Unlock Your Leadership Potential: Leading With Self-Awareness With Antonio Garrido

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 Markell 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 episode of the Change Proof podcast. You know who it is, I think you do. Anyway, it's Adam Markel and I'm thrilled to be in the seat today. I'm thrilled for the guest that I've got, Antonio Garrido. He has over 25 years in senior leadership positions, world class businesses. He is an expert in leadership transformation, shaping high performance leaders out of highly stressed and overworked leaders. Absolutely love that. And he's got an incredible, a really wonderful new book out called My Daily Leadership A Powerful Roadmap for Leadership Success. You're going to love this conversation. We get, we get far field, we, we, we go in, in so many different directions together. But, but the through line of many of these conversations is, is super tangible. There's going to be things that you're going to want to write down. There will be things that you're going to want to actually implement as a result of what you hear. So find a good place to listen, be potentially to take some notes or come back and be able to do that. But most of all, most importantly, enjoy. Okay, Antonio, first of all, it's great to have you on the show. I appreciate your making the time, especially being in Europe and in our time zones being quite a bit different. Beginning of my day, end of your day. I just, I've just read your, your bio and, and you know, I'm sure you, you get to hear, you get to hear that about yourself a lot. What, what I want to ask you at the outset is what's something that's not in the bio, not a part that you would love for people to know about you at the start of our conversation.

Oh goodness, maybe that I mentioned, I mean, how do I say anything now and not sound terribly egotistical, but maybe that this is my third book and I have a contract for another two. So hey, give this book a whirl and if it doesn't floaty boat, try one of the others, I suppose. But yeah, I guess I, I guess I get none of those are on my cv and I guess that's the truth. So try out some of the other books too.

All right. Very, very cool. And, and I'm gonna, I'm Gonna dig a little deeper with you. Okay, so I'm accepting your answer, but I'm not accepting it as the full answer. So what's something else that's not a part of your standard sort of intro or bio? And it may take a second because I, you know, this is a question we don't prepare for. I don't tell you about it ahead of time. I don't tell any of. And often people have to kind of take a moment and.

And.

And think, you know, what is it? What don't people know about me that I actually would like them to know about me or potentially. Potentially like them to know about me? Yeah, one thing.

Oftentimes I find it difficult to talk about myself, but another thing that they might be interested to know about me is about 14 years ago, I set up another company in Miami, and we were incredibly fortunate. We grew it to the third largest sales development company in the world. So I guess that's quite nice too.

Yeah, that is nice. And you spend time now, I think you toggle between Miami and. And Great Britain and France, which is where I'm catching you today.

That's right. We're really fortunate. I mean, I. I was full time, I guess, in Miami largely. I mean, not. You can't tell by the accent, but I lived there a long time, and I caught Covid very early on. Very. We were. I actually caught Covid in the super bowl final in mid February, just before. Towards the end of February, Covid kind of hit the States. And I caught it quite badly, I am convinced, in the super bowl final and then passed it on to my wife. And we were both quite poorly because nobody knew what Covid was those days. I mean, for the first six or seven months before there were vaccines, it was. It was quite a hairy time for people that caught it, and especially when we caught it because nobody knew how to treat it and oxygen tents and all of that. So when we came out, your president at the time was telling people to perhaps inject Lysol into. Into their veins. My wife and I said, you know what, let's just go and. Let's just go and hunker down in France because we have this place in France we've had for some time. So people ask me, well, where do I call home now? And I think it's wherever the dogs are. So we, We. We took, I suppose, where my wife is too. I suppose we took my. My wife and the dogs and we moved to France to kind of sit out Covid. And during that time, we launched this other business which is headquartered in the uk and so that's why I'm. I flipped between the three. But I guess if I had to call anywhere home right now, it would be France. And I guess Covid pushed us here and we never full time left. So wherever my wife and the dogs are, I think that's where home is. That's, that's, that's home right now. And that's why I happen to.

You brought up the accent thing. So I'll just follow that up for a second. So what is, what, what's the origin of your accent?

So my father is 90. We had a, we had a surprise party for him mid. Last year. So he's actually, he'll be 91 this year. And he's Spanish, hence the surname. My father's Spanish, my mother's Greek, she's from Athens and so hence Antonio Greedo. It's a very, very typical name in Spain, but rather unusual accent. And when I was in. So my early childhood was in Spain and then lived in the UK for, you know, most of my childhood life and into university, came out, came, went into the job world. I'll tell you all about that later. And then was fortunate enough as a consequence of having Spanish father to speak, you know, the odd word in Spanish. And that went down well in Miami. So I went from a very unusual name in the UK to a very usual accent into Miami, which is a very usual name, a very unusual accent. And now I find myself in France. I don't speak a blooming word of French. I speak Greek and Spanish and English. But because my mother was Greek, no French. But I do that typical thing that foreigners do when, you know, they don't speak the language. I just tend. Shout more and they just kind of shout very loud in English and they tend to. I guess I ought to learn the language. There you go. That's something that people don't know. I live in France and don't speak French.

There you go. You got a new, you got a new set. Answer for that question now. This is perfect. Well, I, I love France and, and have been there a few times. Not, not terribly often. But I do remember feeling cared for by, by the French that I met primarily in, in Paris a couple of times. I've been there and, and even though I spoke only a few words and very, you know, you know, very few at that, I felt that because I was looking for assistance, looking for help, coming from it as sort of in, in a. Maybe this is the wrong word, but in From a place of humility, you know, like, I don't speak the language. Could you. Could you help. Would you be willing to help me? Many, many people in. In France do speak English or speak some kind of English, but if you're sort of in a different energy or different attitude, let's say I've heard that the French can be, you know, not. Not quite as. As helpful or kind in those situations. I only found the opposite to be true. So it's just interesting in that respect.

Culturally, they are a surly bunch, but I think probably less for you than for me. I mean, the fact of the matter is so they.

They. They think.

Think because I speak English with a. With a British accent, that I am British. And the French and the British have been at each other's throats for at least a thousand years. Whereas because you're American, they probably. And, you know, struggled a little. They, you know, they probably helped you out more than they would help me out. But, you know, we. We try and, you know, people are in the main that, you know, somebody struggles and some. Somebody sees somebody struggling, they help people out. So.

Yeah, I. I just returned, actually got back from a week in Dubai. I was in Abu Dhabi for several days and. In Dubai. Have you ever been there?

I've been to Dubai. I've been to the kingdom of Brunei, which is just nearby, but I've never actually been to Abu Dhabi. No.

