It is yet another great day to get better. Welcome to Becoming And Done, the podcast for those who dare bravely risk myelite and grow relentlessly. To me Toby Brooks is I invite a new guest each week to examine how I achievers can transform from falling apart to falling into place. Bill Benjamin grew up in Canada and initially found a success in the software industry after earning degrees in mathematics and computer science. On the surface that would seem like an odd combo of experience and training for someone who now serves as a highly sought after speaker and coach was a recognized expert in leadership training and in developing emotional intelligence. However when you consider the fact that it's work today is based on evidence about how humans communicate and lead most effectively starts to make more sense. Pull out your notebooks for this one friends because Bill has quote after quote that can inspire and direct as he talks a little bit about his story about the last 8% Academy and how learning to control your emotions and thoughts can be the critical key to all your successes in episode 26 to last 8% part of the genesis for this show really came from a course that I had the privilege of being involved in this past summer and today's guest Bill Benjamin is partner at Institute of Health and Human Potential based out of Canada. He's originally a Canadian native but now lives just outside Chicago Bill great to have you today. Thanks Toby great to be here. So this episode will be a little different for listeners. We've spent a lot of time talking about individual stories but the common thread the theme that I hope you've picked up if you've been listening to these whether in in order or not is that there's a mental approach to success there is absolutely a trainable skill and researchers refer to that as emotional intelligence and unlike IQ EQ is something we can grow we can develop it it's not just genetically predetermined and so IHP is a leader in evidence based training solutions and basically teaching people who either high achievers already or who are aspiring leaders to get better in that space and better means going to the difficult ends of our abilities and facing the realities that maybe we aren't everything we could be so Bill we'll start off by having you just tell us a little bit about IHP and last eight percent Academy yeah absolutely thanks for having me and I'll tell you about I exposed to it was I have degrees in mathematics and computer science and I spent 14 years in the computer software industry and I was a high performing individual contributor and of course what the companies do with their high performers well they promote them and make them a manager and so I got made a manager and the question becomes does being successful as an individual contributor necessarily mean you'll be a good leader well the answer from what people know that this is a correlate and that's kind of what happened to me I turned out I wasn't a great leader or manager so you know talking about you know things that I have failed at and you know managed overcome I was not a great manager leader and this was about 25 years ago so going back way to ways and I actually got to attend one of IHP's early emotional intelligence training programs and it just made a huge difference for me and I was able to apply the concepts for myself gained a lot of self-awareness you know put the strategies into practice and it really helped me become a better leader to the point where five years later I actually joined IHP as one of the partners and owners and you know now I speak and and train on this topic so this is what I get to do for for living now so that's that's a little bit of you know how I got involved with IHP excellent so the company has has grown and the cohort I was a part of was really part of an institutional initiative where they wanted to bring in individuals that perhaps they'd identified as up and coming leaders or or folks that maybe had some potential to grow in leadership what does the typical IHP or more specifically the last 8% academy what what do those students typically look like what are what are they hoping to gain through participating in the program yeah I mean it's all over the place to be honest sometimes you know it's an intact team with a leader who really has a vision who really you know gets the value of emotional intelligence and the last 8% which I'll explain in just a moment for those who might be wondering what exactly is this last 8% but it is sometimes an intact team often it is a group of you know high potentials that have been identified sometimes again it's an organization that has said you know we want every manager and supervisor to get this training so it's a cross section of people from across an organization and sometimes we run it as a public program where you get people from you know all different walks of life so this the participants can look very different in different backgrounds now in terms of you know what exactly the last 8% that's probably worth explaining especially a concept that our founder my business partner Dr. J.P. P. Blue Fry came up with when he was coaching two executives and an organization and those executives weren't getting along like that ever happens and he coached them to have a conversation with each other and they went had that conversation you know about about how they were impacting each other and they went had that conversation they come back they talked to the coaches the coaches asked how it went and they both said oh went great and then the coach pushes a little bit and says yeah but did you really say the stuff that we said you you wanted to communicate and they both gave some version of yeah I got like 85 or 95% of the way there and then the other guy started reacting and instead of continuing to step in I actually held back because they reacted and I reacted and I didn't really step in and say that last five or 10% the part of the conversation