Overwhelm vs Burnout: Which One Is Your Team Facing? w/ Matt Granados

Matt Granados is the founder and president of Life Pulse, a company dedicated to solving people problems and enhancing performance for organizations and individuals through sustainable solutions. Matt has extensive experience working with high-profile clients such as Google, Twitter, and the United States Air Force, among others. He is also the co-founder of the Take Part Foundation, which funds research for rare pediatric diseases affecting over 30 million children. Matt is renowned for his expertise in addressing burnout, overwhelm, and leadership dynamics, offering a fresh perspective on these challenges.

The conversation begins with Matt's unique perspective on burnout, contrasting common perceptions and highlighting the dangers of over-identifying with responsibilities. He provides listeners with actionable strategies for maintaining personal wellness as a prerequisite for effective leadership, especially when feeling overwhelmed.

Matt delves into the distinction between ego and wisdom, emphasizing the importance of self-awareness for leadership success. The episode also covers the significance of understanding one's identity to avoid excessive commitments that lead to burnout. Through personal anecdotes and expert advice, Matt offers practical steps for leaders to recognize and manage egotistical tendencies, underscoring the value of looking backward to learn from past experiences. This episode is a treasure trove of strategies for leaders seeking balance and wisdom in their professional journeys.

Key Takeaways:

• Understanding the root causes of burnout and leveraging identity to manage responsibilities effectively.
• The distinction between overwhelm and burnout, and how leaders can navigate these to maintain personal wellness.
• Techniques for identifying personal identity and saying "no" when necessary to prevent excessive commitments.
• Insights on the differences between ego and wisdom, and how self-awareness can enhance leadership effectiveness.
• The importance of reflecting on past experiences to inform future decisions and improve leadership approaches.

Notable Quotes:

1. "Your responsibility is being overused as a coping mechanism."
2. "The evidence is behind you. It's about looking back to understand what has worked and what hasn't."
3. "Ego is based on external perception, while wisdom is internally validated through truth and experience."
4. "Wellness starts within you, and it’s essential for clarity and effective leadership."

Resources:

• Life Pulse: Life Pulse
• Take Part Foundation: Take Part Foundation

All episodes and guest requests can be found at:
www.leadershipmomentspodcast.com
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Follow Tracy-Ann Palmer on Instagram @tracy_ann_palmer

Transcript

Authentic Leadership Sets The Tone

SPEAKER_02 0:01

You have to walk the talk. You have to be authentic as a leader if you're not doing it.

SPEAKER_03 0:05

I see that.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

It is entirely universal. There's other people who are going through this.

SPEAKER_03 0:11

For me, a great leader needs to be able to marry three things: vision, systems, and people.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Welcome

Welcome And Meet Matt Granados

SPEAKER_01 0:21

to Leadership Moments if this is your first time. And if you are returning, thank you for your support.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

This show is about leaders from all walks of life, leadership tips, and maybe even a little of what you wouldn't expect to help you in leadership.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

We would appreciate it if you tell someone else about our podcast as we strive to support all leaders that want to just be better. Let's get on with the show. Today our guest is Matt Granados. Matt is the founder and president of LifePulse, which has developed sustainable solutions to solve people problems and enhance performance for organizations and individuals. Matt and his team work with clients ranging from Google, Twitter, and the United States Air Force to small businesses and thousands of individuals. On top of running LifePulse, Matt and his wife Maria founded the Take Part Foundation to fund research for over 30 million kids suffering through a rare pediatric disease. Today we are going to talk about burnout, overwhelm, and ego, but not in the way that you think we're going to. So let's jump in. Matt, I'm so excited that you're here today because you have some great experience and some knowledge that you work with clients on that I think is going to be really helpful for our listeners.

