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

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 3rd book and I have a contract for another 2. So hey, give this book a whirl and if it doesn't float your boat, try one of the others, I suppose. But yeah, 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 cool. And 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 cuz I, 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 the guests. And, and often people have to kind of take a moment and think, 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.

Yeah. 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 and we grew it to the 3rd largest sales development company in the world. So I guess that's quite nice too.

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

That's right. We're really fortunate. I mean, 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. There 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 quite a hairy time for people that caught it, and especially when we caught it because nobody knew how to treat it. Oxygen tents and all of that. So when we came out, your president at the time was telling people to perhaps inject Lysol into their veins. My wife and I said, "Do you know what?" let's just go and hunker down in France because we have this place in France. We've had it 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 took, I suppose, where my wife is too, I suppose. We took 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 flip between the 3, 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 right now.

That's

home right now. And that's why I happen to be—

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

So my father is 90. 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 Garrido, which is a very, very typical name in Spain, but rather unusual accent. When I was in So my early childhood was in Spain and then lived in the UK for most of my childhood life and into university, came out, came and went into the job world. I'll tell you all about that later. And then was fortunate enough as a consequence of having a 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 to shout more, and they just kind of shout very loud in English, and they tend to, uh— 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. I love France and have been there a few times now. not terribly often, but I do remember feeling cared for by the French that I met, primarily in Paris, the couple of times I've been there. And even though I spoke only a few words and very, 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 a— maybe this is the wrong word, but from a place of humility, you know, like, I don't speak the language. Could you help? Would you be willing to help me? Many, many people in France do speak English or speak some kind of English. But if you're sort of in a different energy or a different attitude, let's say, I've heard that the French can be not quite as helpful or kind in those situations. I only found the opposite to be true. So it's just interesting in that respect.

Yeah, culturally they are a surly bunch, but, um, I think probably less for you than for me. I mean, the fact of the matter is that they think because I speak English with a British accent that I am British. And the French and the British have been at each other's throats for at least 1,000 years. Whereas because you're American, they probably— and struggled a little— they probably helped you out more than they would help me out. But, you know, we try. And people are, in the main, that, you know, if somebody struggles and sees somebody struggling, they help people out. So yeah.

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

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

Yeah. I mean, I just, I'm blown away by, by how kind people were, how open to conversation about so many different things and just how, just the smile, the constant Smile, not a fake smile, but—

Oh no, genuine.

Actually smiling people. Yeah. And I'm a smiler. I love to smile, but I grew up in New York and I learned to be selective. I'm not so much that way anymore since we live most of the year in San Diego and another chunk of the year we also toggle between that place and a place that 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 so we hunkered, we hunkered, to use your word, We hunkered down there during COVID as well. But that's northeastern United States demeanor, which, by the way, if you're from that area, you know that people might be a tougher nut to crack. But people that you, you know, when you do get inside, when you do get warm and fuzzy with people from that area, those are very meaningful relationships. People are very, are very real. Sure. Is maybe a word we could use there, but not easy to get close to. Because they kind of wear that demeanor of like, I'm not vulnerable, 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 others can also be a bit like that.

Yeah, perhaps. I'm in San Diego fairly often because we have a rather large client there in 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.

I guess my point was really more about the smile. And yes, even though Californians, cuz 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, in the, the coastal towns, et cetera. I still find that people don't smile nearly as much as what I encountered when I was in this area called the UAE, the United Arab Emirates. And, and a lot of the people from UAE are not actually from the UAE. It's a lot of people from India. I met people from Bangladesh. I met people from Nepal and people from Pakistan. Pakistan. I mean, from all over, really. And, but it was just remarkable how, yeah, just how warm. I don't know how else to put it. And it was striking because, as I said, I love to smile. And 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 everyone's from— 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 kind because they're kind of first and second generation. My father always says it takes 3 generations, you know, of immigrants before you feel fully integrated, where the first generation aren't, the second generation kind of between 2 camps where They speak the language of the parents, so they're not properly integrated. It takes 3 generations. And I think Miami is probably about 10 years away from just chilling.

People feeling grounded and maybe feeling like they belong fully.

Yeah.

Like it's their home, not they're visiting or—

Yeah, exactly.

Very interesting.

Everybody's very white in, uh, in Miami, I find. But 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 outta school and integrate, I think Miami will show that place.

