Ep. 1 | Oracle’s Billion-Dollar Boom, National Debt, Charlie Kirk: Leadership Lessons & Creative Solutions

In this debut episode of Game Changer, Amanda Escobedo — transformation coach and founder of Empowerhouse — dives into the power of the inner game as the real differentiator for leaders, entrepreneurs, and innovators. From political rhetoric after Charlie Kirk’s assassination to cultural narratives about wealth and money, to the “brick wall” of national debt, Amanda surfaces the leadership opportunities hidden beneath the headlines.

Through coaching tools, reframes, and powerful questions, this episode explores how judgment keeps us divided, how money mindset shapes our potential, and why creativity is the key to solving problems that seem unsolvable. Because flow isn’t just for athletes — it’s the mindset that transforms fear into clarity, division into collaboration, and scarcity into possibility.

🌟 What Do These Stories Have in Common?

They reveal how blame, fear, and scarcity keep us divided — and how leaders, entrepreneurs, and innovators can use the inner game of creativity, ownership, and flow to unlock new possibilities.

💡 Key Themes Explored:

• Leadership Lessons in Crisis: What Trump, Warren, and Watters’ responses show us about blame vs. ownership.
• Money Mindset: Why Oracle’s $1B surge challenges our judgments about wealth, and how reframing money as circulation (not subtraction) changes everything.
• Creative Solutions to National Debt: What leaders can learn from “brick wall” problems — and how powerful questions open new doors.

🔗 References & Articles

• Trump’s response after Charlie Kirk’s assassination
• Elizabeth Warren's response after Charlie Kirk's assassination
  
  
• Oracle’s record-breaking $1B stock surge — CNBC
  
  
• Breakingviews analysis on U.S. national debt
  #GameChangerPodcast #Leadership #MindsetMatters #CreativeLeadership #InnerGame #FlowState #MoneyMindset #Innovation #Entrepreneurship #LeadershipDevelopment #SelfDiscovery #ExecutiveCoach #Coaching #Trump #PresidentTrump #Tech #AI #Oracle #CharlieKirk #ElizabethWarren #Purpose #Debate #Courage #Faith #America

Transcript

Amanda Escobedo (00:02.894)
Check the mic and make sure it sound right, boys. Welcome to the game changer by empower house coaching. This podcast is for purpose driven pioneers, aspiring entrepreneurs.

leaders and innovators with a conviction for creating a better future. Here we cut through the noise of the news cycle, not to debate sides, but really to surface leadership and culture opportunities hidden beyond the headlines and equip you with coaching tools that invite fresh perspectives and creative solutions. My name is Amanda Escobedo. I'm your host, Intergame Coach from the Powerhouse Coaching, because even the most exceptional athletes need a coach. Why not you?

Together we'll empower you to master the mental game, elevate your brilliance, and build the legacy of progress and innovation.

Welcome to episode one. It's been a while for those of you that know me. And what do I mean by that? I used to have a podcast called Creativity in Business and I sunsetted that for a bit just because I needed a little more clarity on my direction and my vision. And so for this podcast, I was actually recently inspired by attending a summit called the All In Summit. So if you're into tech,

investment, politics, all of that, you should definitely check out the All In Podcast and they have an All In Summit. It was probably one of the most transformational experiences for me. And when I say transformational, I just mean like the type of dialogue that people were having, just perspectives from all over the board, conversations about controversial topics, and everybody was able to have healthy debates, which I really love.

Amanda Escobedo (01:47.788)
Now a little bit about me, I am what you would consider an inner game coach. What does that mean? Well, let's say you are an entrepreneur, an executive, a business owner, and you get a business coach, a business coach, or even a sales coach. I would consider them an outer game coach. A business coach is going to probably dive deep into your business, take apart your plan, look at your numbers, and then give you recommendations. They're actually probably gonna give you a business plan for execution. And so,

that's one way to kind of look at an outer game coach. They're gonna give you the plan. But if business were just that easy that we just had to follow a plan, we'd all be pretty successful, right? Similar to like a sales coach, they might give you a script on what to say, how to coach through obstacles. On the other side, an inner game coach is very much a mental mindset model. We're trying to connect you with your intuitive intelligence. So there's less about

Advice here, advice from me. My goal is to cultivate and extract your intuitive intelligence, your answers, your wisdom. We all have it. Stanford University actually says we are all born with mistake free.

wisdom, that intuition. So that's a bit of the inner game coach and the value of an inner game coach is, again, it's a mental model that we're working with. Part of what I specialize is cultivating creativity in business. What does that mean? Well, the way we define creativity is really just a bit of your approach to life. And so your approach to life is how do you observe, experience, process circumstances? Do you see life happening to you or for you?

And what about that critter brain that's kind of on one side of you? You if you've ever seen those memes is what I like to say, you've got the little devil on one side, the little angel on the other. We all have a bit of that self talk and the question is, who do you let win? Do you let that voice of wisdom win or do you let the itty bitty?

Amanda Escobedo (03:48.642)
committee, that critter brain win. And so a bit of like part of getting you into that creative flow state is how you are experiencing problems. If you have that ability to really navigate challenges with your wisdom intuitively, we're trying to get you into a flow state, into a flow way of thinking and a flow way of life. And if you put this into, let's say an organization, we're trying to get organizations and teams into group flow. And so, and when we talk about flow,

Let's say you play sports. Say you play an instrument. You have a hobby. With that instrument, that passion project, that sport, there's probably a time where it just feels like time expanded. You didn't even realize, you know.

Two hours had passed by, you thought it was only 20 minutes. You're just having the time of your life. And let's say you're navigating a challenge, you're not overthinking it, you're not second guessing yourself, you're open, you're curious, you're kind of just navigating through whatever that is. Let's say if you're a soccer player on the field, you know, you're excited about, you know, the person coming at you trying to get your default.

get your ball, if you're trying to defend the ball. It's an exciting challenge. Or if you're trying to make a goal, how do I navigate the defense? And so that's a lot of not overthinking, decisiveness, intuitive moves in that process, in that moment, and you're having a good time. And so that's a little bit about getting you into that flow state, the runner's flow, where it just feels like, again, time just got lost and it's expanded and you're enjoying yourself in that process. And that's how we want you to think about the challenge

of the world, whether it's challenges in your marriage, whether it's challenges in business, whether it's the politics that are going on in the world, any type of challenge rather than getting stuck at that brick wall of frustration.

Amanda Escobedo (05:39.37)
That's really a signal for our opportunity to get creative. And so the way, ever since I've kind of absorbed and gotten certified in these tools, and I'll tell you a little bit on my background in just a second, I kind of experience the world like a cheese maze. And if you know what a cheese maze looks like, there's cheese on the other side of this maze, and that's kind of your goal, right? And I like to think of that's your vision, that's desired out.

whether you want to get married, whether you want to build a business, whether you want to discover your purpose, whether you want to travel to Europe for the first time.

Some of these goals or desires that you might have out in front of you may start to feel impossible. You start getting into the dating world. You've had all these terrible dates. You start to feel like the world has changed. The culture has changed. Maybe it's just not in my cards to get married or maybe you want to buy a house and with inflation it's like almost impossible these days to buy a house. Right. And so we start to come across these brick walls of frustrations in life and most people in the world, they just get stuck. They use that

they experience hard and then they start to use hard of evidence of why this isn't possible. But if we started to see the world in a cheese maze, experience like me, if we started to see the world like a cheese maze, well then it's really about trying one door. That didn't work.

going back and trying another door. That didn't work. Trying another door. we have a little progress and we try another door. now it feels like we're going backwards, right? But you're in this maze and you're not getting stuck. You keep moving. And so the goal with cultivating creativity for you is getting you to continue to flow and not stay stuck. And maybe in this maze, you'll start to feel a bit fatigued. I'm not taking away the human experience where some of these challenges are really tough. We are born.

