GA 509 | Courage, Humility, and Discipline with Marc Braun

You have to lead yourself first. You have to make promises to yourself and then keep them. And they said, if you can just make a promise to not push, snooze, and live by that, just do that one promise until you've actually lived by that, then you will start to build discipline and credibility with yourself and you can do it with others.

Hey, everyone, this is Ron Pereira. So today I am very excited to welcome Mark Braun to the show. Now, man, let me tell you what, today is an episode that you're going to want to dig in and really listen to. It's a pretty powerful episode. It was actually pretty moving for me to record with Mark. So, yeah, I've known Mark for a few years now when we were able to connect at the AME Conference a few months ago in Cleveland and we talked about doing this podcast, and, man, oh, man, did Mark deliver. So really the topic of the day is just kind of coaching, which you're like, oh, yeah, that sounds real exciting, Ron. Coaching. But what was really powerful about this episode is Mark really peeled. Peeled back some. Some the curtain a little bit on himself and. And talked a little bit about, you know, how certain people have impacted him and even shared some pretty personal stories of. Of why he believes and behaves the way he does. And I don't know, it was just. It was just really powerful. Now, lots of good stuff also just on just general, you know, tips and tricks for how to go about leading others and communicating with others. But I don't know, I think it was Mark's sort of openness and even his V ability to share that was so touching to me. So show notes can be found over@gembapodcast.com look for episode 509. Again, gembapodcast.com and look for episode 5. 09. Okay, enough for me. Let's get to the show. Mark, how's it going?

It's going well, Ron. Good to be here with you.

Yeah, welcome to the show. It was great to see at AME there in Cleveland. So.

What a show.

Yeah, it was. It was really good. You know, I was actually. Quick AME chat. I'll be. I was. I was wondering, like, what was going to be like, you know, because then, you know, we. The numbers have gone down a little bit over the last few years, but. But I felt like the energy was. I mean, it wasn't the most people that I've ever seen there, but the energy was really good, and I was pleasantly surprised. What about you?

No, I was extremely pleased. I mean, I think that was the first time that I stepped off the board, so I was just a normal member again after five years. And so I was just there feeling that energy. And I felt it from the vendors. I felt it from the attendees. I felt this from the speakers. I thought, you know, Kim and her whole team there just did an incredible job. And I felt like it was actually back to what I remember pre Covid. And so whether the numbers are exactly the same, the energy was there, and. Yeah, that's really what moves cultures. And so. That's right. Loved it. Really.

That's right. Yeah. Good stuff. Good stuff. All right, Mark, so you know the drill. We like to start all of our episodes with our guest sharing a quote. What do you got?

Yeah. So I thought about this before we got here. My favorite quote. Maya Angelou, who's this beautiful African American poet, she has a quote that says, courage is the most important of all virtues, because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage. So that's my favorite quote. Maya passed away a few years ago, but I carry that with me. And you can tell by the encouraging leaders, I view courage as one of those things that we have to breathe into other human beings so that they can. So they keep on growing.

Yeah, well.

Yeah.

What's the opposite of courage? Fear, perhaps?

I guess what's interesting, you know, cowardice, which is being afraid and not acting, is the opposite. Courage is, actually has fear in its definition. So you end up needing to be afraid and still take action.

Yeah.

And so courage is action on purpose in the face of fear. It's mastery over that fear instead of absence of it. So we don't lead fearlessly. We lead courageously because always leaders are always leading at the edge of themselves. They're always taking place people. Places that they've never been. And so it requires courage, and it requires people that are encouraging other leaders to be that.

Well, I love it. That's great. Yeah.

We had.

A few episodes ago, my colleague John Knott came on. He wrote a book on just the whole idea of fear and overcoming it. And, yeah, it's perfectly aligned. So well said to think about without fear. There can be no courage without fear.

And nobody likes to be afraid. So it's a general human trait that we don't like to be afraid. So we normally ignore it or hide it instead of admit it and act in it.