Yeah, I. I mean, I just. I'm blown away by. By how kind people were, how. How open to conversation about so many different things and. And just how just the smile, the constant smile. Not. Not a fake smile, but I know actually smiling people. Yeah. And I'm a smiler. I love to smile, but I grew up in New York and. And, you know, I. I learned to be selective. I'm not so much that way anymore since we. We live most of the year in San Diego and another chunk of the year, we also toggle between that place and the place that we. We weren't during COVID which was Martha's Vineyard. And we have been fortunate to have a place there for a while now. And. And so we hunker. We hunkered, to use your word, we hunkered down there during COVID as well. But the. That sort of eastern, northeastern, United States demeanor, which, by the way, if you're from that area, you know, that people, you know, might be a tougher nut to crack, but. But people that you, you know, when you do get inside, when you do get warm and fuzzy with people from that Area, you know, those are very meaningful relationships. People are very, are very real is, you know, maybe a word we could use there, but not easy to get close to. And you know, because they, they kind of wear that demeanor of like, you know, I'm not vulnerable. Don't, don't, don't look to, you know, don't try to take advantage of me because you'll end up with the wrong end of the stick kind of thing. And I think the French and maybe, you know, others can also be a bit like that, you know.

Yeah, perhaps. But, you know, I'm in San Diego fairly often because we have a rather large client there and you know, it's California. They're a completely. Much more chilled out, relaxed kind of breed, aren't they? So, yeah, I gravitate more to the Californian style than the New York style. But anyway, there you are again.

I guess my point was really more about the smile. And, and yes, even though Californians, because, because I am now a Californian, have been for 12 years. So I can say this, you know, California is definitely much more chill and relaxed vibe. And especially in the surf scene or, you know, the, the coastal towns, etc, I still find that people don't smile nearly as much as what I encountered when I was in this little ua, this area called the uae, the United Arab Emirates. And, and, and it just was. And a lot of the people from UAE are not actually from the UAE originally. It's a lot of people from India. I met people from Bangladesh. I met people from, from Nepal and people from Pakistan. Pakistan. I mean, from all over really. And, but it was just remarkable how, yeah, just how warm, you know, and it was striking because as I said, I love to smile in, in an environment where people were so willing to, to lead with a smile. I was so happy to wear a smile.

Yeah. Nice. It's a bit like Miami, I think, in that, like everyone's from. It's. It's quite difficult to find somebody in Miami that's actually from Miami. That's true.

Right.

Similarity ends there because the smiling is everybody's very guide because they're kind of first and second generation. I, My father always says it takes three generations, you know, immigrants before you feel fully integrated, where the first generation generation aren't the second generation kind of between two camps where, you know, they speak the language of the parents, so they're not properly integrated. Takes three generations. And I think Miami is probably about 10 years away from just chilling out.

People feel grounded and maybe feeling like they belong fully, you Know, like it's their, like it's their home, not their visiting or. Yeah, exactly.

Interesting heat in, in Miami, I find. But that's just, it's a. Because they're from Cuba and Colombia and Venezuela and Argentina. Because it's like, it's really like North South America versus South North America, you know what I mean? But it'll take in a few years, I think Miami another 10 years or so when the third generation kind of come out of school and integrate. I think Miami will show that place.

And it used the word guarded and I think that's a really interesting word. I gave a TED talk some years ago where, where the through line of that talk really had a lot to do with, with living on guard and being guarded. And, and in that story I was sharing how I was a lawyer for a couple of almost 20 years and, and, and originating in a different point in time in my life where I learned how to be guarded and be on guard and, and that guarding, in many ways there's a cost to it. There's a toll that it takes upon us on a, on, on a, on a level of our mental, emotional, physical, spiritual health, you know, and well being, that kind of thing. Which is a good lead perhaps into com. Conversation between you and I about that because I think in working, being, being in the work world not just as workers ourselves and have. Having done that for a long time, but in working with organizations that are looking after their workers and workplace, you know what I see frequently are a lot of people who are still on guard and a lot of depletion and challenges that are the result of, of sort of being on perpetually on and sometimes perpetually on guard. But I want to get your perspective. So you also work in that space and overworked leaders and stressed out leaders that are also being driven by others to perform, etc. Etc. So it's kind of a broad opener, but I'd love to just get your thoughts on what's the state of the workplace today and what are you seeing in leaders today. Have they evolved much?

They are evolving, but I. Can we talk about that guarded thing just for one second?

Oh, please. Anything you'd like to talk about. That's what I love about this show.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's a pet principle of ours. Let's, let's play a quick game. Okay. So you'll forgive me in advance because I know very little about American football. I, I said earlier that I went to the super bowl final and that was just for the event of having been, you know, be being able to say that I have been. I really don't understand it. I know what football is. Soccer, where you kick the ball with a foot, hence the name.

I'm going to help you with this, even though it's cute. I'm gonna help you. Future conversations too, if you care, you could just call it the Super Bowl. Like to say the super bowl final is, is. Is a redundancy because at least when American.

The super bowl means the final is the final thing. It is. Okay. Okay. Anyway, so they play American football. I should just say football, I imagine. So they play football. Not soccer, but they play football. So I know little about the game. But let's play, let's play this game. Anyway, let's imagine we have two coaches, okay? We'll say the first coat and you're going to play both, right? You're going to, you're going to answer on behalf of both. So let's say the first coach. So you're now the coach. You're the first coach of this American football team. By the way, it can be basketball. Give me any team, right? Any team. It doesn't have to be football. Let's go with that. Now we're started. And let's imagine that you've just lost a game. You've lost another game, right? And you are 0 for 6. So you've lost 6. You've lost the, the season started six games ago and you've lost everyone, right? So you're not doing terribly well. And the owner of the team comes to you and says, hey, Adam, we're 0 for 6. This isn't good enough. This isn't what we paid you for. This is why we brought you in. This isn't why we're paying you all of this money. This is embarrassing. I've had enough. The next game. So I'll be super duper clear with you, Adam. The next game you leave, you lose. Don't come to the office.

Will be your last.

