going to last. And I think that's what you're getting at when it comes to the reasons why people may want to lose weight. Because if your reason's not good enough, then it's probably only going to last you up to those two pounds or five pounds versus the 10 pounds you actually want to lose. And it sounds like you allow that person to come to that conclusion on their own.

Ian Brooks: Yes. Both of your points are spot on. Now let's start with the last one first. And that is, yes, I allow my clients to come to that conclusion on their own. And the reason that's important is because if I come up with a conclusion and tell them that, now there's no ownership for them in that respect. When we come up with things ourselves, those aha moments, those, wow, what about this, dah, dah, dah, that's ownership. That's true ownership in that moment. As a result of that ownership and going to your first point you made, once we are able to now own our decisions, once we are now able to own what we are willing to do and what are we truly doing it for, from an intrinsic motivation standpoint, not something external, now I'm going to push through those valleys. When it's downtrodden and my passion goes.

At those moments when I have that intrinsic motivation, I'm more apt to actually achieve my goal. Because I'm going to push through, I'm going to see it to the end. As important, I'm going to be able to integrate it into my life. It's not going to be something that is just a check the box activity. One of the greatest challenges of any change is people just want that end result. And then, either one; they haven't built the capabilities to get that end result so they're just willing to accept those 5 or 10 pounds or just getting that half title. Or they get that title or get that weight, but they can't sustain it. Because they haven't built the infrastructure. And so their inability to one; sustain and/or number two, achieve is all rooted in first, discovery of what are you really solving for, and having that intrinsic motivation as well as that self-acknowledgement.

And I talk about it in my book as well in the second part, it's not just the principle of you. It's like, what makes me, me? Like, what are my characters? What are my choices? How is my support and environment set up? When I say environment, I'm thinking, our people, places and things that we built around ourselves for our own survival, for our own patterns and routines and templates in the way that we think that keep us where we are. And that's aside from the characters that we bring to the table. And our characters aren't that I'm a sibling or a brother or a male or VP, it's I'm Mr. Know it all or I'm Mr. Degree, or I'm shy. These self-proclaimed titles of boxes that we associate in how we show up in certain situations or potentially every single day that keep us where we are and thwart any change that we have and acknowledged as we move forward. And so to your point of that acknowledgement, personal acknowledgement of the journey that we're taking and coming to our own realization, as well as the ownership and our perseverance to move forward and ahead, even when we don't want to, because we know it's the right thing, really sets a foundation through my book, through that early discovery of what we're solving and the principle of you by creating your own clarity of self.

Anthanē Richie: And so that's what you meant in your book when you said prioritizing your stories, your characters, you meant not to be defined by Mr. Degree or Mr. Hot, you know? Mr. Sexy, whatever. I guess like you said, external, whether accomplishment or motivation. I like that because - and I'll give an analogy in the military. Our rank, right? So they always say, don't let them rank make you, you make the rank. And so you don't want to be Mr. Chief. I'm Anthanē, and then I just happen to be a chief and use my leadership for good. And so I liked how you broke it down like that, prioritizing and making sure that the right story or character is set in your script. And then that's what you use as an influence.

Ian Brooks: Yes, absolutely. And it really plays itself out to even how we start our businesses, right? When we think about - at least how I think about business success and starting my business, it's one, how do I redefine success? It's not an end result. It's a continuation and it's about building consistency. But as important, it's about our abilities, our work ethic, our passion, holding ourselves accountable. You know, you build that infrastructure around those things and you do that consistently, you're going to find and realize that you've achieved whatever milestones that you set out, but you've built an infrastructure for yourself that - number one - goes towards your business, but also goes towards who you are as a person. Goes beyond the title, goes beyond the weight, goes beyond any character or name that you can give yourself or people give you. And that's really, at its core, why I even talk about building capabilities. Because those capabilities transcend any outcome and end result that you want to achieve. They go to just about anything you want. Now that doesn't mean that you stick to them all the time. There's an ebb and flow, there's changes to them. They evolve just like we do, just like our end results. But what they do is they set our infrastructure. Because what we don't want to do is put a 2020 brand new house on 1940 pipes. That is a problem. And oftentimes, that's what happens and that's what we're solving for.

Anthanē Richie: And so that's why I'm actually glad you mentioned that because it prompts me to ask this question, where you talk about taking manageable action for something new while still adjusting old habits. So explain to me what that is and how you help people do that?

Ian Brooks: Yeah. Because as we're building new habits, we're trying to adjust the old ones at the same time. We're changing the tires on the bus as it's moving, right? As I articulate that in my book, it's really that self-acknowledgement and being conscious of what we are doing and what we're changing. And I describe it in certain contexts of reducing our decision points. Reducing the opportunities to really rethink how we're actually behaving in that moment and realizing that our new behaviors are doing something different and we're trying to integrate them into our life, into who we are. Yet, we also have to acknowledge that our old habits are there for survival, what we're used to, our routine. They are our patterns. That's the template that we have built on for our own survival.