that really needed to be said and so we took that concept that idea we don't always say that last five or 10% we often avoid it and did a research study 34,000 people and determined that on average people feel that if 8% they leave unsaid in a conversation yeah that's where the last 8% came from certainly you've experienced this phenomenon even if you didn't realize it was normal or didn't realize that research had proven it to be so commonplace in many team environments we share our needs and our concerns and our intentions but inevitably social norms keep us from telling our full unfiltered truth we hold back thinking that either it isn't our place or that somehow it would be rude to be fully transparent with the person we're talking to as Bill explains the last 8% is the true full content of what we want to say but we stop short at 92% the problem is the real opportunities for growth don't live in the 92 they live in the 8 so if our team or our relationships are really built around a shared goal of becoming our best we have to give each other permission to step into the hardest part of the conversation be open be vulnerable and be willing to listen this was a transformative concept for me and one that helps explain so much about the ways I'd failed both as a teammate and as a leader in the past it's so powerful because once we all share this definition once we have this shared vocabulary where if I'm talking to you and it's a difficult conversation and I want you to feel valued I want you to feel chair so I want to be nice and we talk about that term nice but a lot of times nice is unkind Brunei Brown says that clarity is kindness and being nice is typically unclear and that's unkindness and so with my team I've discovered that if we could just say what we ordinarily would have said and then wave the flag and say I'm heading into last 8% territory here I want you to recognize I cherish you I value you I respect your feelings but I'm going to share with you my full heart please don't take the wrong way that's when the real work gets done and so that last 8% going 92% is kind it's friendly it's polite right doesn't really help us do the heavy lifting that needs to be done yeah I would agree this polite it's not kind because do we want people holding back their last 8% and not really telling us what we need to hear but I think what happens to a lot of people that certainly happen to me is because the first few times I tried to have a difficult conversation to hold somebody accountable or get some performance feedback because I didn't do it skillfully and they did react and went badly then I just decided you know I'm not good at this and so then the habit does become to avoid it so you know what we're trying to teach both the awareness of the importance of having these last 8% conversations as well as the strategies to be able to do it skillfully and then you know build some self confidence build some self efficacy around you know what I can have a tough conversation a last 8% conversation and it doesn't always have to go badly I think one of the really transformational concepts that I walk away from the training recognizing within myself is the tendency to filter interactions through the emotional through the limbic system the amygdala hijack talk to us about what that emotional center can do for us in a high-performance workplace an environment yeah and Toby that the first time I attended the training course that was the part that just blew me away again as a guy with degrees in mathematics computer science I thought oh this is all soft and squid she's just getting people like you in kumbaya though I learned the brain science so the connection is that in a last 8% moment we're going to experience uncertainty tension fear anxiety that triggers our emotional system and that emotional system is part of our limbic system it's also part of our fight or flight system so it's exactly the same system that if we're out in the jungle and it tiger jumps out of us that emotional system which is centered in that small part of the brain called the amygdala that emotional system the amygdala is going to sense the threat from the tiger immediately cause a cascade of chemicals into our body blood moves to the major muscle groups heart rate increases your breathing shortens you're ready for fight or flight in addition the amygdala reduces your working memory and working memory is where you hold your short-term thoughts so when you're calm you can let somebody can say something to you you can access them from long-term memory you can see a number of options you can collaborate you can innovate you can see a lot of options but the amygdala emotional system limits that complex thinking so some of your listeners might have heard themselves say oh I was so eager I couldn't think straight or you have that difficult conversation with a partner spouse in 20 minutes later you think of all the good comebacks and in that moment the amygdala didn't want you thinking complex thoughts so the learning is that in these difficult last 8% moments our emotional system that same system that works when we're in the jungle triggers and in addition to reducing our working memory so we can't think clearly we also become a little more agitated a little more judgmental a little more reactive and we move to fight or flight default behaviors avoid or make a mess we use that language and when that happens we call that an amygdala hijack because the amygdala the motion of brain can literally hijack your thinking mind reduce that working memory reduce your complex thinking ability and then move you toward the default behavior where you avoid or you make a mess yes I love the visual in the training of markers and how if we find ourselves in the midst of that emotional that that amygdala hijack I really don't have a lot of nuance with respect to my responses it's either I'm gonna ball my fists and start swinging or I'm gonna run for my life but