Amanda Escobedo (07:32.078)
with 50 % negative emotions and 50 % positive emotions. And so you're gonna be experiencing a lot of different emotions depending on how you experience the world, how you're interpreting circumstances for yourself. And to no fault to your own, your defaulted setting in your brain is negativity. Your default setting on average is to experience and translate thoughts.

80 % of your thoughts are negative. 95 % of your thoughts are repetitive. And if you don't have any practices in place that upgrade the software in your head, then you're going to stay pretty low in energy, low in vibration because of all that negativity that's going in your mind. You're going to stay in anxiety and in overwhelm and stuckness and depression. And on the other side, if you have practices in place, like the coaching tools I will be sharing with you throughout

podcast or even something as simple as exercise, meditation, journaling. Those are simple practices that can help you increase your awareness of the type of thoughts that you have in your head and make you more of an observer of your thought process instead of being consumed. And the more that you are an observer of your thought process, an observer of your thoughts and your feelings, the more you get to choose how you want to think. The more you get to choose how

you want to feel about this experience. So this is a little bit of the inner game coach of what I try and do. It's really a mindset. If you think of boxing, if you think of the Olympics, if you think of business, strong entrepreneurs or executives, when you will come across really the most exceptional athletes, the most exceptional business people in the world,

You can feel their essence. Excuse me. You can feel their essence when they walk into a room. They are grounded.

Amanda Escobedo (09:32.716)
They are centered. They are confident in who they are. And so a lot of what I do and cultivating your creativity, it's a self discovery journey. Our goal is to get you closer to discovering who you are, discovering what are your innate gifts, discovering your purpose, your passion, your mission in life, discovering the vision, the life that you want to create and the value you want to add in this world. When you have clarity on that vision, when you have clarity on who you are, I'm telling you you're flying.

I feel like I'm flying. I'm still on the journey of learning myself. No one is like forever. Like I got it. I know it. I know where I'm going. There's a lot of uncertainty, which then calls in a level of faith, which we'll discuss a little bit, probably a lot throughout the episodes of this podcast, but that's a bit of the inner game coach. We are trying to...

unlock your brilliance, your human potential, and that requires a self-discovery on who you are. So I'm excited to invite you into the journey. So it's a little bit of my coaching approach. One thing I do want to set the tone to on this podcast is what is the difference between a coach and a therapist? A lot of the time when I'm working with clients, they're like, I don't even know what a coach does. What's the difference between a coach and a therapist? And I know, I googled some of my problems and your Yelp or your Google page came up.

So I'm not really sure what you can do for me. And it kind of makes me chuckle a bit, but I always just love educational moments. And so I'm gonna give you just a very high level general definition or differentiation between coaching, I'll say, and let's say therapy as an example. So I gave you a difference of the inner game coach and the outer game coach, right? Let's say a business coach and me, an inner game coach. On the other side, the difference between a coach and a therapist.

In general, lot of therapy is focused on past. It's focused on past experiences, trying to heal you from your past traumas. Whereas coaching is very future forward, goal oriented. We're getting clarity on where you're trying to go and we're helping you unlock the steps to getting there. A lot of therapy can maybe diagnose you. There's no diagnosing within coaching at all.

Amanda Escobedo (11:52.755)
A therapist can prescribe you medication. There's no prescribing here.

On the other side too, when we talk a little bit about past versus presence diagnosing and also medication, a lot of therapy is trying to get you into the baseline of being effective out in the world. So what does that mean? But let's say you are severely depressed, you can't get out of bed. They're working with you so you can be functional human being out there working in the world, right? And so if you are in a state of depression that you can't get out of bed, you're not probably ready for a coach.

You would be ready for a coach when you've worked with a therapist long enough that you are now effective out in the world. so coaching is really taking you from the baseline and we are elevating you to new heights, but you have to at least be in that baseline. A little bit of, I'll say overlap is CBT therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy. That's a bit of like reframing of circumstances. We do do a lot of reframing of circumstances.

reframe circumstances in a way that help excel you, propel you in the direction that you're trying to go in life and in business, right? So reframing is definitely within there. So that's a little bit of like say the difference between coaching and therapy and it is a lot of you know...

vulnerable sharing. Some type of therapy they do not allow therapists to share personal matters of themselves because they don't want to like construe or

Amanda Escobedo (13:28.874)
a little bit of your experience with their experiences. Whereas coaching, I'll share my whole life story. And sharing on my end is so important for you to understand the tools that I will be presenting to you. So a lot of oversharing on my ends. Luckily I'm not shy. So you'll probably hear a lot of personal stories about myself through this podcast journey.

a little bit of my background. So as I mentioned, I specialize in cultivating creativity in business. I actually have a background in working in human resources. So I have worked in quite a few different organizations. I've job hopped around. I'd say the old mindset of the workforce was like, oh, that doesn't look good on your resume. You've hopped around so much and say, yeah, maybe I've hopped around so much and maybe it doesn't look good for you. But you know how much experience I've gotten from that? And I've gotten on average like a 30 % pay increase

with each job increase, whereas other people that stay within an organization for like decades get their average 3 % increase every year. So this is where a little bit of, you'll hear me talk about the limiting.

The limiting beliefs, right? The limiting mindsets, the judgments of the world and that helps keep other people small instead of being adventurous, curious and figuring out what's the next step that aligns with me. You probably get a lot of advice in the world on how to navigate and what your next step is. And again, my goal is to help you secure and feel grounded in your wisdom. So when you get advice,

you get to use yourself as a sounding board to be like does this apply to me and where i'm trying to go rather than conforming to societal norms parents teachers bosses we're trying to find your way and the more you can operate in alignment with who you are it's freedom

Amanda Escobedo (15:25.462)
It feels great. If you can't tell, I love being myself. So a little bit about my background. I've worked in human resources. I've worked in multiple startups, private equity, corporate, old, very much bureaucracy, legacy organizations with like mindsets of this is the way it's always been. And then those innovative cultures where it's like disruption, challenge the status quo. I've worked in aerospace. I've worked in retail organizations, done a lot of different things.

And then on the coaching aspect, I have a couple of different coaching certifications. I have a health coach certification, which I don't really use. I have a life coach certification. I also have a certification that is Stanford based in mindfulness and emotional intelligence. And so this is really where the core of the tools come from, from cultivating creativity in business. This certification actually used to be a course in Stanford University. And there it was taught to their MBA students.

and it was called Creativity in Business. And just a little background or history, if you do a little search on Creativity in Business, Dr. Michael Ray. Dr. Michael Ray is the founder and creator of the Creativity in Business course in the MBA program there. He also has a book called Creativity in Business. A lot of these tools are very much Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have just swept them up and used them. He's had a lot of great speakers at his course at Stanford.

whether it was the old Nike president, you had Apple CEO, you've had Charles Schwab, you've had a lot of different kind of renowned leaders.

And he also has Dr. Michael Ray, if you look him up in YouTube, he talks a bit about this course. And it's just very fascinating, just a bit of the tools. One of the things, a couple different reasons of what triggered his idea to create a course on creativity in business. Years ago, MBA programs, they were getting a lot of criticism because they were producing.

Amanda Escobedo (17:30.594)
Well, what was perceived as a lot of students that weren't creative. Back in the day, data was very important and it is still very important today, but everything business was based on data. Your decisions were based on data. Now, excuse me, gonna grab a little bit of water.

Now.

The challenge though that people were having, they were too dependent on data that they didn't trust themselves to make decisions. And they use data also as like a scapegoat. Like if they were afraid to make risks and if something didn't go right, at least they could scapegoat and use the data as the reason, the reason of fault, right? But the challenge there is innovation doesn't really have, depending on what you're innovating, there isn't a lot of data and a lot of time data is going to bring you to a point where it's like, do I go left or do I go right?

