"Daily Questions That Make Change Stick" with Lisa Broderick

https://permanencebook.com/

If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing all the “right” things but still not moving forward, this conversation is going to hit home. I’m joined by Lisa Broderick, serial CEO, board leader, and co-author of Permanence with legendary executive coach Marshall Goldsmith. We dig into a simple practice that sounds almost too easy until you try it: daily self-measurement through a short set of questions that force honest reflection and consistent effort.

Lisa explains the framework behind Marshall’s Daily Questions and why the wording matters so much. “Did I do my best to…” shifts you from judging outcomes to owning effort, which is the only part you can actually control. I share how this practice became a lifeline for me during a painful breakup and a major life transition, because it gave me a steady nightly self-audit when everything else felt uncertain.

We also get practical about leadership and personal development: how accountability makes scores rise over time, why feedforward beats feedback for growth at work and at home, and how to escape comparison culture fueled by social media by playing your own inner game. If you want an evening routine that actually sticks, or a habit formation tool you can use for performance, relationships, and meaning, this is a strong place to start.

Grab the book, try the questions tonight, and then come back and tell me what you noticed. Subscribe, share this with someone you care about, and leave a quick review so more people can find it.

Transcript

Welcome and Guest Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Bamboo Lab Podcast with your host, Peak Performance Coach Brian Bosley. Are you stuck on the hamster wheel of life, spinning and spinning, but not really moving forward? Are you ready to jump off and soar? Are you finally ready to sculpt your life? If so, you've landed in the right place. This podcast is created and broadcast just for you. All of you strivers, thrivers, and survivors out there. If you'd like to learn more about Brian and the Bamboo Lab, feel free to reach out to explore your true peak level at www.bamboolab3.com.

Brian 0:41

Welcome everyone to this week's episode of the Bamboo Lab Podcast. Um, as probably many of you remember, back in July of 2025, I did a podcast with a gentleman that I have uh considered to be my professional hero for over a decade now. We had Marshall Goldsmith on the show, and it just that that episode was one of my all-time favorites. It's in my top 10 of 164 episodes, I think we've done. Well, then I got a con an opportunity to meet one of his friends, one of his colleagues, um, Lisa Broderick. And we though Lisa and Marshall wrote a book called Permanence, which I'll include a link to in the in the show notes for you guys to get on there, check it out, buy it. Fantastic content material. Based on an idea or uh uh exercise that Marshall recommended to me when I he had uh he was on the show in July, something I did for six months that really made a major impact on my life. But Lisa takes this content to a deeper and a higher level than I know at all to talk about. So I'm so honored to have Lisa Broderick on. Lisa is uh what I would call a serial executive, a serial CEO. She's been in so many aspects of the world in the corporate on corporate boards. She's found a nonprofit, she's been a C-suite executive. She's coming out with her, she's been on uh been uh coded in psychology today. She's got an international best-selling book before. I think her first book, uh, I hope I get this right, was All the Time in the World, international best-selling book. Now she's got permanence out there, which is gonna do incredibly well, and it already is. So it's an honor for me to bring on my new friend, Lisa Broderick. Welcome to the Bamboo Lab Podcast. Brian, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. You are welcome. Well, I know when we talked a few weeks ago, I got to know you a little bit, but can you share with the audience a little bit about who you are, where you're from, anything you want to share about yourself

Builder Roots and Curiosity About People

Brian 2:32

personally?

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Yeah, it's always fun to hear where people, where people are from, as we talked about a little bit a little bit before. What is it like to be you? So, what it was like to be me, I grew up in Silicon Valley. And what's really what I really see that's affected me is I grew up around people who are builders. And my dad was one of those builders, one of the very early generations that actually built our digital world today. And he was a very early computer entrepreneur in the 1960s. We don't think of it going back that far, but it does. And then back then there was a sense that you could create things and you take responsibility and you figure things out as you go. They didn't know what they were spawning at the time in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. He died in the early 80s while he was a well, he was at a startup called Apple Computer. Think about that. I don't like yet. And so I was a middle child with an older brother and a younger sister who still live in the Bay Area in San Francisco, and my mom lived there until the end of her life a few years ago. But growing up in that culture and then going on to Stanford for college at the very beginning of what we know today as Silicon Valley shaped me profoundly. It made me curious about how things work, not just systems and businesses, but people. And I'd say that curiosity carried me to high technology companies in the early days, where I've been a builder ever since, both inside companies and alongside the leaders who run them. And then over time, I'd say my focus shifted really from building organizations to understanding what makes people effective inside of them. And I can trace that all the way back to the early builders in Silicon Valley. How who are these people that are doing these wonderful things and how can we have more of that? And that's really where my work lives now, helping people become the best versions of themselves. As you mentioned, I've sat in the sweet seat many, many times. So I'm an operator. I've seen firsthand how growth really happens and where it breaks down. And I'm now focusing on the human side of performance because it's rarely the idea that fails, it's the consistency of how people show up day after day. And that's what led me to co-author permanence with Marshall, as you mentioned. It's really about building the discipline and the daily practices to allow people to not just get there, but to stay there.

The Daily Questions Framework

Brian 4:36

Perfect. Well, I want to dive right into this right now. I want to dive into permanence. Typically, I go through a lot more questions, and we'll come back to some of these questions, but can you just give a framework of the uh of the daily questions so everybody can understand what that entails?

SPEAKER_01 4:53

So daily questions goes back, you know, 40, probably 40 years into Marshall's early work where it occurred to him that um again, change, insight rarely lasts. What you need is you need a practice. And so he was at the very foremost years, formative years of daily of executive coaching, went back, you know, with all of the famous people that you that you would think about in the 70s and 80s. And he came up with this practice of asking oneself six very simple questions, which he calls Marshall's Daily Questions, but also other questions that might be important to you. So imagine you asked yourself, you know, did I um did I do my best to uh focus on my partner today? Maybe you're having a little trouble at home. Did I do my best to um to make sure I was home to have dinner with the kids because you've been absent so often? These are little reminders you have of yourself. And he turned it into a practice called the Daily Questions Practice. And he wrote another book which was beginning to describe this, uh, I think in 2016 called Triggers, which is very which is also bringing this practice forward. But the daily questions in permanence is this it's a way to ask yourself a set of simple questions beginning with a very particular framing. It begins with, did I do my best to, not did I? And the reason it does that is it's an active question because trying effort helps, trying effort matters. In fact, it matters more than the outcome. And so, did I do my best today to be happy? Did I do my best today to find meaning? Today, did I do my best to build personal relationships? You know, did I do my best to uh work with my peers in a way that was uh productive rather than destructive? Whatever the questions are, he had a set of questions, and then I currently do as a coach work with people to develop their own questions. And what you see is a transformation because it's not the insight that lasts, it's the daily application of the practice that turns it into a habit and actually change your behavior in real time.

Brian 6:56

Okay. Now it's when you when I hear you say that, if I had not done the exercise for six months, I would say that just seems too simple.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

I know that it's a paperclip.

Brian 7:08

That's exactly. And then when when Marshall and I heard I've you know, I've read triggers and I've read, you know, I've read three, I think I've read four of Marshall's books. Um so I understood I had heard of the concept before, but when he didn't talk about it and asked me to do the exercise for six months, then follow up with them when it's when I'm done. I said yes, because it's Marshall, and I have a lot of respect for him. I didn't really impact I didn't expect an impact.