Burnout Versus Overwhelm And Ownership

SPEAKER_01 1:33

And I'd love to start off with burnout. You know, a lot of people talk about burnout and either preventing it or I'm in it and how do I get out of it and what do I do when I'm in it? And so I'd love for you to start with your take on what burnout is.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

Yeah, burnout is a term that has been used to describe when we're overwhelmed. And I think it's led to times of being a little too overused. Uh, and then the ownership of it kind of leaving the individual. So one of the things you'll find as a listener, uh, if you're kind of tough enough to make it through all the things we're going to address, is a lot of it's on us. It's our responsibility when it comes to our burnout. So, how do you stop it? There's three things that you can do action steps that we'll get into. Uh, and most importantly, we're going to offer tools. And what we'll do is if you go to lifepulsync.com backslash lm just for leadership moments, we will do a custom page for all the tools that we talk about and how people can get some free access to them as well. But burnout is uh an excuse that I think we accept over uh the reality of what's happening. And when you accept it as reality, it's almost like there's nothing you could do about it. We found that's just not true.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Yeah, you talk about your responsibility and being overused. I do agree. Sometimes we latch on to these words as humans and use it quite a bit as a coping mechanism. Um, but your responsibility, let's what does that mean exactly?

SPEAKER_02 2:55

So uh burnout, it's not something you try to uh overcome. It's not something that you try to fix. It's something you make sure you prevent. The concept of truly burning out when your body is completely depleted and you can't move on anymore, that's very dangerous. Now, we call burnout when we're like, I'm just a little overwhelmed. And it's like that line gets shorter and shorter of what true burnout is, where your body literally cannot move on anymore, versus what we call it as kind of like the boss has told me another thing to do or I've added to it. Now, as a leader, our biggest issue with burnout is we are the ones that add stuff to our plate. We know our plate is full, we say yes inappropriately is how I describe it. And it's actually irresponsible to be saying yes the way that we leaders say yes now, because hey, if I got time, I'm gonna make it happen. And that's okay in urgent situations. But when that's your MO, when that's how you live your life, you'll fail every single time. So I might not beat you in the sprint, but for the long distance, there's no way you can keep up because you're saying yes to too many things, you're not good at saying no, and a lot of it is because your identity is misplaced and you don't actually know what it is we're supposed to be doing. So we, instead of being human beings, just become human doers and we just do, do, do, do, do. The problem is, is you can do yourself into a very, very deep, dark, and bad place. That's what we avoid using our systems.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Yeah, I really like that. And what's so important that you just said was your identity versus doing, right? And me not knowing who I am and what I want. Sometimes I do say yes because I think that yes is going to be the answer because I don't know what the answer is. And so what when you talk about identity, how do you help people find their identity and know what they are so they know when to say no or not now rather than yes, yes, yes, yes,

Identity Before Work And Saying No

SPEAKER_01 4:46

yes.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

Yeah. So there's an entire program we put people through with organizations, it takes about three hours to go through. And we have DIY exercise, like I said, that we'll put on that lifepulsync.com backslash lm for them to access called the glue or why are you here? Understanding there's a difference between purpose and passion. That's the first thing we have to break apart. And then in that purpose, which all humans have the same purpose, it's not this massive everyone has unique purposes, which the industries have been telling us for so long. Your actual identity is found by putting together three separate pieces. So there's your identity, yes. There's your calling, and then there's your assignment. Too many times when we work with high capacity leaders, which is our specialty, we find that they do their work and they gain their identity from the work they do. When we walk them through this entire process, they start gaining their energy from their identity and they're able to do the work they are called to do in their assignment. So it's just taking the time to take a step back, understand who are you? Your work does not define who you are. Who you are should be seen through your work. It's just changing that entire uh concept, flipping it on its head, and yes, this is what happens when we listen to the lies of the world. And too many times it sounds good, it sounds cheeky, it's a great clip on social media. So because of it, we take that as truth and then we put it in our lives and we wonder why we're miserable when we go to sleep.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Yeah, really good points there. And when you talk about overwhelm versus burnout, um I really liked how you defined those two. And with the overwhelm, now finding my purpose and my versus my passion, it sounds like, you know, when you identify one, you become another. I've found a lot of leaders, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but I find a lot of leaders that they do something for so long that when they go to do something different or they've hit this overwhelm or burnout and they know they need to do different, they don't know who they are anymore because they they knew who they were as this person, as this role. And now they want to be a different role. And so, what do you suggest for people that are in those situations?