Yeah.

And it's so powerful when you can do both.

Yeah. Wonderful. Wonderful. All right, well. Hey, Mark, tell us A little bit about yourself. Tell us about your, your background, how you got involved in all this continuous improvement stuff that we do and then, and then what you're up to these.

Yeah, well, my first step into continuous improvement, you know, I was one of those lucky kids that after engineering school, chemical engineering, I stepped into a role and Bruce Farbel was my first leader. He was the plant manager and he had that whole mindset of how do you build a culture where everybody's improving things? So he handed me a book, Kaizen and Flight of the Buffalo and Deming's work. And he basically worked me like he just viewed this as a project he needed to help engineers learn this stuff. And, and so I got it very early on at age 23, stepping into a plant above my pay grade for sure and trying to figure out how to do that. It was a union plant, so I was failing miserably at that. And I mean I can I tell you one thing that he said at six months. So six months in, he sits me down for a six month review and he says, mark, I like you a lot. And I'm like, I like you too. You know, it's like he said, you're really smart. And I'm like, that is all that I actually have ever wanted people to say about. Like that's, that was the whole thing that I was working for. And he said, if you don't change how you act with the operators, you will not be here in another six months. So you think about that beautiful coaching that he gave me. He said, I care about you, I believe in you, I believe you have more. But if you don't adjust this behavior that's against the people that you're serving, you're going to fail at becoming what I know you could be. I just think about like how many people in their life don't get that. That person who speaks into them and corrects them, not only cheers for them, not only says you're smart, but says you need to change the behavior you are exhibiting. Now.

What were you doing?

Well, so it was a union plant and I was trying to show how smart I was to all of the people. And I was like, I mean I've got a really good idea. So I was telling them my ideas and they would come back. And I'm like, that idea is not as good as my idea. I've got a better idea. And so I was trying to prove I was right. And they had been there average 10 year, 25 plus years. And I had been there for two days or, you know, a month and a half. And they just said, basically, I don't care what you're saying right now. And, you know, I didn't feel it when he said it. I felt it, you know, it was a union plant. So they were treating people differently based on relationships. I'm trying to figure all this stuff out. I have no idea. And they said, you, you actually have to care about what they care about and learn to help them solve the problems that they want to solve. And you'll earn the right to solve the problems that you want to solve. And so it was really a beautiful people leadership lesson from him early on.

How did you adjust then, your approach as a young youngster who knows it all and smart?

Gosh. Well, so first, the first steps were to, to accept his feedback, which was, you know, the first thought was like, can you give me a test? Or something? Like, I was, I was trying to figure out my way out of this problem. And I could, I found out pretty quickly, like that day, I was like, I can't figure my way out. So I asked him for help, like, what would he suggest? He suggested Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. They had a training course and a book and Dale Carnegie's how to Win Friends and Influence People. And so I dove into those topics with the same veracity that I had with, you know, quantum physics. And I learned that literally the people systems had more depth, more beauty, more challenge, more heavy variables. Like I couldn't solve it. Like, I couldn't get it to where I could formulaically solve it. I had to actually just stay curious and keep learning. And so those two resources, you know, Stephen Covey's work and then Dale Carnegie's. Dale Carnegie has stayed with me.

Yeah.

For, for 30 years of leadership.

Oh, my gosh.

Unbelievable. He had a heart for people. So he wasn't calling the operators bad. He was not calling me bad.

Yeah.

He was saying, you're doing your best and right now it's not good enough. You need to adjust. He didn't protect his own comfort zone and he allowed, you know, discomfort because he was correcting a person on his team. He was willing to do that. So he didn't allow his comfort zone to get in the way of my growth. And I was so grateful for that.

Wow. So fast forward, real fast, like today, like, what. What are you up to the these days then?

