Humony Leadership: Being A Successful People-Centric Leader With Steven Howard

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress, and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Markel and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change-proof.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another Change Proof podcast episode. I'm Adam Markel, and man, I love the guy I got set up for you, for you to all listen to, learn from today. His name is Steven Howard. He is an award-winning author of, get this, 22, 22 leadership, business, and personal development books. He also is in competition with his late father who wrote 21, 21 books, but in a different genre in, in the fiction space. We're gonna talk about that for sure. His latest book is Humany Leadership. I wanna say that again, Humany Leadership: Mindset, Skills, and Behaviors for Being a Successful People-Centric Leader. In awarding the book the gold medal for Nonfiction Authors Association called Humany Leadership a significant work with an important mission. That's how it was termed. And I think when you hear Steven talk about this book, you'll understand why that was the way the book was described and why it did in fact win this gold medal for nonfiction. Authors. Stephen was also named one of 2023's top 200 global biggest voices in leadership in recognition of his thought-provoking and leading-edge thinking on the topic of leadership. So sit back. We're gonna talk about more than leadership, just so you know, but that is gonna be a theme today for sure. I know you're gonna enjoy this conversation that I have with Stephen Howard. I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof Podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. Okay, Steven, so you have a long track record of creating insight, of developing insight, sharing insight with the world, I would say. In the area of business leadership and more. And all that is quite impressive. I'm sure, I'm sure everybody listening goes, holy smokes, I can't even find the time to write one chapter, let alone 22 books. That's remarkable. Which I think the backstory, we'll get into just for a second in the backstory regarding your dad in a moment. But my question at the outset is, what is one thing that is not a part of your introduction, your standard bio and all that kind of thing that you would love for people to know about you at the outset of our conversation? Just one thing that's not part of that bio.

One thing is I was a, when I lived in Asia, I was a passionate scuba diver. I've done like 370 dives, been down to depths of like 200 feet. Used to go diving probably 2 out of every 3 weekends from, with a diving club out of Singapore. So it's something I don't do anymore. I want to get, I would love to get back into it. But yeah, that's something a lot of people don't know about me.

Yeah, I didn't know about that either. And I love Singapore, but you lived in Singapore. You've lived outside of the US. I think you shared with me for a number of years in a number of different places, Singapore being one of them. How long were you in Singapore?

I was in Singapore for 21 years and I got there even before Changi Airport. Well, Changi Airport was being built, so that's how long ago it was. Then I, after that, I moved down to Australia for 12 years and now I live in Mexico City. So I've spent a good portion of my adult life living outside the US. I'm still an American citizen, still carrying my Blue passport, still pay my taxes, but I enjoy living in different parts of the world.

Yeah. Let's go to the backstory for just one second. As I teased it earlier, you've written 22 books. Your latest book is called Humanity Leadership: Mindset, Skills, and Behaviors for Being a Successful People-Centric Leader. I think I want to get into that. I want to talk about that. But for the moment, you know, 22 is a significant number of books, but it's also significant in your own family history because you have a father who's a writer, a fiction writer. So you're not Exactly in competition, but somehow or another, there's a little competition there. What's that all about?

Well, there's always competition between fathers and sons, I think. So he wrote 21 books before he passed on. And he also wrote a couple hundred short stories, which is— I will never do. It's not my forte. But yeah, when I got up to like 18 or 19, I said, well, I'm gonna have to pass the old man. And so I've got 22. Believe it or not, I'm actually working on another one now. So I'll, I'll probably write 3 or 4 more before I, before I pass on, or maybe more, who knows.

Yeah. We won't get into the details of your method, let's say, but to produce almost a book a year or thereabouts, maybe approximately, is there something of a hack that you would share with other people? I mean, I know what my dad would probably say. My dad's also a fiction writer. He's still, still writing to this day, knock on wood, and that's good. He would say to me, you gotta sit in the seat. That's all he would ever say. You wanna write a book? Sit in the seat. So do you have anything better than that?