SPEAKER_02 6:55

Yeah, so we have an entire conference that we put together that's called Realign. It's two days, it's for high capacity leaders, executives, entrepreneurs, and professional athletes come together and it is an intensive interaction, meaning you're not just sitting there listening to speakers, you're going through the work. The biggest thing that comes of that is disconnecting purpose and passion, right? Purpose, the definition. These are just definitions of the words, and words have meanings, even though we've just kind of chosen our own definition of them all. Purpose is the reason for which something exists. Passion is a strong, fleeting, uncontrollable emotion. Which one do you want to follow? Too many times we follow our passions. Our passions lead us to a life that I have found of regret and not fulfillment. Our purpose is what exposes that fulfillment is lets us experience that. So understanding those two words are massively different. Now, how do you figure out what you should be doing to live out your purpose? You don't look in the future, you look in the past. The future is all of our wants and our desires. And trust me, if I followed all of my wants and desires, we'd be in a really bad spot. It takes an element of self-control and willingness to say, no, you know what? Yeah, I do want to eat that candy, but I'm not going to eat that candy. Yeah, I do want to avoid that meeting, but I'm not going to avoid that meeting. Or as a leader, I do want to not have that hard conversation, but I'm not going to give in to myself out of my love and care for others. So we focus on the fact that our purpose is going to be exposed on how we're to live it out in our past, how we grew up. Our future is not what we want to focus on to figure out what we are to be doing. It is our past that shows signs, and that's what we work on, part of that with that realign event. The concept of overwhelm and burnout, those two terms are super, super impactful to understand.

Purpose Over Passion And Looking Back

SPEAKER_02 8:39

So uh we call this the 80-20 principle of planning. 80% of your life you can plan, 20% you can't. However, if you don't take care of the 80, the 20 is going to feel like 100. What happens is when you are not in order, the things you can have in order, when life happens, not if, but when life happens, you will not be at the top of your game to be able to handle it. A great example, my daughter Natalie, has an extremely rare medical condition. And because of that, when she gets sick, it usually ends up with about three to 20 days, that's the kind of the spend in the ICU overnight. What I have found is we've experienced all different types of critical conditions she's been in, from hey, she's just really not feeling well, just having trouble breathing, to she's not breathing, pronounced dead for 20 minutes and has come back to life afterwards. So we've been through it all. The amazing thing was the difficulty of the stay is not correlated with the severity of her condition. The difficulty of the stay is coordinated uh or is is is uh connected more to the fact that we are not in order where we need to be in order. So that 80% that we should have had in order, when that 20 comes at us and it's out of order, life feels so hard. But when we have that 80% in alignment and then something crazy like that happens, we're able to deal with it and adapt to it because that's the greatest gift that we've been given as humans is our ability to adapt. So if you want to avoid burnout, understand the concept of the 80-20 principle of planning. If you want to avoid burnout for your team, recognize you have to hire an individual who will not burn out doing the bare minimum. We call this 80 180. They need to be able to uh accomp at 80% of their ability, accomplish 100% of the responsibilities they need. If you're hiring someone who has to max themselves out, red line themselves in order to do just the job you've asked them to do, they're gonna burn out, you're gonna miss out, and they're gonna be gone fairly quickly. So when you go to hire somebody, you go to bring someone on, make sure at 80% of their capacity, they can do the job you're looking for. At that point, you have the ability for growth, you have the ability to handle change, you have the ability to have margin to help other people, and that's what we are all looking for as leaders, but we're shooting ourselves in the foot by taking whatever we can right away and having over-expectations for individuals we don't even know.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Yeah, the 80-20 rule when you talk about your daughter, thank you for sharing that story, it rings so true. I work with a lot of my clients on their wellness, and there's many times that we have to focus on wellness before we can focus on any leadership skills because there's so much stress and anxiety that you can't focus. You don't have the clarity. And so I 100% agree that it starts within you. And when you talk about these high capacity leaders, that can be very difficult and feel daunting to them, but there's so many micro steps that you can do that really build upon each other and help each other. So I love those thoughts behind it. And you talked about um the you first of all, I just want to mention like you, I love that you say, hey, there's professional athletes, there's CEOs, there's founders. Like it's from all walks of life that you can leverage this ability to be able to be successful. And one thing you talked about, we always talk about look forward, look forward, don't look back. But what you're saying is, no, by you looking back, you can figure it out. And I actually did some work recently for myself on this and finding what your purpose is and really where do you belong and what have you found? And um, but it was very foreign to me to be able to say, what do you mean look backwards? I've always told to look forward and to step forward. And you always say that, like, where do you want yourself to be in five years from now? Okay, well, how do you start now, type of thing? And so, what are some of those tricks that you look backward, but you don't look too far back that it actually, you know, it pulls you back, right? You want it to use it to have you go forward.