And so a lot of the times what was also happening is you get a lot of these business leaders getting to analysis by paralysis, right? Second guessing themselves. And Dr. Michael Ray really talks about good examples where he brings business leaders, some of the strongest business leaders in play where they have had come against the grain where it was like, dad is telling me to go left, but my gut, my intuition is telling me to go right.

and when they chose to listen to that intuition, tenfolds of the returns, right? Tenfolds might be an exaggeration, but benefits, benefits and it had proven correct on

Amanda Escobedo (19:00.948)
on that choice. so that's a lot of, again, cultivating that creativity. It's unlocking your intuitive intelligence. We all have this inner wisdom. And so if I'm saying anything in this podcast that resonates with you as I'm navigating and introducing some of my own wisdom and my tools and all of that stuff, if it resonates, it's because you have the same wisdom.

There's nothing special about me. You have all the same wisdom. And what I'm trying to do is give you the tools so that you can access your wisdom on purpose. You access it. You access it all the time. It's just a matter of if you listen to it. And when you do, you prove yourself, right? But you know, a lot of us have had maybe some experiences where we made some choices that didn't lead us down the right path and now we don't trust ourselves anymore.

And so I hope to help you gain a lot more trust within yourself. Now, another thing I'll say about cultivating creativity in business, another reason that this course was created was Dr. Michael Ray. He saw his students graduate and when they came back and he met them, they had the high paying jobs. You know, they had the big job titles, but they came back and they just seemed to lack like a vision for life. They didn't know where they were going. They were very unfulfilled. They had all the things, but they were super unhappy.

And what's beautiful about cultivating creativity in business and in life, again, going back to creativity is a self discovery journey. And in order for you to get you into the flow of life, you have to be in alignment with who you are. So you have to know thyself. You have to have a vision for where you're going. And so.

everything, all the fulfillment, the happiness, the joy, the purpose, the impact you're trying to make has to be an intentional process, intentional steps that align with that vision. But we have to understand who are you? Where are you trying to go? What ignites your soul? So I hope to help ignite your soul a bit on this journey of this podcast.

Amanda Escobedo (21:03.818)
Now, a little bit of why I am creating this podcast. Again, as I mentioned, I was inspired a bit by the All In Summit and the All In Podcasts. And I had my previous podcast called Cultivating Creativity in Business. And I sunsetted that just because...

A couple different reasons. I was just trying to think on my own, you know, what problem do I want to solve today and what coaching tools could I apply? And then I would write an entire script. and it just took a lot of time and I was just, you know, talking to a microphone and still doing that right now, but there's a difference here. What I love about the all in podcasts is they're just reading relevant news today and then they have an opinion on it.

And so I'm not here to tell you my real opinion, but I'm here to really talk about the news, the headlines, interpret it really from a leadership and a cultural perspective. My goal is to increase awareness of how we talk about things, how we behave in society and in business and highlight how some of those behaviors, the language, the judgments, blocks our creativity, blocks our human connection, blocks our purpose.

Alternatively, I want to provide you with coaching tools that help unlock all of the creativity in the world, unlock your purpose, have you leading with impact, create the legacy that you want to lead and create more human connection. And so my goal is to take you on a transformative journey. And with the recent passing of Charlie Kirk, that really also just shook me because I have, like I see the news all the time, obviously like most of us, I have social media.

And I just see how people talk, how we all form our opinions. And again, I'm not here to tell you what opinions to form. My goal is to share news on both sides, not sway one or the other. I'm not here to tell you what to think, but I do wanna give you tools on how to effectively think. And when I say how to effectively think, it's really helping you effectively connect with...

Amanda Escobedo (23:13.88)
who you are, form opinions that align with what your values are, rather than conform than maybe the people around you. I want to give you tools on how to effectively have conversations, communication with people that don't have the same value. So we're seeking and leading with curiosity, with compassion. And so it's really a lot of mind, body, soul experience.

And it's funny, I was just sharing a little bit of this podcast idea today with a friend in the gym and her response was, wow. And I paused, I was like a little too serious. She was like, like, world peace. I was like, yeah, world peace. I mean, this podcast is called Game Changer. And my goal of Game Changer is I believe that we all have the power to be game changers. I actually fundamentally believe

We all want the same things. We all want to live a life of fulfillment. We all want to feel like we are contributors of the world. We all want people to connect. We all want to lead with love and compassion, but our default energy is not that. And so I want us to be able to lead the change that we want to see. Be the game changer. Change today's society.

If you don't like it, I want us to move out of this anxiety and this fear and this hopelessness. And I want us all to bring ourselves into these solutions. I fundamentally believe all the challenges are in the world. They are the opportunity to live out our purpose. They are an opportunity to be a part of a mission for ourselves. They are our opportunity. But

They're only your opportunity if you know how to see, experience, and navigate these challenges in a way that they are opportunities. And so that's what the game changer is. We are going to cultivate your inner game. The mindset is the game that's going to change to help you lead the change that you want to see. Look at that mic drop. So that's a little bit about the purpose of this podcast. I really just want to unify us as a culture, as a society.

Amanda Escobedo (25:28.119)
through effective collaboration, group flow, effective conversations. I wanna transform us from a culture of blame into a culture of creative solutions. I want us to become more aware of the judgments that we have on each other and lead with deep understanding and compassion. And I want us again to transform that anxiety and that fear. I don't have any anxiety. And if I do, I get curious on what it is.

And so all of us, I want us to lead with empowerment, right? With purpose. And I want us to lead with a sense of that inner peace, that groundedness. We all have it. It's all a possibility. It's a matter of aligning on where do you wanna go? How do you wanna contribute in life? And I do believe again, we all want the same thing. We all want purpose, peace. We all want equality.

but we have a different way of getting there which creates a little tug of war and tension. We all think we're on the right side of right. We really do. And I think the more that we can lead again with deep listening and curiosity, the more we actually have great perspectives that should all be considered in our solutions and a united friends. I know there might draw. Okay.

So let's get into a little bit of headlines. And that's a bit of, you know, I gave you a little extra context since this is the first episode and you're probably wondering who is this chick. And so that's a lot of the extra context just again, so you know a little bit about my background, purpose, et cetera. My goal for this is just to pull out just some things throughout the week that I'm reading or seeing or hearing on the news. And then I wanna just pull out again,

key leadership behaviors, culture behaviors that are really stunting, blocking human connection is really cultivating more blame, it's blocking our creativity and I want to give you some alternatives, some alternative ways of thinking and leading. And so first topic is the hottest topic. It's the recent heartfelt assassination of Charlie Kirk. And I have to tell you, this really rocked me. I don't know. I just like...

Amanda Escobedo (27:40.282)
I definitely don't agree with everything he says. There's some things I agree with and some things I don't, but it just really rocked me because one of the things I value and respect about someone like Charlie, he is someone that is so grounded in who he is. He is so grounded in his value system. He is so clear on how he's supposed to be a key contributor to humanity and he loved what he was doing. We all have an audience.

I'm not everybody's audience. So everything I'm saying will not resonate with everybody. And that's okay. I am not for everybody, but I believe the more that we put ourselves out there, I believe I have an audience waiting for me to show up. And boy, did Charlie show up. He showed up and he really served his audience. And so this shook me because I just fundamentally believe that we should all be leading with a sense of purpose and to

to get killed for that is just like, very, got me a bit shaken. And so within that though, it had me coming back to our world leaders, our US leaders, right? And their responses and how did they respond? How did they take this opportunity to respond? And how did their response either fuel the divide within this country or unite us as a whole? And so, you know, the number one,

person obviously I looked to first is Trump's response. And so I kind of wrote a little bit of what he said and then I'm gonna break it down with a little bit of critique and maybe providing some opportunities of what could have been said that could have maybe united us a bit better. So a little bit of his response in the beginning, he did a really good job, I'd say leading with Charlie's legacy, talking about how Charlie.