My father would have— I think my dad and your dad would get on well. My father used to say, when people say, what's the hardest thing about writing a book? He said, the third word. People went, what? He said, yeah, the third word. What do you mean? He says, well, people sit down, they go to their typewriter in his days, computer in our days, and they would write chapter 1. I know how to proceed. But in my case, for nonfiction, I actually help people publish their books as well. Nonfiction writers in professional development or personal development. I do have a kind of a method I use. That I coach people on, and it's a 4 by 4 matrix. And you think about what are your 4 main messages? Let's say you want to write a book about feedback. Well, one has to be about the positive feedback and that would be negative feedback. One might be coaching or whatever. And then for those 4 main messages, what are your 4 core supporting messages? So for instance, in feedback, when you're having a feedback conversation, your 4 supporting messages might be, it has to be interactive. It has to be a dialogue. You have to explain the impact. of the situation and the potential impact of making a change and on and on and on. So if you do that, you now have 16 chapters. Now, none of my books ever finish with 16 chapters. They go 19, they go 13, 15, whatever. But at least for me, it's a way of getting a process, an outline, and knowing where you want the book to go. Yeah. So 4 by 4 matrix.

Love it. And that's so, that's tangible, tactical, simple. Not easy. Nice. Like, I love that distinction. It's simple, but not easy. But I think people can really follow that because if they are somehow listening in this moment, I believe that people are always sort of just listening at the perfect time. That's the way I'm kind of wired to look at the synergistic aspects of things. I don't believe in randomness. So, you know, somebody that's in the middle of that right now, maybe they go, wow, that just helped me to get going because you create that matrix, you create a structure, and then you start to just build around it. I mean, that's the way you wireframe anything, whether you're wireframing a website or you're trimming a Christmas tree Whatever it might be, you start with something and then you hang things on it.

And if you're dead set, sit in the chair, see where it flows. Like I said, I've written my— up to second drafts. Like one time I was on an airplane editing about 3 books ago it was, and I was going to publish it in 3 weeks. And I read a chapter in the airplane and go, God, this is rubbish. This is terrible. And I started thinking, this actually fits better. I think it was like chapter 14. This fits better in chapter 6. And I just, partly because I self-publish, I just made the decision I'm going to take 3 extra weeks, redo this, take this section out, put it here. I think I put some of it in chapter 9 or something. And yeah, just when you read it, it has to flow, but the outline has to flow to get, for me anyway, to get my brain going.

Sure, exactly. And I'll prop my dad to say this, you're not going to finish a book unless you sit in the seat.

Yeah.

Yeah. But that being said, I didn't plan our conversation going this way, but I'm just going to follow the threads here for a second. What's the AI connection to you? These days, what's your thought on any of the potential impact that AI will have on literature, for example, whether it's nonfiction or it's fiction?

I think like a lot of technology tools, it's going to be misused. It's also going to be advantageous. I was helping somebody write a book about 10 months ago. I did an AI chat box. I just said, what are the 10 most common questions asked about? And I can't obviously say it because the person's still writing the book about ABC. And then I asked it something like, what are the 20 things that people outside the United States ask about this because he was writing a book having to do with cross-cultures. And he wanted to know what people outside the US thought about the way Americans thought about certain topics. And I think that helped him as an outline. He's not going to copy and paste from that. But what worries me, Adam, quite honestly, and I saw, I got invited to a webinar last week. And it was how to use AI to write your book in one day.

Yeah.

And I'm going, okay, yes, if you want to be credibility as an author, so to speak. You want to publish a book, you can do that. But then what happens? You get on— this is for speakers— you get on stage, you don't have the authority, you don't know the topic. You've copied and pasted from a computer a topic, put your name on the label, so to speak, and now you want to go and be a subject matter expert on it. And it's— and you can probably do it for 30 or 40 minutes on stage, but as soon as someone asks you a question You're gonna free something very specific, something you hadn't thought of, something AI hadn't thought about. So that's the part that worries me, quite frankly.

Sure. Yeah. Do you do a bunch of public speaking or have you in the past?

I do quite a bit of public, so I've done a lot more in the past. I'm not starting to do it now, now that COVID's gone or supposedly gone and the meetings industry is picking back up again. I spoke at a conference in Ohio back in August. I've done quite a few virtual talks and got a couple scheduled in the first quarter of 2024 for some live presentations. So yeah, I do quite a few. What's

your favorite thing to deliver a keynote about?

Well, right now it's about the new topic, about the new book, about the new— how leadership is changing. I think how leaders, using your terminology, need to pivot in certain ways in their thinking about really about their mindsets. You know, people talk about leadership skills, leadership communications. I talk about leadership mindsets. How have you changed your mindset and become more people-centric in your thinking? About what it means to be a leader in today's world. You can reduce employee attrition and the costs associated with that. You can increase employee engagement and the productivity and creativity benefits of that. So that's the key thing I talk about today. I also do some keynotes on brain health because a few years ago, one of my books was about how stress and anxiety impacts decision-making. My father had early Alzheimer's before he passed away, so I did a lot of research into that, understanding how More about how the brain operates, how it impacts our decisions, particularly when we're under stress. And so I do some talks about making better decisions by understanding how your brain operates.