SPEAKER_02 12:49

Yeah, so there's a great line, I think, of, you know, the rear view mirror versus the the windshield, right? The windshield's a lot bigger than the rear view mirror. However, there's rear view mirrors, there's side view

The 80 20 Plan And Hiring Margin

SPEAKER_02 12:59

mirrors, there's reasons for the mirrors, right? So, yes, we are moving straight and we need to have our eyes focused on the path in which we're driving, but that doesn't necessarily mean we need to have our eyes just focused on five, six, seven years ahead. Here's how I look at it. Just like I want to look at the point in which I'm trying to go, I want to recognize the point in which I have come. Because you're gonna learn more based on the proof of the past versus the hopes of the future. There is no proof of the future. There's assumptions, there, there's very high likelihoods of things happening, uh, but there's no proof of the future. There's only proof in the past and in the actual current present. So when you're sitting there going, well, why don't I have to look why why don't I just look forward? It's because you're gonna forget what you tripped about on the past and what didn't work. We call it RR, review and refine. Every one, every uh month at the last on the last Wednesday, I go through my own review and refine process of what we're doing in the business, what we're doing with the people, it's from 3 to 5 p.m. And my team knows at any time during that time they can reach out to me if it's within that same context of what I'm doing. In that situation, if you're only looking forward, you have no clue what's going on behind you. You have no clue what worked and didn't work, you have no proof to go on to make a wise decision moving forward. If you're looking for evidence, it's behind you, not in front of you. And that's the mistake a lot of leaders are making. Man, if I just kind of if I envision it, it will happen. No, that's a that's a lie. Yes, you want to have a positive mindset. Yes, you want to see where you're going and what you're doing. Absolutely. But the action is what gets you where you need to go. There is an element of action that is responsible for you as a leader that tends to be forgotten when it's like, hey, we're just gonna set goals. And yes, we set goals, and and what is the plan to accomplish those goals? And I call this shooting on people, is we as leaders should on people and we shouldn't do that, right? We don't want to be shut on, they don't want to be shoot on. Hey, well, they should just do their job. Yeah, but that's not what they're going to do. Humans don't naturally do all the extra work that we tend to see or want our people to do. Humans are built to do the least amount of work to get the maximum result. Our body's built that way, our organs are built that way. We don't over-exert energy. Now, there's the body side, but then there's kind of the spiritual side, the mental side, the internal side, whatever you want to call it. Me as a Christian, I'll call it your spiritual side. In that sense, that part always wants more. That part is looking to do bigger things than just survive. If all this was about was survival, we'd be living, acting, thinking, and breathing in a very different way. But instead, something about us wants more. That something is what we need to keep in check and keep directed on the right path in alignment with exactly what we're supposed to be doing.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Yeah, I love that statement. The evidence is behind you, right? And uh, I had a client one time that their whole job was to go from company to company to company, restructure, rebuild, and they would leave. So they would do the restructuring and then they would walk out. They never actually saw the outcome until one time they stayed and they saw the outcome and they said, I am never doing that again, even though I've been doing it for decades, because they realized that the evidence was there that it was not as good as what they thought it was. So I really think it's a really good point.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