Charlie inspired millions, he's a patriot, shared for love of this country. He was open to debate, contributed to the cause. He was a good faith debate. So his mission was to bring young people into the political process. again, clarity on just purpose, personal mission, love. He championed ideas with courage, logic, humor, grace. I thought everything that he said about Charlie's legacy, I couldn't have said it better. I thought it was such a great.

Amanda Escobedo (29:55.128)
thing to say about somebody who had just passed. And then we kind of shift the tone a bit. And this is where I'd say the tone shifts to like a blame culture, which is within our politics, which is within a lot of organizations. So when things go wrong, do we get curious or do we point blame? Do we see people as the problem? Now the challenge is if we see people as the problem, then the only way to solve the problem is to remove the problem. And that's what happened to Charlie.

right? Some people saw Charlie himself as a problem. And so with Trump's response he talked a little about about for years those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass murders and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today and it must stop right now. My administration will find

each and every one of you that has contributed to this atrocity and to the other political violence including the organizations that funded support that funded it and supported as well to go after other judges law enforcement officials and everyone else who brings order to our country the radical left has hurt too many innocent people provided examples of attempted so he provided examples of attempted assassinations on himself ice agents ceo healthcare executives

referenced other broad political incidences but I did take note he did not mention any attacks on the democrats so let's just pause right here so that whole section that I just talked about this whole narrative there's a lot of judgments that are being stated a lot of blanket judgments and when we're having a lot of blanket judgments judgments put us all in the defense it fuels division

It turns this whole narrative into us versus them. There's a good guy and a bad guy. And I have to bet that there's no lefty, the radical left, there's no left that would, I say no, maybe some would, but I'll say in general, people that are on the left probably wouldn't raise their hand and say that they are radical. I actually believe, probably, this is just a guess. I don't know if this is accurate.

Amanda Escobedo (32:18.53)
People on the left see Trump and anybody on who is a supporter of Trump as radical, as the radical right, right? And so what happens is when we make these general statements of the radical left, we're not being clear on who we're talking to, who we're talking about. You're grouping people together in a general statement. And now we're not talking about solving this problem. Nowhere in here are we talking about solving this problem, but really we're the problem.

is people is this radical left and they will be held accountable. So again I think leading with a bit of the radical left in this general statement creates this whole radical left boogeyman right and I'm not saying that the radical left doesn't exist but I just think as a leader of the US this was obviously fueled from people seeing Charlie as the radical

and it's just fueling more of the divide instead of calling to the attention and opportunity of like, hey, something's up with our culture. there could have been an opportunity. So I'll say leadership opportunities that I think Trump could have taken. And I think there's still opportunities. I always look for tomorrow. If they're not today, then they're always tomorrow. And I hope somebody shares this podcast with politics and leadership up in DC, but some.

opportunities with something tragic like this that could happen is leading with ownership. know modeling the language that acknowledges our collective responsibility for the tone of our politics. And so if you as the leader, the top, the person at the top are leading with ownership, imagine how that starts to and can trickle people down.

I think today I will always say people have their personal choices on how they want to respond. So, but as the leader of the US, there is a lot of influence on the people. And so you're either when you're leading with blame, you're only influencing the divide to become greater and people to become angrier on either side, either side. But if you're leading with ownership, you're saying, hey, everybody.

Amanda Escobedo (34:32.29)
This is all of us. I'm gonna take and put my hand into place, me too, in fueling the divide of this country. Now, another side, another opportunity, focusing on behavior, not labels, could have been a better opportunity as well. So condemning the violent actions specifically without reducing them to party lines, right? That could have been an opportunity. not.

blaming party lines but were really just condemning the action that took place violence, murder, assassination. And then the other side too is he came out with that response a little prematurely with some of the notes that he mentioned. The way I heard his blame response, the way my ears translated it was, you know, there was a radical left group that organized this assassination and so

when you're kind of leading with like, we're gonna go after you in that matter too, we didn't have all the facts. so waiting for the facts. So depending on how you're speaking, I'm not saying he should have waited in his response, but speak to the tragedy and the loss first, rather than prematurely attributing a motive or blame, right? We went straight to blame and a motive without having all the facts. So I think.

just taking a pause, if we even just pause at the legacy piece where we talked about Charlie, and then, you know, we didn't have, and we could just leave it there and wait for a, will find and figure out, and we are committed to figuring out the why behind that, that would have been great, not jumping to assumptions in that process. And then again, unifying, not dividing, that's an intentional process. There could have been an intentional opportunity in that speech.

to use words that invited Americans to stand against violence rather than deepening the partisan divides. So as leaders, we choose ownership over blame. That is a choice. That is a choice that we can lead with ownership over blame. And we build our credibility. We build our trust. We build the possibility of unity even across different beliefs when we are leading with ownership. And so,

Amanda Escobedo (36:50.338)
The other part too here in the closing statement, will say he committed I think a bit of Trump's closing statement. He mentioned a commitment to the American values, free speech, citizenship, rule of law, patriotic devotion and the love of God. So again, overall, just to summarize, just, you he closed on American values, which is a static situation, but it doesn't tell us and doesn't invite us to a call of action. So I think it's great to close on

American values, but a missed opportunity, a call of action to the people of this country. And so, you know, beyond our values, how do we want to live them together? So I think it comes into it's one thing to just state values, but how do we want to live them together? And maybe that's our call of action. That's the question that we're asking to the audience.

modeling that action. I commit to leading with unity and respect even when we disagree. And I ask each of you to do the same. I think that would be probably really hard for Trump to say just based on some of his behaviors, but I'm always open. I believe everyone can change. Everybody. And every single day, you don't know what kind of work they're doing on the back end, who's talking to them, who's influencing them. And I believe we all have to create space for people to change.

So just opportunities ideas and on how he could have closed modeling the action again by saying hey I commit to leading with unity Even when I disagree inviting participation So let us not only hold these values but live them through our words our actions and our care for one another or he could have left with a cast of a vision if we commit to Unity over division we can honor Charlie's legacy not just his words

But in the America we continue to build together. So, you know, this is a little bit of what I see and how I experience the world. Now you're like literally in Amanda's head. This is how I experienced the news. This is how I experienced both parties. And I'll go through other examples, but I start with Trump just because again, he is the leader and I'm constantly looking at leaders of organizations. Leaders set the tone of business. He is setting the tone of this country.

Amanda Escobedo (39:11.382)
And so how he leads really matters and influences how people respond and whether he has credibility, whether he has trust, et cetera, et cetera. I don't know if all of you are familiar, but John Maxwell, he's this like renowned executive coach. He's got all these leadership books and he talks a little bit about the law of the lid. And the law of the lid talks about, you you can have a bunch of 10s in your organization.

But if you have the person at the top that is a 4 out of 10, then the organization is a 4 out of 10. Now I'm not giving Trump a rating. I am not giving Trump a rating at all. But what I'm saying is these missed opportunities, influence other missed opportunities on just being intentional with the type of culture that we're trying to lead with, the type of culture that we're trying to live with. What else do we have here?