Right. Yeah. I'm curious, do you think there's a difference at this— well, let me ask it this way. There are a lot of managers. I don't think there are a lot of leaders. Do you lean into that? Agree with that? And if so, why is that?

Absolutely. But I would also, I would add to that, You can be a leader at any level of an organization. You can be a supervisor and be a leader instead of a manager. I'd also say that almost all leaders also have to be managers at times. It's kind of like they have 3 different hats. You have the hat where you still do individual contributor work as a leader, whether that's something as simple as filling out the annual performance review for one of your employees, that you have to do that individually. You have to be a manager at times. You have to give direction, give directives. But you have to be a leader when it comes to people. So the phrase I use and the way I distinguish it is that you manage things, you manage policies, processes, procedures, projects, but you lead people. And so that's one of the mindset changes I'm talking about. You take away the concept that you manage people. Managing people is a 1980s construct. It's not relevant today. No one wakes up in the morning, Adam, and says, I can't wait to be managed by my boss today. Certainly no one wakes up and says, I can't wait to be micromanaged by my boss. So no one wants to be managed. In the 1960s, 1970s, we hired people for their hands and they needed to be managed. Well, today we hire people for their brains. Don't manage them, lead them, motivate them, empower them.

I love the concept of transforming micromanagement into micromentoring as an example. Do you think we have an issue in mentorship today, a lack of mentorship? caused by the pandemic and the changes to the workplace? Which way do you think—

I think we had it before the pandemic. I think one of the things is, again, it goes to that mindset that I have to manage people. That's why people want, you know, one of the reasons managers want people back in the workplace, because I can manage them. I don't, I can't trust them if they're working at home. Well, if you can't trust them, why'd you hire them in the first place? Quite honestly. But okay, so you want to overlook, you want to oversee them. That's managing. I think the problem is that managers spend so much time in meetings with their peers Instead of in meetings where they're mentoring their team members. And so much time is wasted in meetings talking with your peers about stuff and going back and forth, back and forth and talking about, well, what our next meeting's going to be about instead of spending time in mentoring and coaching. And I use the phrase microcoaching, go away from micromanaging to microcoaching. I like your phrase, micromentoring. That is not wasted time. That's invested time. In the future of your business, in the future for the success of your team and your employees.

Yeah. I mean, it feels like it's the difference between looking over, looking over someone and looking after them. And I'm a word guy like you. To me, it's not semantics. The language is vitally important. And to look after them, it really is the heart of our work because we mostly, when we're working in organizations, are working at the level of the health of that organization, the health of the individuals. So how resilient are they and how do you increase the wellbeing all around? And that is wanting to, at some level, have their backs. I'm wearing that shirt today. I put on my Got Your Back shirt for that reason. But what are you seeing in organizations that you are working with? Obviously, you produced this latest book as a way to bring about more humanity and that people-centric philosophy or cultures are more the become the norm than they have been. I would love to just get a sense of what the trajectory, you know, the philosophical trajectory. You've been around a minute. I have too, but you've been around a little longer than me in this space. I was a lawyer for a couple of dozen years before I moved in into this world. And so I'd like to just get a sense of where are we tracking in terms of how culture has evolved or devolved? I think it has evolved, but I think an argument that could be made that it's also gone the direction on some respect.

Yeah, it is. It's moving slowly, I would say. I mean, what I am finding in the organizations that I work with is people grasp it, particularly first-line leaders and second-line leaders. The CEOs, C-level people, they're still up in the clouds. They have their one eye on the stock exchange ticker every day, another one on what the board is asking to do and stuff like that. But I think people at the frontline are understanding this because they're the ones who are getting hit by this. I mean, I often say that middle managers are the glue between strategy and execution. And that glue is falling apart because they're losing people. They have high employee turnover and they're realizing that focusing on results, results, results only is burning people out. And people are saying, you know what, I don't need this. That's one thing that came out of the pandemic. People reevaluated just how important is work in my life and do I identify with work or, you know what, I have other responsibilities. And I think, you know, you talk about Humanity. And one of the things that I talk about in the book and in my keynote speeches, and that really seems to resonate with people, is I say, you know what, one of the silver linings of the pandemic is that leaders, managers now understand that people have responsibilities outside work. You know, we used to say before, yeah, work-life balance is fine. Sure, we know people have lives outside work, but as long as they get the work done first, then they can go have that life, particularly on Sundays. But now people realize, no, Adam has responsibilities. He may have elderly parents to look after. He may have children, school needs. Maybe he coaches a girls' soccer team. Well, for him, that's a responsibility. That's not a lifestyle thing. That's not just something he does for fun. He does it. And now he's taken on the responsibility of doing it. So the organizations and the department heads that understand that and say, okay, fine, we understand Adam on Tuesdays and Thursdays has to leave at 4 o'clock. Because he's coaching soccer from 4 to 6, but he'll pick it up back at 6 o'clock. That's his choice. If he wants to work at 8 o'clock at night, that's his choice. So fine, we'll let Adam go do his soccer coaching and fulfill his responsibility. Now, if we let people fulfill their non-work responsibilities, guess what? They come to work less stressed. They come to work more appreciative because now they have harmony in their life. There's more synchronicity in their life. They have the support of their organization that they can fulfill those other responsibilities. So now they become more loyal. Now they become more productive. Now they become more innovative. Isn't that interesting?