Yeah, so, I mean, I just, you know, over the last 30 years, I have continued to find leaders like Bruce to put into my life that can say, mark, this Area you're doing it and this area you need to adjust. I call those coaches. And so I've been professionally coached externally for 20 years, on my way to CEO and beyond. And then I have found that as my favorite thing in life to do as a leader is to coach other leaders. So I just do that for other engineers when they're working for me as an engineering leader or for other salespeople when I was a sales leader. Today I'm the co founder and CEO of Encouraging Leaders, which is really a collection of leaders that have gone through similar experiences to me that have, that have learned that they can't do it, that they have to do it for others, they have to pay that forward, they have to keep on having people in their life that are coaching them and they have to keep on coaching others. You would recognize it as the continuous improvement cultures, but that's where that is. It's when you have leaders at every level who are learning from the people around them and coaching the people around them to help bring out the best in them.

Hey, I want to circle back to something you said earlier. I hope it's not too personal. We can cut this out if it is. But, but you, you said that that boss set you down and he said, mark, you're, you're really smart. And you said, wow, that's all I ever wanted to hear was that you were smart. Like where, where was that coming from? Why was that all you wanted to hear when you were a young 23 year old whippersnapper?

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Where was that coming from? Why was that all you wanted to hear when you were a young 23 year old whippersnapper?

Well, I think that, yeah, I mean, definitely could go deep for sure. I think, you know, at 9, my dad and mom got divorced and I was wrestling with who I was in the world. Going through teenager years trying to figure out like, am I enough? Is this enough? Is love real? Do I belong? And intellectual testing was one place that I could actually excel in and could prove My worth. And so it was at that age. It was like, that's all that I could grab on to. I didn't have. I didn't have a faith of my own at that time. I didn't have a foundation that was solid. All I had was like, tests. And I find sometimes, like I find 50 year olds, which I'm 50 now, and I find 50 year olds that are still trying to prove how smart they are. And, and I recognize it. It's. I remember it very Clearly. It was 20 years ago. I had three boys. We were raising three boys and they were starting to get complex. And we had one on the way. And I did an exercise where I. I wrote the epic. Basically, you put what is going to be on your gravestone. It's a end of life kind of thing. And, and I remember the only word on there that I could make sure that everyone knew that they would write was smart. And at that time, I did not want that. I wanted so much more than that. I wanted different words on there. I really didn't care if people knew that I was smart. I just wanted them to know I cared and that I loved them and that. That I had grown and was willing to pour back in and serve.

Yeah. Wow. Well, thank you for sharing. I didn't mean to go so deep.

No, it's good. I mean, I think that's where the work is. You know, you think about. We don't always go there, but sometimes that's where the work is.

Yeah.

And so, you know, Bruce didn't have to take me there. He just had to. I just had to know that he cared about me deeply and that he was willing to pour in and say, go this direction. And then I had to follow his guidance until I learned enough to. To have more aspirational goals than smart.

Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember? So that seems to be like, if I were to ask, like, you know, do you remember, like your first being coached? That sounds like that's it. But I'm curious, like, if we were to flip it around, do you remember the first meaningful experience where you were the coach with, with an individual and like, what was that? Like, where you could sort of start paying it forward. Do you remember, remember that outside of your kids and all that? Because we're always coaching our kids. Right.

Well, but, but those are the most meaningful ones. And we're practicing in these business to be able to, you know, to be able to do it well at home. I mean, the one I'll. I'll bring up is actually at home. So we had adopted a young man, Ryan Simmons. So he had come into the home at 8. I started mentoring him and spending time with him, and then he was in our wedding, and so he was growing faster than our Bible odd kids. And so I'm watching and I'm like, oh, boy, this is hard. Because you said he was eight. He was eight when we came to the family. Yeah, nine whenever we were married. Okay. He's starting to grow up. And. And if you think about parenting, how.

Old were your other kids?

They were zero when we were married, so they were nine years behind him.

Oh, okay.