I saw little bit about Jesse Watters' response on Fox. I think I'm just gonna jump to Elizabeth Warren. Now Elizabeth Warren, okay. If you guys saw the interview, I'm gonna include some of these links by the way, just on where I'm grabbing some of this so you could watch some of these interviews yourself. Elizabeth Warren's response, I'd say she... So actually two things I wanna talk about. Trump's response. Maybe I just highlighted a bunch of missed opportunities on how he...

have led to influence a change of our culture. But one thing I will say that he did really well in that speech, he's just grounded. Grounded, controlled, assertive. He doesn't seem like his critter brain is out. He wasn't like, you know, he was grounded in his thoughts and his feelings and his energy. Whereas Elizabeth Warren, when she was interviewed on and having a response on Charlie's assassination,

I felt nothing but the critter brain that was out to play and the critter brain was just out with judgments. There wasn't a lot of logic and objective and wisdom coming out. And I'll go through a little bit of what that looks like. And again, I highly encourage you to watch some of these links so you can understand and maybe see it from a new perspective with some of these coaching ways of seeing things.

Amanda Escobedo (41:27.246)
So a little bit about her response. She talks a bit about violence is never the answer. My heart goes out to, et cetera. We cannot be a country that goes to violence when we disagree. So I love that she went and talked about the behavior. So she went straight to the behavior there. We cannot be a country that goes to violence when we disagree. Love that. And then she goes into solutions pretty quickly. Congress can act on gun safety.

Every time there is a killing, Republicans say this is not the time to talk about gun safety. Yet we must, and as a nation, we have more gun deaths more than any other nations. And we don't keep our children, our friends, and our neighbors safe. Just by putting ordinary gun safety rules in place would save lives. And if the rest of the country would follow the rules like we have in Massachusetts, we could reduce fatality nationwide.

Plenty of people are hunters and sports shooters in Massachusetts, but at least we make it a little tougher to use guns for harming human beings. And so, you know, I'm just gonna actually review her whole response and then I'll go through the breakthrough. We'll come back and chop it up into the breakthrough. So again, she talks a little about immediately condemning the violence, then she goes into solutions, which is gun safety.

But then she also kind of pivots to Republicans don't want to talk about it. So that's immediately talking about Republicans starts to create a divide in that statement. Rather, it kind of almost discredits your solution once you put another group down. If you're trying to persuade and influence another group to come on your side or to come to the table to talk about solutions.

Don't talk about your idea of your solution and then put the group down that you want to invite into the conversation because now you're putting that group on the defense. Now they're going to protect why we don't need as strong of gun safety laws or whatever, whatever, whatever. And they're going to pull all the reasons why that's not the solution. What else do we have here? Response. So the reporter that was talking to her asked her a follow-up question. What do you say to Democrats who need to lower the temperature?

Amanda Escobedo (43:41.93)
after this killing and she says, please, I love that response, please start with the president and every ugly meme that he has posted and every ugly word. He is the leader of this nation and when he's posting these things he did just a couple of days ago trying to show an entire city on fire referencing helicopters, showing himself as this big chested threat. I don't want to hear this from the Republicans. So a couple different.

here. I thought it was a good question, a triggering question that that reporter knew was probably going to trigger Elizabeth and she took the bait. And the energy in that response, I kind of was like giving it with a little attitude because that's how I heard it. And that energy is the one I'm trying to highlight for you is where the critter brain is present, the defensiveness is present, the pointing the fingers at the Republican is present.

The Critter Brain, just so you're clear, is three categories. It is the inner critic. It's the one that loves to beat you up, put yourself down, say how much you suck. The Critter Brain is the one that makes judgments of other people. Everyone else is the problem, right? And the Critter Brain is also afraid of judgments from other people. And sometimes judgments from other people match your inner critic, but two statements don't make a truth, okay?

But that's a little bit of the critter brain and you know the critter brain is there because it's just like, oh, the energy is exhausting and creates anxiety. It's just, it's tense. The critter brain is tense. And so that response to that question where we're talking about, please start with the present, every ugly mean. I she's not wrong. Those are his behaviors. But I literally, it just, it doesn't answer the question of just herself and the temperature.

that they're asking. They're asking for the Democrats. But instead of saying we have to put ourselves down, it's really about the other people and we're just matching fire to fire. You know, is that the solution? Right? We're just fighting fire with fire. And this is where we talk about the game changer. Be the game changer, people. Anyway, moving on. The next question the interviewer asked, do you think politicians on both sides have a role in turning the rhetoric down?

Amanda Escobedo (46:05.87)
What a great follow-up question. Well, one, it's still a leading question. They're trying to get her into a yes or a no. There's a right or wrong answer to this, but I love that she, this person that asked this question, really talked about both sides turning down the tone of the rhetoric. And she said, you know, violence is not the answer. We must be willing to take steps so that violence in this country is not so lethal. So she didn't really answer with a yes or a no, but I will say she did a really good job just speaking to

Violence is not the answer. That wasn't the question. The question was related to the rhetoric and the rhetoric is how we talk about each other, right? So that's really where that news reporter is getting. And so there was a lack of acknowledgement and a lack of ownership of the rhetoric. It's just more talking about the behavior. Great, we do not and should not have violence in this country. But underlining what is fueling the violence and the tension, what's fueling the violence and the tension is how we talk.

about each other. And then we asked do we have a single Republican, and her response was do we have a single Republican who will stand and join us following the school shootings in Denver, Congress can and should change that. Again she's talking about kind of the gun control. Senator Cassidy just said, so this is follow-up question, Congress cannot change the heart of a man. So this is the response to her solution being gun control.

And then that reporter said, well, Senator Cassidy said, Congress cannot change the heart of a man. And her response was, well, you can change whether he has a lethal weapon in his hands and the likelihood that he will kill another person. Republicans, again, going back to pointing the finger at the Republicans. If you haven't, if you have not picked up on a theme with both, both Elizabeth Warren and Trump, we love to point the finger blame the Republicans want to turn their backs.

on that because it's more politically expedient. The follow-up question, people are saying political violence has no place in our country, but it clearly does. Is this just a fact of life now? Goodness, I have to say this reporter's questions right on point. Her response, we have to keep saying no to violence, but we must back it up with action, modest action like gun safety laws. Most Americans want to protect our children, but most of the Republican parties

Amanda Escobedo (48:30.338)
bend the knee to Donald Trump, bend the knee to the gun industry, which stirs everyone up and ensures access to lethal weapons and continues. Yeah, still more of a theme. And so, you know, we're the good guys. We want to have no violence, but the Republicans actually favor Donald Trump, the gun industry, and everyone else more than our children and protecting our children.

That's the narrative. And so if you're a Republican hearing that statement, I'm sure you are probably not, also for protecting our children. I am certain. And so if I were a Republican hearing that, well, that's again, putting me in the defense and it's not inviting me into the conversation. It's not inviting me into a solution. It's not inviting other solutions either. It's just more.

you either agree with my solution and you and if you agree that means you want to protect our children if you have other ideas and don't agree with my solution then you want to harm our children that's how that statement is being said and then the final question here by this reporter is do you feel safe given all this violence what a great question and she says how can anybody feel safe today what doesn't feel

Who doesn't feel the risk has escalated? Congress can act, but so far refuses. Now she's talking about all of Congress. No, all of Congress doesn't wanna act. Everybody refuses. These are very general statements. You know, in the HR world, we have what we call the SBI model. It's a model that helps you as a leader fundamentally give effective feedback. So the person on the other side of you, your direct reports,

whether you're manager, if you're giving your manager feedback, cross team stakeholder, if you have feedback, corrective feedback you're trying to give, you try and use the SBI model, which means scenario behavior impact. You're providing a specific example, what was the scenario, what was the behavior we didn't like, and what was the impact of that. A specific example so that I understand what exactly is the behavior. I'm moving away from general statements.

Amanda Escobedo (50:42.35)
Because when we use general statements like you always, you never, now instead of me hearing the feedback or the change that you want from me, I'm defending, I'm saying always, never, now I'm gonna start finding examples of all the different ways I have been an exception to what you're accusing me of. So these words, these words are not collaborative. These words are not inviting to.

creativity. These words are not unifying. And when it comes to cultivating creativity in business, cultivating creativity in government, creating transformative change, solving these world challenges, we have to come together with different choices of words that are not general statements, that are not accusation, that are not blame. Rather, they're getting curious on fundamentally what is the issue.