So oftentimes, those new behaviors are going to come in conflict with those old habits and behaviors. And let's also be very clear, those old habits and behaviors could be the people, places and things that we are surrounded by. Because they didn't ask to be changed either. And they're going to try to keep us back in our old habits. And so in that respect, sometimes we embark upon these journeys of change with the idea that we're adding. When we also have to think about building our habits - new habits - with the idea that we also have to lose something. We have to let go of the things that are no longer serving a purpose. And as such, we have to be conscious to those moments. Now, does it come up often? You know, I get this question quite a bit from people so I'll just expand on it now.

You can find these moments when you're doing something new and you have self-defeating thoughts. Like, oh, I shouldn't be doing that. Or, oh, wow, why would you do that? Or, oh, I'm not a social media person. Or, hey, I don't talk to them. Or I don't go on this side of the grocery aisle. Or I don't know what that food is, I don't like this. Or going to the gym, you know, hey, I don't like going to the gym. It's those, sometimes, self-defeating thoughts. It could be also very emotional, where our heart rate starts pounding. Or start sweating. Think about someone who doesn't like public speaking, where they become fearful and they have stage fright and they can't remember their lines. Again, body language. Starts sweating, heartbeats.

It's those things that keep us and tell us that our fear is keeping us in our old habits. And it should be a welcoming sign. Especially in the context of doing something different and new that creates the excitement and lets you know that, you know what? This might be the right thing for me to do. Let me acknowledge the emotion, let me acknowledge the thoughts. Let's say thank you to them, because they're there to keep us safe. Let's also say, you know what? We can use those emotions and feelings as a place of reference, not of resonant. So we acknowledge, but we continue to press forward.

Anthanē Richie: And that's unfortunate. There are certain situations that are very unfortunate because sometimes you kind of get smacked in the face like, wow, I need to move on or I could be doing something that is more beneficial to my situation. And sometimes we allow our emotions to hold on to those - either people or things - because it's a lot of our history, it's a lot of our past. We've even associated it so much to where we make it seem as if it's a part of us or it's our identity. And so I can imagine, but I also relate - without getting too personal - I personally relate on that. It's a hard moment because it's like this bump that you've got to get over and you're like, you want to believe that you can still grow without letting that certain someone or thing go, right?

You want to believe that you can, but you keep getting reminded that that's not the case. Unless you deal with that person or maybe that thing in small doses, very, very small doses. Because we have family members, right? We're not going to completely cut them off, unless they've done something unforgivable. But it is a hard situation I think a lot of people go through. Because a lot of people, right? They don't want to be looked at as the person that changed or you changed on us, which we're supposed to. We're supposed to grow. Or you forgot about me or the - a lot of times, even when, let's just say, you are part of associations or fraternities, maybe you've moved on from something like that. And like I said, it was a big part of your identity. So to people that have a hard time removing themselves from situations like that because they feel like it's so much a part of them, what do you say to that?

Ian Brooks: Yeah. One, I'd say let's acknowledge it upfront. Because it is going to be hard. Especially the greater the transformation we make, the more likely we are going to have to experience that change from an environment standpoint of those people, places and things. And we have to manage through that. So in those moments, the first thing I would tell them is let's think about this when you're not in the moment. Let's plan for this ahead of time. Because when we can plan for it ahead of time, what we're doing is we're now minimizing the thought process of the moment when we're stuck in it. Because at that moment when we're stuck in it, we're going to most likely react based off of fear and based off of what is comfortable. Which then drives us towards, we're going to continue doing the same things we've always done, or we're more likely to acquiesce to that situation or to that person.

So in that transformation, in those changes, when I work with my clients what I'm doing is, let's anticipate what might happen. And in that situation, how can we react? What are some reactions to that person if they were to say X? Or persons if they were to do Y? What might that look like? And what might our reactions be? Additionally, if it's an emotional piece - because we can't dictate when that emotion is going to happen, right? It's one of the beautiful things about how we feel. We never know when it's going to pop up or when our button or trigger is going to be pulled. So in those moments talking to my clients ahead of time, when you're feeling this way, let's acknowledge it in that moment. What might be your triggers? And how can we walk ourselves off that ledge?

How can we think about our self-defeating thoughts? And in those moments now talk to ourselves. Just mentally. Now, by doing this ahead of time, it affords us the chances to at least acknowledge that it could happen. It acknowledges that in a safe environment without us being in that moment, a place to practice, to give some forethought to. So that when we are in those moments - because we never know when they're going to happen - it at least gives us a fighting chance to do something different. And that doesn't mean we're going to be perfect at it. In fact, I was working with one client. She was looking to leave this gentleman she was dating - and I think it was just not the right relationship for her - and we practiced for three, four meetings around the conversation, when it was going to be, her emotions, et cetera.