there's really no in between yeah we know in in our our less emotional state in our rational state it's not just black or white we've got grace we've got subtle shades there are ways that I could wordsmith that email that would respect the person and give them the opportunity to respond to me and kind without escalating this confrontation and so if I can get out of that emotion I've got all these other colors to work with and to me that was just the the powerful visualization of yeah if I just fire back I really don't have all the tools in my toolbox that I really need to be effective yeah well we can't do the visualization on a podcast but I can still explain it so I would ask your listeners this analogy of the markers I remember I explained the working memory as being where you hold your your short-term thoughts and everybody can hold six or seven thoughts plus or minus two in their working memory so everyone has at least four places in the working memory and so I want you to imagine you have four markers in that working memory and you can make various combinations of the markers you can move them around to do complex thinking well you know the only math we'll talk about today on the session is when you have four items how many combinations of those items are there goes back to like your grade eight math less twenty four it's four factorial four times three times two times one so we we can see 24 different options now if we have a significant a high degree of migral high jack where tiger jumps out of us or another woman's lifting the bus off the baby you go down to one thought one marker right fight or flight but that happens less often in a particularly in business or an organizations what tends to happen is is you get that email that kind of irks you that person says that thing and instead of dropping all your markers you just drop one marker now you have three markers left three places in working memory all right let's do the math how many combinations are there when you have three items well there's six it's three times two times one so what percent of your thinking capacity did you just lose well it feels like it should only be twenty five percent because it's one marker but actually it's seventy five percent of the possible combinations the possible options so you know and I don't know about you Toby but that first marker that drops that's my listening marker it doesn't work that well when I have it right so we lose you're right it's we we become so much less capable of as you said seeing nuances processing information so we're just less smart not only a reactive and emotional but we're just not as smart when we're down in marker yeah I think that is so powerful and it is such an incredible realization to see that my gut response can be tailored it can be fine too like I don't have to just blindly react if I put my hand on a hot stove I have a reflex that ensues right the way I respond in a professional interaction is not it may feel like a reflex but the moment I recognize that I hold control over that is the moment that I take that entire process to be something I can improve instead of reacting I'm now responding I'm thoughtfully and consciously choosing to craft this interaction in a positive way yeah I mean to to know that we have agency over how we're acting respond I'm in the example I often give is when I was first learning this work if I was in a meeting and I was sharing an idea and somebody made a suggestion that public criticism I immediately get defensive that's a national emotional reaction if you're in criticized in front of others well what impact does that have not only not person but everyone else in the meeting oh build doesn't listen build erupts builds on open minded but that that defensive reaction it's a neuro pathway in our brain and it's like water running over rock it gets grouped in but if stop in a moment put a new strategy into place and go to a different behavior so for example rather than being defensive maybe I asked a probing question to clarify that actually becomes the new neuro pathway and over time that gets grouped in and that becomes the new default behavior so we you're right the brain can learn the emotional brain can learn and you can improve your emotional reactions yeah there's a powerful visual that I discovered and I'm racking my brain to remember the book that it came from but it was all about mindfulness and far too often we just assume that our initial response we don't weigh it we don't measure it we just let it bubble in our consciousness and make its way directly out of our mouth and emotional intelligence would tell us it's okay to have that thought you have to take that thought captive and you have to weigh whether or not that's the appropriate response and so the visual was if I have that thought to fire back in that moment where I'm being criticized and maybe I'll you know say something unsavory something I shouldn't have said and overreact instead of doing that I take that thought in the visualization is I set it on a leaf and that leaf is on a stream and it's it's flowing down river and hey that's funny thought amigula but you're not you're not doing that here my response is going to be much more measured it's going to be more purposeful than that the book I was unsuccessfully reaching around for my mind during the interview is the confidence gap a guide to overcoming fear and self-doubt by Russ Harris based in the acceptance and commitment theory or ACT as well as mindfulness techniques it's a fascinating read that not only explains ACT theory it also describes the how-to of using techniques intended to help us take control of our thoughts when we realize that the dialogue in our mind is not something we have to surrender to we can take the power and the control over our thoughts and we realize that our emotions can sometimes be terrible influences on the facts surrounding our reality what could be perceived as a skill that quote unquote