Yep. I agree. But I don't want to just agree. So I want to ask a question that I would expect I'd be asked too. Do you think the opportunities for mentorship have— are decreasing because we are in fact more of a flexible and sort of hybridized work environment? I mean, clearly that was the case because of the pandemic. It has stayed the case in many instances. And I'm of the belief personally that how a person gets their work done and how they are productive is unique. It's like the way I work is different than the way you work. The way I would produce or create a book would be different than the way that you would do it, as an example. And yet one thing we know for sure, I think we know for sure, is that our careers have benefited through mentorship. I'm guessing that yours has. I know, can think back to 3 or 4 mentors in my life where I'm the product of that mentorship in many respects. And Warren Buffett or anybody else you would speak to would say the same exact thing. So are the opportunities for mentorship decreasing? And what would the long-term effect of that be if we somehow forget that that thrives in an at-work environment versus people behind screens from their homes with a nice shirt on top and their pajama pants on the bottom kind of thing?

I think particularly on frontline areas has decreased and it will, you know, people only going into a manufacturing site 2 times a week as a manager, as a supervisor, as a shift leader, can do some of that work from remote, then they don't catch people in the moment. They don't catch those opportunities for mentorship. I also would advocate, Adam, that I think people are using hybrid work as an excuse for not mentoring. Before the pandemic, all my coaching and—

Mentorship is not easy, right? I mean, when you say excuse, we're saying that because that is not an easy thing to do. I don't think good mentor to somebody.

It's not as easy, but look, before the pandemic, all my coaching of people was face-to-face.

Right.

Now today, all my coaching people is on Zoom calls like this, and I've figured out how to make it effective and how to make it regular and how to allow people in my situation. I had one of my people I coach regularly. He called me in the day and said, I need half an hour to talk about something. Sure, let's do it now. I had half an hour clear. So he caught me. We talked about his in the moment. He's in Los Angeles. I was in Mexico City and I can do it on, I can do it on Zoom calls. It's like in the field. I mean, obviously, like let's take somebody who was a mechanical engineer in a factory or on a processing line. Well, yeah, if they make a mistake, I can't catch it from remote. I can't mentor. I've got to be in the factory. So yes, there are some elements of the job that have to be face-to-face, but there are also elements of many people's jobs that can be done remotely. I just think people are using this as an excuse of, ah, it's too hard to do it. Well, figure it out, guys. Interesting. When the pandemic hit, the CEO of Google says something along the lines of, I don't— people are going to have to come back to the workplace. I can't imagine how we're going to develop leaders remotely. And my comment to that in the article was, I think they're going to have to figure it out and they're going to have to learn because—

And did just that.

Yeah.

And I'm like you, the organizations that we work with, sometimes they're far, they're spread out across the globe and places that you could be in person, but we would, for financial reasons and otherwise, choose to do it differently. I have not found it to be an impediment to be on screen with people when there's a structure and an intent to create that mentorship moment or those opportunities. Yeah, you're going to miss a few things to not have full body cues, and there's been a lot written about the psychology of it, et cetera. And clearly, the moments when you just run into somebody In the hallway or outside an office or in the break room. Those are situations that you can't plan, except you can predict. You can predict that in an ordinary course of a day, you're gonna have those, what, what I think have been termed weak tie connections, the people that will sort of have collisions. In those moments, some really amazing things do happen. So yeah, it's not a one-size-fits-all. I think that's the kind of the wisdom in this is that every organization is different. Every function is different. And to figure out how to make sure you're not leaving mentorship by the roadside is gonna require thinking differently.