Will be your last. Don't come to the office. Pack your bag, go home, Pack your bags and leave because you're fired, right? And you go, hey, hold on. Timeout, right? You, you. I've got a three year contract or a two year contract. I move my family here. The kids are just at school and they're just getting used to it. And this is, you can't do this to me. And the owner goes, your job is to win games. You're not winning games. So the next game you lose. See ya. Okay. So you believe, right? You know that he was very earnest in that warning, right? And so you know that that's. That's 100% now your belief. So you are now instantly in this mindset of playing not to lose, playing to not lose. That's now your mindset. So you go and see your coaches, right, the next day, all of your team, and you say, guys, the next time we lose a game, right? If we lose this game on Saturday, don't come to work in the morning because you're all out of a job. Right? He did that. You know those executive toys there was Newton cradles, where somebody drops one a ball on one side and it flips. He just did that, right? So his boss told him dire consequences if, you know, if you. The next game you lose. And he's just passed that on, right? And he's told everybody the same. So he said, so are we clear then? If we lose on Saturday, everybody's out of a job, okay? So now, everybody is now in this not lose, not to lose mindset, right? So let's think about them, how they set up their training and planning and everything for. For the game on Saturday. Well, they are instantly scarcity mindset in their defense mindset, because if they lose this game, bad things are going to happen. So all week, they're practicing, They've been. They're teaching everybody. They're training and coaching everybody. Don't lose the ball. Hit them. Hit them hard. If anybody makes a mistake, they're in big trouble. Our goal line is a fortress. Slow them down, hamper them. Don't let them have the ball. If they get the ball, frustrate them, right? That everybody's being taught this principle of kind of scarcity mindset. Right?

Okay.

All right. It's five minutes before the game, okay? And the coach and the. The team, they're all in the locker room waiting to go out for the game. Are you saying, adam, hey, guys, go out there, enjoy yourself. Be creative. You know what to do, right? Or are you saying kill them, don't let them have the ball. If anybody makes a mistake, they're dead. Which one of those two do you think he's saying?

The former or the latter in that scenario? It's the former. Because that's, as you say, where the coach is coming from and what the coach has passed on.

Yeah, yeah. So everybody knows. And he's put his. Has he put his most creative players on the foot? No, he's put his biggest, toughest, most gladiatorial players that he has on the whole of the boss, right, he's going to go out and just light a candle and say a prayer and hope that they're not losing by Halim. Anyway, Halim comes along and there's one of three options. Is either winning, losing or is drawing. That's it. It's. I was going to say it's fairly binary, but it's not binary, is. It's whatever three is, right, Whatever the three. Anyway, so let's imagine that by some miracle, right, you're winning. Okay? Will, will you then say to your team, hey guys, terrific, now go and enjoy yourself. Option one. Or will he say, brilliant, you're doing exactly the right thing. Do more of that. What do you think? Do more of what you've just done.

Because, yeah, I, I would say that's likely to be the coaching.

Yeah. Let's imagine then. So by some miracle you're winning. Even though you're winning, it makes you more defense mindset, do more of that kind of stuff. Let's imagine you're drawing. You'd be saying the same thing, guys, you're doing exactly what we've planned, exactly what we said to do. Keep doing that, do more of that. So even if you're drawing, do more of that. If he's losing, he says, guys, don't make this embarrassing, right? We can't. You've got to play hard, keep going, doing exactly what you're doing and hope for lucky break. So in other words, win, lose or draw. If you are scarcity mindsetted, thinking you're playing to not lose, it makes whatever happens, whatever the outcome, win, lose or draw, at halfway point, it makes you do more of that thing. More scarcity mindset, more, more fearful, less creative. All of those good things where everybody, anybody makes a mistake, everybody batters them right, because they're letting everybody down. And it, it just makes everybody entirely fearful. And at the end of the game, you know, win, lose or draw, right. If it's by some miracle, win, great, he's going to repeat that thing again and again and again. Imagine a different coach though. Now let's imagine the coach that's playing to win. Not the one that's playing not to lose, but the one that's playing to win. That's abundance mindset. Right now you're six and zero, not zero and six. Right. And how do you set up the team for Saturday's game? Well, you're just gonna do the whole enjoy yourself, get creative. We're gonna, these guys have a walk over pushover. We're going to kill these guys. Just, we're the best, right? It's going to build belief like crazy in his team. Going to build belief instead of fear. The other one, right? Five minutes before the game, he's all about, get creative, do your thing. You know what to do. Batter them, batter them, you'll be fine. Work for each other. You're a team. I believe in you. Go out and enjoy yourselves. Half time, win. See winning, it's going to say, do more of that. His drawings to say, work a little bit harder if he's losing. Guys, don't get despondent. Keep going. You can do it. You're better than these guys. All right, what's my point? My point is that if you are scarcity, mindsetted, fearful, if you are playing to not lose, whatever the outcome is, it makes you do more than that. More of that. If you're playing to win, whatever the outcome is, makes you do more of that. When we talk about trust, remember years ago, I was managing director of a company. The group chairman walked in furious. He was furious because one of the team had taken a day off, right? This was my boss, right? I was the MD or the CEO. And he came into my office and he was furious because one of the team had taken the day off because her uncle. For a funeral for her uncle. Okay? And let's just call this chap George. That wasn't his real name. George says, do you know where Mary was yesterday? I have no idea. Where was she? She was off. She went to. She went to her. She went to her uncle's funeral. And I went, oh, no. Mary's uncle died. How awful. And he said, it is awful. And what are you going to do about it? I thought, what am I going to do about it? The chap's already dead. So I said, in.

In.

In what regard? And he got out the company handbook, you know, the staff handbook.

And.

And it was like the blooming New York Yellow Pages. I mean, it was like 3 inches thick. Did these have. Did they still have yellow pages? I don't blame. So like this really big, thick, weighty tone. And he flicked through it, like, just so grumpy. And he went down the list of the relatives that are allowed to die such that you're allowed to have a day off. So like a child or a parent, right? A grandparent, if it's on your side, but not the other. Like, this is this whole list. So he said, sir, and by the way, uncle wasn't on the list. So he said, so what are you gonna do? I said, oh, crikey, yeah, we've got some things to do. And he says, great. What's. What are you gonna do? First? I went, well, first I'm gonna get Mary some flowers, so I'm going to arrange that. And then I'm going to. And he said, and then what you're going to do? So then I'm going to change the staff handbook because it's absolute nonsense right now. Let's just. Let's just pump the brakes for a second. The company staff handbook looked like the New York Yellow Pages, which basically said that the chairman didn't trust the people that worked for him, right? So he didn't trust them. How much trust you imagine that they had for him Every time he brought out a new policy, Every time he brought. Every time he said anything, they were incredibly dubious and doubtful because. Because he didn't trust them. They didn't trust him. And he was always bemoaning the fact that nobody trusted him. And that's. You know, I often say to our clients, what's your strategy for trust? What's your strategy for truth? I would say, you know, we say, we ask all of our clients, and when we're onboarding them, we say, hey, Frank, what percentage of the time you think your people are telling you the truth, the whole truth of nothing but the truth? Right. What percentage of the time you think your people are telling the truth, the whole truth of nothing but the truth? And those people that say, I don't know, 5%, right. We already know where they are in the trust spectrum, right? If they think that their people are telling them 5% of the truth, then what does that tell you about the relationship between that leader and the rest of the organization? So in other words, to get trust. Trust is, you know, it's the principle of I will say to people, I'll say to a leader, tell me, tell me who works for you, right? And they'll get the organogram out and they'll go, mary, Tom, George Michael, Fred, and I'll go. And they all work for you, do they? And you go, yes, they all work for me. I go, do they work for you or do you work for them? Right. And they go, oh, yeah, I suppose I work for them. So, okay, cool. So then I'll say, what percentage of the time you think they say the truth, the whole truth of nothing but the truth? And those that go, yeah, probably about 80% go great. Instantly knowing that they tell their people the truth? Probably about 80%. But when they say 5%. I instantly know that they're telling their people the truth. Only 5%. How many leaders say, you know, openness and communication and honesty, they're the hallmarks of our business. And you go, and then people say to them, are they really? And then the leader goes, yes. And they go, well, how come I write about the acquisition in the paper when you must have been planning that for at least six months? How come you didn't tell me? I had to read about it in the newspaper. Right. So, so this whole thing about scarcity, mindset, abundance mindset, we work very hard on building abundance mindset with, with our leaders because that issue and trust and truth, they are actually in our experience and we've, we've, we've coached and trained a lot of them. They are two of probably the top five or six blind spots that leaders have, but don't recognize them. Oh, look, you see, see how quickly it went dark? So they don't recognize that those are their blind spots. Because why? Because people can't see their own blind spots. If they did, then QED they wouldn't be blind spots. Right. So mindset and trust and truth, they are the first, you know, they're, they're amongst the first things that we, that we try to tackle when we, when we're trying to help, help the people that we work with.