natural born leaders or quote unquote skilled communicators have innately without even really trying the awesome part is that we can build these skills whether they come naturally or not and such can be a critical step in improving our relationships and how people view us as a teammate and as a leader and for me I don't always do it and this isn't a acquired skill it's it's I don't want anybody to think that oh if I do this work for six months suddenly I've got this box checked and I'm going to have this mindfulness in this last eight percent's done it's not a right of passage it is a journey yeah yeah I really want to have a valid something you just said it's that having that thought is okay unless you go one one even deeper so having a thought that you know I'm you know I don't like being criticized having the emotion that goes along with that to feel angry to feel hurt to feel put down that's also okay John got with his done a lot of work in the area of emotional tell it was that all our emotions are okay all behaviors are not it's okay to feel angry feel frustrated feel upset it's about them making a choice as to how you're going to react I'm another favorite quote Martin Luther King Jr said being angry is easy but to be angry at the right person to the right degree for the right reason that is not easy right so it's about making that choice and how to deal with those emotions that we all naturally have to what degree do you think we hear this a lot the a leader who is fiery and emotional they can be inspiring other times they can be tyrants where does emotion need to live or exist in the life of a high achiever we don't want to do away with it all together but we don't want it to run wild absolutely not I mean it's like that quote right being angry is easy but being angry at the right person to write the right reason that is not easy you know again I think we all know the examples of the Steve Jobs or whoever who doesn't always manage their emotions well but you know I have two thoughts and that one is you know there are a lot of elements of emotional intelligence so there is impulse control but there's other things like resilience and creativeness you know innovative thinking agility like Steve Jobs was not great and impulse control because off the charts authenticity on some of those other things he was also smart enough to get away with it with 3 people that way most of us me included we're not smart enough to be able to you know treat people that way so I think we absolutely want passion and and we want people who you know are affable and really strong feel strongly about what they do but that negative judgment reactivity that wears people down over time and they're really clear on that yeah well I want to bring this a little closer to home so you had a career you you had degrees in mathematics computer science you were in a career path that looks nothing like your day to day today obviously those skills have served you well but that's a big leap to go from being an employee in that industry to being an entrepreneur and the unknown of entrepreneurship yeah there's an unlimited ceiling but there's no floor either what was that transition like for you emotionally going from kind of your first career to your current season in life yeah thanks for asking and by the way at that same time we had our first child I went through two major life changes at the same time it was exciting it was scary it was it was challenging at times you know Bill Gates always said people overestimate what they can do in one year but underestimate what they can do in five years I definitely went through that I went through that oh I thought you know we're gonna turn the world on fire we need the next Google and again you know Anthony Robbins says there's only one or two Googles the other 99.9% of small businesses are just people who work hard stay at it they're resilient they're focused and so that was kind of less than I learned is that you know it wasn't going to be some sort of you know immediate we're gonna go to the moon that it was just gonna take time and effort and you know if by the way I'm now in my 20th year so you know it's certainly worked out but those first few years were definitely challenging and I probably thought oh this was gonna be better than you know that that really was yeah and those were some hard times for sure I think without question making big pivots like that for people is challenging and and we might look back and think did I make the right decision for you you had the benefit of this work is actually directly feeding right into all that that thought or that doubt that that's not really who I am you are actively working on yourself as a person as you're going through this transition would you say your identity was linked in any way to that previous career or were you so focused on the future ahead that that was the pull you weren't as concerned about what you were leaving behind so much as what you were pressing forward toward yeah I think it's just undergiv my identity was linked to like how much money I was making because I was doing very well in the computer software industry and then again I thought oh I also the world on fire and the first few years were tough you know I didn't make the money I wanted to make and I was definitely beating myself up and kind of down on myself and you know here we haven't new baby and did I do the right thing and by the way I mean you know I had offers to go back to the computer software company they were you know they would have been happy to have me back and so well I have some thoughts about so of course and so yeah really took some grit and resilience and I think the thing that really made me stick it out was this belief because I because with that this work really helps people but the people are struggling with this with their last eight percent moments with managing emotions and I knew it had helped me and it was continuing to help me and so I just I