You used the word guarded. I think that's a really interesting word. I, I gave a TED Talk some years ago where the through line of that talk really had a lot to do with, with living on guard and being guarded. In that story, I was sharing how I was a lawyer for a couple of almost 20 years and originating in a different point in time in my life where I learned how to be guarded and be on guard. And that guarding, in many ways, there's a cost to it. There's a toll that it takes upon us on a level of our mental, emotional, physical, spiritual health and well-being, that kind of thing, which is a good lead perhaps into conversation between you and I about that because— I think in working, being in the work world, not just as workers ourselves and having done that a long time, but in working with organizations that are looking after their workers and workplace, a lot of people who are still on guard and a lot of depletion and challenges that are the result of sort of being 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 are also being driven by others to perform, et cetera, et cetera. 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? They— have they evolved much?

They are evolving. But can we talk about that guarded thing just for one second?

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

Yeah, it's a pet principle of ours. Let's play a quick game. Okay, so you'll forgive me in advance because I know very little about American football. I said earlier that I went to the Super Bowl final, and that was just for the event of having— for 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 going to help you with future conversations too, if you care. You could just call it the Super Bowl. Like, to say the Super Bowl final is a redundancy because at least to an American, the Super Bowl means the final.

Is the final. It is. It is. Okay. Got it.

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. Let's play this game anyway. Let's imagine we have 2 coaches. Okay. And you're going to play both, right? 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. It can be any team, right? Any team. It doesn't have to be football, but let's go with that. Now we've started. 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 season started 6 games ago and you've lost every one, 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 isn't 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 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. And you go, hey, hold on, timeout. I've got a 3-year contract or a 2-year contract. I moved 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, he was very earnest in that warning, right? And so you know that 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, those 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 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? If we lose on Saturday, everybody's out of a job. Okay? So now everybody's now in this not-to-lose mindset, right? So let's think about then how they set up their training and planning and everything for the game on Saturday. Well, they are instantly scarcity mindsetted. They are defense mindsetted because if they lose this game, bad things are going to happen. So all week they're practicing, they're teaching everybody, they're training and coaching everybody. Don't lose the ball, 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 5 minutes before the game. Okay. And the coach and 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 2 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. So everybody knows, has he put his most creative players on the field? No, he's put his biggest, toughest, most gladiatorial players that he has on the whole of the roster, right? He's going to go at And just light a candle and say a prayer and hope that they're not losing by halftime. Anyway, halftime comes along and there's one of 3 options. It's either winning, losing, or he's drawing. That's it. I was going to say it's fairly binary, but it's not binary, is it? It's whatever 3 is, right? Whatever the 3— anyway, so let's imagine that by some miracle, right, you're winning. Okay. Will you then say to your team, hey guys, terrific, now go and enjoy yourself, option 1? Or will you 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 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 mindsetted. Do more of that kind of stuff. Let's imagine you're drawing. He'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. You've got to play hard, keep going, doing exactly what you're doing, and hope for a 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 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 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. Let's 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 6-0, not 0-6, 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 are a walkover, pushover. We're gonna kill these guys. Just, we're the best, right? It's gonna build belief like crazy in his team. It's gonna build belief instead of fear, the other one, right? 5 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. Halftime, win. See, winning, he's gonna say, do more of that. He's drawing, he's gonna 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 of that. And if you're playing to win, whatever the outcome is, makes you do more of that. When we talk about trust, I remember years ago I was managing director of a company and 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 said, do you know where Mary was yesterday? I have no idea. Where was she? She was off. 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? What am I going to do about it? The chap's already dead. So I said, uh, in what regard? And he got out the company handbook, you know, the staff handbook. And it was like the blooming New York Yellow Pages. I mean, it was like 3 inches thick. Did they still have Yellow Pages? I don't know. But anyway, so like this really big, thick, weighty tome. 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, so, oh, 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 are you going to do first? Well, first I'm going to get Mary some flowers. So I'm going to arrange that. And then I'm going to— and he said, and then what are you going to do? I said, and then I'm going to change the staff handbook because it's absolute nonsense. Right? Now 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. So he didn't trust them. How much trust do you imagine that they had for him? Every time he brought out a new policy, every time he brought out, every time he said anything, they were incredibly dubious and doubtful 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, 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, um, hey Frank, what percentage of the time do you think your people are telling you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Hey, what percentage of the time do you think your people are telling the truth, the whole truth, and 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 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 the principle of, I will say to people, I'll say to a leader, 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 they go, yes, they all work for me. And 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 do you think they'd say the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? And those that go, yeah, probably about 80%, I 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 read about the acquisition in the paper when you must have been planning that for at least 6 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 building abundance mindset with, uh, with our leaders, because that issue and trust and truth, they are actually, in our experience, and we've coached and trained a lot of them, they are 2 of probably the top 5 or 6 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, there wouldn't be blind spots, right? So mindset and trust and truth, they're amongst the first things that we try to tackle when we're trying to help 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 those are the biggest issues or are there others that you're seeing more now 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 second, that question in a second. Directly as the pandemic was starting. So probably, if you remember, when the pandemic started, everybody said, 6 weeks, this will be out of here. Remember, it was like 2 and a half, 3 years, right? Everybody thought it was a 6-week gig. So people kind of kept a lid on things for about 6 or 7 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, and so they started worrying that people will be working from home, that they wouldn't be working, they would just be goofing off and watching TV and standing by the microwave all day. for eating popcorn. And so there was big, big, big seismic shift for a short period of time about, you know, again, about this homeworking and trust and remote working and stuff. So I saw that, but then that kind of drifted back to, it became the new normal. But coming back to the question before that, the biggest issue as a general sweeping overarching principle, certainly is self-awareness, right? Because EQ, emotional intelligence, is like so critical. And a key component of that is self-awareness. And what we see in leaders, and interestingly enough, the more senior, the larger the organization, the worse it tends to be, that self-awareness is, it's quite, it's in very short supply, right? Not least because Here's what never happens, Adam, because it's hard to tell somebody they have an ugly baby, right? And nobody would ever— so think of a large organization, maybe the revenue starts with a B and not an M, right? With thousands of employees and maybe even public money and so on. But no one ever comes and knocks on the CEO's door and says, hey George, you got 5 minutes? George goes, yeah, come in. What's up? He said, well, I've been watching your performance over the last 6 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 because of this and because of this and because of this. Because I mean, it's an interesting way to get fired, especially when the chap that you're talking to, you just don't want that reflected in your next salary review, do you? You don't want that to reflect 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, uh, no, 400 leaders. And I said, uh, as I mentioned earlier, By a show of hands, who here thinks they have no blind spots? Right? Thankfully, nobody put their hands up, right? It's always a very nervous point when I ask that question to 400 people. So good self-awareness, everybody recognized that they must have some blind spots. 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 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 an X-ray or an MRI and blood tests, 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, uh, prescription or remedial course of action. I'm always staggered 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? 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? And 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 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. Yeah. Once we get over the Then people's resilience starts to grow.