Is that the number one challenge? I mean, when you are brought in to meet with leaders or with some senior level people, are you finding that, that those are the biggest issues or are there others that, that you're seeing more now than, than before? And has there been a change in the kind of issues that you've seen since the pandemic? Since you brought that up early on, things have changed since then?

I don't think so. There was, directly after the pandemic there was a huge sway coming back to this trust. And now we'll answer that question in a second directly as the pandemic was starting. So probably if you remember when the pandemic started, everybody said six weeks, this will be out of here. Remember it was like two and a half, three years, right. Everybody thought it was a six week gig. So people kind of kept a lid on things for about six or seven weeks. What then happened is CEOs and leaders started to get very nervous about people working from home, right. Because they saw that this is going to be a long term thing and not just a temporary blip. And so they started worrying that people would be working on home, that they wouldn't be Working. They would just be goofing off and watching TV and, you know, standing by the microwave all day eating popcorn and. Right. And so there was, there was a big, big, big seismic shift and for a short period of time about, you know, again, about this homework and trust and remote working and stuff. So I saw that. But then that kind of, that kind of drifted, you know, back to, you know, it became the new, the new normal. But coming back to the. Your question before that, the biggest issue as a general, sweeping, overarching principle certainly is self awareness. Because EQ emotional intelligence is so critical. And a key component of that is self awareness and what we see in leaders. And interestingly enough, the more senior leaders, the larger the organization, the worst it tends to be. The self awareness is, is, is. It's, it's quite, it's in very short supply, right? Not least. Because here's what, here's what never happens, Adam, because, you know, it's hard to tell somebody to have an ugly baby, right? And nobody whatever. So think of a large organization where maybe the revenue starts with a B and not an M, right? With thousands of employees, maybe even, you know, public money and so on. But no one ever comes and knocks on the CEO's door and says, hey, George, you got five minutes? And George goes, yeah, come in. What's up? I said, well, I've been watching your performance over the last six months or so, and I just thought I'd let you know that I think you're dreadful in nearly every regard. I think you're an awful leader. And because of this, and because of this and because of this, because, I mean, you know, it's an interesting way to get fired, especially when the chapter you're talking to, you know, you just don't want that reflected in your next salary review. Do you want that to reflect, you know, where, where you can park your car in the car park? So nobody tells a leader that they're doing a terrible job. And if self awareness, well, it is an absolute key principle of leadership. If self awareness is in short supply and nobody's going to tell you the truth, right, then how do you develop self awareness? What a lack of self awareness leads to. To answer more fully, your question is a bunch of blind spots. Just before the Super Bowl, I did a talk to about 300, no, 400 leaders. And I said, as I mentioned earlier, by show of hands, who here thinks they have no blind spots, right? And thankfully, nobody put their hands up, right? It's always a very nervous point when I ask that question. To be 400 people. So, you know, good self awareness, everybody recognized that they must have some blind spots. You know, poor resilience might be one, for example, right. So when I then asked everybody, okay, terrific, great self awareness, everybody knows that they have some leadership blind spots. Just take a second for me and would you write them down for me? And of course, that's where the problems start, because they don't know what they are, right? They don't know what the blind spot is, so they don't know what to fix. And whenever you go to the doctors and have, you know, an X ray or an MRI and blood test, they do those things and take a full history so that they can figure out what the issue is before they start prescribing any medicine. Right. Any, any prescription or remedial course of action. And I'm always staggered how, how organizations that purport to help leaders and entrepreneurs, even solopreneurs, right. I don't mean you have to be part of the very, very highest echelons of the great and the good. Like it's everybody, the first thing that we work on is self awareness. Because without that, nothing else works, right? You have to. They have to be able to say the leadership equivalent of the Alcoholics Anonymous, where they go, my name is George and I'm an alcoholic. Right? Everybody goes, hello, George. Right. Until you get to that point of self awareness and until you admit to yourself you have a problem and no one else can help you. Does that make sense? So, so we have to get over that hurdle as early as we can, as quickly as we can, as painlessly as we can, because there are a lot of bruised egos associated with it. Once we get over that, then people's resilience starts to grow.

Yeah.

They can more easily accept critique.