Last year I did sales training for a major Fortune 500 IT company, both in the United States and in Latin America. Now here's where this can be beneficial. After the training, I did monthly group coaching sessions separately for both groups. Now think about Latin America. You can't bring people in from Peru and Colombia and Venezuela and Argentina and Brazil to Mexico City once a month for a coaching session. You can get everyone to put 90 minutes aside on the 3rd Thursday of every month to do a group coaching session. So you can leverage it. But again, the word you use is probably the most important word here— structure. You have to have a structure for it and you have to be dedicated to the process. And yes, it's not easy. It's— I got 12, 14 sales leaders on a coaching call. I have to prompt them. I have to get them. I have to get them to ask the questions. But just like in a conference room, Some people won't talk. You gotta do the same thing. You gotta go around the room and say, hey, so-and-so, I need to hear from you. What's your biggest issue this month? What are you struggling with? You know, put it on the table. Let's talk about it. Structure's critical. Commitment is critical.

It is. I wanna switch just for a moment, switch gears to ask about brain health, because I know you wrote a book about brain health that was probably in some respects inspired by what you saw your dad going through. I feel like there's a lot of evidence to suggest that if you're lucky enough to have won the ovarian lottery, and again, this is a term that I think is more associated with Warren Buffett than anybody else, but the idea that if you were born in the United States, as you were, as I was, you hit the lottery comparatively speaking. And for that, there are benefits including the opportunity to live longer these days. And we're all given information I think, and access to information that will help us to live longer regardless of where we are actually born. So I think that's decreasing the sort of import of that statement, I think, is decreasing over time. But, but the worst possible scenario I can imagine is one where your body is strong and healthy somehow, but your mind is not at a certain point. So let's talk about what maybe you have learned about brain health that perhaps we haven't. Maybe there's some things that we can all be thinking about differently there.

Well, When I did the research, Adam, what shocked me the most, because I thought the reason I did the research, as I mentioned to you earlier, is my father had early Alzheimer's before he passed away. And I was single, living a couple doors down from Dad. And I started thinking, who's going to look after me? Is this my fate 20 years from now, 25 years from now, or X number of years? So I started doing the research, quite honestly, selfishly, learn to be a better caregiver for him. And then secondly, figure out, is there anything I can Well, the good news is only about 5 to 6% of dementia is DNA related. Another 3 to 4%, depending on which part of the world you're talking about, is from brain injuries. Well over 90% of dementia is a lifestyle disease. It's what we do to our bodies in our 30s, our 40s, or 50s that increases our risk for dementia and Alzheimer's in our 60s, 70s, and 80s. The thing is, the brain is the biggest user of oxygen and blood. In our body. So anything that's good for the heart, which we've been told about since the 1970s, I guess, the DASH diet and stuff like that. Well, what's good for the heart is good for the brain. So it's the same lifestyle issues, a little bit of exercise. Yeah. And we're not talking about running marathons or half marathons. We're talking about 20, 30 minutes walking, brisk walking a few times a week, some strength exercise if you're capable of doing it, sufficient sleep. So the brain synapses reset themselves, reducing stress. Keeping your emotions under control, keeping your stress under control, reducing cholesterol, reducing your blood pressure, and eating more healthily and weight. So here's the thing that'll scare the— both you and I are past this, so, but it'll scare some of your audience. Men, men who put on the most abdominal fat in their 40s have the highest risk for dementia in their 70s. There's a direct correlation. And, you know, we only learned this in the last 20, 30 years because of MRI technology and things where they can see inside our brains, they can see what's happening to our brains. And the last point I'll make is UCLA did some research, UCLA Medical School, and people who sit the most throughout the day and then go home and sit at night in front of a TV or do what, you know, whatever, sit and talk, their brain actually shrinks. Seriously, it gets smaller. So again, just Getting up. So, for instance, now every time I run a workshop for a group, every 50 to 70 minutes I make people get up, move around the room. So no longer you're going to sit there for 90 minutes or 2 hours in a workshop and then have a coffee break and eat donuts, and and then 2 more hours sitting down and then going having a high calorie lunch and then sitting down working for 4 hours again in the afternoon. So no, every 50, 70 minutes I make people get up. We walk around, we go to flip charts, we do things, we get the body. I sometimes I take people out. I'll get some fresh air and we'll sit around or stand around and talk outside for 20 minutes and then we go back to the classroom. So all these lifestyle changes, which are not hard, but are very important to protect our brains into our 70s and 80s.