Okay. Nine. And. And more beyond him. Okay. And so his. His challenges started to become very large. And I'm sitting there going, my coaching is inadequate right now. Like, I'm going to have to learn how to do this better. If you think about, he was a teenager and the kids were young. So I'm sitting there, like, ready for the young, but I'm not, like, ready for the teenager problem size. And I'm like, oh, boy. Like, I have to up my game. And, you know, just watching that, that movement, him coming closer and figuring all of that out was definitely the first time I'm pouring in, the first professional one. Uh, you know, the one that comes to mind is I was a sales leader, technical director for a group of engineers doing inspections in the oil and gas world. And there was a young engineer. These were all engineers on the team, but they had to move into the sales brain, if that makes sense. They had to. Oh, yeah, deal with the people side. And so they had to learn what I.

Maybe not their strength.

Not their strength. I mean, we were hiring from people that had it as a possibility, but not their strength. And a young leader there, just watching him learn fast and grow fast and. And he was taking coaching directly, and he was applying, and he's learning and growing. Today he's still with that firm, and he's just knocking it out of the park. And we were on a 40 growth year over year. So we were, you know, it was an intense growth period, and he needed to keep on stepping up in leadership, not only in sales, like transactional, but relational and bigger and bigger agreements and bigger and bigger contracts, and he just kept going and going, going. He happened to be a gymnast, so I. I challenged him one time. We were on the road together, and I said. He said, I bet you can't do one standup pushup up against the wall. And I'm like, I can do one. He's like, I can do 15 and you can't do one. And so we did it and I couldn't do one standup pushup. So the skill sets, you know, he could have coached me on gymnast. The point is, is that I could learn from him. I, I couldn't do what he could do, but he couldn't do what I could do. And so we could enjoy pouring into each other. And man, it's, it's, it's a fun thing to see a young leader unlocked and growing and he's leading incredibly well now. Still there.

Yeah. And what about the whole idea of coachability? Is there, is that required? Is it, is that a prerequisite, you think, for, for being a coach and you know, what do you think there's.

Well, most of your, most of your audience is continuous improvement, focused, Correct.

Yep.

And so what do I think about coachability as a prerequisite for building the kind of cultures that you and I love? I think it's, it's, it's entry stakes. It's. There's zero movement. I wouldn't touch them with the ten foot pole if they're not coachable organizationally. And you know, you think about 2 to 5% succeed at the transformation. And I believe it's because of this particular challenge. So when I break down coachability, it's what I look for in leaders that I hire, it's what I look for in partners, it's what I look for in myself. I break it down into three, three values. One is courage, just like Maya Angelou said. The second is humility. And the third is discipline. And it's the courage to. To in our language, it's the courage to seek perfection or seek excellence, even though you'll know you'll never get there. It's like setting targets that are high. It's like, I'm going to go out there and do that. That's awesome. That's great. That's courageous action. It's courageous to do that. The humility to know that you can't do it alone, that you'll need your team, but you'll also need support from around. Like you're not in this game alone. That you can actually admit that, that you need help, which was hard for me as a young kid. I, my dad really wanted independent kids and so we got a lot of independent action out of that. But I didn't learn to ask for help as easily because of that. So I needed to learn the practices of humility and then the discipline to actually change your behaviors that are getting in the way. Of getting your results. So your behaviors currently are exactly designed to get you the results that you're getting. And if you don't have the discipline to be able to change those, you'll never actually make progress. And that was one. You know, I had been raised to have courage. I had not been raised to have humility. And discipline was low in our home. And so I had to learn that in life and leadership. I had to learn that. I had to do it. I had enough discipline to get A's, but I didn't have enough discipline to actually lead people. They need to see consistency and I didn't. I had, I'm still working on it today.

What, what is your. I'm curious just because I know I've known you for a while, Mark, and I know you're, you're a dialed in guy. Like what's your morning routine look like? Just thinking about discipline. So you did you have one, do you have like a sort of routine?