I couldn't agree more. I mean, I think that this is not even just a question of what. What is a challenge for leaders. I think it's a challenge for, for humanity. It's a challenge for the entire species. My own experience leads me to think, you know, I can't conclude because I, I wouldn't. You know, I don't have the research to back this up, but it's my, it's my suspicion that people know fairly well what their strengths are. And most people could tell you if you said to them, instead, you know, tell me, tell me what you're good at. Tell me, tell me what your skills are. What are your core competencies, that kind of thing, you know, people would be able to, to give you fairly Accurate answers and others would back them up on that. But if you say to them, what are your weaknesses? What are the things that you're quite weak at? I think people have genuinely difficulty in, in answering that. I mean that even, even a person with, with some, some genuine humility may come up with some things, but our, our weaknesses are in fact less, we're less intimately aware of them and, and you could use the word blind spots quite easily for that. So I, I really agree with you there that people don't necessarily know what they are. I, on my most recent trip, I was, I was attending an off site. I was speaking to a group of people at this organization. I'm not permitted to say who it was, but, but they brought in a magician for one of the evenings. You know, it was a beautiful off site. They had a lot, a lot of entertainment as well as organizational development and training and that kind of thing. And I was responsible for some of that. But the magician was quite well known, quite famous. I think his, his initials, his acronym is dmc. It's actually a British magician, illusionist, mentalist I think, as he calls himself as well, very famous Netflix specials, all that kind of thing. And, and he was performing his act and what I watched and, and participated in was his telling us about the things that he was doing that he was going to, you know, perform these illusions or these, these tricks, mental tricks, and, and that he would tell us what he was going to do. In the end, we couldn't figure it out and that was pretty remarkable. So that he had the skills to be telling us what he was doing and then we couldn't figure out how he was doing. Dawned on me that a part of why that works is the fact that we are unaware that our, our lack of awareness is crucial in, in the equation. If we had greater awareness, greater perception, greater insight, we, we would in fact not be as easily fooled, if fooled at all. So this, this is magic, not miracle. And, and that means that what we're seeing or what we think we're seeing is actually not what we're seeing. So, and that's the whole point of it. The lack, our lack of awareness is part and parcel and crucial to the success of his craft of magic. And, and it got me thinking quite a bit about the fact that, that this is an area where, you know, if we were to work on as much as it's important to, to work on our strengths and to strengthen our strengths and be focused on the things we're good at. Know. To your point earlier, it is also really important to become more aware of areas that we are weak at and where we have blind spots, because that is truly where our greater growth is. And I feel like that's what you're.

Saying 100% and that what you just mentioning earlier in terms of that confirmation bias, right, where you know, we, we fool ourselves into thinking that we're good at something oftentimes. And when, when the, this principle of. Because everybody thinks they're a good driver, Right. So if you ask everybody, do you think you're a, do you think you're an above average driver or a below average driver? The American Road Traffic association did a huge piece of research that about 10 years ago. We talk a lot about confirmation bias. In the book, it was something like 89 of people thought they were an above average, average driver. And if you think about that for a second, mathematically that's impossible. Half are better than, and half are worse than. But 90% practically think that they are better than the average driver. Well, that, that can't be true. And I think it was Harvard, it may have been Princeton. In the 70s, early 70s, late 60s, early 70s, they first started researching confirmation bias. Here's what they did. This is one of my favorite stories. Very quickly, maybe you'll know what I'm talking about. Lots of your audience won't, but they went to Woolworths. Do you remember Woolworths?

Sure.

And bought a bunch of socks, white socks. Dozens and dozens of pairs of white socks. They split these socks into two and they nailed them on two site. They got a piece of board, you know, drew a line down the middle, put one sock on the left and its pair on the right, two, two white socks. And above the left hand sock it said washed in premium Tide. And on the right hand side it said washed in own brand soap powder. Right, Right. And they took these hundreds of boards out into the world and they stopped people in the street randomly and said, which sock is whiter, the one on the left or the one on the right? Now you and I know they're exactly the same, right? And people almost invariably would look at them and go, well, the one on the left is white. And they would say, well, what makes you say that? And they would say a collection of, well, it's just clearly white, so the other one's a little gray and that one's almost blue. Right. And they, they would describe how and why the sock on the left was whiter than the sock on the right. Okay. Then the researchers said, well, actually, can we Let you little secret. Yeah. Well, they're both the same. We bought them this morning in Woolies, right? We split them, we nailed them on the board, and we wrote that above that and that above that. They're both the same. What would you imagine? What would you like to imagine, Adam? That 99.9% of people at that point, what do you imagine that? What would you like them to say? What do you imagine?

I would. I would like to imagine that people would go, oh, silly me, you know.

I'm such a fool. Now, now I see it now. That's what we'd like to imagine. But no, because they've already told themselves that the one on the left is whiter than the one on the right. What they then do is they, they. They change the laws of physics, right? What they do is they'll say, oh, well, then, then you must have held that. You must have held the board incorrectly. You must have put a shadow over that one. And when I looked at that one, the sun was out. When I looked at that one, the clouds came and over the. They changed the world, right? For a belief that hell saw maybe 20 seconds, right? We're not talking years, we're talking 20 seconds, right? They've. Because it's double.

Double down. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

And, and, and so if that happens after 20 seconds, what happens after 20 years? Right? When, when they have told themselves, I'm the smartest cat in the room, right? And then, and then we come along and say, well, maybe you're not. Okay, that's. That's often, that's often a thumb wrestle, right? Do you remember when you were a kid, you played 1, 2, 3, 4, let's have a thumb war, right? We often play thumb war with, with our leaders. Who.

I'm gonna, I want to. I want to stop you for just one second. Interrupt you for one second. Forgive me. When you are brought into work with leaders.

Yeah.

Who's typically the person? And, you know, there's a lot of titles these days, so I'm not, you know, sort of asking for a single title, but I, I want to get a sense of where in the organization, where in the org chart you find that people are the most open and willing and, and resourced to have you and your, your team come in and assist. Is it, is it coming from the top? Is it coming from the middle? Where. Where are you. Where are you finding it?

Typically it's from. It's from the CEO and the VP, you know, VP of HR. It's typically from those two. Typically from those two people. 90, 95.

All right, so let's, let's say in the, in the instance where it's from the CEO and I'm, I'm just sort of playing with the principle here, the CEO brings you in or, or let's say is open to the idea of an engagement where you'll assist in some respects. How self aware is that CEO? I mean you've answered that question previously. So the, the CEO willing went in is also the same person that is sort of exempt from the process of self examination or is, you know, living in the emperor's new clothes. You know that world where, where nobody tells the emperor that, that he or she is naked. Etc.