Heartbreak and A Daily Lifeline

Brian 7:30

I really didn't. But I want to share with you the impact it had on me. During that time, shortly after the um the interview with Marshall, I think within a couple of weeks, I my the girlfriend, the lady I was dating with somebody I deeply cared about and still do to this day, madly in love with her at the time, and we were had a what I thought was a very solid relationship. We split up, literally, I think it might have been just a few days after Marshall and I interviewed of last year. And um I moved back to Michigan and then you know kind of found my bearings here in Marquette, Michigan. And one of the things my kids said to me, both my daughter and my son during that time is they they check on me. Are you okay, Dad? I'm like, yeah, why? And they say, you don't seem like this is even bothering you. I'm like, oh, it's bothering me. But they said, well, you but you're just you're you're just keep you're continuing to go, you're not having bad days, you're not. And I'm like, well, yeah, you know, obviously I have bad moments. I'm sad at times, and and and but all I can say is the only thing that I did differently during that time frame that I didn't do prior in moments of difficulty was I was doing the daily questions every day. Oh I was having to give myself an audit every day to the point where I actually made another questionnaire that asked myself the questions at night, I would ask the question and I would do I think one through ten um and rate those areas, and I'd say, how? If if you know, did I did I did I do myself my did I did I um do my best to make progress toward goal achievement? And if I'd give myself a number one through ten, and then I would say, okay, why or how? Or if it was a low number, I'd say, well, why not? How did you not? What makes you say you're not you're not a 10? So I would give myself follow-up questions that would make me think a little more deeper, not just answer the question, but I wanted to find out a little bit more about why I thought I didn't do that very long, but just a little bit, just to kind of go deeper with it. And I honestly, that's the only thing I can say that was I there was one stable thing every day, every evening, and sometimes I'd do it first thing in the morning if I forgot at night, that would it just kept me kind of just moving along. Because I had to I had to give myself a self-reflective self-audit every single day.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

That's right. And so, in a sense, it's a way to bring yourself back to yourself every day.

unknown 9:38

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

You know, when you go, when you go off the rails, you're off the reservation, you're you lost your moorings, right? You're not attached to the land anymore. You're not yourself. Something that brings you back every day. And of course, then you might have, you know, if you if you don't have this practice, something might, you know, inspire you or shake you into, oh my gosh, what am I doing? You know, what am I doing with my life? Don't behave that way. This has you do that audit every day, like you did. And that's why it's so powerful.

Brian 10:06

It really is. It's it's the it's so simple, but yet it has so much impact. It did on me. And obviously, for the all the people I've read about and heard about that have have gone through it, whether it was on Marshall's documentary that I watched or talking to you, or you know, just hearing other people's uh testimonials on on YouTube and things like that, it's it seems to be all-encompassing that if you do it, you're going to have a transformation.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Yes. So it can't, you can you can run, but you can't hide from yourself if you bring yourself back to yourself every day.

Brian 10:34

Trust me. I've tried running from myself every day. And the faster I get, the faster I get. So I never can run, I never can escape

Self-Measurement That Creates Real Change

Brian 10:41

myself. You know, one of the things in the book you talk about is the secret to self-improvement is self-measurement. Can you explain that a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Well, just what you did. And so if you let's say that you don't have this practice and you go through the day and you're not self-reflective. So you may, you and you may not even have a thought that was it a good day or a bad day, you know, whatever, whatever that might mean to you. And you go from one day to the other and there's no learning. What you did is you did self-measurement, and you did self-measurement with a deeper dive, resulting in greater learning. If you don't know where you've been, how can you get to where you want to go? And so you knew where you were that day. Wow, I I scored a three on did I do my best to make progress toward goal and improvement today? Why was that? Oh, I was sad, I was reminiscing and my heart is broken, whatever your answer was. And you can sit with yourself. And the more you do that, you know, the more, the more healthy feelings, let's say, and ability to grow sort of breaks through, and you begin to not, let's say, wallow in thoughts that keep you back if you do know self-measurement. Because if you're no if you're measuring and you knew you were wallowing, the likelihood that you would wallow again the next day is pretty low. That's what I see with the scores.

Brian 12:02

Yeah, I think you're right. And I and what I find is that I would, whatever I would document that day, I wouldn't really necessarily sit with it at that moment. Um, because usually in the evenings, I'm pretty tired. So I I I don't I it it would take me two to five minutes to do this exercise. Um but it was the next day when I'm hiking or running in the trails that my answers would kind of come back up. So if I said in the example you use, I didn't do well with that today because I was I was sad my heart was broken at the moment or today. I that would come back to me and I could I could dissect that while I was out doing something physical. So that helped me a lot that way. Um and do you what do you what would you what do you say? It takes about two minutes a day to do this exercise?

SPEAKER_01 12:42

It takes, you know, so it this the whole book and the exercise came out of a very funny story, which I write about in the first chapter. And Marshall called me up and he said, Lisa, I want you to do some research for me. And of course, you know Marshall, and a lot of people know Marshall. That could mean a lot. I mean, he does behavioral research on all kinds of things. And what he wanted me to do was he wanted me to call a cohort of his leader clients, and people have an idea of who his clients are, and follow them in a research study for a year. So calling them and the assignment was asking them daily questions wherever they were in the world, you know, where's Waldo? I would just track them down and literally through state dinners and emergencies and this and that and all the things that could happen in people's lives who are busy, family vacations and holidays, tracking people down and getting them and have having them be a sounding board, having them measure themselves on a daily basis for one year. And I kept the scores. And one thing about me that I didn't mention is I well at Stanford, I was there for technology, but I was also trained in economics. So I love data. I love collecting data. And economics is all about the data of people, what people do. So combining the ability to ask these leaders questions and keeping the data was a really great project for me. So anyway, throughout the course of a year, I kept the data and I and I kept their scores over the year. And here's what we noticed. And that is the scores, as you said, you know, you score from one to ten, where one is closer to no and ten is closer to yes. And you do that every day. So I was asking these leaders these questions every day, and they consisted of the six daily questions of Marshall, which are did you do your best to be happy? Did you do your best to find meaning? And they're in the book, but also very personal questions that we worked out together. And so they asked themselves very personal, profound questions like, Did I do my best today to forgive my parents? Now that'll stop you in your tracks. And so very these people were doing very deep inner work. And in the first couple of months, the scores were all over the map. You couldn't really tell. Then they started to coalesce, you know, they started to group, and they were grouping right around five, five and greater. And as we continued to do it, they all grouped higher. By the end of the research period, by the end of one year, having done it consistently for a year, every weekday, virtually all questions and all answers were all tens, meaning yes. They had done their best. And I called them later, and I we wanted to do a you know an interview to sort of figure out what had happened. And I asked, why do you think that the scores all became yeses in the affirmative? You know, I think toward the end of the study. And to the person, they all told me the same thing. I didn't want to suffer the shame and embarrassment of having to tell you I hadn't even tried. Now let that sit for a moment. So they were it was self-reporting, it was accountability, it was shame and embarrassment of not having tried, not whether they'd done it. That's why the active question is so important. Did I do my best to? As Marshall says, if you wrote the question and you can't even answer in the affirmative that you did it, that you didn't even try, then what are you doing? So these people wrote these questions and then they wanted to make sure that they had done them. And I thought to myself, wow, the world's most, the world's foremost leaders were doing this and becoming better people in real time because of this practice, making it enormously powerful. What if everybody did this? What if all our world leaders did this, all our business leaders? What a world that would be.

unknown 16:19

I know.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

And that's the and that's what happened with the book. That's how it came out of that.

Brian 16:23

I I I one of the things I'm on right now is is I'm working on my I'm gonna do my personal. I did the six months of Marshall's questions, which helped me now I'm gonna I'm gonna doctor it. I'm making it now. I've got I've got some questions down that I know I'm gonna put in there that are things I'm working on currently. Um that you know, that are like next year anyway. And then I'm

Effort Over Outcomes in Any Day

Brian 16:42

gonna start again probably maybe maybe even as early as Friday. Um going again for another six months. The question that I do ask though is that the instead of saying did I, it is did I do my best to?