And it comes to the fact of repercussion of actions. It's the one thing we've let go away in society, is there is no repercussions of actions. No one expects to actually deal with the things they do or be held accountable to the things they said they were going to do. There's always a reason or an excuse, like burnout. Oh, I was just burnt out. Excuse me, I'm sorry. Prerequisite is you need to manage yourself. That's the assumed part of you coming on. Like that never needed to be in a job description. Now it almost needs to. You will manage your own well-being. Like otherwise, here's what happens. And you know, this is being a coach who teaches this. If they don't manage their own well-being, they come to you and say, I need a mental day. Well, what happened? Ah, it's just life's hard. Well, yeah, but we knew life was hard. Life's always been hard. Like now it's a reasonable excuse, and it's getting more and more acceptable, which is why me as a leader wants to make it very clear my job is not to enable my people, my job is to equip my people. And that's how we started the entire business was we went out to some of the largest companies in the world, some out in Silicon Valley, and we sat down and realized, wait a minute, we've been enabling our people by giving them so much five-star restaurants, you know, child care, child care, intramural sports within the business, all this stuff. But no one takes the time to equip their people on how to actually deal with their problems. And we realized that people aren't the problem. People have problems, and that's why we have people problems. And we as businesses and leaders and and husbands and wives and fathers and mothers, we need to be the foundation and equip the others to bridge the gap back to what we're doing. Now, that is not meaning look at me, I'm in charge, you must all bow down to me. It's the exact opposite. It is I'm leading us to this path on this direction. I'm taking all the risk on my shoulders. I want to make sure y'all are equipped to be able to come back onto this path and get where it is we're going. That's the difference between leadership and babysitting. Many leaders right now are babysitting their people. They're doing the work for them, they're making sure they get the job done, they're going on their client meetings with them, they're doing the work for them versus equipping them to go get the job done. And if they can't do the job, we have to help them find another job. That's how it needs to work. A repercussion of action is the same impact as positive affirmation. The negative reinforcements that we learn at Pavlov's dog, that is the concept of getting a punishment for doing something that is different than experiencing the repercussions of your actions. So recognizing the fact that a punishment and repercussion of your actions are drastically different things, and you will understand why that needs to be part and an option in order for humans to operate at the optimal level possible.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

It's so true. I've actually, you know, a tip for our listeners, right, as leaders, and I have many leaders that have done this, that when you're, especially when you're taking on a big project or something that's a little more unique, but you could do it all the time, is ask the person that's running it or the people that are doing it and saying, hey, what do you need to do to be okay and well equipped every day when you walk in on this? And walk in can be virtual. Doesn't mean you're walking into a physical office, but and you're getting them to think, oh, I do need to take care of myself during this. It's not just about getting the work done. And there are people that have said, okay, two days a week, I'm gonna start a little later to make sure I get my meditation time, exercise time, sleep in time, whatever that might be, but they make it very known and they put together a plan right then and there before they start that really big project. So really, really good

Review And Refine With Real Evidence

SPEAKER_01 20:18

points. You know, so it makes me curious, what do you believe is one uncomfortable truth that leaders need to hear right now?

SPEAKER_02 20:24

You're not as good as you think you are. And the second you think you are, you've lost. You're not as discerning as you think you are. There's a higher level you're being deceived and you're discerning effectively. There's a higher likelihood you're wrong than you're right. Uh, and all of that being said leads to what we do, which is why not everyone can can go through our coaching. That's why we work with the highest capacity individuals. Um, and it's because we do what's called truth-based transformation. And what happens is truth leads to tension and tension leads to transformation, but few people are willing to make it through the tension. What that means is you need to examine yourself regularly. You need to have the ability to let someone say, hey, you know what, Matt? Turns out you're not doing the things you said you were going to do. And I need to be able to take that truth, accept it, and be willing to change because of it. Our systems expose the truth. We offer a bridge to bridge the gap, and then we offer it in a sustainable way because these gaps that you're running into that are slowing you down or stopping your team, they are not to be filled. They are meant to be fulfilled, meaning they are to be bridged. They will not go away. They are to be able to be they are to be bridged, and that's what you must do as a leader. And that's why we call our leaders architects. Is it used to be you're a drill sergeant up into the 50s and the 60s, you started becoming, you see, in this kind of cheerleader mindset where they weren't willing to get in the game, but they're willing to cheer you on. And then you get into the 70s and the teacher came in, and the teacher's been there for a long time. The problem is a teacher used to be able to give information when people used to not be able. To get information. Today, information is right at our fingertips. In fact, there are robots that will give us information faster than we can even search for it. So, with that being said, information in a in an in a time where information was so valuable has lost its value because of its accessibility to all people. The question is who could take that information and build out a plan based on that knowledge, applied properly, which is called wisdom, to get the desired results that you want. That's what we are looking to do with every leader we get. And it takes them from high performance to what we call optimal performance, which are very different peaks. The high performers think they're peaking, and I always say you haven't peaked, you just hit a ceiling. It feels like a peak, but again, your lack of self-awareness makes you think you've hit the top when in reality you've only hit the second floor. There's multiple floors above it. If you are willing to examine yourself, question yourself, and then march in the direction you're called to in alignment with your identity and your purpose, like we said.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Yeah. And I mean, it sounds like uh you're making sure that people leave their ego at the door. And if they don't leave their ego at the door, you're pushing it out of the room.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

