Motivation Mashup: How to MASTER the Art of COMMUNICATION!

So what makes you a great communicator? If you and I have lunch and I walk away, I'm like, wow, she was a great communicator. Why am I going to say that? Usually because you helped elicit my feelings, you helped elicit my goals, and you helped elicit my process. How's it going? Great listeners aren't just reflecting things back to somebody. Great listeners are also helping others share more. And what the people love to share. They love to share things about their life, their passions, their interests. Okay, you can reflect those things back to people. But if you go one level deeper and you're the person who helps people share their feelings around you, I mean, isn't it funny? The most advanced communication strategy in the world is to elicit emotion more. Elicit emotion more, to ask about their feeling. So when they describe their day, instead of you saying, oh, then what did you do next? That's like procedural. Instead, it's like, oh, how did you feel about that? Some of you guys know I was lucky to work with and know and do business with one of the persons considered one of the great interviewers in history. Two different types of people with Larry King is a great friend and mentor and done work with him. And Oprah Winfrey, great friend and mentor and done work with her. Both of them are master, master listeners. Something I learned from Larry that I'll never forget, that I will never forget is I was kind of asking him what makes a great interviewer, and he gave me this example of the question. One of the first questions he asked Mark Zuckerberg, who's the CEO of Facebook, as you guys know, right? So the CEO of Facebook. So think about this. You have the opportunity to interview Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, at a time, especially when they interviewed, was, you know, the pretty much the biggest conversation in the tech con, in the tech world, the fastest growing company in the tech world. It was right, everything. So you get to sit down, somebody who building the biggest platform literally in the history of the planet, they're running it. What are you going to ask them? Here's what Larry told me. He asked Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, his first question, or sorry, his favorite question to him was, so, Mark, what's it feel like to be the CEO of Facebook? What's it like to be the CEO of Facebook? He went right to trying to get to like, what does that feel like? That's a big company. You reach 2 billion people. Now what's that feel like? Great. Communicators are listening Observing, asking about feelings, emotion. Oprah's magic on her set was she was able, through her vulnerability and her openness for 25 years on television at the top, to be able to have people feel so comfortable with her presence that they would openly share their feelings. That wouldn't happen on other shows, right? You watch Oprah Winfrey and then you watch, like, you know, a news television broadcast. It's completely different. The engagement she had with other people because she was willing to go into emotion. You've got to be willing to go into emotion. If you're trying to do anything with people, lead them, persuade them, sell, help, serve, Emotion has to bubble up. You need to elicit feeling from people way more often. Way more often. It's not just, hey, honey, how did school go today? Well, I went to this class. I had this for lunch. This kid was nice. This kid, wasn't it? It's like, how did you feel about that? How did you feel about that? What were you feeling when that was happening? These types of questions are so basic and people forget to ask them. But that's what's really advanced because that's what elicits more. What's advanced in communication strategies. What elicits more. What elicits more. But not just more information, more feeling. So I said, you're listening for three things. Feelings, goals. This is so important. Great coaches, as an example, always say, oh, so once they get the feeling, oh, what did you want to feel? What did you want from that? What are you hoping is going to happen? If everything was great, what's next month look like? What are you trying to do by the end of this month, the end of this year? Right? Just getting people to speak about their goals, their desires, their ambition, their hopes, their dreams. Great communicators do that with people, you know, really great communicators do that. I've been blessed to work with two different presidents, two different US Presidents, one Democratic, one Republican. So don't you freak out. And what I noticed in both of them, in both of them, their ability to have a conversation with people and ask them about their family and what they want for their family. Think about that. The greatest politicians in the world are talking about, this is what you probably want for your family, or asking, what would you like for your family? What do you hope for in your career? What would you like this nation to be like? What would you like this country to be like? That question of, what are our goals here? What are we trying to do here? What do you want? What are you after that's the questions of great communicators. So I said, feelings, goals, and this last place, which is so important in process, process, process. Tell me how you did that. What were you thinking through when you were doing that? What did you want when you were doing that? How did that turn out? If you could do it again, what different, what would you do differently? This is. These are procedure. These are process questions, right? Questions about not just how's it going, but how are they feeling, thinking and experiencing how it is going. Think about this pandemic right now, right? All you gotta do is go, pandemic, how's that going for you, right? And immediately people start talking at you. Boy, if you've ever wanted to communicate with people, this is the year of talking through how they've managed a pandemic. Economic melee, political discourse. Like, it's so easy to engage people in conversation this year, right? Because what do most people usually talk about? How was your commute this morning? How was the weather? But now we have bigger things to talk about, larger concerns. And because of that, it's easier to get conversation going. But a lot of people forget about process. You know, did you talk with your family about how these last 30 days went for them, how they felt, what they wanted, where they want next month, how they want it to go now? Literally, on this conversation, on a walk this morning with my wife, before I even talked about what I was talking about here today, we're