So great question. So if I said so imagine you were a CEO, let's say there was 200 people in the organization. Just for a. Off the top of my head, let's, let's imagine that by hook or by crook, we're having a conversation. We're going to show you our real secret sauce now, right? This is a real peak behind, you know when Toto goes the wizard of Oz and pulls the curtain behind and then there's a wizard doing all that thing. So this, this is one of our, this is one of our processes of guided discovery. Because if I say to the CEO, hey well here's your problem. You got this and this and this and this and this. And that's what your problem is. If I tell them it's my data, nobody believes my data. They only believe their own data. Why? For this principle of confirmation bias. Again, so in fact, to keep the sums to keep the mathematics really easy. Adam, let's not say there's 200. Let's say there's 100 people. Okay, so I would say to you, so Adam, how many people work in the organization? You say 100, right? I'll say, okay, well, standard distribution bell chart. You've probably got 20A players, you've probably got 60B players and you've got 20C players. That's how the world works. Standard distribution bell chart. Over 100 people. Makes sense. You just nodded as I said it. So they go, yeah, makes sense. I go, okay, so Adam, that means with 100 people, you've got 28 players, you've actually got 60 big players and you've got 20 C players. And then we go, okay, I'll say, so Adam, give me the name of one of those C players. And then you say bill. Okay, give me the another, give me another one. You say tom, give me another one. You say Mary. And I say, okay, well, that's enough for now. So how long has Bill been with you? Six years. How long has Tom been with you? Nine years. How long has Mary been with you? Not long. 18 months. I said, okay, well, let me ask you this, Adam. So Bill's been with you six years. He's a C player. Tom has been with you nine years, he's a C player. And Mary's been with you 18 months and she's a C player. Is that, is that what I'm hearing? Yeah. Well, let me ask you this. Did you hire them like that or have you made them like that? And then, and then you go, you've either we've hired them like that, that doesn't speak well for your organization, or you say, we've probably made them like that. Okay. Then we'll have a conversation about culture. You'll say, a bit of both. We'll have a conversation about both of those. Or you'll say, I don't know, there's no other answer. Like they didn't magically fall out the sky. And remember, you told me Bill, because you know who you see players are. You know, you told me Tom, you told me Mary, right? We could have played that game for 20, for 17 other names, right? And I'll go, did you hire them like that or make them like that? And you go, you however you answer that. So, okay, that worth a conversation? Somebody go, yes. Okay. How would you feel if.

Bill and.

Tom and Mary weren't down there and they were up here? Right. And why do you think they're not? Is that their fault or is it the manager's fault? Because we encourage what we tolerate, do we not, Adam? And you're going to go, yes, I'm going to go, okay, so why are we encouraging that then? Right, so I'm going to ask questions that make you go, yeah, I need to fix this. Right. And as soon as you say it out loud to yourself, right, as soon as you go, my name is George and I'm an alcoholic. Right. The equivalent of that that we talked about 10 minutes ago.

Sure.

And the, the VP of HR is sat there too, then, you know, we're on our way to a bit of self awareness, Right. We're on our way to a bit of, a bit of self discovery and dealing with some blind spots. And so it's about intelligent questioning are the senior people who want to, who recognize that if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got. And Therefore if we want something different, then either the inputs have to be of a higher quality or the process has to be of a high quality.

So what? Just, just because there's a lot and, and obviously and we, we, we've, we've already spoken about a lot of things and, and won't, won't have a terror a great deal more time to sort of dive at depth. But I do want to get to something I think that's important here too, which is that when it comes to self awareness, what I'm hearing, and I'm asking the question, not making a statement, it feels like you're saying that there's, there's a process that will, that, that, that will assist us in gaining, gaining greater self awareness. Whereas without that process, the default, if you will, is to be less self aware. It's like the audience of people that I was around, of very, very intelligent people, very intelligent people. And since I haven't said the company, I can say it was their legal and regulatory folks. So it was like people, lots of lawyers, lots of accountants and lots of compliance people. You know, you know, there was some intelligence in the room and we were all couldn't figure out what this mentalist was doing. Now he's obviously, you know, quite, quite good at what he does. But the fact of the matter is that there was no, there wasn't a miracle involved. I don't know how else to put it. It was magic, it was an illusion. It wasn't actually what we thought it was. But our perceptions and our lack of awareness is what got in the way of our seeing that. So does is, am I correct that you're saying that sort of the default is a sort of large scale, at scale lack of self awareness that requires a bit of a process to help us to reveal the truth or more of our blind spots.

Is that accurate when you said it was an illusion? It wasn't, it was a self delusion.

Ah, interesting. Yes, okay.

It wasn't an illusion. It was of course, but what it was was a self delusion. Right, yeah. So we, we do a lot of work with our leaders to increase insight and all of that good stuff. But everything has to start with self awareness. So here's our process for that. So all of your listeners, readers, audience, they can start today, they can start as early as today improving their self awareness. Here's how we do it and it's not nearly as gruesome as it sounds.

So.

Well, the first thing we, the first thing we do and of course your readers, audience don't have to view us, don't have to do what I'm first going to suggest. But what we do is we invariably start with an objective versus subjective, an objective assessment, kind of a self awareness leadership benchmark. So you know, and they're fairly expensive and you can find out more the details on our website. But so we would have our clients do that first of all so that there is an objective look at themselves where and invariably they go, they agree wholeheartedly with all of the good stuff and then they typically tend to resist a little on the stuff that isn't quite so complimentary lives. And then we always say, is there a, is there someone else that's significant in your life, a wife or a husband, boyfriend or a girlfriend perhaps? And they go, yeah, we go show them the report and then come and talk to me tomorrow. And invariably they come back and go, well, I've spoken to my wife and apparently that is exactly what I like. Right, so, so we do an assessment as a good, you know, starting point and we do an assessment every 12 months so that we can track development so that we can see that we're moving in the right direction. But I'm not saying that's the only way to pick a starting point, but whether or not they do an assessment, here's what we have them do. And we wouldn't work with them if they didn't take the assessment. But for your audience, first thing I want them to do is to get a journal. Just get a real nice journal, real nice pen, doesn't cost that much, right? And those are your first kind of tools to begin your self awareness and eliminating your leadership blind spot. Those, those are your first tools. The leader that asked, that first asked me years ago, probably 25 years ago whether or not I journaled. And of course I didn't at the time. And when he asked me why I didn't journal and I couldn't really think of a good enough reason why I didn't, other than I just said the first thing that came into my mind, which was probably because I'm not a 16 year old Victorian school girl, right? I couldn't think of any other reason, any other person that might journal. And he took that rather well and then he said, well, go and find eight of the most successful people that you can in any walk of life, in business, sports, music, entertainment, politics, anything, any walk of life, find the eight most successful people you can and find out whether or not they journal. And of course they are too, right? Because there isn't There isn't a successful sports person, musician, entertainer, politician, businessman, business person that doesn't journal. Right? From Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey. They all do. They all do. In fact, my coach, because I have a coach, we coach people. He coaches presidents of countries as well as presidents of companies. And if they haven't journaled that week, he won't coach them because they have to send a photo of that journal into him. Otherwise he doesn't coach them. Right. That's how serious that is. But here's the thing about journaling, and it's real simple, because already half of your audience have gone. Not for me, thanks. That sounds too difficult. But you know, we've got, we've got some big changes to make, right? So here's, here's how it is. You'll have a day, Adam. You'll just have your day, normal day. And at the end of the day, I just want you to do this one thing. How did I do today? What was my performance like today? What would I give myself today? Was I world class today? Am I going to give myself an A plus for today? You might say, well, probably a B minus. Well, that, then that B minus behooves the next question. Well, what could I have done more of or less of to make that B minus, a B or a B plus? You know, well, maybe I could have spoken to Monica a bit more kindly. Maybe I could have spent a few more minutes on that email because it was a bit cursed. Maybe I could have done more or less or this differently. All right, we start to do that with some regularity. And I don't mean years of regularity. I mean about 20 days. 20 days of that, what we're going to call introspection, like that kind of evaluation. Because wisdom comes from evaluated experience. That's where it comes from, evaluated experience. So you start to do that for about 20 days. You do that with enough density and then so hindsight, right? That's a bit of reflection for about 20 days. What, what then happens before 20 days? Right? About 15 to 20 days. What will happen, Adam, is somebody will ask you a question. And you know that in five hours time, future Adam's going to be saying, how did I do today? And you'll find that situationally, instead of responding one way, you think, how would future Adam, what would future Adam be grateful for if I did or said or didn't do right now? And you find yourself situationally changing your behavior because you want to give yourself an A, right tonight before you go to bed. So you start so that hindsight, right, that self reflection, looking backwards leads to situational insight, where you go, you know, I could say this. Instead of that, what that then does, when you do that with enough density, when you start to moderate your current behavior and thinking, your mindset and all of that kind of stuff, when you do that with enough density, probably about another 20 days, that leads to foresight where you can start to say, hey, if we don't do this, then something bad could happen. So you start to look ahead instead of looking backwards. And then in, in the moment. What happens when you do that for a couple of weeks, three weeks or so, is you have started to grow, develop self awareness. What self awareness is, it's a keystone of emotional intelligence. And we all know that emotional intelligence trumps IQ, right, and technical skill by about 400%. So people that come to me and tell me that they've got an MBA from Harvard, you know, to use those words of the inimitable philosopher Shania Twain, don't impress me much, right? I am much more impressed by somebody that hasn't got a degree but is working on their eq, right? Working on empathy, self awareness, social skill, impulse control. The worst leaders we know have very low impulse control. They blow hot and cold and scream and shout and throw things awful, right? So, so when we start to journal on a daily basis with a bit of intentionality, and again, you can go onto our website, download a ton of free, you know, prompts for that for 30 days and just, just, you know, when we ask people if they journal, they go, well, I don't know what to write, how much to write, what should I do? What should I say?