Well, I it's even even uh in another way to say it is yes, we make sure their ego is left at the door, and if it's not, we show them how to recognize it so they can push it out. We don't do the work, we show others how to. I say we we bring the how to the what. Most people know what they should do. When it comes to losing weight, I think almost every intelligent human being knows what to do. The how's the hard part. We show them how to do it. But it's not like we give this tip and trick on, hey, here's a quick way to make extra money or lose extra weight. No, no, we show you how to change your lifestyle in a way that allows you to have the margin, to think, to make the right choice, and to move in the direction closer to what you're called to versus just pouring into your desires of what you want. The people who follow the desires that they want usually end with a life that they never wanted. The ones who can stop and be in alignment with what they're called to do usually end with a life of fulfillment. Because the key, and we say this, the catalyst to fulfillment is intentionality. I've never met someone who has accidentally become fulfilled. I've met a lot of accidental successful people. I met a lot of accidental wealthy, rich people, professional athletes, but no one has accidentally experienced fulfillment. That takes intention. And intention with structure is the two are the two things we put together and everything we offer to get people to experience fulfillment at all levels of their life.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

And you said something about ego and wisdom. And um, you know, I think some people confuse the two. So I'd love for you to just to define the difference between ego and wisdom, just to make sure our listeners get the gist here.

SPEAKER_02 24:49

Yes. So wisdom is the ability to

Equip People Instead Of Enabling Them

SPEAKER_02 24:51

use the correct knowledge in the correct way at the correct time. That's it. That there's no ego behind that. If if if you're right, you're right. If it's anchored in truth, it's anchored in truth. And sharing that is not arrogance, it's not egotistical, it's actually loving. Like loving is the willingness to be critical and supportive at the same time. Like that's the thing we're falling trapped to. Instead of being critical and supportive, if you're missing one of them, you go in a different level. So critical and unsupportive, critical supportive would be love. So critical and unsupportive would be what I call mean. Uncritical and supportive is dishonest, and uncritical and unsupportive is apathetic. So you need to realize when it comes to sharing wisdom, there is no ego in it. You'll know there's ego in it when you get bothered by how someone receives your wisdom.

unknown 25:41

Right?

SPEAKER_02 25:41

So I'm sharing this and I don't think that's right. Ah, and then you start getting personally bothered. Now, you might get frustrated because when you're sharing wisdom to a fool, which would be someone who goes against wisdom, I'm not saying individuals as fools, but that's just how I would describe if there is wisdom, accurate truth applied properly, and there is someone who's saying, I don't want to do that, that person I think would be technically called a fool. When you're applying wisdom or sharing wisdom with a fool and they reject it, frustration is not the same as offense. Does that make sense? But if you're getting offended by people not taking your wisdom, and if you think it's your wisdom, there's your ego. When you start thinking it's personal, your ego's in play. When you just sit there and go, oh wow, that's a that's a foolish decision by this individual, I'm gonna go on over here. I hope they make the right decision. That's where you realize your ego is not involved there. So just because you have the right answer, don't think you seem egotistical because you're sharing it. If you're in a place where every time you share the right answer, you get put as egotistical or arrogant or a know-it-all, whatever it might be, remind yourself this is not the fifth grade anymore. This is life. Like it's okay to know the right answer. In fact, I would challenge you when we work with clients, one of the things we have them commit to is what we call a relentless pursuit of truth. Like, like we want truth. If I'm wrong,