Yeah.

And 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 is a challenge for leaders. I think it's a challenge for humanity. It's a challenge for the entire species. My own experience leads me to think, I can't conclude because I don't have the research to back this up, but 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, tell me what you're good at, tell me what your skills are, what are your core competencies, that kind of thing, people would be able 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 answering that. I mean, that even a person with some genuine humility may come up with some things, but Our weaknesses are, in fact, we're less intimately aware of them. And you could use the word blind spots quite easily for that. So I really agree with you there that people don't necessarily know what they are. On my most recent trip, I was attending an offsite. I was speaking to a group of people at this organization. I'm not permitted to say who it was, but they brought in a magician for one of the evenings. It was a beautiful offsite. They had a lot of entertainment as well as— Oh, that's great. 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. He's actually a British magician, illusionist, mentalist, I think he calls himself as well. Very famous Netflix specials, all that kind of thing. And he was performing his act. Yeah. And what I watched and participated in was His telling us about the things that he was doing, that he was going to perform these illusions or these tricks, mental tricks, and that he would tell us what he was gonna do. In the end, we couldn't figure it out. And that was pretty remarkable. So he had the skills to be telling us what he was doing, and then we couldn't figure out how he was doing it. It dawned on me that part of why that works is the fact that we are unaware that our lack of awareness is crucial in the equation. If we had greater awareness, greater perception, greater insight, we would in fact not be as easily fooled, if fooled at all. Yeah.

So

this is magic, not miracle.

Yeah.

And that means that what we're seeing or what we think we're seeing is actually not what we're seeing. And that's the whole point of it. Our lack of awareness is part and parcel and crucial to the success of his craft of magic. And it got me thinking quite a bit about the fact that this is an area where if we were to work on, as much as it's important to work on our strengths and to strengthen our strengths and be focused on the things we're good at, 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, well, you were just mentioning earlier in terms of that confirmation bias, right? Where we fool ourselves into thinking that we are good at something oftentimes. And when 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 on 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 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 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. Yeah.

And bought a bunch of socks, white socks, dozens and dozens of pairs of white socks. They split these socks into 2. And they nailed them on 2 sides. They got a piece of board, drew a line down the middle, put one sock on the left and its pair on the right, 2 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 whiter. And they would say, well, what makes you say that? And they would say, a collection of— well, it's just clearly whiter. The other one's a little gray, and that one's almost blue. 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 into a little secret? What 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? What would you like them to say?

I would like to imagine that people would go, "Oh, silly me!