just had this belief that you know if we could get our our message across and get out there that people would benefit from we're gonna make a difference in the world and so just really sticking to that it's your why you know the Simon's Tenix start with why it was really being connected to my purpose and my what and my why and then really you know celebrating the celebrating the positive right so you know in that year in that two years like we didn't earn anything right like we we sold a bunch of clients and we made it you know and so and we impacted a lot of people so you know celebrating the wins but not focusing on the oh well we didn't quite hit the numbers we originally set out to so yeah it was definitely this work helped me overcome those fears and concerns yeah well we're in January now and that's always the the resolution month and usually by the end of the month most people have given up on that and I I see that parallel in a lot of people's lives whether that's entrepreneurship whether that's launching a podcast there there is a a C of dead podcasts someone started with energy and they have four episodes and they don't see the traction and it's hard to keep going when you're pouring all this time and energy and resources and you've got these dreams and you're not seeing the analytics tell you what you're doing is making an impact and so for an entrepreneur we know that exponential growth curve it's really flat at the start for it to start to take off takes a lot of belief during those early years of your aligning with IHP what did you tell yourself to keep going even when the numbers didn't necessarily reflect what in your heart you knew was the value of the message yeah it was interesting during that time I read a book called learned optimism by Dr. Martin Selegman and he did a lot of work the original worker on learned helplessness where they had you know they would be they would have dogs in a cage and they have a lever and the lever would give them a treat and at some point in time they'd turn the lever off and most of the dogs would give up but certain dogs just kept trying and then they turn the lever back on but the dogs that had given up wouldn't try the dogs that kept going would get the treats again and so the the dogs that gave up you know that was learned helplessness and so you know he took that I concept an idea and took it to humans and then a whole bunch of research and studies and identified that people who are optimistic who are resilient they don't globalize so in other words well we didn't make that sale oh we're going to lose every sale no it's not like us they don't personalize oh well they didn't like me this is my fault I'm I'm not good enough and so there was a number of dimensions of of this kind of resilience and optimism and the and the title of book is learned optimism that you can actually learn how to overcome some of that negative thinking and so that that would really helpful it also helped that my business partner is a coach to Olympic athletes and so he you know he also shared with me a lot of strategies and techniques that that were really helpful in fact one of them I went on I just used the other day we called lego of outcome because we get so focused on oh I need as you say I need this many listeners I need this many sales and this many people in the course I need this many and and when we focus on that and it's not happening we get tight and anxious where is it we just let go of the outcome and just focus on the integrity inputs that frees us up so just let go and and so there was just a lot of you know again I was lucky I was getting coached by some of the coach Olympic athletes on you know how to stay in the game how to stay resilient how to stay stay strong so I learned all kinds of great strategies too but still stay with me yeah that's fantastic one thing that I emerged from the program was an awareness of not just my interactions with others but this last eight percent is valuable internally as well and me being willing to have difficult conversations if you will with myself and for me the challenge has always been I tend to start things but I don't always follow through and I think that really comes from a place of questioning the validity of whatever it is I'm trying to build and so if I don't see that initial I'll start a business and lots of enthusiasm you know motivations always high at the start but then motivation evaporates and then you're in kind of that messy middle where I'm not seeing the results but I'm putting in the work it's just like if I made a resolution to get into shape and it might have taken someone 20 years to get out of shape but they expect to see results in a week and it doesn't work that way but if I'm putting in the work and I'm not seeing the results do I have to discipline to keep through with that and for me even like this podcast I said I'm not even going to attempt it unless I commit to at least a full year I'm going to do three episodes a week I'm going to do it for a full year and then we'll reassess I don't want to pour good resources after bad by continuing to do something or produce something people are interested in but the same time I need to give it a chance to really see if it can be successful and so that last 8% for me is being willing to take hard criticism listen to my own voice which I hate yeah be open and honest with yourself because unless you're willing to take hard coaching unless you're willing to encounter something other than a pat on the head you'd never get better yeah yeah I'm a lot of common and two things and that's great wisdom to have you by the way three a week wow that's a lot good for you so that whole voice in our head we always say you know we talk to our friends and we talk to ourselves we have our friends yeah so yeah a big part of personal performance confidence is you know being able to question that voice in our head you'll have to believe everything you read but you don't