Yeah, I do it and it's one of the, one of the core foundations of the discipline set. So for me it starts the night before and it's 9:30, target for bedtime. So in bed, lights out, 9:30 and then a 5 o' clock wake up time. So if I can lock those two things in, pretty much all the other pieces can work. If I lose that rhythm, that single discipline, all the other ones start to move. The reason I set five o' clock is I need two hours before I'm required in leadership to be able to actually get to the point where I'm strong enough mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually to go out and lead. And so that two hours, five to seven is for, for me so that I can be more for others. And it, you know, I mean, obviously I'm cleaning and taking care of things, but the primary ones, there are a quiet time, prayer, meditation time that I can actually reflect on the day before and the day ahead and ask for help, you know, basically intuitively and from, from my faith practices that can allow me to say I'm now ready to go out and serve others. Without that. I mean there's times whenever my life gets busy and I need more time than that. And there's, there's time like Covid hit and, and it was like, whoa, this is really heavy leadership wise. And so I actually needed more time. It that five to seven gives me an hour of quiet, you know, that, that reflection time. And some. Sometimes I needed two hours of that total. And so adjusting those, that's really, those are the key Pieces I love. I would love to. I mean, I do have coffee in the morning. I enjoy that quite a bit. I make espresso and I have a manual grinder that I grind perfectly and have. You know, I like the stuff where I'm like, okay, now I, you know, I can control these things.

Yeah.

I know when I walk out in the world, I can't control it. And so I have to be able to have that discipline. So I'm ready to go.

You make your bed. Yeah.

So my wife and I sleep together, so she's. She's actually in the. In the bed. She's the one that had the discipline of making beds before, and I've gained it from her. So the answer is yes, it's made every day. Normally I'm out at five and she's changed time. So it's made before I'm back.

Yeah.

But I find myself, you know, before, early in marriage, 24 years, I would make it because she would get mad at me if I didn't make it. That was the reasoning in my head.

Yeah.

And I'm like, oh, boy. And now I do it because I know how discipline. It's such a beautiful small discipline. I mean, I love that book, you know, just make your bed. Just. Just do that. You got a victory.

Yeah.

Yeah. The first time I remember discipline entering, I took a course and they said, character is built, you know, small pieces every day. And they said, you have to be able to make promises to yourself and keep them. Leadership is about credibility. It's about building credibility. So you have to lead yourself first. You have to make promises to yourself and. And keep them. And. And they said if you can just make a promise to not push, snooze and live by that. Just do that one promise until you've actually lived by that.

Yeah.

Then you will start to build discipline and credibility with yourself and you can do it with others. I can't believe, you know, you sit there and as an adult and you're like, I. I can't even make that promise to myself. And. But that's, you know, 25 years of work, and it's now set that I can do those disciplines. So it doesn't start easy for me. I'm not the guy that had an easy time of 9, 30 to 5, wake up time. I work on it.

Yeah. Yeah, man. I'm a huge believer in just routines and virtuous habits, you know, and. Because without them, it's chaos, in my opinion, you know, it is.

And when you lead a company so you know, you lead 150 or 300 or 2500, you end up building those rituals, the rhythms into the organization. And so that's what we do in continuous improvement. We actually translate healthy leadership habits and we. We bring them into the entire culture. And so if you can't get up at the same time because your life is so erratic, or if you can't set your own rhythms, then. Then it's really hard to lead other others to do it.

Yeah.

You know, do as I say, do, not as I do. Doesn't work.

Yeah.

So, yeah, Powerful.

Good stuff, man. Hey, so maybe to wrap things up, Mark, I'd be curious to hear if you have some. I don't know, we're kind of beginning of the. Of the year here. 2024 is upon us. Like, what are some practical tips that you could offer our folks? Listening right now as it pertains to perhaps being like the whole coaching topic or maybe just general leadership endeavors. Like, what's some practical tips and advice you could leave with, folks?