I'm such a fool." 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, you must have held the board incorrectly. You must have put a shadow over that one. Or when I looked at that one, the sun was out. When I looked at that one, the clouds came and over the sun, they changed the world, right? For a belief they've held for maybe 20 seconds, right? We're not talking years. We're talking 20 seconds. Right. They, because it's confirmation bias.

Double down. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And so if that happens after 20 seconds, what happens after 20 years, right? When they have told themselves, I'm the smartest cat in the room, and then we come along and say, well, maybe you're not. Okay. That's often a thumb wrestle, right? Do you remember when, 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.

I want to stop you for just one second, interrupt you for one second. Forgive me. When you are brought in to work with leaders, who's typically the person? And there's a lot of titles these days, so I'm not sort of asking for a single title, but I want to get a sense of where in the organization, where in that org chart you find that people are most open and willing and resourced to have you and your team come in and assist. Is it coming from the top? Is it coming from the middle? Where are you finding it?

Typically it's from the CEO and the VP of HR. It's typically from those 2, typically from those 2 people, 90 to 95%.

All right. So let's say in the instance where it's from the CEO, I'm just sort of playing with the principle here. The CEO brings you in, 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 CEO willing to bring someone in is also the same person that is sort of exempt from the process of self-examination or is living in the emperor's new clothes, that world where nobody tells the emperor that he or she is naked, et cetera?

So, great question. So imagine you were a CEO. Let's say there was 200 people in the organization, just for a number off the top of my head. Let's imagine that by hook or by crook, we're having a conversation. We're gonna show you our real secret sauce now, right? This is a real peek behind, you know, when Toto goes to the Wizard of Oz and pulls the curtain behind, and then there's a wizard doing all that thing. So 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've 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? And you say 100, right? I'll say, okay, well, Standard distribution bell chart, you've probably got 20% A players, you've probably got 60% B players, and you've got 20% C 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, it makes sense. I go, okay. So Adam, that means with 100 people, you've got 20 A players, you've actually got 60 B 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. 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? 6 years. How long has Tom been with you? 9 years. How long has Mary been with you? Not long. 18 months. I say, Well, let me ask you this, Adam. So Bill's been with you 6 years, he's a C player. Tom's been with you 9 years, he's a C player. And Mary's been with you 18 months and she's a C player. 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 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 of the sky. And remember, you told me Bill, because you know who your C players are. 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, it's okay. Is that worth a conversation? Someone will 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 are gonna go, yes. I'm gonna 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? Or the equivalent of that that we talked about 10 minutes ago.

Sure.

And the VP of HR is sat there too, then we're on our way to a bit of self-awareness, right? We're on our way to a bit of self-discovery and dealing with some blind spots. And so it's about intelligent Questioning of 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 higher quality.

So just, uh, because there's a lot and obviously we've already spoken about a lot of things and won't have 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 there's a process 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. There was some intelligence in the room, and we were all— couldn't figure out what this mentalist was doing. Now, he's obviously quite good at what he does, but the fact of the matter is that there wasn't a miracle involved. I don't know how else to put it. It was magic. Yeah. 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 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?

And 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 do a lot of work with our leaders to increase insight and all 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. The first thing we do, and of course, readers, audience don't have to, viewers 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 of the details on our website. So we would have our clients do that first of all, so that there is an objective look at themselves where 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. 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. And 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'm like, right? So we do an assessment as a good 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, right? 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 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 schoolgirl, 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 8 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 8 most successful people you can find out whether or not they journal. And of course, they all do, right? Because 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 their 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 we've got some big changes to make. 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+ for today? You might say, well, probably a B-. Well, that then, that B- behooves the next question. Well, what could I have done more of or less of to make that B- a B or a B+? 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 terse. 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, right? 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? A bit of reflection for about 20 days. Well, what then happens before 20 days, right? About 15 to 20 days, what'll happen, Adam, is somebody will ask you a question and you know that in 5 hours' time, future Adam's gonna 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 to, so that hindsight, right? That self-reflection looking backwards leads to situational insight where you go, 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 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, is 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, 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 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 prompts for that for 30 days. And 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 not only what the issue is and why as well, but what can you do about it? And I think as we wrap up our conversation here, this is such a tangible takeaway, something that I'm going to recommend that people listening who may be evaluating themselves going, 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 I don't have the time, or 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 this one question I think is really solid as if all you did today was to pick up, and I, as you can see, I've got journals all, literally my desk is just littered with journals.

Right.