And that's another piece that's missing from all of this. Nobody's talking about what the fundamental issue is. At least for Elizabeth in this section, she's claiming the issue is gun safety. It's gun safety that has brought us here. But the reporter just asked her, do you feel safe? Why aren't we solving for the fact that people are fearful right now? Why aren't we solving for the fact that people don't feel safe?

And that's maybe why people want a gun, right? So there's a lot of different challenges that are happening right now. And these are just thoughts that I'm bringing to the table that you can probably expect in a rebuttal, in a conversation. The violence in our country isn't as simple as if we are just creating gun safety, gun safety is important and it should absolutely be a conversation at the table.

But when we're only solving for gun safety, we're not solving for people's fears, for their anxiety, for their fear to just practice free speech, go outside, whatever it is. And so let's go into, let's break down the problem fundamentally. The problem is a bit nuanced. And so as I was sitting with this assassination of Charlie Kirk, and I was just thinking through what...

Amanda Escobedo (52:57.112)
problem are we trying to solve? That's always one of the first questions you want to ask when it comes to cultivating creativity, when it comes to solutions. Before you come in and throw a solution, you want to ask yourself what problem are we trying to solve? And for me, I was sitting with this and to me, I kind of saw three different problems that we're trying to solve. We're trying to solve the culture of violence, we're trying to solve gun safety, and we're trying to solve the culture of fear.

Let's break that down. So within the US, we have more gun deaths. So I'm pulling some of this from Elizabeth's own narrative, everything that she said, we have more gun deaths than most other nations. That's not just about access to guns. If we have more gun deaths than other nations, it's not just about access to gun. It points to a culture of hostility, a culture of crime, a culture of fear has escalated, right?

And so the deeper question is what is driving our culture to be more violent, to be more angry and divided, right? So there is a problem that we need to start from. What is driving our feelings of anger, violence, division? On the other side, when it comes to gun safety, gun safety laws matter and reviewing them regularly is probably very wise, but the laws alone...

Don't address the mindset of someone who has already very anger, a lot of anger and fear and intent in harming others. People that are determined to kill can often find a way. We are creative human beings, right? I'm here to cultivate your creativity. Someone can use their creativity for a benefit of the country, benefit of their family, benefit of business, and they can use their creativity to help.

bring down the house, if you know what I mean. And so people that are determined to kill can still find a way to kill, whether through black market weapons, knives, and provides methods, right? So gun laws will be part of the solution, but cannot be the whole solution. And the third part here, when we talk a bit about the problem, is here lies the culture of fear, which is a bit of a paradox in this.

Amanda Escobedo (55:19.47)
when people don't feel safe, they're less likely to support gun laws. The fear of being defenseless can fuel the resistance even as communities long for peace. So without addressing crime and fear at the root, laws risk being seen as good people are left vulnerable while bad actors still can find a way to find weapons. And so

If we don't break down the problem and solve for all the things that are happening within our mind and our hearts that has people resistant to some of our solutions, we need to get more curious. We need to get more open and curious on why are people resistant to gun safety laws as an example. Well, because as I mentioned, and there might even be even more problems to solve that I'm not highlighting. These are just some things that came to mind that

to an assassination as such, it's really telling of what our culture is. And it's an opportunity for us to all come together, sit at the table and get curious of what is going on? What is the actual problem? How nuanced is this problem? And when we start to really unpack the problem, then we can start to go into solutions that address the nuanced intricates of the problem. And so I like to always,

think through, you know, in the leadership mind, you know, what's the question that we could ask based on a very nuanced problem? The opportunity isn't just about the laws, it's about shifting culture. So if it's not just about the laws and it's about shifting culture, right? Then maybe we ask something like, how do we transform our nation from a culture of hostility and fear into one of safety, community, and trust?

where the right to bear arms is honored, yet families, friends, and neighborhoods can live free from harm. This I was sitting with, I was talking to chat GBT, and I was just talking to chat GBT about the problem, the nuance of the problem. And one of the things again, I always like to figure out is what's the right question to ask in this moment. And so being able to just kind of unpack what the problem might be, then the next step of understanding what the problem is,

Amanda Escobedo (57:39.758)
Cultivating your creativity always starts with a question. So we have to understand what is the right question to ask in this moment. So I was talking to chat.gpt and I was like, what's a good question to ask? And what I love about this question is it addresses those nuanced things, right? Our right to bear arms, it addresses the culture, the fear, it addresses gun safety. And so I'm gonna review this question one more time. How do we transform our nation?

from a culture of hostility and fear into one of safety, community and trust, where the right to bear arms is honored, yet family, friends and neighbors, neighborhoods can live free from harm. So what we call an open question, there can be 45 million different answers to that. And it's an open question like this starts to open up your creative resources. It starts to open up your intuitive intelligence.

You probably won't get an answer on the spot by just asking this. These are the type of questions you just ask and leave out in the ether and see what comes. Answers can maybe come when you're in the shower, when you're talking to someone at Starbucks, when you're at work, someone says something and this is the question you've been spinning your wheels on and boom, you have a new idea. Now I hope within this process, all of these I really believe are solvable and we need passionate people like you that find

with all the world challenges in the world, what's a problem that you're passionate about solving? For me, a bit of living in my purpose is enabling you all to discover your purpose and go change the world. And so I'm hoping to spark and ignite something within yourself. These challenges, these world challenges, though they might fuel a lot of your fear, your defeat, your hopelessness about where this country is going.

I really believe this can be an opportunity for you to finally be a part of a mission, have a personal purpose, be a key contributor and create a legacy within this world by solving some of these problems. So that's topic one. I think I have about three topics and that one just took a really long time. These others should hopefully go a little quicker. Another headliner that I came across was Oracle just came out of nowhere in

Amanda Escobedo (59:59.114)
AI money making. So this is a less like politically driven and this article is actually more about money mindset that I want to hit on. So Oracle just came out of nowhere in an AI money making. Okay, so what does that mean? Quick summary on what this article was just if you aren't aware Oracle that's your session has just timed out sort of company. They just hit the jackpot with an AI boom. So they announced

hundreds of billions of dollars in cloud contracts mostly from one company Open AI and their stock had its biggest one-day jump in 30 years and the co-founder Larry Ellison he briefly passed Elon Musk to become the richest person in the world with just with this wealth jumping by a hundred billion dollars in one single morning. What a life. But here's where the article takes a turn. So that's that's the whole gist right is that

Oracle got a boom. jumped a hundred billion dollars in a single day. know, someone is really rich. Oracle's up and Ellison is richer. Those are just the facts. But where the article takes a turn is it ends by pointing out Ellison's luxury spending from 2012. They talk about his spending in the year 2012. We are in the year 2025. Why are we bringing up

Larry's spending from 2012 and they highlight that in 2012 he bought a Hawaiian island, building a nobu, investing in politics and sports. Now by pulling out old spending anecdotes instead of new ones that aren't really informing us about this article at all, it's these type of notes I want you all to increase your awareness to. It's these type of subtle notes that might be in your news that start to shape

perspectives. Again this note on Larry's spending is from 2012. It has nothing to do with 2024, 25, it's not even recent. But that little subtle note starts to shape your perception on what do we all think in this country? What is our culture on how we perceive wealth, the rich, and billionaires? Now because when we hear billionaires buying

Amanda Escobedo (01:02:20.116)
Islands or luxury items it starts to shape it starts to shape how we think about money itself and it starts to create judgments you might start to create little narratives and judgments in your head like you know the rich are selfish and wasteful that's what I hear when I hear that statement it's telling me that they are wasteful and they have unnecessary amounts of wealth it might start to shape narratives like people don't need that much money

There are starving people in this country with no food or shelter, right? And money is the root of all evil. Such a small sentence. you know that little small sentence, imagine how many other small sentences that are embedded in your articles that are shaping how you think about money, how you're shaping how you think about wealth, how you're shaping how you think about millionaires and billionaires. We are shaping the judgments in our head.