Well, Stephen, you've literally inspired me. So the people that are watching this, they'll see it. And those that are listening, you're just going to hear it. But I'm going to hit the button and elevate my desk right now.

There you go.

So I'm about to stand up for you, for myself, actually, because I think I actually need this reminder in my My son and I, he has a standing desk as well, and he's working remotely in a data analyst position that he has. And we will text each other periodically through the week going, are you sitting or standing? Like, what are you doing? And give each other a little bit of appropriate shit to get off our butts. And I'm a big, massive believer in walking. And these small changes, as you said, are really impactful. They produce an exponential benefit over time. People think sometimes that to make a kind of a significant change, you've got to do something Commensurately significant. And the truth is you just don't. So thank you for that reminder. I got to stand up now, and that's a really good thing. So I appreciate that. I want to go back to these 22 books and ask you a very, very difficult question. This is sort of like a Hobson's choice, or I don't know, a question that's almost impossible. A Sophie's choice perhaps. What's your— do you have a favorite? Like, what's your favorite book, buddy? And I want an answer. All right. I want an honest answer from you.

I always answer that. I've been asked that 2 or 3 times before. Is that my latest book?

Oh, that's too safe. Come

on. No, but I do believe my writing does get better with improvement and practice. But also, I think this book, I put a lot more into it. And I would actually— the book before, I wouldn't have said that. Because if you go back 3 books, that's the brain health book. The one in between was about how stress and anxiety impacts your decision-making. It was smaller. It was a quickie. It's a nice book. It's very reachable for people. But You know, would not be in my top 5, definitely. But no, I think the latest one is definitely, and I think it will remain so. I'm writing a couple books right now, again, smaller books, but I don't think I would, you know, 6 months from now, I wouldn't name either one of those as my favorite.

I'm going to accept that answer.

Thank

you. And I know you are on a mission here, as am I, to create a healthier workplace in a variety of different ways. I think the pandemic, one of the things that it revealed were the fact to employees was the fact that we have choices. That, and by that I mean that when you realize that you could in fact work differently than the way you had been working previous to that, you got to make a comparison. You got to decide which is the healthier choice for me personally. And I think a lot of people have decided that the healthier choice is to be able to walk the dog and kiss your kids off to school. And then sit down at your desk and log in for that 9:00 AM meeting or whatever it might be. I think there's a lot that has not yet been fully revealed about the downside of having almost no boundary between work and non-work, meaning that your work invades your home space. It's with you because you have your phone with you. It's with you all the time, literally 24/7 and on Sundays and Saturdays and at baseball games and dance recitals, in the movies and at dinner and everywhere else. So I think there's that issue that we haven't yet really fully grappled with. But I think that overall what we're seeing are people making the healthier choice for themselves, at least based on the information they have available at the moment. Do you agree with that?

I agree with that. I would add to that, Adam, it's not just working from home. We have to understand that before the pandemic, a typical morning for parents rushing around, getting kids dressed, getting them off to the school bus or driving to school, and then having to commute to work. People were arriving at work stressed. And so, but one of the reasons I think the research that shows that people are more productive when they're working from home is when they put the structure in place. But secondly, when they start that 9:00 AM meeting, they haven't had to spend 45 minutes in Los Angeles traffic or San Francisco traffic or anything like that. They haven't had to spend it on the subway. They haven't had to stop and put gas in their car because suddenly, you know, it's low and all these stresses that they have. And And I want your audience to think about when you do drive to work, what are you thinking about? Are you thinking happy thoughts? No, you're thinking the stress of what you got to do after work. Your brain is spending so much time stressing out. When you arrive at your workplace, you're frazzled. So I think that, and then the same thing, not having to do the reverse on the way home in the evening means you don't come home frazzled and you don't take it out on the kids and the dog and the spouse. I think you end up with better relationships or you have time to walk the dog, get some fresh air. So you get that little bit of brain exercise and get some fresh air at the same time. So you're de-stressing yourself. So those are the elements. So it's not so much focusing only on the work from home, but the getting to and from and the mindset that people arrive when they sit at that desk and start logging in at whatever time and having that first conference call or whatever they happen to be doing.

Indeed. Yeah. I personally don't miss my hour and a half each way commute back in the day. I don't miss that and not a bit. My last couple of questions here really are going to be around— one is going to be about resiliency, and I'd love to get your sense of what do you do to maintain your own personal resilience mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually? Is there something that's an absolute non-negotiable go-to for you in terms of producing greater resiliency?