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Correct. That's an interesting question. It's always did I do my best to? It's the active question. Here's so here's an example. If the question was, did I, you know, did I do my best to be happy or was I happy today, right? Let's say you're on you're doing Marshall's questions, and the question you're asking yourself is, was I happy today? And so you get out and you have great guns and you know it's going to be a great day, and everything happens, and you're going and you're gonna get a promotion at work, and all kinds of things are going great, and you see in the road, a cat runs across the road and you swerve the car because you would never ever harm an animal and you run your car into a tree. And now the car is in the tree, and you're late for your promotion, and you get through your day, and you're but you get you get the promotion, and actually a lot of wonderful things happen. At the end of that day, were you happy or did you do your best to be happy? You see, life happens, and this practice takes into account that life happens, and we can always do our best. In that case, that person would have answered in the affirmative. Yes, I did do my best. I missed the cat, the car needs work, I got to work, I got the promotion anyway, all on balance, everything. I kept my level head, and when I was able to measure myself, I measured that I had done my best.

Brian 18:07

Okay, and see, I I wish I would have heard that example prior to me doing the questions because I struggle with that for the first few weeks. And now I I finally finally got into sync with it. Because I when you were talking, I was thinking, there are days, use your your example of am I happy today. There are days where I just don't feel right. You know, I just you just in that something's not clicking, I don't feel super happy. But what makes me happiest is going out in the woods and running trails or hills and things like that, um, especially if it's a beautiful day, you know, even if it's not, even if it's cold out, you know, 20 below and it's snowing. I that that brings me such joy. I might come home and I'll have that that that dopamine uh uh rush of I just worked out hard for an hour. I'll have that natural high. But afterward, I am uh I'm gonna be happier typically the rest of the day than I was prior to doing it on a day where I feel yucky, so to speak, or kind of don't feel like so I could probably look back on a day like that and say, no, most of the day I was kind of didn't feel very happy. But yet I went out and tried to do something that brings joy to me, brings happiness to me, that makes me a better person. So I did do my best to overcome it. Maybe I overcame that lack of happiness or not, doesn't but the fact that I did do something to to to become happier in that case, in that example.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

That's right. So it's more action or it's all about the effort. Yeah, it's an active question and it's all about the effort. The outcome doesn't matter. The outcome is not your department, the effort is your department. That's what this whole practice is about.

Feedforward for Work and Family

Brian 19:37

One of the things I liked in the book was this concept of um of feed forward versus feedback. Kyle, can you talk on that a bit?

SPEAKER_01 19:46

Yeah, this is something that Marshall came up with. You know, he he observes people and people's behavior and so many of them in leadership roles, but really just in life, you know, throughout his career. And so feedback, let's say that someone is going, you're going into work and there's going to be a group there, and the group, the objective of the group is to give you feedback. How do you feel about that? Feedback is just doesn't feel like it's going to work out well. Feedback is you did something wrong, you did this, you did that. When you think, when we even think about it, but imagine you were going into a group, and the purpose of the group was to say, you know, we have we have some ideas for how you can be even better. Would you like to hear them? Of course, you'd say, Yeah, I'd love to hear that. So you're different. Feed forward is that meeting. That meeting where instead of saying to someone, you know, I um would you please give me feedback on my and how I was today? Would you please give me feedback on this conversation or how I did it work? You say to them, you know, I'd really love to know what I could do to be even better next time. Would you please tell me those things? That's feed forward. You're literally feeding the energy forward, you're feeding the question forward and giving people ideas and inspirations and and uh uh ways of thinking about how they could improve themselves that don't make them feel bad about themselves. Because that there's no Marshall sees no value in that, seeing a feeling bad badly about yourself. That doesn't help. What does help is having a suggestion for how you can be better the next day.

Brian 21:20

You know, when I think about, we talk about using this in a leadership role, managerial role. How important this too is in a parental role in our children.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Oh, so important. You know, parent, you know, children expecting, they almost never, you know, expect, depending upon the parental, you know, the relationship, you can get in a lot of situations and kids never expect to hear something good about themselves. And honestly, at most ages when you're a child, you don't feel good about yourself anyway. Imagine you had a parent who said, you know, Ricky, I I'd love, I want to talk to you. And the kid just tenses up, and the and the father says, you know, it'd be you are so good at soccer, it would be really great.

Brian 22:00

if you uh if you decided to join a formal team and uh and maybe try to to uh improve your you know improve your skills and meet other people and let's say ricky was really shy and he didn't want he he kicked balls in the backyard but he was never joining a team rather than the criticism for him being shy it's the inspiration for him to actually do something better for himself that's feedforward yeah I I kind of wish I would have been able to use this on my children yeah yeah well I can use it on my grandchildren the good news is you can exactly right you can always you could do something in the future the next time if I could get my children to listen to my podcast they could take this with their children but you know it's like uh just dad he's just talking to people I think every once in a while one of my kids will pop on a podcast they'll they'll listen to it but I think they have to be relatively bored and to jump on their dad's podcast they have other things to do.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

And you know it almost doesn't matter who your dad is the kids' reaction is always the same.

Brian 23:00

The same always you know going back to the the the the measurement um idea I was thinking of things like Apple Watch or a Fitbit or a Garmin how much that changes when we measure ourselves and we understand that when it comes to those things. When I like for me I know I have four measurements in my watch that I track every day you know and uh my goal is to close all well there's three circles and I have my number of steps. That's such a motivator for me. Before I bought my first Garmin 10, 12 years ago, I'm on Apple Watches now, but I think that first one was a little Garmin. It really and I was still working out then but I had a there's a something there's a better measurement when I like I I have to get a thousand more steps to close my my step or get my my 10,000 steps in I'm like okay I'm just gonna go for a quick walk or I'll just pace the house for a while. You know it's just it gives me that extra boost. And that I think that's really for me what doing the six daily questions was for me too is I wanted to you know at first it was more of a self it was it's always a self-assessment but it was for me to put a number on it instead of just a check mark that number represented I wanted to do a little better than I had before. I want to get that 10 you know or at least a nine you know and there were days I put threes down you know or someday I'll make a four or two at times you know and I'm like oh it it really motivated me to say okay what did I do what can I do better feed forward what can I do better tomorrow to get that nine or 10.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

Well I think it captures the best of the best of what makes us human and that is the aspire you know aspiring to become you want to become you can get to that 10 you can get to the 10,000 steps you can get to um the place where you have all tens and you know were you were you home every night for dinner did I do my best to be at home with at dinner with my children. And I think when you inspire people and you uh you light them up with the possibility that they can become they can actually do it then they do more of it. And you're right it's like feet it's like the physical uh side of feet forward. You're getting some information and it's giving you the inspiration to know that you can actually reach a goal that you want and then move the goal even more. And all of it is the same thing. My my first book all the time in the world and this book are essentially the same in this way how to become the person you want to be because I think everybody wants that. Everybody wants to grow and you will grow with with uh things like self-measurement and even watches and all kinds of things that we have at our disposal the real trick is actually using them. It really is yeah I I love what you just said I think you've said it twice and you said it I think prior to us us even uh starting the interview today was becoming the person you want to be is that how you said it it is yeah just think about that everybody in their you know in their hearts and I was once asked on an interview do you think Lisa do you think people really want to grow and change? And I said yeah I do I think everybody does. We may have times when we're sad or we're cynical or all kinds of things there's always something that someone might want to change about their life in order to become better whatever that means for them.