So I'm here to try and increase that awareness of that. We've left objectivity and we now are trying our influencing perception. So if those are our default thoughts, then guess what? If these are our default thoughts, the rich are selfish and wasteful, people don't need that much money, know, there are starving people in this country with no food or shelter. They're just wasting it on the wrong things or money is the root of all evil. Imagine if that is your money mindset. Deep down.

If that's your money mindset deep down, then we might resist creating more money ourselves. We might start to have guilt by making money. Why? Because our brain starts to link wealth with guilt, with shame, or being a bad person. And so this is where the money mindset starts to come in. How we think about money can either grow us or keep us stuck. Our beliefs about wealth can either expand

possibilities or silently sabotage our success. Now this story isn't just about Oracle or Ellison it's about how we relate to money and so when we hear about billionaire spending like this what judgments I'm curious to know for you you know what judgments might surface for you do any of the examples that I just shared resonate with you were those any thoughts that came to mind or are there others that come to you?

Amanda Escobedo (01:04:44.78)
And are those judgments quietly holding you back from the wealth and freedom that you would like to create for yourself? Now, it's funny, I have my own personal example. My example is less about judgments on rich people. My money mindset has more been related to extreme saber.

And here's an example. It's so funny. You never know where these narratives come from. And of course, mine came from childhood, came from my dad. Love you, dad. My money mindset for the longest time was really stuck on, my money mindset was stuck on being an extreme saver. So when I was a little, my dad, my dad sat me and my brother down and he was like, Josh, Amanda, mommy and dad would love to give you the world, but mommy and daddy don't have that much money.

So when we go to a store and you point to something you want, and I go like this, for those on the podcast, you can't see I'm putting my thumb and my index finger and I'm rubbing it together like I'm rubbing paper or a coin together, right? That money, money, money. When I do this, that means we don't have money. And we go, okay, sure, whatever. And so what do we do? We go to the store. As soon as we go to the store, I point to the thing I want and my dad...

gives me his little hand gesture and he goes, Amanda, what does this mean? And I remember being so little and being like, no money. And me like really believing we have no money and that thought stuck in my head for years and years and years. And I've always for years and years and years felt like I had no money. So I have been a hoarder, a saver of my money.

And that money mindset served me for years until I started coaching and you you got to spend a little to make a little. And I had so much fear with spending on myself, so much fear. And it has taken me years to start to let loose of the grips of my savings and invest and have faith and risk on myself and, and allow and believe that there is an abundance of flow. And so

Amanda Escobedo (01:06:54.304)
Another thing of working on is just like money is energy. Money, that's been hard for me to understand what that means, but shoot, when you start spending money intentionally with an alignment with that vision, there is an abundance flow of money that is coming your way. And so it's really about spending intentionally of is this an investment for your future, for that vision, is this the cost?

So those are some examples of money mindset. My own personal example, it's less about judgments on billionaires, but I'm giving you an example of how your money mindset can shape your success or really sabotage and keep you stuck. And I'm still growing in my money mindset. I'm still getting trust in spending on myself as it relates to growing my coaching business. Now, if we go back to this article and we think of again,

billionaires, the judgment of money, the judgment on how they spend, everyone spends on stupid stuff. And if you have billions of dollars, why not buy an island? Okay. And it also assumes that, you know, who knows what they're giving to donations, how they're helping others, what are the funds and the causes that they're passionate about. And so when we have just little lines on how they spend, just recognizing those judgments.

And I want us to think through what are some reframes that might be some good replacements for the judgments that we might hold. So here are some examples. So instead of maybe billionaires are hoarding all the money, we might consider money is constantly moving, circulating and being created. I can tap into the flow too. So it's more of a...

an abundance mindset versus a scarcity mindset, right? Billionaires are hoarding all the money. It's very scarcity. It's it's though, if somebody has money, if a billionaire has money, it means it's taking away from other people, but that's actually not true. There's an abundance of money. You just have to create value. Another way to look at the money mindset might be again, similarly to, you know, billionaires are hoarding all the money. might say money is a tool.

Amanda Escobedo (01:08:59.788)
and it amplifies my own purpose, helps to expand the impact that I can have on the world. So going back to little bit of investing in yourselves and using money, money can be a good thing for you to elevate your own purpose and help others. Instead of the richer hoarding the wealth while people are going hungry, we might say, wealth isn't a subtraction, it's a circulation, a multiplication. Again, we're trying to get you,

and shifting from maybe that scarcity mindset to the abundance mindset. And so as an example, a billionaire buying a yacht isn't just a luxury. It's also something to think about in this wealth isn't a subtraction. It's a circulation and a multiplication. If you think of a billionaire buying a yacht, it actually supports shipbuilders, designers, dock workers, restaurant staff in the Marina. It even supports tourism in that area.

And so the spending there actually circulates money back into the economy and back into everybody else's pockets. So when you start to think of money, this is a question for you all. What is your money mindset? When you start to think of money, do you see it as something that corrupts and takes away or as a tool that amplifies your purpose and creates possibilities? Something to think about. That's the question I'm leaving you for, for your...

What is your money mindset? And is there an opportunity to reframe it?

And then the last note or article here, this one is an interesting one. So this one is actually related to, let me just jump along here, inflation, actually our burden depth. you know, so far we've talked a little bit about judgment. So on the first kind of articles when we talk about Charlie's assassination, we talked and unpacked a little bit about leadership behaviors. My goal there was to unpack a little bit of

Amanda Escobedo (01:11:00.438)
Actually, creativity, how do we look and see problems? And part of our blockers of those problems are judgments and then helping us get into more of an open creative mindset. And then with this other article with AI and Oracle, that's really based on money mindset. For this next one, as it relates to our debt burden, this is really focused on cultivating creativity. So there was an article that I read on breaking views. The title was, inflation defenses are no match

for debt burden. And so just quick summary of what this article was, it's basically just saying Western countries like US, France, UK, we owe a ton of money. We have a very high national debt. And so solves, we could grow the economy, but right now we're not growing the economy fast enough to pay it down. So it's just not happening. Growing the economy is not working right now to help pay down our debt.

The other option is we could cut spending, right? But that is very unpopular. People hate when you cut programs, hate when you cut resources. so it's just honestly, fundamentally, it's change management at its core. But with such large population like the US, getting everybody on board, you're just going to get a lot of a fight. So people in general just hate change, hate cutting spending, hate cutting resources.

The other note here is just letting inflation run higher and it makes the debt cheaper. That's an option, but it's risky because it hurts all of our wallets. But also, so does cutting spend. If we don't cut spending, that hurts our wallets as well. Always kind of cut and hurt our wallets. So our three options is growing the economy. not, we don't have the option to do that.

We're not growing fast enough to cut that debt. could cut spending. People hate when you cut spending. We could let inflation run higher so that the debt can be cheaper, but then it hurts all of our pockets. And the other part in the mix within this is central banks. So central banks are supposed to keep inflation in check. So we shouldn't be letting inflation roll just higher so we have cheaper debt. Central banks are supposed to keep inflation in check, but history shows they often gave to political pressure.