I called her a few times that day, made sure she was okay. Texted her. She was having the meeting. I called her right after the meeting, texted her, never heard from her. Literally, five years later, I got an email randomly with her apologizing to me, but as important, acknowledging that at that day and time, she wasn't ready to leave. She hadn't built up where she needed to be to leave. And as such, it took her two to three years to actually make that decision, to come to the realization as well as, and more importantly, the confidence to leave. Until she decided to do it.

Anthanē Richie: And so, you don't see your job to help people expedite the departure from what they need to remove themselves from, but more so you're the guide across that bridge.

Ian Brooks: Absolutely. Because if I help in doing, then I'm nothing more than an enabler and a crutch. And if we're thinking, and truly as we're driving personal transformations and personal behaviors, I can't do that for you. This is where- again, changes start to fail, where it's not integrated into who they are. My job - in a lot of ways, as you mentioned - is to be a guide. To offer the strategic thought process, to get you thinking, to push the boundaries, to go in depth of who we are and what we do, to help build a plan, help you provide a lens to view something with a lot more clarity, to be a lot more purposeful around what you were going to do. But ultimately, the choice lies with the person of whom I'm coaching. Because at the end of the day, as the saying goes, I can lead you to water, but I can't make you drink. And from a true capability perspective and true transformation, quite frankly that's my client's journey, and I'm there to help.

Anthanē Richie: And so before I ask you the final question, I want to talk about, where can people find you? Where can people purchase your book as well?

Ian Brooks: Yeah. So it's been great conversation, but one of the things that people can find me is @rhodessmith.com, that's R-H-O-D-E-S-S-M-I-T-H.com. There, they can find a lot more about myself, a lot more about my one-on-one coaching as well as my group coaching. There, they can also see and listen to this podcast, and other platforms I've been featured in, from magazines or other podcasts I've spoken in. There, they can also find access to my book and several of the reviews associated with my book, Intention: Building Capabilities To Transform Your Story. I can be found also on Twitter and Instagram under the tag, Dr. B_ Intention. Again, that's Dr. B_Intention.

Anthanē Richie: We also will feature your book as book of the week on the Rich State of Mind Facebook page and the group page as well. I actually intend to continue to read this book. I read the first few pages, and then, obviously, some of the highlights and I find it very interesting. I've really been kind of transitioning over to mindset. I'm big on - I always tell my son, make it intentional, right? You're telling me things, but what have you done to execute? Make it intentional, write it down, do the baby steps towards the big action that needs to happen. Or just little steps that end up giving you the big result. So I like this topic a lot. And I think from a clinical aspect, from a professional aspect, I get to hear this, the audience gets to hear this in a way that is not - like I said - just theory or maybe just life experiences, but you've seen it, you've been able to survey it and it obviously works. And so what I would like to finally ask, what is your big why? Like we like to say, what is your Rich State of Mind? Because this is something that you're really passionate about, you've doing it for a long time now, and it doesn't look like you're stopping anytime soon.

Ian Brooks: Yeah, definitely not stopping any time soon. And it's really the core of who I am. Really, my big why is to operate and live with intent. We only have one life. And in that context, we should be doing the most with the time we have. As such, when we are embarking upon any journey, having purpose, clarity, and being open to the experience of being the best person that we can be, 9 times out of 10, we're going to be right down the path that we need to be. It doesn't mean that it's easy. It doesn't mean that it's always enjoyable. But at the end of the day, you will have a story. And you can manage that with purpose and intent

Anthanē Richie: Awesome Ian. Thank you for sharing that. Like I said, your perspective is definitely a refreshing perspective. I definitely want the listeners to listen to this entire episode because I think they can apply it. Obviously, they may not find you in particular, but now they know, hey, this is what I need, this is the type of service or consultation that I need to get to the next level. Because maybe some people didn't have an idea of what's the next step? Who do I need to go to? What type of help do I need to seek out in order to expand?

Ian Brooks: Absolutely.

Anthanē Richie: So this is pretty cool, this is pretty neat. The goal, like I said, is always to hit different points of business, different points of mindset, to allow people to be able to have continuous self-development and you definitely hit the mark with that. Thank you for so eloquently breaking everything down. Very easy to digest as well. And I love how down to earth you are as well, man. I appreciate it.

Ian Brooks: No, I appreciate that Anthanē. It's definitely been a pleasure here having a conversation with you and even hearing your perspective from the military aspect, given they are close ties in that respect. Yours directly in it and mine's from the periphery. But definitely a pleasure being here.

Anthanē Richie: Thanks a lot.