just talking about, oh, okay, well, we survived October, right? Okay. Got through that is culturally, economically, in the world with the businesses, it's like, great, but what do we want now? Like, we're always kind of recalibrating, how do we want our day to go? We talked about morning routines or we talked about, like, what we want to learn. And just in a conversation about what do we want it to be like now? Great communicators and great relationships and couples are always talking about that. How do we want to live? What do you want from this life? What do you want from this life? What do we want together? How should we do this journey together? That's process, right? Communicators are doing that all the time. What should this feel like? What should this be about? How do we want it to go? That's process. All right. I hope you guys like this one. Hey, everybody, it's Brendon Burchard. Welcome to a special edition of Growth Day. I'm really excited to talk about this month's topic, which is how do you create remarkable and long lasting friendships And I'm talking about the kind of friendships that you love. The friendships that bring you alive, that bring you that connection, that help life feel more even meaningful, that help you progress and feel supported and help you be seen. Help you feel a true connection with not just others, but with humanity. Because the people around you are awesome. And when the people around you are awesome, you know, you feel better about life. But we also went through this crazy last 18 months where so many people were isolated, where we had so much turmoil, so much conflict, so much in just uncertainty and fear in the world, where I really believe friendships really elevated. And you could see whether or not you had great friends throughout this pandemic or you didn't. You were able to see whether or not you got the support that you needed, whether or not you were able to maintain your sense of vibrancy in some of those times of aloneness, whether or not you had people who cheered you on, whether when you decided to make a transition, start something new, or the kids left the house, or you got sick, or something was going on that was difficult in your life. We look to our friends and I think that this is a very undervalued conversation in mental health. So much about the mental health conversation is appropriately about self awareness, is it's about, you know, mindfulness, it's about taking care of our stressors. And a lot of it is that solo work that we all have to do for self mastery. But I can tell you that, you know, the great universities of the world, the psychology department is right near the sociology department because they go together like we are social beings. And when you lose that social connection with the world, which usually starts through lack of disciplined habits with your friends, then suddenly life loses its color. And I think this is so important. You're going to hear me talk about friendship today in a way you probably haven't heard before. Very much from what we would call a high performance psychology perspective. And I think you're going to love this. So if you've been struggling with friendships in your lifetime, not either having enough friends or not having the quality of friends that you've always wanted, this is a serious conversation today. I can't imagine a time, at least in my life so far, where friendships were so incredibly important, I get to share some of the things that really have worked, not just in my life and my friendships, but in studying this work deeply over the years, in recognizing how many people are entrepreneurs, high achievers, people who are trying to make great impact in the world. You're here today and sometimes that journey can feel very lonely. Or when you get to the top, it can feel lonely, they say. And I'm like, I kind of believe what my friend Brian Tracy and mentor said to me one time. He said, if it's lonely at the top, you did it wrong. I thought, woo, that's good, that's good. Because maybe sometimes we value today progress, we value today getting things done. We value that top mountain of achievement. And then we look around and go, oh, nobody really knows me. I don't feel a connection to others. Yeah, I got the thing, the house, the car, the bank account, the accolades, the Instagram page, and all of a sudden, though, something's missing. Friendship is one of the greatest vehicles to the real psychology of well being that we talk about here at Growth Day. I'm going to share with you a secret today, just a simple phrase. You're going to go, oh my gosh, that's why my friendships aren't going right. So you're going to love this session. I say that triangle, right, of well being that we talk about Growth Day aliveness is one of the things we all want after you had everything else. Another thing we want is connection. We're not after casual friendships here today. We're at like, how do I create authentic, deep, trusting, vulnerable, fun, real relationships? Because how many of you have ever had friendships that turned out to be fake? You thought you had a good friendship and that thing turned out to be not so good or poisonous or, you know, somebody, like, they weren't loyal to you as a friend, or they lied to you or, you know, something went wrong, you thought, how could that happen in that relationship? And I always tell, like, friendships are a science of relationship, right? It's about how you create relationship with others. And I'm going to give you again a phrase that will really help you with this today. And then if it's true that we want aliveness and connection in this triangle, nothing that we want is meaning. Well, meaning isn't achieved just by living your purpose each day in your own head. Meaning is achieved through a social relationship network. My sense of meaning is, do I feel connected to the world? And the world isn't an abstract thing. It's not like I feel connected to the oak tree. It's like, no, I mean, did I feel, did you make your difference in the world that's going to be served and answered through your social impact, your relationships with others. And I have to tell you, after I've been coaching people for 20 years of my life now, and A lot of people have one friend. You know, in the United States, unfortunately, the number of people with three good friends has declined over the decades. You're like three good friends. Oh, we got to talk about that. Because some people stumble into friendships or hope for friendships, just like some people hope to have a loving relationship, just like some people hope to have a good job, just like some people hope that, you know, they get