Amanda Escobedo (01:13:18.03)
What do you know? And inflation linked bonds, which protect investors, it actually makes it harder because governments end up paying massive interest costs when inflation spikes. So it's great for the investors. Inflation linked bonds are great for investors, but it's not great for the government because we're paying massive interest costs when inflation spikes. So bottom line of this article, the usual options grow, cut or inflate, they don't really solve.

our problem. we're still stuck with this debt problem, right? Our high amounts of debt. And so with things like this, this is where my brain starts to go. This is an opportunity to get creative, to get innovative, right? These hard challenges. So one thing to note about the creative process, every time you're at that brick wall of frustration, that is the opportunity where creativity has the opportunity to be ignited. So.

What do we do when the choices on the table don't solve the problem? Those are our three choices, right? Grow, cut and flight. They don't solve our problem of debt. Well, that's when again, creativity comes to play and we have to start thinking about new options, innovative solutions. And so in business, again, when leaders hit that brick wall of frustration, growth stalls, costs soar, competitors leap ahead of us, the easy options tend to be

Let's slash spending. Let's double down on risky bets. It's usually short-sighted. Where creativity really shows up when we pause and ask a beautiful question. always creativity always starts with a question. You know, what's the question we're not asking? Ask a question with a question. What's the question that we're not asking? What's the system we're assuming can't change?

So powerful questions, they cultivate our creativity, they cultivate our intuition, they also cultivate human connection. Putting that note less in this article, relevance in this article, but creativity and intuition are key here. And so what's an example of how powerful questions cultivate creativity, innovation and intuition?

Amanda Escobedo (01:15:33.55)
The two examples I really love is Elon Musk's example with whole SpaceX and how SpaceX was really formed. Again, brick wall of frustration, frustrated with NASA, frustrated with like the bureaucracy, with how much it costs to launch these spaceships out and then we just lose all this money, right? So NASA's truth, the rockets are disposable. Elon's dumb question, why throw away the most expensive part?

of the rocket. Now he asked that question in some of the most frustrating times in this partnership with NASA. So their mindset was rockets are disposable and he asked the dumb question, why throw away the most expensive part? And that question just is like, well, why do we throw away the most expensive part? Is there a way that we can make that recyclable? Is there a way that we can reuse it?

And if you notice it's energizing, you just start to be like, wow, what a great question. Could we, if we did, what would that look like? Now, another example of a powerful question, Salesforce with Mark Benioff. In the 1990s, the truth about software, was expensive, expensive downloads, the CD-ROMs and the IT installs, huge IT installs, annoying. And Benioff's dumb question, why can't software be as easy as a website?

Huh, why can't it be as easy as a website? And boom, that question is what develops SaaS software as a service. And so here with this debt problem, what question are we not asking? What question are we not asking? Because we assume there's no way else of looking at the problem. There's no way of solving this problem outside of those three solutions. So I was talking to chat GPT and I was like,

What are some open, innovative questions that could help us look at this problem differently, that could help develop creative solutions? And some of the ideas that it gave me was, what if debt repayment didn't have to mean austerity or inflation? So it's really about, how do we reduce debt when the economy isn't growing while still meeting spending needs without burdening people with inflation? So it's really asking,

Amanda Escobedo (01:17:58.808)
How do we create a third way? What if debt repayment didn't have to mean austerity or inflation or really a fourth way? How do we create a new way? Another question that we kind of developed together was what if debt wasn't something to escape but something to redesign, right? Or right now citizens either pay taxes or lend money to the government through bonds. So this is the way our system works today.

We pay taxes or we lend money to the government through bonds, but what if we could co-own solutions, invest directly in the problems that we care about and share on the upside of solving them? It means bond right now, bonds equal lending, not ownership. But when we buy a government bond, you're basically lending money to the government, right? You'll get interest back, but you don't get to say how the money.

is used. Taxes, they're an obligation not a choice, but if we had a co-owning solution it would be a different model. What if you're in this radical thought, what if citizens could invest directly in specific solutions like who knows energy grid, affordable housing, local infrastructure. What if citizens could invest in specific solution that they cared about that they share both

and risk and reward the way shareholders do. And that's more like public equity than public debt. I think that's a great question to ask. And I think it's a great idea. Co-owning a solution, it's another way of looking at this. Again, it's more like public equity than public debt. And so why pay interest at all? What if repayment was tied to outcomes like GDP growth?

or climate goals or AI. So with a normal bond, get guaranteed fixed interest rate, but with an outcome linked bond, your payout is variable and depends on government performance. So if growth is weak or goals are hit, like emissions go down, you may earn less than with a regular bond. So these are just different thoughts and questions.

Amanda Escobedo (01:20:19.266)
that can spark new ways of solving for this problem. What if we didn't need debt, right? What if we had all of this based on co-owned solutions? What if these were based performance based outcomes instead of interest rates? Different ways to look at this. And so why would anyone buy, let's say, know, like the co-owning solution as an example? Well, there's a lot of different reasons. And part of the different reasons is maybe diversification.

You can add a new type of risk and return profile to your portfolio, higher upside in good times, right? You can get way more than a fixed interest rate or even like a linked interest rate. If this is based on outcomes as well, a higher upside to your return, a GDP link bond could pay way more again than a fixed growth being strong.

Impact investing. So for those that some investors, so pension funds, ESG funds, development banks actually want their money tied to outcomes like climate goals. They accept lower financial returns in exchange for social environment impact. So some investors might value impact just as much as profit. And they're willing to trade a little bit of money just for the chance to drive meaningful change.

And then also risk sharing appeal on some of these solutions. So in developing markets, especially outcome linked bonds spread economic risk between governments and investors, which can actually make lending safer overall. Normally if developing countries borrow with a regular bonds, it pays fixed interest no matter what. So if it's economy slows, it still owes that amount and that can lead to defaults.

Defaults are very costly for everybody, but by tying payments to outcomes, these bonds reduce the chance of outright default. Even though returns can be variable, investors may prefer predictable risk sharing to the chaos of default. So overall, for a typical investor chasing safe returns, outcome-linked bonds

Amanda Escobedo (01:22:33.698)
may not be as attractive, but for investors seeking alignment with outcomes, diversification, upside and growth, they could make a little bit sense. Again, these are all just some ideas on how to solve our debt issue. And they all start with a powerful question. So sit with yourself and think through what problem am I sitting with in my life? Whether it's in my career, whether it's in my marriage, whether it's in my friendship, whether it's just like the problems of the world. I want you to find one.

problem that's really taking up a lot of real estate in your brain. And I want you to sit with yourself and ask, know, what's the right question to ask? If I were to ask a question, like, what's the root of this problem? How would I define this problem? How nuanced is this problem? These open questions will start to trigger you and get to the root of what you're trying to solve for. And then from there, I would just start talking to chat GBT. mean, chat GBT has been the greatest like creative friends.

And your intuitive intelligence is the one that's driving chat GBT. It's the ones that's driving if this question is relevant to the problem you're trying to solve or not. But overall, the biggest note I wanna leave with you from today, at least from this last article, is powerful questions. Powerful questions drive creativity. They unlock your intuitive intelligence.

And so that's what we're here to do. We are here to cultivate your creativity and part of creativity requires other people to create together. So we all have to get along. And if we all need to get along, the way to bring us collaborating and solving together is we have to start becoming aware of our judgments on other people. We have to start becoming aware of when we're looking for blame.

Because when we start to look for blame, then now the conversation is about deflection, pointing the finger, and we're not about finding out and discovering what the problem is. And we're not curious on how to solve for it. That's our first episode, folks. I'm Amanda Escobedo. I just did a lot of talking. You've been listening to the Game Changer by Empower House Coaching. If today sparked insights, ah-hahs, or new perspectives, I would be so grateful.

Amanda Escobedo (01:24:43.99)
you to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with maybe three people in your network who are ready to master the inner game and unlock their human potential. Your support helps others discover this resource and invites them to be the next game changer. Join me next time for another conversation on leadership culture and creating

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