Leveraging Leadership

The Key Question to Propel Yourself Through Challenges

• Emily Sander • Season 1 • Episode 230

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Emily shares a practical question prompt to help you focus on what matters most when facing challenges at work or in life. She gives real examples, like choosing between launching a product on time and not burning out, getting out of your comfort zone to represent your company at conferences, or trading phone scrolling for a more productive morning. The episode is about identifying what’s important versus what’s most important to guide better decisions and growth.


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Who Am I?

If we haven’t yet before - Hi👋 I’m Emily, Chief of Staff turned Executive Leadership Coach. After a thrilling ride up the corporate ladder, I’m focusing on what I love - working with people to realize their professional and personal goals. Through my videos here on this channel, books, podcast guest spots, and newsletter, I share new ideas and practical and tactical tools to help you be more productive and build the career and life you want. 

 

Time Stamps:

00:42 The Power of Prioritization
01:04 Balancing Comfort and Growth
02:06 Overcoming Fear of Judgment
03:18 Morning Routines for Success
04:21 Applying the Prompt in Real Life
05:30 Developing Resilient Thought Patterns
06:16 Conclusion: Building Unstoppable Habits

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Here is a question prompt that can be helpful when you are moving through the stage of something where it's like, this is hard, this is new. It's uncomfortable, but I kind of, sort of think it's best for me. I know it's good for me. I gotta get through it. How do I propel myself through it? Here's the question, prompt. What's important to me? What's more important to me? Another variation could be what's important to me, what's most important to me. alright. Some examples here would be, it's important we get this product launched on time. That's really important. What's more important is I don't die in the process. Right? If you're dead, not gonna do any good for anyone around you. Another example would be it's important for me to not feel too uncomfortable. I like to be in my comfort zone. I like to be in my sweet spot. That's what's important to me. It's more important that I'm able to speak to what our organization does at conferences. I might not like making speeches in front of a room full of people. I might not like being on Q and a panels, but given my leadership role, it's important that I'm able to do that effectively. Our company makes, uh, medical devices and we literally save lives. So while it's important for me to feel comfortable in the grand scheme of things, what's far more important is that I get to a place where I can go into conferences, get our message across, and people know about us. People know about this thing that could help them. So it's far more important. It almost diminishes like, like my, my comfort level is small potatoes. In the grand scheme of things, it's far more important for this to happen. It's not about me, it's about who it can help. Okay. Next example would be, um, I. Oh, here's, here's what I get a lot is it's important to me to get the right answer or to not be wrong in front of people, right? That's really important to me. What's most important in my life is to care less about what people think, to develop the habit and thought pattern of caring less, even a little bit less about what people think, because over time, over years and years, decades and decades, your life. Forming that habit will create freedom. And space and just less anxiety and consternation over this and that, and hanging on people's words or caring about what other people think about you and assigning value, like your self worth around that. If you can open that up and just be like, I'm free. To speak up when I think I need to speak up or share what I need to share or challenge what I need to challenge or all these different things. Oh my gosh, like that's far more important. That's the most important thing, one of the most important things you can do for yourself. Okay. Other quick example here would be, hmm. This is kinda like outside of work, but it's important for me to sit here in bed and scroll on my phone for the next 45 minutes. I'm comfortable. It's a warm here. That's really important to me. Okay? What's more important is for me to get my butt out of bed and not feel rushed in my morning. That's more important to me. It might be most important for, Hey, look, if I can get up and I can read. For 45 minutes or even half an hour and learn something. And get knowledge into my brain or maybe journal and just set my day up and just get myself settled and journal without feeling rushed. Maybe it's, I'm going to invest 30 minutes or 45 minutes into a project for my family or do something for my friends or. Or maybe write that book. I always wanted to little by little bit by bit. Maybe it's to do something for work where it's like, hey, if I have 45 minutes to front run my day, like I'm gonna be golden in my work week or my work day. So these are some examples that you can use this question prompt for, but. People I speak with, and most people I speak with are driven, ambitious people who have goals, who are into personal growth, who are into stretching themselves. Most of the time you're gonna run into this stage where it's like, I don't know if I really wanted to do this, but I know it's good for me. I know it's important. So it's framing it in the like, here's what's important to me. Yes, acknowledge that, verbalize that great, but then also know what's more important. What is most important at the end of the day? And in those moments of like, uh, backsliding, uh, I'm not sure I have anxiety. I, I, I'm double checking myself. I'm, I'm having second thoughts to be able to quickly switch into, here's the most important thing, helping people, saving people's lives, helping my family, making sure I do write this book that's on my bucket list, making sure that I. Give myself the freedom to care less about what people think. That would free up so much time. Think about what life would be like if I cared less about what people think or if I freaking didn't care at all. Like what possibilities does that open up for me, type of thing. So if you can, develop these thought patterns where you immediately slide in the what's most important answer to your thought and to your moment. I think that can help propel you through those phases of this is uncomfortable, this is new. This is a new muscle I'm having to flex or a new thought I'm having to develop. I've seen people get stuck and I've been stuck myself, Why am I doing this? Oh yeah, that's why that's more important. That's most important. And then I get a little bit like belligerent with it. I'm like, you watch me. consider it done, consider it done. You watch me do that. And then it's like I'm, I'm bad at it. I'm bad at it. I'm better at it. It's a little easier. It's not that much easier though. I don't think I can, hold on. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. Okay. I think I've gotten my footing. Okay, here we go. Okay, here we go. And then you get good. Then you get great and then you wake up and you're like, whoops, I'm awesome. And I can't help it. I can't help myself. Now this habit's so built up that I can't do nothing different. I'm just gonna sit here and be awesome over and over and over again, and I'll catch you next week on leveraging leadership.