A couple things for me, and it goes back, I think the The 2 most important words ever written in history were on the Temple of Apollo in Greece. It said, know thyself. So if you know yourself, I'm a morning person. I know if I don't get a 20 to 25-minute nap between 4 and 5 o'clock, I make less than optimal decisions. So I've learned over the years, if I don't get that nap, if I'm teaching a workshop, for instance, at a client office, no, I don't get that. But when I go back to the hotel and I turn on my computer and someone wants to make a decision, No, if I can postpone it to the next morning, boom. So getting that little rest, getting some exercise, I will now have forced myself. I, one way, one thing I forced myself is I pay for a personal trainer, comes 3 times a week. Well, I had to cancel it today because of our podcast. That's not a problem. I'll make it up. But the thing is, I don't cancel it more than once a month because I'm paying him. I'm going to pay this person. I'm on the retainer. I'm sure as heck going to show up at the gym downstairs when he shows up. I force myself. That's lovely. That's the Scottish blood in me.

No, that's the real.

That's reality. You know, my grandmother was Scottish, so, you know, I'm not going to pay somebody and then not take advantage of it. But know yourself. Know what energizes you, what de-energizes you. Know what people pump you up. You know what people de-energize you, and avoid those people as much as possible. If you're a morning person like me, the last thing you want to do is have a status meeting on Tuesday morning at nine o'clock because my brain is I'm brainstorming. I don't want to stop do a status meeting one o'clock in the afternoon. In the morning, let's brainstorm. Let's kick some ideas around. Let's let's create something. Let's be innovative because my brain's going well. Now you're the person who needs four cups of coffee and your brain doesn't start working till eleven o'clock. Then have the status meeting. Don't do creative stuff before 11 o'clock. Know yourself.

Very good advice. And the last question I wanted to ask you is just having written this book and having a mission and being on a mission here, is there a piece of advice if you're gonna give a senior-level leader or even a CEO, somebody in that suite that you said is a little outta touch? Well, in fact, let's direct it at those folks because I think in many respects, you and I, we have conversations with a number of the people who are tasked with it, with making things better in an organization, whether it's increased engagement or productivity or whatever's coming down from on high. What can you say to somebody that's a little up in that tower that they may just not know about, about the current state of leadership in our world? And what would you say is the advice or give the advice to help them to get more grounded in what is the real today as far as you see it?

For those people, I would say have a mindset change. It's no longer— when we looked at leaders in the 1990s, early 2000s, we admire the leaders that we say they get the most out of people. No, change your mindset. It's no longer about getting the most out of your people. It's about putting the most into your people and reaping the benefits. And putting it means taking time to coach, taking time to mentor, taking time to develop them and understand that you are leading human beings. You're not leading assets, you're not leading resources, you're not leading staff, and you're certainly not leading headcounts. You're leading human beings. And so take a more human approach to how you lead people, manage things, manage policies, procedures, all those other things, but lead people. And if I can have the liberty of a second answer there, Adam, I'm going to say—

Please.

For everybody listening, my number one piece of advice is very simple. Never stop learning because life never stops teaching. Just have that growth mindset. Always be learning. That's good for your brain if nothing else. But it's going to be good for you. So just never stop learning

because life never stops teaching.

Life never stops teaching.

Stephen, I really have enjoyed, and I don't know where the time has gone, but I so have enjoyed the conversation that we had today. And I would love for us to have a second crack at it, maybe sometime into the new year as you're working on those new books. Maybe, maybe I'll revisit the question of which is your favorite child as a father.

Well, the new books will be out in January.

I could never answer that question. They're all my favorites. As you know,

No, they're not. No, no, there's some I'd like to take back. Oh, you mean the books or the kids?

No, I'm just kidding. Oh, buddy, you're turning the tables on me. All right. Well, listen, thank you again. This has been a blast and I appreciate