believe everything you think so that is that's such a powerful learning we tend to amplify the negative about ourselves the other story I think it's really great that fits into what you're talking about here as a story of the Chinese bamboo so the Chinese bamboo plant you plant it and in your one you water it and there's no growth above the surface year two you continue to water it and there's still no growth year three and four no growth in year five it sprouts up in a five week period 60 to 80 feet and it has the tensile strength of steel and the question is was there no growth no the root system was all being established it just wasn't growth you could see and so you know I just love that story the bamboo that was one we would always tell one kind of keep me going keep me inspired and and it's true I mean by the way I still have clients from like 18 years ago so those roots we were planting still bamboo growing so I love that bamboo story when it comes to talk about resilience yeah I think that is such a powerful visual and it really is an inspiration because if you give up and you stop watering you never reach that point where it shoots through the surface that's right so good so you've obviously applied this in your own life give me an example of where you feel like this teaching has maybe impacted you bill personally the most that's easy I have two teenage daughters to be and so to be the best that I can be to recognize that I'm modeling we always say don't worry your kids aren't listening to you where they're watching everything you do so if I'm if I'm yelling at my teenage daughter stop yelling all I'm doing is teaching her to yell when she's upset I'm like really creating those neuropathies in her brain that become her default behaviors and so you know just to be able to a manage my own reaction and secondly the the work that we do around emotional connection that the the building bridges model you know the idea that we so often we we sort of start from our side of the bridge we communicate we parent we influence we coach but we often don't really think of what's on the other side of the bridge what's going on for that person so that ability to kind of connect and really understand you know what my daughter's going through what some of her challenges are I actually use that in business and it's just been so much more impactful with with my you know with my teenage daughter yeah so that's definitely where the work is at the bit I mean that's the great thing about this work it isn't just a business tool it's something I mean emotions show up at home and so I'm sure you've got you probably had that experience too right yes so well said yeah I've got a 19-year-old and a 16-year-old and and I will caution slash encourage listeners if you go through this training sometimes it it's a process of deployment for me so I might not respond the way I have been trained and know to do but in retrospect as I'm reflecting back on that interaction I realized oh I should have used that tool I should have been you know I should have visualized that I was dropping markers in that moment and then the next time it happens it's a little better and it's a little better it is a sequential it is slow steady improvement I don't have to make massive changes but I need to reflect and I need to make sequential changes over time and what you're talking about is is the self-awareness piece that comes before the emotional management and emotional connection if you remember the model so yeah that that even awareness that oh I just had a big little hijack I just dropped markers I went to my normal default behavior but you know what I'm reflecting on what happened why it happened and I'm visualizing how I'd like to behave differently next time you're literally retraining your brain to think about behaving differently next time so yeah that self-awareness is the most powerful part of the work that we do so that absolutely is part of continuous improvement yes I think it's safe to say that this teaching is probably more important today than it was pre-COVID today we see distributed workforces people working from home we we've got just the entire face of our workplaces has changed and it's harder than ever to have organic relationships for that reason I don't just see you in the hallway oftentimes I don't just bump into you at other meetings so how has our post-pandemic world impacted the work that you and IHHP are doing yeah and I'll answer in a moment just add that it's not only the hybrid it's the work on me that we're in and the challenge of finding good people and so that ability to have exceptional leaders who retain and engage people I mean and by the way this is a 10-year trend this isn't just post-pandemic and yes there's some technology companies laying people off but this is a 10-year trend where there's going to be more jobs than good workers and so it you're right it's more critical now and so what we're teaching people is to be more proactive about making the connections about number one being present and not getting distracted when you're on zoom because you've got to be pay more attention to people you gotta listen better but also you know to reach out to connect with people to to find time because you know the talk of the water cooler that you never have right to still have those connections and to be thoughtful and proactive about it is part of of what we teach so absolutely this this I mean we had our we had our best year speaking last year that we've ever had because people are recognizing how important how valuable this this work is yeah although the vision for this podcast is to apply to virtually anyone who is concerned with growth our early episodes have really been heavily slanted toward athletes and I think changes here in the US with transfer portals and name-in-mage and likeness deals coaches now find themselves having to re-recruit their roasters every day if if you happen to have one negative interaction