Brian 26:04

My friend Dave told me one thing maybe three years ago we always talk about like when you when you're going through a really challenging time in life sometimes you have to pull down to that dark side of yourself and pull that extra strength out and he was talking about the context of that but he said one of his biggest concerns in life is maybe his biggest fear and you and I talked about fears prior to recording today but one of his biggest fears is that he said on my deathbed I'm gonna meet finally meet the man I could or how'd he say oh my gosh I'm gonna butcher this the greatest possible version of myself oh no I don't something like the greatest man in the world or something then um and it's him and it's him but he he never became it you know that what his potential he met the the potential he could have become and it's not him something like that. And I got to get him to reword that again I gotta I gotta quote that on the podcast because when he said it to me I got goosebumps because it was a time in my life where I didn't feel like I was living up to my potential and I, you know, it just kind of was in one of those little slumps you get into every once in a while. So it was kind of a kick in the butt uh for me at that point.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

Um well you know we and Marshall and I talk about that in the book. And that is you know you're when let's say that you are you know you have the opportunity through some magical mystical you know mechanism that you are you are meeting your 90 year old self and um and you're on your deathbed. And so you what would your 90 year old self say to yourself today? A couple of things do all the things that you want to do be generous you know live with courage have fun you know so that you can have friends surround who will be surrounding you that on your deathbed it won't be the executives you work with or people who gave you awards it'll be your family and your friends.

unknown 27:54

Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Do that now. And if you want to do a project a crazy project you mentioned that I started a nonprofit I I started a nonprofit that trains the police in a pe in peaceful response to calls for service. It's called police to peace. And we do a lot of work around the country and you know I I always I wanted to do something to give back in that way to make to make that aspect of you know public safety and society better. Not that I was in policing but I really saw an opportunity don't wait till you're you know 50 or 60 or 70 or 80. You may never do it. Do it. If you have something like that, as Marshall would say play the guitar, learn Spanish. Who cares if someone else thinks you're goofy it's your dream not theirs.

Brian 28:35

Right. And always you know I think it's good to always put yourself in a like you've seemed like you've done this several times in your life put yourself in a new role a parent or where you're not the master you're the apprentice and you're starting to learn that thing you know whether it's the piece to piece you know starting that nonprofit organization it's putting yourself in these roles where we're not because we all get good at being ourselves like be our job and what we can do if we're good runners or whatever we are. But put yourself in a role where you don't know at all what you're doing and learn from the beginning again. And that's what makes really good leaders is when they can put themselves in the apprentices apprentice role.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

It really does and having that beginner you know in the Eastern thought they might call it the beginner's mind. Yeah the beginner's mind knows nothing. So approach each day with the beginner's mind learn something and uh you know and you can really you can become all kinds of things and you know what you just you just may learn something that's really valuable to you that you didn't even know was there or couldn't imagine that it could be true.

Brian 29:33

Right. One of the things I've been doing lately is one of my nerdy kicks is I'm a I'm a I'm a very amateur amateur novice cartoonist where I like to draw exaggerated cartoon uh characters I can't draw like a a a a a a woman or a man's face even if it's a cartoon but if it's an exaggerated like Fred Flintstone or you know uh I don't know Stewie from the family guy from uh the family guy or something I can draw those kind of exaggerated cartoons and as a kid I drew a lot I was always drawing little cartoons superheroes and making my own superheroes and so maybe three months ago I was at the store and I it was like it was a snowy day and I thought I'm gonna just I was getting groceries and I went over the you know the kind of the office supply section and I bought a a sketch pad with some sketch pencils and you know erasers and things like that. And I started cartooning again. Like I've only done maybe 12 but like every every once in a while I'll get up grab my little journal or my my pad and I'll just sketch up a cartoon character I'll call a friend hey who's your favorite cartoon character when you're a kid what I realized is because it's something I don't do often it's something I'm not good at but it's something that I'm learning. Like I'm learning how to look at and I just look at a pi a picture on my usually my iPad and I'll just you know I'll draw it from what I'm from you know what I see so to speak. And that has helped me a lot. Like I get done it only takes me 15 20 minutes to draw a character and I just feel good. I usually take a picture of it and send it off to my kids you know here's what I just drew today. Or you know and so it's just fun and I and I think that's what I I'm what I'm liking out of it is I'm an apprentice at something right now. Where in the other parts of my life I'm kind of like if I'm coaching or doing things that I've been doing for years I'm more of the more of a master mentality at that one.

unknown 31:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Where you you're judging you may be judging yourself right you have a certain standard a certain level you're going to be within you know lines or boundaries that you know exist there where if you have a beginner's of mind you a beginner's mind you don't know those. No. And you may do may do something completely different in a completely new way and learn something about yourself.

Brian 31:35

Exactly.

Escaping Comparison Culture With An Inner Game

Brian 31:36

Which you which is another thing that when you talk about in the book the success culture and comparison culture, I found that fascinating. Can you talk on that a little bit and why you think that that how do we escape that trap?

SPEAKER_01 31:50

It is really true. So we have a society you know with with social media and media the way it is and and all kinds of things happening at the same time we're we're comparing ourselves to other people constantly and you know in the uh 20 30 40 years ago you couldn't really compare yourself to that many people because you would see people maybe on television or you see people in school or in your life or in your world and you know you you could feel pretty good about yourself. You might have some comparison but now it's everybody and online on all of these social media programs you're not seeing the real person. You're seeing the exaggerated cartoon version of all the good wonderful things that they've done with you know with the new car and the new job and the new family and the you know Bahamian vacation and all of these things. And it could make you kind of feel bad badly about yourself. But the truth is you're a treasure. And so if we have a culture which sort of reduces us to comparing ourselves to other people's you know possibly not even real lives an exaggerated version of their lives so they can feel better about themselves, then then I think that we all feel badly about ourselves and pulling ourselves out of that doing your own self-measurement play your own game the inner game you know and and in sports that that's become quite a you know quite a thing in the last uh couple of years where people are playing their own inner game even though they're with players on the field your own inner game is I'm going to become the best at what I want to be and really pull yourself away from the from comparing yourself online in particular and the success culture and the comparison culture when they're combined so not only are you know are you comparing yourselves to people with these fabulous lives, the success culture, oh I'm not you know I'm not an associate yet I'm not a director I'm not a vice president I'm not this I'm not that you have to be that to be successful. No you don't that's not true. Jane Goodall wasn't an executive VP of some Fortune 500 company she was you know caring about the world and showing showing us that there's beauty in our life we all have those types of gifts to bring to the world and I think that that's what Marshall and I wanted to remind people of play your own game do your own questions measure your own self to become the best person that you want to be not what someone else thinks you should be or what you're comparing yourself to someone else's life.

Brian 34:14

I yeah that's the best answer I could have had received from that question. I I um I think that you know we've always had that term keep up with the Joneses social media has made that so much more um it really has oh my gosh and and I I felt trapped to that when social media when I first joined Facebook maybe the first 10 years of Facebook I'm like dude my life sucks everybody else is doing all this cool shit they're in love they're traveling they're making money they're flying on private jets then I come to realize no they're really not they're really not and that may even if they are it may not be all as cracked up to me. Right. Well when I photo you can have there's a private jet you can pay a hundred bucks and go in and take pictures of and act like you're flying somewhere and and and put it on social media there's also hospital beds that you can go in there and take a picture of yourself and put you know the please please pray for me don't I don't want to answer any questions right now. I mean I thought okay now we're we're getting really carried away with the social media shit. That is really yeah but um and it's interesting though when you become or when anyone becomes authentic and just it just shares the good and the bad and the in the neutral or whatever in of their lives people are really like really you just said that um I had an opportunity to um working with a group of people sever four maybe four years ago and I was coaching I think several people in this company and uh uh in one group I was leading a small group one day and we were all they were all opening up about things you know I'm trying to get these young leaders to open up about things and and understand you know their own humanity not just what they're as leaders what they're doing and but um and we they did and I opened up about some of my childhood issues that I had you know as part of the my moderation or media mediation of this of this group and three days later the CEO called me and he said did you actually tell them that about your childhood I'm like yeah why not well do you think that was appropriate you're like these are your clients I'm like yeah they're my clients you're right these are my clients you're paying for them but you want me to train them and lead them to be better people better humans better leaders um and part of that is for them to see me being authentic too I mean I didn't sit up there and cry I didn't boo-hoo about anything I just was stating matter of fact and you know here's how I've worked on some of my struggles and challenges in life and where they're rooted from and you know here's where I'm going with them now. But it was interesting I think he never thought that you could do that in a business setting or in any setting where you should just kind of keep everything bottled up and show your only your social media side so to speak. I'm like no that's not me. If you know me you're gonna hear my good, my bad you're gonna I'm gonna tell you when I mess up I'm gonna tell you I'm feeling bad today because I did this yesterday or whatever. But when you do that people are turned they're they're taken back by it but then they kind of you develop a following with them later on they seem you people seem to respect people who are very authentic and just judging life against who they are and who they want to be not against comparison of other people yeah and that may be changing in business toward the authenticity which would be a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 37:11