Yeah, so this team of coaches that I work with, we go in first with the CEO and we. We ask them to prove coachability to themselves and the team. And really, honestly, that's. That's what I would recommend in January is every leader that's listening is that they prove coachability to their team and what that would look like for them to prove coachability, because we want them actually coached by the team. That's what we were hoping for. And they would basically set a single behavioral goal based on feedback and say, I want to adjust this one thing. Active listening. You guys have told me that I don't listen very well. I want to just adjust that one thing, and I want to work on that for this next six months. And I want to ask you each month, how am I doing? And I want to adjust and keep on doing that. What I want them to do is to adjust their behaviors on a daily basis to get better at active listening. If that's the one they chose, if they chose to get stronger at decision making, whatever it is that their team's feedback is holding them back, I want them to adjust one behavior based on their feedback and asking for feedback monthly about that. And then at the end, at the end of the time, say, hey, listen, did I get better? I want them to prove to themselves, which is really critical self leadership, and then to their team that they're coachable, that they're able to adjust their behavior based on feedback in the system and get stronger in an area they can't get better at everything all at once. They can't build this thing that, that we all fall in love with. We're like, well, just build what Toyota did. Yeah, that doesn't work. You can't do that. But you can adjust one behavior that's getting in the way of that kind of culture and, and you can do it, but it's going to take focus and discipline. Concentrate on at least six months. Change your habits. Write those habits down, track them on a daily basis. Have somebody holding you accountable in your life that says, hey, listen, I'll help you. You might find one, right? As your direct leader, you might find a friend to do it. You know, if they need help, we can certainly help them. But find somebody in their life that will encourage them through that. That's what I would recommend. It's just too powerful not to give away and would love to help as many people as possible set that habit structure in place.

Hey, so speaking of that, if folks want to connect with you, what is the best way?

Yeah, you can always find me at encouragingleaders.com MarkuragingLeaders.com is my direct email with a C and Mark with a C. Correct. Mark with a c@ encouragingleaders.com and I would do anything, I mean, my whole, you know, my purpose in life is to encourage other leaders to become the leader they were created to be. And it's deep in my heart. I, I, it comes from not easy places. It comes from hard, hard places where, where people haven't been encouraged and we've, and, and that, that's caused suffering. And so we don't want that. I don't want that. I don't want anybody to have to think they have to, they can do this leadership thing alone or they have to do it alone. And so market encouragingleaders.com happy to help in any way possible, either organizational level or individual level, or just to be friends and say, hey, listen, keep going. Because we need people lifting each other up and breathing courage into others.

100 man. Thank you so much, Mark. This has been fantastic. Let's do it again, man down the road.

Yeah, it would be so fun because.

One thing we didn't touch on, and I'd like to maybe even focus just an entire episode on it, is the role of vulnerability. Because I sense that about you is that you're willing to be vulnerable like you were today. You know, sharing about, you know, the smart thing and growing up and all that like that, that, that, that ability to be vulnerable. Like I have some really Close friends, male friends that I. That I do life with. You know, we're church friends and all that, but we meet together on a regular basis and it's kind of like that. The meeting starts like this. How's it going? Yeah, you know, and then, boy, it just opens up. And just having those guys in my life to be able to be extremely vulnerable with, man, it's been life changing. So I would love to explore that with you down the road or, you know, whenever.

Yeah, I mean, I call it authenticity. Vulnerability is such a beautiful word for it. Brene uses the word vulnerability and it's really done so much to open up that topic. I find that, you know, there are three, they're all the same word. Authenticity and courage and vulnerability are just like married. And so whatever one works for you to be able to get you to be honest with yourself and others and to be able to build relationship through honest listening and sharing is what you need in life.

Yeah.

So we've got to be able to do that. We can't lead people we don't know. They won't follow people they don't know. We have to be known and feel like we belong.

Awesome, Mark. Thank you so much, man. This has been an outstanding episode. Thank you.

It's such a treat to be with you, Ron.

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