We go, yeah, I mean, I think you've done a really great job of crystallizing for our listeners today. A lot of, a lot of not only, you know, what the issue is, but, and why as well, but what can you do about it? And I think, you know, as we wrap up our conversation here, this is such a tangible takeaway, something that, that I am going to recommend that people listening who maybe evalu themselves going, you know what? I, I've tried journaling in the past, but it didn't work, or I've never tried it because it just seemed too tough because I don't consider myself a good writer or, you know, I don't have time or, you know, whatever the sort of the reasons might be. I think that question that you've given is really, and there's many questions, and that's beautiful. But, but this one question I think is really solid as a. If, if all you did today was to pick up and I, as you could see, I've got journals all literally my, my desk is just littered with journals and, and I got three or four that are filled, you know, so these are done and now I'm on a new one. Yeah, I mean, and some of them in note taking. In all honesty, not everything is the formal journaling, but use them for note taking as well. I think this question of how did I do today? Is a fabulous question because, you know, even for somebody that just wants to get started or even somebody that's been doing it a while and is looking for fresh inspiration, exploration, you know, fresh insight, I think this is a key question to ask because you could, you could write for a paragraph, a sentence, you could write for pages and pages on end to answer that one simple but really powerful question, how did I do today? And, and I love that you also laid out the progression that when, when doing that, this, this self evaluation that, that creates this looking, looking backwards to see how you did it, the looking backwards and, and that evaluated, evaluating your experience of the day provides this, this interesting new benefit which is this being ability to then in, in a new day, in a new moment, look forward to be able to have foresight instead of always looking backwards to say, you know, how did I do? Oh, I didn't do so great, I got a B or, or I did quite well today or whatever it might be. But it's after the fact, it's a, you know, it's a lag indicator if you will. But, but, but if what you wanted to do is to create new results, which we're always saying we do want that, then what you've got to do, focus, in my opinion, is focus on the lead indicators, the lead measures. And, and this, what you're giving us, I think is really providing a lead measure for how it is that we would create a new experience and a better experience. So I, so thank you for that. Antonia. You unpacked. That was, was, was, was elegant, was beautiful. So I appreciate that as well. You know, I would get, I'll give you the last word in the sense that I, I'm going to ask you a question but so direct, direct it just a bit here. Is there something that you do on a daily basis for yourself personally that contributes to your self awareness or contributes to your resiliency? I, I feel like self awareness is an element, a very important element of being resilient, but so you can frame it either way but is there one thing that you do on a daily basis on, On a ritual basis that you could share with us as we, as we wrap up our conversation?

Well, obviously, other than journal, right? Which is like, I do everything.

Fantastic.

Yes, obviously. Yeah, I would. Another thing that I do every day and variants of it, but not too far distant from it. I never leave a conversation with any of my staff in any of my businesses and I have many conversations every day with them. Some version of what do you need from me in order to be successful, right. In this project or what we just talked about. So I do that a lot. So what do you need from me in order to be successful?

Another great question.

Yeah. And also it's interesting why, how when you say to somebody, okay, so we clear that's the plan then? Are we good with that? They'll go, yeah. Yes, Adam, got it. What is quite staggering is when you. Then they'll walk out of your room. I have four children, right. And I'll say to four kids, hey, grandma's coming to make sure you tidy your room. Half an hour later, we'll walk past the room and somebody's eating a pizza and somebody's doing something else. And. And like I thought we talked about this. And they go, oh, what did you mean today? Right, the game, and someone's three feet away from me. And you think, surely the words that came out of my mouth didn't change much from the 3ft from my mouth to your ear. So another very, very good habit I, I always do is we get to an end of a meeting or an end of a discussion. So as well as asking what you need for meeting to be successful, I will invariably say, okay then, so in your own words, what if we agreed and have confirm what it is that we've agreed to, to make sure that we sense check and pressure test all agreements.

I don't again, just because I've said we were sort of in that last question phase, but I can't help myself. I'm going to break my own rule here. Do you find that when you ask that question of people, especially more senior folks, that they're ever insulted by that or don't feel as though you trust them? Never.

Because they are staggered by how many times they ask that question and somebody says, oh, I thought we said this. And if it wasn't for that insight aha moment, like, if that never happened, they would be like, this is a dumb question. But they are staggered by the answers that they get back.