it. Great conversation. Thank you very much,

Adam. Bye now. Hopefully, as promised, I know I enjoyed that conversation tremendously. I feel like if I'm enjoying it, somehow others will enjoy it. I hope that's not a bridge too far, but I really felt like it was a conversation. That's what I strive for in this podcast every time. Maybe there's some questions that we have in advance or some questions that we ask, you know, on a regular basis, but for the most part, it's following the breadcrumbs. In fact, whenever I get with one of my podcast guests, whether I know them well or I don't, maybe I'm meeting them for the first time, which is the case in this instance, I will say to them this, we're going to follow the threads where they lead And that will make for both an interesting and hopefully insightful conversation for us. And that will translate into the same for folks that are tuning in as well. And I, I hope you found that to be the case. We talked about a lot of things today. We covered this whole idea of how it is that you create content in the form of books. This being 22nd book that Steven has produced. I have not nearly that many. My father, interestingly enough, is also a fiction writer, and Steven's father was a fiction writer. His father passed. And he had 21 books to his credit, fiction books at that time. And Stephen admitted that he, this bit of an honoring of his father as well as a competitive spirit, you know, between the father-son kind of thing that he needed to exceed that number and did just now with his latest. And according to Stephen, his favorite book. And I think it's perfect timing for this book for humanity leadership, meaning how do we take a more human approach? How do People leaders take a more human approach, and we get into the depth of that. We talk about mentorship, we talk about micromanagement, we talk about the difference between managing people and leading them, and not just at 30,000 feet either. I think we get really into that granular space, talk about what it is that will best serve the workplace today and how it is that we can create a culture where people are having their needs met, fully And where, as a result of that, they are producing everything that they are capable of producing, not because they have a whip to their back, but because there's an inspiration to thrive and to express that love in return for the love that they feel that's coming from those that are around them, those that lead them. In our work, in our WorkWell work with organizations, we refer to that as a got your back And when there is that sense that people have your back, whether it's the person to the right or left, the person in front of or behind you, that you could feel the presence of that other human really there for you. That's a defining aspect, maybe the most important defining trait of a culture, of a got-your-back culture. So we talk about that. We talk about the difference, the distinction between looking over people and looking after them. We talk about brain health because Steven's father passed away of a brain-related condition. He had early Alzheimer's. And we talk about the book that Stephen wrote on brain health and some really tangible things that we can all do now from where we are to increase the chance that we will avert that. And I think that's something that goes without saying that we, none of us would want to have our bodies be strong and healthy and vigorous and our minds not be as well off. And there's simple things that we can do now to do that. Only 3%, as I understand from the statistics he shared, only 3% of dementia is congenital or is related to our DNA. And the rest of it in many ways has to do with our environment, has to do with what we are doing in our 30s, 40s, and 50s that lead to how our brains are when we're in our 60s, 70s, and 80s. And that's just the correlation there is strong and more so, I think the causation that's been proven today between our physical health, What we eat, what we drink, how we exercise, how we sleep. These things are directly related to how our brains will perform, how healthy or unhealthy they will be later on in life. It's just not something that we can look away from or deny anymore, I don't think. So we talk about a lot here that I think is worth taking to heart personally, of course. And to that end, I would also say if there's somebody that you know that benefit from hearing some of what was shared, please feel free to share this podcast with that person, with those colleagues or friends or family members. That is always helpful to us. It is without a doubt our goal to have this podcast reach more people. And the way the algorithm works is that when you do share it, people will obviously get access to it. If inclined to rate the podcast and give it a 5-star rating on the platform that you're consuming it, what that does for us is it again helps the algorithm to direct this podcast to be more readily available and accessible. People will see it and all that good stuff. So thank you if you do that. No requirement, of course. You're helping us and hopefully helping other people in the process. So again, thank you for that. I would say in this moment, if you'd like to leave a comment, you can do that at adamarkel.com/podcast, and your comment or question is there for me and there for Steven to answer. It will be us. It will not be AI or a bot or anything like that. So feel free to do that at any point in time. And lastly, Just to check in with yourself, how resilient are you feeling this moment? We typically share this particular link. It is a free resource. It takes just 3 minutes. So when a resource is there to be utilized, that's up to us to do it. The most we can ever do is lead. We can't force anybody to drink or eat or anything else, right? That's our own individual responsibility. But if you go to rankmyresilience.com or resiliencerank.com, either rankmyresilience.com or resiliencerank.com, really no difference. But at both of those URLs, You can get yourself this free 3-minute assessment of your resiliency, mentally, emotionally, physically, and even spiritually speaking. And you could share it with members of your team as well. We do full analysis of teams and of organizations. So if you'd be interested in having your team or organization assessed in this regard, it's a very simple way to establish a baseline for how resilient anyone or any group is at the present time. And again, it is entirely our gift to you. And then the resources that follow are things that you can access and take advantage of immediately. So with that, I wanna just say again, thank you so much for supporting us, for being an advocate, for being part of our community, and for just all the love that we always feel in the comments that we receive. So thank you so much again, and we'll see you in the next show.

Thanks for listening. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become Change-proof. Remember to leave a review on Apple Podcasts and you may be featured in an upcoming episode. For more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change-proof teams, visit adammarkel.com. To get your own free resilience assessment, go to rankmyresilience.com.