Yeah I learned a lesson a long time ago and my you know bringing in Silicon Valley you know companies are not made of money companies are made of people and it's all people and you know inspiring people to become the best version of themselves those are the most successful companies. And you can get there a lot of different ways and knowing that other people have struggled I think helps people appreciate their own situations better. And the authentic authenticity of a coach being able to share that I think is enormously valuable. But it may be if you know you I'm not sure that you would have done that 30 years ago at general at GE, right? Some of the really big sort of more more difficult challenging you know um structured type companies but companies are doing it now and they're getting great results.

Brian 37:55

I like that companies not made of money they're made of people and that and I think when what what I am seeing in my at least in my coaching circle that is becoming more uh relevant or it's more uh people are talking more on a more consistent basis I see a couple of trends in business and I'm seeing a lot more authenticity than I ever have and I'm I'm also seeing people talk about their uh and this was maybe connected to that but about their spiritual journey whether it's secular or non-secular I'm just talking about their spiritual being inside I'm seeing a lot more leaders talk about that and I'm seeing more um core cultures like the US Marine Corps talking more about that. Um there's a there's a real cool cool trend out there that I'm I'm noticing in the zeitgeist of of uh at least in my you know coaching circles and climates of my clients and things like that. So I'm I'm hoping that trend continues. Because a lot of a lot of leaders I talk to are talking about their desire to be more authentic and to create more authenticity in the workplace. So it's books like permanents it's the daily questions things like that that when they when they get in there then you start to see the reason why it works. You see you have a tool now to use that because if you can do answer those six daily questions every day if you're honest with yourself you're going to find more authenticity in yourself as well.

SPEAKER_01 39:15

Right again showing up for yourself bringing yourself back to yourself every day. You know and that authenticity in in uh business you know Brene Brown I think that her her TED talk on uh vulnerability was maybe 15 years old it really shook up corporate America and that is uh people realize that they could be that they could be vulnerable in places like work and in fact it was valuable to be vulnerable and you know you can't have authenticity without vulnerability so that people could actually be themselves in a you know in a business environment um you know not so much so that interferes with business or it's inappropriate some things are and some things are not with that said when you can capture the imagination of a company of the people of a company you can do anything as a company and I think that's what I really learned from Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley captured the imagination these small startups that changed the world we were capturing the imaginations of so many people that we could do these great things and really any company can do that by as you said by uh by you know well vulnerability would be one I think that's another word that would you that would be used for your sharing in that way leading to authenticity because people are people make up these companies not robots right and not money and not external events. It's people who are inspired to become to do things. Right.

Brian 40:39

Well it just I I think when when I talk to somebody who is vulnerable I mean obviously if they're not I don't want somebody come up to meet me shaking my hand and tell me every bad thing that's happening in their life and start cutting in my arms I that's not that's gross to me. If it's somebody I know yeah there's moments for that but I mean vulnerability means just being yeah being able to share the things you know I I tell people tell me what makes you sing in the show right what makes you uh what what makes you wake up at three o'clock in the morning afraid. You know if you can tell me those two things I'm gonna learn a lot about you. And you show them both sides. I think vulnerability also can mean in authenticity means show them just your third dimension not just two dimensional cutoff of who you want who you want to portray. When I see a person do that I instantly the word that comes to my mind is courage. Every time that's a courageous person now I'll follow a courageous person.

SPEAKER_01 41:26

I'll want to well you cannot have you know you cannot the the definition of courage is not knowing how something's gonna come out turn out right embarking on something and you do not know how it's gonna turn out and that in order to do that you have to be vulnerable. You have to know yourself a little bit right you have to be authentic in order to even take that step.

unknown 41:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

But out of these courageous acts comes the you know the best the best of us and the best of what what's happening around the world.

Brian 41:53

Have you ever followed Lisa that the hero's journey that chart they have of the hero's journey of all we go through and we embark on a quest and we meet a mentor we meet our our Yeah I think it's wonderful. It is I actually have it just taped up on it with a scot above my desk right now but I can't see it because I'm not in I'm not sitting at my work desk. But um I look at that every once in a while and I'll say okay in different aspects of my life I call it my crucible you know where am I right now and what part of the stage I'm in and it follows true. It's like oh and I met this person that's kind of a mentor or a person that's kind of guiding me a little bit or you know they don't even know they're guiding me but they might be and then say it goes through that process. So if anybody gets a chance and I think it was Joseph Campbell wasn't it that came up with that it was Joseph Campbell yes um and uh and what did he write he wrote some interesting books uh he did like um adventure books kind of like deep philosophical adventure books and I can't think of yes like about the Amazon and things like that if I'm not war or something I may forget. Yeah I'm blanking myself it wasn't apocalypse now was it no but something like a book about that that kind of I think was Apocalypse now kind of use that as a model there was a connection there I think but anyway but anybody gets a chance go on Google type up uh the uh the hero's journey map or chart and you'll see it's like a little circle there's a little mine has a little guy walking a little figure of a guy walking in the middle of it print it up man and look just keep it out look at it every once in a while actually I do have a copy I keep I carry a copy of my planner right here I do have another copy of it um nice yeah go you go from the normal world to the unknown but at the end you always come back home but you come back home changed which is yes a really cool concept um I I want to come back to the book though before in a minute but I want to talk a little bit about you so as you're going through this and let's even let's just even say the last 12 to 24 months Lisa what are some of the greatest learnings you've had that you can share with us over the last year or two?

Evening Routines and Accountability Options

SPEAKER_01 43:45

Well it does have it would have to do with the book and that is you know um and we've talked about it a lot that in in order to in order to change something in your life, the awareness of who you are To be daily or it disappears. It just sort of falls away, right? If you don't actually do the self-measurement. So it's so easy to think that once you understand something, you've changed. And we've talked about that a lot today. But the truth is that that's not the truth. What I've seen over and over again in the book talks about insight just evaporates, it fades quickly if there's no reinforcement. If the insight that if you go home and and uh make it to dinner every night for a month with your kids, your your children, your kids' grades improve because they are excited that you're around. That insight, if you stop measuring and you stop having dinner with them, then the the insight that they were related fades away. And you actually don't get what you want, which is the best life for your kids. So the real learning for me has been that it needs to be a practice. It needs to be something simple and it needs to be repeatable to do what we've said many times. Bring yourself back to yourself every day.

Brian 44:56

Bring your best.

SPEAKER_01 44:57

Otherwise, even the best intentions don't hold.