And I got 3 or 4 that are filled. 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 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, fresh insight, I think this is a key question to ask because you could write for a paragraph, a sentence, you could write for pages and pages on end to answer that one simple, Yeah. but really powerful question. How did I do today? And I love that you also laid out the progression when doing that, this self-evaluation that creates this Looking backwards to see how you did, the looking backwards and that evaluated, evaluating your experience of the day provides this interesting new benefit, which is this being ability to then 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 It's after the fact. It's a, it's a lag indicator, if you will. But if what you wanted to do is to create new results, which we're always saying we do want that, then you've gotta do focus, in my opinion, is focus on the lead indicators, the lead measures. 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. And, and the way you unpacked that was elegant, was beautiful. Thank you. So I appreciate that as well. I'll give you the last word in the sense that I'm going to ask you a question, but so 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 feel like self-awareness is an element, a very important element of being resilient. So you can frame it either way, but is there one thing that you do on a daily basis, on a ritual basis that you could share with us as we wrap up our conversation?

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

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 in this project or what we just talked about? 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 4 children, right? And I'll say to 4 kids, hey, grandma's coming, so 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 it's like, I thought we talked about this. And they go, oh, what did you mean today?

Right?

The telephone day. And someone's 3 feet away from me and you think, surely the words that came out of my mouth didn't change much from the 3 feet from my mouth to your ear. So another very, very good habit I always do is we get to an end of a meeting or An end of a discussion. So as well as asking, what do you need from me to be successful? I will invariably say, okay then, so in your own words, what if we agreed? And have them confirm what it is we've agreed to, to make sure that we sense check and pressure test all agreements.

Again, just in the— 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. And 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 report to me, et cetera. And I think that's a really important piece of it. In fact, Patrick Lencioni, who I love as an author, he talks about redundancy and the importance of redundancy 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 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 if you haven't.

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

Last thing then is meditate.

Ah, yes, me too.

Years ago, last phrase, you'll love this, I hope. I think 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 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, my meditation instructor in Miami, who's one of the best in the world, said, um, you know, you can't park a car that's going 70 miles an hour. We could all do worse than get quite good at calming our— allowing our mind to calm down a little bit. So meditate is also a

Yes. It's interesting that if you don't have time for quiet, you'll have plenty of time for chaos. Yeah. It's a really interesting thing.

Yeah. 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, oh, 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've been forced to find time for your illness.

Yeah, exactly. I first encountered that principle in a, a Brit. Who's long since gone by the name of Emmett Fox. So those of you that out there are interested in looking up 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. So enjoyed our conversation. I know it always feels to me that my experiences, it's just universal. So if I've enjoyed the conversation, I know my community, our community and listeners have as well. So I thank you for that. I thank you for your time. It's late in France. It's gotten dark. It started out light. And 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.

Nehut. Thank you. Stay safe. Bye-bye, sir.

Well, I kept my promise at the outset that, that this would be an interesting and entertaining and informative conversation. I think there's tremendous insights that came out of this discussion with Antonio, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. He's an interesting bloke, chap, as he'd probably say. And it took some weaving and winding about to get into some areas that I think could really be quite valuable. I mean, it's interesting discussion, of course, which was helpful for he and I to just develop some rapport. But I think when we got into the guts of it, talking about some things that are really vital to our development personally and professionally speaking, I think there's just a ton there. And strategically speaking, we dove in at a fairly deep level to self-awareness, and each of us had some ideas to share there and came together in looking at what is in some respects our default mode when it comes to being aware, being self-aware, and how it is that 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 thinking begins with awareness. It's the first step in a process of change is awareness and then understanding and then some relearning, unlearning, reprogramming, et cetera, that comes as a result of that, those first steps. So Self-awareness, really, really key to our performance and the quality of our, our thinking, the quality of 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, 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 listenership, which is very helpful to see this community continuing to expand as it has. If you take the few moments that it might take to evaluate us in this instance, to provide a review or to give it the 5-star treatment or the whatever stars make sense for you based on the value that you got out of it on the platform that you're consuming it, that's also really helpful because it trains the algorithm to share this content with more people because you found it valuable and you actually took time outta your very valuable limited time to spend 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 are doing mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually speaking. What is your level of insight regarding how you're doing. We have a very quick assessment, takes 3 minutes or less than 3 minutes to actually complete, and it's entirely free. It's our gift to you. 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 3 minutes. It's our gift. Please, if you get the chance, take the time 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 4 zones of resilience. With that, again, I wanna just say thank you for being a part of our community. Enjoy more of the episodes. Let us know what you think. Of course, we are aiming to educate, to entertain, to create something compelling, something of value for you when you are in the mode of wanting to just not be so much in your own headspace, but rather be transported to another place and space that help you to 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 have a moment, a bit of a respite, a break. That recovery time is so key, crucial to my own level of resilience. 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.