Truth Based Transformation And Ego Checks

SPEAKER_02 27:08

if I think I'm going to visit my family, I'm in St. Louis and I'm flying back to St. Louis and I'm about to get on an airplane that says I'm going to Nashville, Tennessee. I hope whoever's next to me who I'm talking to will tap me on the shoulder and go, hey, uh, you said you're going to St. Louis. That plane you're about to go on is not going to St. Louis. I think the average person would do that. That's not egotistical. That's loving. That's willingness to go, hey man, uh, this might be a little awkward. Uh, you might want to go on the right plane. Same exact thing when it comes to sharing wisdom as a leader, but here's the key. You must always realize there's a higher likelihood you're being deceived than discerning. There's a higher likelihood you're wrong than you're right. Willingness to question and be questioned and not get offended when someone questions you. At the same time, not having to justify everything you say until someone asks for justification. That's the other side of an egotistical leader. They will say what they're gonna do and then they will justify it without anyone asking for justification. We're gonna go left because I think blah, blah, blah, we're spending 10 minutes explaining why we're going left when no one asked why. But at the same time, you better be able to answer why when you get that question. So there's this balance of this concept that we talk about and why we say this so often, but it all starts with the individual knowing themselves, having their life in order where they actually have the margin to serve others, and then it's all about taking time to get to know others in order to be able to serve them the way they need to be served in order to get the unit where it needs to go. That's the key to every type of leadership I have found that can rely on sustainability and that the leader doesn't have to babysit, they can actually lead. The team does the work.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

Great delineation between the two. I love some of the fact checking that you can do along the way to say, is it my ego or is it wisdom? So really easy methods to follow. I really, really appreciate that. All right. Well, there's that sound. It's time for our fun questions. Are you ready for the fun questions?

SPEAKER_02 29:14

Let's go.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

All right. Are you someone who talks things out or thinks them through internally first?

SPEAKER_02 29:21

Talks them out. It's verbal vomit. And then I realize what did I say? Then I piece it together as I go. Um, it's something I'm working on. It's one of my biggest weaknesses, is I I talk before I think, I do before I think, I like action. The reason we built these systems is not because I'm good at it. We built these systems because I'm terrible at it. I've had to build these systems to protect myself from myself. So remember, I was like, why are you so confident that they work? Because it's kept me in order.

Wisdom Without Offense And Fulfillment

SPEAKER_02 29:49

Like me without the systems we put in place would be an absolute wrecking ball of chaos, ideas, movement, but no nowhere going nowhere, building something but having no pace behind it, it would be an absolute disaster. These systems have been built to protect me from me, and from that, it works for others. I just didn't realize it worked for as many as it does.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

All right. Would you rather spend a night at a concert or laughing at a comedy show?

SPEAKER_02 30:14

Oh, laughing at a comedy show. That would be uh without a doubt. Now, again, that would be a good comic. Uh, but if that's if that's the case, then I would do that all day long. Good concert's good, but you can't talk, you can't interact with people. It's it's kind of a one-on-one experience, even though you're with a crew. Uh, but a good comedian, uh, without a doubt, I would be there. I know my wife would be there too. That would be our go-to.

SPEAKER_01 30:39

Awesome. Awesome. Well, Matt, thank you so much. You brought so many great nuggets to our listeners that they can act on right now. And so if people wanted to know more, where can they find you?

SPEAKER_02 30:50

You could reach out to lifepolesync.com backslash lm. Uh, and what we'll do for any of your listeners, we'll get free access to some of our coaching, uh, group coaching and things like that. They can just try out and see if it makes sense to them. And then also any of our uh social medias uh at LifepoleSync. Uh yeah, we got a lot going on on Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, we're very busy on, and Substack as well. So uh feel free to reach out with any of those and we'd love to share our information. We give a lot of information out because the key to what we do is implication or is implementation, not necessarily just information. It's not just what to do. Again, what we teach is how to do it. So we give a lot because we know our individuals benefit from it, and then the majority of the clients we work with, our goal is to graduate them away from us. So there are once a client, you're always a client of ours. That doesn't mean you're actively using us because we want you taking the system, putting it into play, and then every now and then they'll come back when there's a merger, an acquisition, a big hire, a new growth plan, whatever it might be, and they'll come back in for three months, we help them out, then they go back to doing what they're doing. Uh, we want to release people as fast as possible.

SPEAKER_01 31:55

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Matt, for your time today and really appreciate it. I know our listeners are walking away so great stuff.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

Awesome. Appreciate you very much. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 32:08

If you enjoyed the show, please

Fun Questions And Where To Connect

SPEAKER_00 32:10

go to LeadershipMoments Podcast.com to subscribe to the podcast or on your favorite player, as well as follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

You can also send us a message on what you like and don't like or what guests you want us to have on the show.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

So until next time.

SPEAKER_01 32:25

This is Stacy Castor, and what does it challenge you? Won't change you.

SPEAKER_00 32:29

And I'm Tracy Ann Palmer. Be the change you wish to see in the world.