Brian 45:03

You know, as you're talking, I literally came up with three new questions. Just hearing you talk about permanence in the six, the six daily questions. I came up with three uh questions that I definitely want to ask myself every day. That I wonderful. One of them I had kind of contemplated one, but one just now was uh Did I do my best to be a role model for my children and grandchildren today? That's a powerful. It's such an important thing. I never I don't think if I would have sat down and listed those questions and started them two weeks ago, I wouldn't have had that on there. But that just came to me naturally. Um on the question, so one of the things I I struggle with, I'm a really big morning routine guy. Like my day starts at five, and I have a morning routine that goes from five to six thirty, and it doesn't change other than on Saturdays. I take Saturday, but I do whatever Saturday's a free-for-all. So six days a week I do the exact same thing in the same order. Um, it's just the way I get my day started. And it's something spiritual, physical, emotional, mental. Um and but I don't have a good evening routine. And that's I've been working on that for two years now, trying to find a good evening routine. Uh, you know, a little 20-minute recap. The the daily questions was part of that. I that was that was one of them. But that didn't last long. I mean, it didn't, I want to do a little more, like I'm looking at doing more, maybe journaling again and maybe doing a little more reading again, or maybe even doing a little sketchwork cartooning at night. Can you put something like that on there? Like that's did I do my best to live how uh an evening routine to establish an evening or to live my read that's less that's that's more pragmatic than it is maybe.

SPEAKER_01 46:36

So pragmatic but pragmatic is fine, okay, right? All right. So, you know, did I do my best to get in my 10,000 steps, right? Did I do my best to make eye contact in the meeting? And I and I I'm asking myself that because I know that I'm shy and I don't make eye contact, and people think that I don't like them or I got feedback, whatever it is. You so the the questions can be very pragmatic. Did I do my best to practice the flute, which I love and I would love to play better, but if I don't practice, then I can't do that. And so the the daily questions if anybody wants an evening routine is the best way to have an evening routine. It's an anchor. If you can do that, then as the first thing, you can add other things onto it. So the reason we talk about it only taking two minutes, when I was working with the leaders who were flying around the world during the year-long study period, I kept track of the time, and that's how we actually know that it is two minutes. Now, that doesn't mean that something might have happened and someone really needed to talk about it. And that did happen for sure, uh, in terms of what happened in the day and why the score was the way it was, and the learning that they got out of it or that how they could be better next time. But generally speaking, a two-minute evening practice as an anchor to a new evening practice is a wonderful way to start. And then you could add on 30 minutes of yoga, or but which is what I do, breathing. And I then I'm a meditator, and then I tack on meditation. And before I know it, I have a wonderful evening practice. And then spirituality, ancient spiritual traditions, generally speaking, all of them separate day from night with a ritual. There's something to do, and it's a beautiful way to separate day from night, to do your daily questions, and then pick one or two other things that you might want to do to separate your daytime thought and thinking and how you show up from your evening time, which may be more personal, maybe with your family. It may be time that you spend uh with yourself contemplating whatever it is that you do that may be different in the evening. Certainly you're sleeping in the evening, right at night. So there are things that you're doing that are differently, but actually giving um acknowledging that it's a different time of day, and it's a good way to begin.

Brian 48:43

I like that. Okay. I now is there a benefit to doing this exercise, the daily questions at night, or could it be something that you could do first thing in the morning reflecting on the past 24 hours?

SPEAKER_01 48:56

People do. It's personal preference. I have uh I work with clients who do both. Some of my clients are on other, on literally on the other side of the world. So in order for it to be reasonable, it has to be the next morning, their time. Otherwise, because we're 12 hours apart. Think about that. And so, um, and I'm working with them in order to take them through the daily questions process. That brings us to another good good question, and that is can I do this myself? Is there an app? How does it really work? And the answer is it's personal preference. Some people do have the discipline to do this yourself. You, Brian, you sound like you have the ability to do this yourself. Some people uh need a partner, they need a mentor, they need a, they need at least a colleague to do that. In that case, they can ask a friend. I do recommend it as not an intimate friend.

unknown 49:42

Right.

SPEAKER_01 49:43

And so someone who is who knows you well enough that you know they will actually call you and you will call them because it can be bilateral, as they say in politics. It can go both ways. You're asking questions of them and they're asking questions of you in the same sort of phone call. And someone who's reliable in that way. Or some people are in a foundational coaching program, like my clients, and they have this as part of their coaching. And it's a professional coaching relationship where it's an opportunity for me to touch base with someone every weekday, which is a tremendously powerful coaching approach. Think about that. And they're doing daily questions. And I I prefer to do that in the evening time because the day is fresh in people's minds, but it really doesn't matter. You can do that the next day for you know, for all kinds of reasons. At the ends of your the end of your day gets crazy, the person you want to do it with isn't available. Um, and of course, if you're doing it on your own, then you can use an app or you can use the plain old, you know, Benjamin Franklin approach, which is pen and paper, where he drew a grid, as I talk about in the book. He drew a grid and then marked his scores every night and kept them in a journal.

Brian 50:47

Yeah. Well, that's what I did. In fact, I have one of mine printed up right here. I did um I did four weeks. So on one piece of paper, eight and a half by eleven, I just had four weeks. Um did all six questions are asked four times or in four blocks, and they're Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Sunday through Saturday on each one of them. So I every four weeks I would just print up another one. And I I I dated them, and then what I did is I took a picture at the end of the month or at the end of the four weeks, and I stored it in my phone under um six day daily questions um uh uh photo album. So now so I could go back and take a and look at them to see where did I, you know, did I did my numbers go up? I was gonna chart all them in on like a line chart, but that's that's a lot of I mean that's a lot of days of six questions a chart.

SPEAKER_01 51:31

It is a lot. I can tell you without reservation, they if you keep doing it, they do go up. They do go up because I actually did the study and I did it for a long period of time. People should know that in the in the book, both in the you know, the PDF version, you know, the uh the ebook version and the printed version, there is a journal, a blank journal in the back of the book, which has Marshall's original questions and room for 15 of your own, with uh a scoring range from one to 10, where one is closer to no and 10 is closer to yes. And uh people can begin right away, which is something Marshall and I wanted for them. You read this book, it's a quick read, it's a little treasure, sort of delightful. It finishes in a very delightful note with Marshall talking about speaking to your 90-year-old self. And then the next page is the journal, and you can start right away.

Brian 52:17

I mean, it's I know you gave me a copy of the e uh ebook, an e-copy of I've read it, I print up a lot of it, then I had it, then I had it summarized and I read the summary again. Um, so I could this was two weeks ago when we were supposed to meet originally, but um my son had to graduate college and I just canceled a few days uh things I was doing. So um wonderful. But I have I've read so much on this um so far, and I think I'm gonna go through and read the ebook again. Um, because I think I my understanding is is obviously much better than it was two and a half weeks ago, three weeks ago when we f you and I spok first spoke. I really thought the daily questions were more of kind of I didn't see I saw them as significant because they worked for me. They really transformed me and really got me through an emotionally and mentally challenging period of my life. But I didn't realize when I read the book and then read the had it summarized, then read the summary a couple of times, um that I didn't realize really why it was impactful. Like I didn't understand when I was doing it. I wish I would have read permanence before I did it, but I'm glad I'm I'm getting a chance now to do it again with my own personal questions. So I see it's gonna be even more impactful. I believe that. Right when I start that. Um, do you recommend doing it seven days a week, or can you do it five? Is the impact much different? Is there a drop-off?

SPEAKER_01 53:29

Well, the um the coaching program and the and the research were around professional development. So we're doing it five days a week. But I could imagine that people are asking themselves if you start doing daily questions, you're going to change your behavior in real time, just like the leaders did, just like the executives did who were part of the study. So you would still be doing it on Saturday and Sunday, even if you only did it five days a week, if because if the questions were related to your professional life. People do either. Uh, it's better to have uh more consistency than less. If you're going to do it, I would at least do five days a week, four weekdays. And then if you go ahead and take weekends off. With that said, I'm sure that the questions will come to you as you live through your daily life and the weekend days as well.