with a student athlete there's no longer the deterrent the detriment of well if I transfer somewhere I have to sit out of here they can be eligible right away so you have to keep them happy or they're gone and so for coaches for administrator support staffs these emotional intelligence skills are more important than ever if we want to build and you said maintain and feed into so the people feel valued in our culture we have to actively pursue being better at these skills on our own and especially in the last eight percent moments because if you remember when we're triggering the last eight percent moment it's cortisol that gets released into the brain in addition to reducing the working memory cortisol also causes memories to sear in so people remember how you showed up in that difficult moment right if you had that outburst or if you didn't deal with something or dress something they don't remember what you're doing in the ninety two percent of moments when everything was going well and everyone was getting along it's in those moments so those last eight percent moments and being emotionally intelligent in those last eight percent moments is critical to retention in business but as you say also an athletics yeah because it's the same in the right now it's it's pretty easy for an employee to say I don't like my boss I'm going to go find another job and so it's the same as you say in coaching an athletics yeah so Bill you you're obviously doing great work with iHHP specifically with last eight percent academy you're also a keynote speaker you're available to talk to companies virtually or in person across the country and probably internationally what do you days look like today uh... so it's a combination of you know working on kind of might my brand working on adding value to people whether that's through writing articles or through linkedin or doing videos and then the speaking engagements understanding the client's needs you know crafting my presentation to meet their needs traveling to do the session so that keynote speaking is is one part of it we also have a speaker bureau that we're exclusive with so managing those relationships cultivating those relationships and in addition to the keynote speaking we also have the training part of our business so you went through one of our training programs so we have employees we have a team we set strategy we set goals you know and so i also spend time on in sales meetings and product development meetings and i mean i'm really lucky i get to do a lot of really cool stuff you know i have less cool you know we all have our you know the expenses and managing you know the men that i have to do but overall 90% of my day is key notes doing the keynote speaking or managing and leading the training business i'm so fortunate my business partner dr. jb glue-fran we've known each other since high school that's how we knew each other and so we've been working together for the last 20 years and it's been a great partnership i'm also lucky to have a best friend we always say a half the pain twice the fun i'm unfortunate that's i don't know if that answered your question but that's that's what my day looks like yeah that absolutely does so obviously you've had an impactful career you move from kind of one industry and into another what remains undone for you well our mission is to create a world where people skillfully manage emotions so we have a long way to go it's amazing to me that after you've been this for 20 years yeah every day every keynote i've been in rooms or virtual programs with people who this is new too that they don't that and so i'm still introducing people to this concept of just that emotional tells is important that there's brain signs too that you can learn and get better so there's just still a huge audience of people the other thing that um you know and this is with jp's vision that we've been working on is not just looking at individual and individual leader development but a person's ability to show up and perform and behave in a certain way is almost it's 50 50 it's 50 percent there are own internal capabilities and beliefs and attitudes and it's 50 percent the environment that they're in so if you want an environment where people share ideas but there's senior leaders who cut people down whenever they share ideas they're going to be less likely to share ideas so we've actually been doing a lot of work at the cultural level looking at not only creating a last-day person leader but you know what does a last-day percent culture look like and the idea that in a last-day percent culture is one that's high in both connection so people feel value and people feel heard people their psychological safety and that's the part that people tend to focus on when they look at culture and values but we need a culture that's also high encourage yes people are willing to do the tough things name and convene entries have the tough conversations and so we've really started working on organizations at the senior level looking at what kind of culture they have we've created an assessment you know where you are in this you know connection versus created a four-quadrant model where you are on this model and and what do you need to do to get better to really assessing how does this team need to function to show up better and then each individual leader owning the culture on their team yeah and so the connection to the emotional intelligence is well if you want to create a last-day percent culture the time connection to courage you need to model that yourself yeah well you need to be emotionally intelligent you need to have tough conversations and so we're broadening our work and and what's nice about it is you know I know we've had impact in organizations where we've trained a lot of leaders I think this way we can even have a broader impact by looking at both culture and leader training and so that's a whole bunch of exciting new work that we're doing we're also writing our