Right.

And it also builds, you know, Active listening and lots and lots and lots of good stuff. So. No, they are, they are never beautiful.

I love it. And I appreciate that not only for my own edification, but for people out there that might have been thinking, you know, I don't know that I could feel comfortable in saying that to people that are my peers or people that are, you know, colleagues or even people that I'm, you know, that report to me, etc. And I think that's a really important piece of it. In fact, you know, Patrick Lencioni, who I love, is an author. He talks about redundancy and the importance of, as a leader, to be redundant sometimes in the things that you say. Not because you're being demeaning or dismissive of people or, you know, disrespectful, but rather because there are so often instances where people just don't hear what you've said.

Yeah.

Or what you've said or frankly, what you've said hasn't been clearly communicated. I mean, again, self awareness. Right. It could be I have not communicated this clearly. So part of what we're doing here is to establish whether or not I have communicated clearly.

Correct. And it's your fault.

Exactly. It's mine to own if, if you haven't heard what I meant you to hear. Yeah.

Last thing then is. Is meditate.

Ah, yes, me too.

Years ago I had last, last phrase. You love us, I hope. I think, you know, we're constantly telling leaders to slow down, to speed up, to think, measure twice, cut once and all of that kind of stuff.

Sure.

Work, life, balance and all of that kind of stuff with leaders. But listen to this for Isn't this the great, the best, the best expression? You know, they'll often tell us they lie in bed thinking about things and mulling things over in the mind and all of that kind of stuff. And years ago, my medic, my meditation instructor from in Miami, who's one of the best in the world, said, you know, you can't park a car that's going 70 miles an hour.

Right.

And I think we need to, we should all. We could all do worse than get, get quite good at calming our. Allowing our mind to calm down a little bit. So meditate is also important. I think that was it. Last one.

Yes. It's. It's interesting. You. If you don't have time for quiet, you'll have plenty of time for chaos. It's, it's really, it's a really interesting thing.

I also say it in the book. I say to leaders who you know, when I ask them about their work, life balance and they go, I don't have time for any of that kind of stuff. And we say in the book, and we say it to them all the time, if you think you can't find time for your wellness, you'll be forced to find time for your illness.

Yeah, exactly. I, I first encountered that principle in a, a Brit who's, who's long since gone by the name of EMT Fox. So those of you that out there are interested in looking up, you know, someone's name and finding out what they've done and what they've written, what they've said. Emmett Fox is a good one. So I'll leave it there. Antonio, what a pleasure. I've so enjoyed our conversation. I know it always feels to me that my experience is just universal. So if I've enjoyed the conversation, I know my, my community, our community and listeners have as well. So I thank you for that. Thank you for your time. It's late in France. It's gotten dark. It started out light and, and we've watched, we've watched the daylight leave the, leave the window. For those of you that have been watching this on YouTube, but otherwise, again, Antonio, thank you so much for everything today.

Thank you. Stay safe. Bye bye, sir.

Well, I, I hope that I kept my promise at the outset that this would be an interesting and, and entertaining and informative conversation. I think there's tremendous insights that came out of this discussion with Antonio and I, I thoroughly enjoyed it. You know, he is an interesting, he's an interesting bloke chap, as he'd probably say. And, and it took, it took some weaving and winding about to get into some areas that I think could, could really be quite valuable. I mean it's interesting discussion of course, which was, which was helpful, you know, for us, for he and I to just develop some rapport. But I think when we, we got into the, to the guts of it, talking about some things that are really vital to our development, personally and professionally speaking. I just, I think there's just a ton, a ton there and, and strategically speaking, we, we dove, we dove in at a fairly deep level to self awareness and you know, each of us had, had some ideas to share there and came together in, in, in looking at what, what is in some respects our default mode when it comes to being aware, being self aware and how it is that we, we self evaluate. How do we evaluate our own experience and what do we do to be more insightful beforehand as opposed to hindsightful how do we become more foresightful? As a lead measure that produces results as opposed to seeing it from the back and then correcting from there, but ultimately living from lag measures and from lag indicators that keep us not being as productive, not being as capable as we can be. We'd always opt to make the right decisions first in the first instance and to make right decisions to think rightly. We often, I believe, have to evaluate our process, our thinking process and our, our thinking begins with awareness. It's, it's the first step in any, any process of change is awareness and then understanding and then some, some re. Relearning, unlearning, reprogramming, et cetera. That comes as a, as a result of that, those first steps. So awareness, self awareness, really really key to our performance and the quality of our thinking, the quality of our, our behaviors, our decision making, the quality of our lives, frankly. And that's across every, every sector of our lives. So I love this conversation. There's tons in there to unpack. I know you'll enjoy it or have enjoyed it and what I'd say is this, please, if you have enjoyed it, if you share this episode with a friend, a colleague, a family member, anybody that you think could benefit and we appreciate you doing that. Sharing this episode only helps to increase our, our listenership which is, is very helpful to see this community continuing to expand as it has. If you take the few moments that, that it might take to evaluate us in this instance to provide a review or to give it the five star treatment or the whatever stars make sense for you based on, on the value that you got out of it on the platform that you're consuming it. That's also really helpful because it, it trains the algorithm to share this content with more people because you found it valuable and you actually took time out of your very valuable limited time to, to spend in, in in service to us. And I thank you for that and want to also recommend that you take moment, a moment for your own self evaluation, even right this moment to see how you're doing mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually speaking. What, what is your level of insight regarding how you're doing? We have a very quick assessment. Takes three minutes or less than three minutes to actually complete and it's entirely free. It's our gift to. You can go to rankmyresilience.com rankmyresilience.com at any point that it makes sense, but now is always a good time to just create that self evaluation less than three minutes. It's our gift. Please, if you get the chance, take the time to, to get those answers as well as the free resources that'll, that'll come as a result of you getting your own personalized and confidential score in those four zones of resilience. With that, again, I wanted to say thank you for being a part of our community. Enjoy more of the episodes. Let us know what you think. Of course, we, we are aiming to educate, to entertain, to create something compelling, something of value for you when, when you are in the mode of wanting to.

To.

Yeah, just not. Not be so much in. In, in your own headspace, but rather be transported to another, another place and space that help you to, you know, helps you to enjoy the whole process even better. I mean, that's why I listen to podcasts. To learn things, to be entertained, to just to have a moment, you know, a bit of a respite, a break. That recovery time is so key, crucial to my own level of resilience and, and that's why I listen to podcasts and listen to music and listen to audiobooks and all that kind of thing. I'm sure you do the same. So again, thank you so much and have a beautiful rest of your day and ciao for now.

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.