Brian 54:10

Mm-hmm. That's an I didn't I failed to mention that. I noticed that when I was doing this those six months, those questions were coming, some of them a little more um often. Some of the questions, I think the one that did I do my best to be uh be happy and find meaning, those two kind of came to me a lot during the day. Um, you know, thinking about it kind of almost like a proactive. If it right now, if like let's say it's noon and I was doing something on a Saturday or on Friday, there I on occasion it would come to me saying, Okay, when I go to fill up my my daily questions tonight, answer those questions, what can I do now to make sure I get a 10 on that? Like it was more like it kind of forced me to rethink a few things. And it did make me zig when I probably would have zagged at times, and I would have, and I would do like a lot of it was me going, I call it it's rucking when you run I run with weights, weighted vests, but um a lot I don't want to ever go. Like there's never a time, even though it's what brings me happiness and joy. I never want to drive to the to the hills and start running trail. I don't want to. I'd rather sit and watch Netflix or watch modern trailer. Yes, but I there are so many times when I was doing this, and of course, we had a rough winter up here, you know. We had really rough winter, and there were days when it uh well, there was one day on a Saturday or Friday, I'm sorry, or it was a Saturday, um, at 21 below, snowing and high winds. And I'm like, I don't want it to go. But then I would say, okay, am I gonna, you know, this is part of my finding meaning. It really is. It's part of my goal achievement for the weekend, is rocking. And it would kind of just okay, get up, dress, warm, put all your stuff on, and hit the trail at least for 45 minutes. And so it was a it was a motivator because I wanted to be able to answer high, you know, I wanted to give myself true, authentic, um, high um numbers at the end of the day on some of those things. Those two seem to be the most relevant when I was when I would kind of proactively question am I finding meaning right now? And am I doing best to achieve for goal achievement right now? So right.

SPEAKER_01 55:59

Well, what you're describing is the the person you become is the sum, the sum total of the questions you're willing to answer honestly every day.

Brian 56:06

Yeah. I know some questions are kind of scary. I mean, they they scare me like, oh gosh, you know, and I for sure put a little number there and just have to go, okay, well, tomorrow I better do better. And like there are times I remember putting a three. I'm not a guy who wants to go and believe I I I'm not a guy who goes from zero to sixty. Like, I'm not. Like when I start a new habit, I start low and I just increase it every single day diligently. You know, like I take a little one second longer cold shower every day. I mean, I and I just do that for years, so it just adds up. Um, so what I would say, I had a if I had a three on one of the on one of the

Consistency, Identity, and Small Increments

Brian 56:40

questions today, my goal tomorrow, at least a four. Do so do something better. And and that helped because you know, it just it just it's the way my brain works. I slow things down slowly that are bad and I can and I increase things that are good slowly over time. Um I I I want to hear this question. Oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 56:58

No, go ahead. And the so the fastest way, it's it's ironic. The fastest way to build yourself seems to be the slowest by asking yourself the same questions every day. Every day. Just continue. That is the fastest way, one day at a time that you've showed up as you intended. Yeah. That is the fastest way to build yourself, become.

Brian 57:18

And what I what I like to do um when I moved into this house December 1st, and so I now I, you know, my own space and everything. Because before I was doing a lot of just traveling, I call it micro traveling. I'd I'd go for three weeks, come home for three nights, then go visit my kids for a week, then I'd travel for two more weeks. It was just I was at my house my prior to this, the house prior to this, probably on average three to five days a month or nights a month. And so I really I lived kind of out of a suitcase. I carried my podcast equipment, all my client files and content files with me that just stayed by Jeep when I traveled. But now that I when I moved into this place and I got it the way I wanted it, just having that um my that sheet that I talked about, the four weeks of the questions, out where I could see it either on my kitchen table or my desk in my office or wherever it might be. It was just a I would just glance at it, I'm grabbing my car keys in my wallet to head out. I would I would see it, and it was just a little subtle reminder that, hey, you're remember, try to try to do better in these areas. Be be intentional about this. That's right. Be intentional. Be intentional. One of the things I do, Lisa, is I have a thing called a CLR that I've used for years now. It's uh so I have 33 things on a piece of paper. Again, I have a full month worth, and I have objectives and expectations of myself. I'll give you an example. One of the they they focus on family, business, health, uh primarily. So like I I I my expectations, I reach out to my mother seven days a week. Seven times this week, or seven different days. My kids seven day, how much protein I eat, how much water I drink, how many times I do cardio. That just it goes down 33 things that I then I I out of I can't, I don't always get all 33. I think one time I got all 30. I get about 30, 28 to 30. Well, like sometimes I won't get all of my uh weightlifting in. I might get two days instead of four days or something. So I can't give myself credit for the week. So I get zero credit for that. But what it did for me was it's very similar to what the questions did for me, it was a way for me to consciously focus on a holistic approach to my life. And then when I as I was doing the six months, I put, or the I'm sorry, the six months of the questions, I had daily questions on there. So that was one of my things too, that I had to do them seven days a week. And um, so that I could at the end of if I did all seven, then I put a highlighter on that, and I count of all these things, 33 things, how many did I actually finish this week and do all that I wanted to? And um, that CLR help has helped me tremendously. Um, and so I incorporated the daily questions into my CLR as one of the elements, probably the most impactful element during that six-month period, at least one of the most impactful.

SPEAKER_01 59:49

Um well, you you you wanted to change your life. You did it by asking yourself questions at the end of your day. The simplest thing imaginable.

Brian 59:58

And it worked. It it it does. It works. So everybody I recommend permanence. Lisa Broadwick, Marshall Goldsmith, get on there and buy this book. You're not gonna regret it. I'll have a link to it, probably to Amazon or maybe Barnes Noble on here. Um, is there any other way I can connect that, Lisa, between other than those two?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:17

Yeah, well, there's permanencebook.com online, and then also buy uh on my website, Lisa Broderick.com.

Brian 1:00:23

We'll we'll include those in the show notes as well, then. I have two more questions for you. And this one is more personal. If you don't mind, you have another couple minutes? Not at all. Yeah, sure. I love this question because especially coming from you, the what you've experienced in life and the wisdom you've accrued and how you practice living your life. If you could go back in a time machine today and you could talk to your, let's call it your 21-year-old self, some younger version of Lisa, what words of wisdom or recipes for success or advice would you give yourself?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:53

That is a great question, you know, and for people to think about it and that framing. Uh, it has to do a lot of a lot with what we're talking about today. I would tell my younger self to pay less attention to outcomes and more attention to how I was living each day. Because that's what matters. That's what Marshall and I talk about at the end of the book. Your 90-year-old self. How are you living each day now? Outcomes come and go, wins and losses, triumphs and you know, and failures, joys and sorrows. It's it's all part of life. But what stays with you is the person you become in the process, which is so important. And then also say don't wait for things to slow down before you start living that way that you want. Life's always going to be busy. There's always going to be crushing burdens. There's always going to be, you know, responsibilities and this and that, and you know, things that happen. If you wait for a moment that you think will arrive in the future, you'll be disappointed that moment never really arrives. But the moment can be right now.

Brian 1:01:54

Well, what do they say? When's the bet when was the best time to plant a tree? Yesterday, when's the second best time to plant a tree? Today. Just do it. It's not talking about. Just do it. Exactly. No, I I I couldn't agree more on that. Um one of the things I got so many, I got like three pages of questions here that I had prepared. Um Okay, this is where I'm gonna this is I'm gonna turn this back on to you. The C the you know, because you've done, you know, obviously everything best-selling author, C Seat executive, C-suite executive, I mean uh founder of a found uh nonprofit foundation. You use the questions every day yourself. I do. What has have you seen as the greatest impact in your life from being having this to be part of your of your lifestyle?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:40

Well, we talked about fear earlier, you know, and everybody feels fear to some, you know, it's some to some extent, you know, of that something might happen. I would say that doing daily questions uh eliminates the fear of that something won't happen, because I know that every day I'm working towards what I want to have to happen. So it just if the fear, you know, if you have a fear or a concern or you're anxious about something, just doing daily questions can help you feel dinner about different about your life because you know you're doing everything you can in the moment. And at the end of the day, that's all that matters. You can't change the outcome, but you can change the fact that you tried. And when you do that, I think we calm down, we uh, you know, our fears sort of melt away, we feel more in control, and we know that we're working towards what we want to have or be or become or do sometime in the future.