our our next book in in 2015 we wrote performing a new pressure I I was a contributor but not a not a co-author JP and a partner where co-author this book albeit co-author on so JP and are going to co-author our next book about the last eight percent so that's a big you know that's a big media project for us coming up over the next twelve to eighteen months too that's great as you're talking I'm reminded I'm a big space geek and I've always loved all things NASA and the space show and even though it was four I was born in YouTube the trip from Earth to the moon and there's a HBO documentary executive produced by Tom Hanks multi part it may only be on DVD now I don't know if it's on streaming platforms but there's one episode called spider and it's it's a depiction of the process of developing the lunar module and as computer science and a mathematician I think you'll appreciate this they were having recurrent problems with the landing gear on the lunar module snapping as it would land and obviously that's a problem because it's also the launch platform that will get the astronauts on the surface back to the to the capsule that will take them home and so it failed and it failed and it failed and in this one particularly poignant scene this engineer comes in and he's he's been up for days his hair's disheveled he's absolutely beside himself because he can't figure out how this failed and he's got this stack of you know old dot matrix printer and he comes into supervisor and he says serve we discovered it it was a computational era a simple arithmetic error months before and it led to a series of mistakes across the way that grossly overestimated the tensile strength of this piece of metal whatever and I'll never forget the response to to the leader the manager this is a high stakes I mean the president of the United States it said we're gonna we're gonna plan a man on the moon before the end of the decade and they are under the gun and this contractor's got millions of dollars writing on this right and he says this is good the guy looks puzzled and he points at the arithmetic he says this isn't good this is bad but this this conversation if we have any chance at successfully landing a man on the moon and getting in home we have to have conversations like this yes and I thought wow what a leader in that moment he could have crushed that guy but in that moment he forwards that's an amygdala he's seared in that this guy cares about me he said go home get some rest and when come back we're gonna fix this and it gives me chills just thinking about I don't know if that interaction actually happened if it's a dramatization but I thought in the moment when when people under my leadership are most vulnerable for them to know that having the courage to tell me the truth is valued it's cherished it's part of our culture it's not just what we do it's who we are that makes all the difference that's a great story I'm there's something called CEO's disease which is that the higher up you go on organization the less candid feedback you get because people don't feel safe so what that leader did was create that environment where there is psychological safety where people can admit a mistake try something you know new so important in organizations to be agile to be innovative so what a great example by the way I've actually presented to NASA I've been to the Johnson's Bay Center and I was really into bunch of NASA engineers once and as a part of my presentation where I say you know it's not rocket science and I said that I look at them I go actually it is rocket science you guys are doing rocket science right right well that's fantastic well Bill thank you so much for being with us as I said this isn't our our typical template but it's fantastic I love and applaud what you and JP you're doing and wish you all the best I know what you have to teach is it's a pain point for a lot of people you are filling a gaping need in the leadership community so I want to applaud you and encourage you for your work well thanks Toby I mean same to you I mean you're taking something that you're passionate about that had a benefit for you and saying I want to share this I want more people learn this so you know kudos back to you for for doing the same and I wish you all the best with with the podcast yeah so last how can listeners connect with you or or get involved or check out what you're doing with iHP or last 8% yeah I mean I'm Bill Benjamin I linked it in with the Institute for Health and Human Potential our website is iHHP.com we'd by the way the course that you attended Toby we do run as a public program so people can sign up and attend yeah absolutely reach out to me at you bill dot Benjamin at iHP.com we'd love to hear from any of your listeners fantastic Bill thanks again all right thanks Toby have a great weekend you as well the work the Bill and his business partner JP Paloo Fry are doing is not just evidence base for the science-y types among us it's highly effective for the practical folks too if you're interested in growing not just as a leader but also as a person be sure to check out the last 8% academy and if you're really ready to get serious about maximizing your growth potential find a partner or a team and do it together for me it truly did expand not just what I thought I knew about leadership in my behavior but it also helped me plot a course to grow into a more thoughtful and compassionate human being becoming undone is a nitrile hype creative production written and produced by me Toby Brooks if you are someone you know has a story of resilience and victory to share for becoming undone please contact me at undonepodcast.com where you can also sign up for a mailing list to be notified of new episode drops and exclusive team undone benefits becoming undone can be heard on Apple podcasts Spotify Google Podcast Stitcher iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts till next time everybody keep getting better