Brian 1:03:37

That's great. I think I I th what I got out of that when you, as you were talking, I was thinking of, or what came to my mind was while you're doing these daily questions, you're kind of taking your foot off the cruise cruise control where we go through life sometimes just we just every day is the same. We're not really being introspective, we're not giving ourselves a good audit. We're not you know, as I call that's what I kind of refer to, these daily questions for me as like a little self-audit every night. Um we just kind of we're not really we're not really living consciously, like or intentionally. What I found that this helped me to do was kind of get my my foot off a cruise or take the cruise control off and actually live and see the experiences of every day while I'm doing it. Because I was focused on six things. And I days that weren't really good. If I knew that I still did my best on on some of these, I'm like, I'm making progress. Like I'm doing some good things because you have to document the things that you're doing, these things at the end of the day. So even if only one was a 10, you know what? One was a 10. The day felt like shit all day, but I had a 10 on one of these, I'm feeling I'm making progress. You know, that's exactly right.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:45

And so I like you know, in a way, you're capturing, you know, I said that the the best companies capture the imagination of the people who are who are there and building it. It's like you're capturing your own imagination about what can be every day, re-inspiring yourself to make progress every day.

Using 360 Feedback to Write Questions

Brian 1:05:03

I gotta tell you, I'm really excited about doing my having my personalizing my questions. Uh I I'm gonna I'm gonna work on that this evening. I'm gonna work on that because I this is making me excited about it because you know, going through the six months of Marshall's questions was so so impactful. I only see the next six months. I'm gonna just go in six month chunks here talking. I can't see that being any less impactful because now I'm really fine-tuning to the things that I'm really working on in my life and things I want to be intentional about.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:28

That's right. And also, it's a really good question to examine a really good idea to examine your questions at the end of six months. I do that with clients. Okay. We go back and re examine them. And I tell you something that I'm doing now, and that is it for in a work environment, having the person undergo a 360 and then using what comes out in the 360 as their daily questions. That is just astoundingly effective for helping people work on. Because the biggest question I get is. What should I ask myself? Well, if you do a 360 with someone, you know exactly what you should ask yourself. It's right there in the 360. Right. And so then it becomes your daily questions. And then you and then you work towards that. And then in about six months, you repeat the process.

Brian 1:06:16

Do another three.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:17

That is a that's a pat. Do another 360 and then do a wonderful way to grow. I have a I have a 360 tool that I use, which is very inexpensive, uses AI, that a 360 could literally be done every couple of months for very inexpensive. And that's what I use with my clients.

Brian 1:06:34

Oh so one I have a question. Do you so you're calling a lot of your clients every evening? Uh-huh. All around the world. That's crazy. That's awesome. I mean, does it take you long to do it?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:45

Well, it takes organization. So it's part of my life, right? I'm I'm a very organized person, so that's good. It wouldn't be great for a coach who might not be. And I know that I'm doing uh wonderful things for them by being there there for them. And again, it's not like things don't happen. Sometimes really consequential things happen, and they really need a coach, and I'm right there every day, every weekday.

Brian 1:07:07

Right. Well, that's great. All right, my final question, and then I'm gonna let you go on to your

The Listener Challenge and Closing

Brian 1:07:12

busy day. What is Lisa the one thing you hope the listeners do differently the day after hearing uh this interview?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:24

I would say actually sit down and write out some questions that you would four things that you'd like to become in your life. What is it that what is it that you know you could do or you know you should be doing that you're not doing that you'd really like help to do? And if you start there and just sort of identify those with yourself, they can become your daily questions. Did I do my best to uh be kind to my partner today? Did I do my best to um show that show that I care uh for my extended family? Whatever it is, there's something that bothers each of us, probably many things, about the things we don't do, we feel we should be doing. We know if we did do, we would be a better person. Make a list of those. That's where you can start with your daily questions. And then start doing it. Did I do my best to? And then fill it out with the rest of the thing that you want to become.

Brian 1:08:24

I think it's I mean, again, I'm gonna attest everyone. I did this for six months. And I it to me, it was a lifeline. It was uh it was a uh it was like you know, uh I was in tumultuous waters uh emotionally and mentally. This was like somebody threw me a life jacket. You know, I didn't swim like I wasn't swimming, I was just kind of treading water on at days. Some days I was swimming, same days, but it always was an anchor that I could come back to every day. And I don't think I missed a day. I might have missed some days and then the next morning I'd fill it out in the morning, but I don't think I missed any day. Maybe one out of 180 days. I don't know. But um, and it was it was an anchor point for me. And it, if you do it authentically and honestly, it's it's going to make you self-reflect on the things that are most important to you in life, and it will have a transformational impact on you. I promise you that.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:14

I think that's a wonder, wonderful imagery, and that's why it's called permanence. People, people want something that lasts. How can something last? This lasts because you're showing up for yourself and it's permanent.

Brian 1:09:27

Well, I think that's a great way to put it. And I always say when people go to like uh, and I'm nothing against Tony Robbins or anything like that, but some of those rah-rah coaching prep platforms you can go to, a lot of that to me, for me anyway, is cotton candy. I'm looking for steak and potatoes. I'm looking for a holistic, a good meal that's organically, you know, just a solid meal that fills me up and is healthy for me. And this kind of stuff that is permanent, um, that you stick with for a minimum of six months, just start off. And that's just what that's because that's what Marshall recommended to me. I think you just do it forever. But you build up that consistency. So it's not something you go and get some cool motivational ideas and techniques, you run back to your office and three days later you forgot what you even heard. It's something that goes, it sticks with you every single day, like a really solid home cooked organic meal.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:14

So well, here's how you can do both. And that is you go to the inspirational seminar and you be with someone who's fantastic, and you immediately write down what you learned and you turn it into daily questions so you don't forget it. Amen. That's what you do. That's what I do.

Brian 1:10:28

Great approach. Uh Lisa, after we wrap up, um, can you stay on the phone for just a few more minutes so we can chat? By all means. Wonderful. Well, first of all, folks, uh I I I know big this this podcast episode was filled with so much content. I mean, it was primarily content um rich. It was very, you know, where we got to know Lisa a little bit, but I really wanted to get into the book because I think the book in this this the daily questions exercise is so powerful. I wanted that we spent 95% on that. So we did so. I know a lot of you are taking notes. What I'm gonna recommend is when you get home or when you can sit down, listen to it again with a piece of paper and a pen. Click on the links to permanence. I'll have the link, the I'll have the uh the website included right in the show notes. Explore this, buy this book, spend some time learning the material more deeply than just doing the questions, if you have if you possibly can. And by all means, man, make it a part of your daily habit and your daily life. You're I know you got a lot of impact on this, people. Please get out there and share it, like it, review it, rate it, send it to three people you care about, because I know this is an impactful one today. So I want it to be as heard by as many people as you care about. So, Lisa, again, man, I know you're busy, my friend. I know you are, and I really appreciate it. We've been able to communicate a lot over the past month. It's been a pleasure to get to know you, and it's been an honor to have you on the show. So thank you for being such an amazing guest on the Bamboo Lab Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:55

You as well. Thanks so much for having me.

Brian 1:11:57

Thank you. Everyone, I'll talk to you all next week. We have a lot of episodes coming up. I think we had five or six episodes booked in the in a 10-day period. So we'll be putting out every week again. We're back on track to weekly podcasts. Um All I'm gonna ask you to do between the now and the next time that we we talk number one, explore this permanence book. Explore the daily questions. And then please get out there and strive to give and be your best. Please show love and respect to others, including yourself, and please live with intentionality and purpose. I appreciate each and every single one of you. Until next time.