healthier. And then there's strivers who take life a little bit by the reins and say, no, no, no, let me architect that, Let me build that. And I'll give you my own examples today of where I sucked at friendships and I had to learn how do you do them and how do you create them? And once you know how to create and craft them, life really opens up for you, and it becomes not just more alive and connected, but more meaningful. Like, a sense of meaning happens when we have a tapestry of social relationships that are real and impactful. And then, of course, in the middle that triangle, you always see me draw out growth. Your friends should be lifting you up, not pushing you down. Your friends should be inspiring you to get better. Your friends should have your back, but also be willing to challenge your face. You know what I'm saying? Like, your friends are, are, and should be one of your primary growth drivers in life. Most people choose ambitious goals to be their growth driver. Oh, I'm going to do something that's hard, or I'm going to try to achieve this amazing thing. I'm going to try to become a millionaire or make this difference or build this company or, you know, have this type of family, and it's this external climb, this thing they're trying to achieve. And too many people forget. It's like, actually, one of the best drivers of growth isn't your job, isn't your goals, it's your friendship circle. And when your friendship circles make you a more alive, deeper, caring, thoughtful, authentic person in the world, telling you what, guess what? At work, you're better. At home, you're better. Your art gets better, your sense of life lifts. Let me share with you what I really believe to be the two central problems of friendship. Okay, the two central problems of friendship. The first one, a failure of each of our own. I'm just taking this on myself as well. It's like we fail in life to realize. Most of our friendships were assigned not aligned. Most of our friendships were assigned not aligned. What I mean by that is many of our friendships happen because group assignment. Think about it. Some of your best friends where did you meet them? School, your neighborhood, some other affiliation, maybe at work, maybe in a group that you joined? So it was like, oh, we showed up somewhere or we were assigned somewhere and there was that girl who sat next to me in class. We became friends. Or, oh, I worked with this person at work, became. We were co workers, we became friends. And these are kind of like assigned friends. And I know that sounds really weird to say, so bear with me a little bit. I don't mean that the manager, like, you're going to be friends here. What I mean is because of your group, your affiliation, or where you were, you kind of met people there. And by default, by you being a good person or communicating or doing stuff with them, you kind of became friends versus. That's like an assigned friend. It's like, oh, because we were here, we became friends versus an aligned friend, which is, oh, I'm an adult now. What are the types of friends that I want to create that align with my passion, my dreams, my lifestyle, my values, my beliefs, the things that I want of life, and let me go get them, not let them fall into my lap, which brings up the second designation. And this is hard to say to people. And if you're in a place where you feel lonely in your life or you feel like you don't have great friendships, I promise this will be so helpful for you today to even know how your own brain thinks. And many of us. And I was this way probably all the way throughout high school, even I never. And this is the second problem of friendships. I never made the deliberate choice to have remarkable friendships. I kind of ended up with friends. Anyone know what I'm talking about? Who's, like, ended up with friends if you kind of just ended up with, like, this person? It was kind of my friend. One of my buddies goes. He goes, I don't want no rando friends. And it was like, random. Now, I love random. I love the universe. I love God, I love coincidence. Listen, I read the Celestine Prophecy. People are glowing out there for me, I believe in that coincidence stuff. But I can also share with you, like, if you just allow randomness in your life all the time, you'll always feel a sense of mediocrity too. We have to stretch. We have to choose our life. And to choose our life, we have to be deliberate and go, what kind of life do I want? I would like you to learn to architect your ideal friendships. And can you get all of them? And will all your friendships be perfect? I'm not that guy. I'M not here to promise everything's going to be sweet and perfect and peaches in life. I am here to suggest though that if you haven't deliberately chosen the types of friendships that you want, that's a problem, especially if you're an adult. Right? And that's the thing is we're just, we're not encouraged to do that. Think about how much time people were feeding your ears with the idea you had to be really thoughtful about the career you choose. How many of you ever had more people tell you more times about be so thoughtful about the school you choose, the career you choose, but no one ever said as much because be very thoughtful about the friends and the friendships that you build. And that's why we have a lot of high achieving people who are lonely their whole life. Think about your career. What are you going to be one day? Very rarely. What's the type of social network you're going to build around you? What's the type of friendships you're going to architect? What are you going to be proud of terms of your friends in the future? What do you want your friends to achieve? What do you want your friends to experience in life? Not just what they give you, but what are you going to give out too? What kind of friendship do you want to create and experience? How do you want your friends to actually interact with one another? Have you thought about that? We spend so much time. If you're a parent and you have two kids, you're so worried about how they interact, right? I know people who've never even thought, how do I want my friends to interact? I mean, they might think, you know what, we shouldn't put them in a room at a party because they have this history, that background. But very few people are like, I'm going to actually teach my friends how to be friends with one another. Now, I know some of you might be like, this guy sounds like a control freak. I'm like, I am, but I'm a happy one. You know what I'm saying? I think this is such an important area to architecture. Most friends have never talked about how to be friends. They just go, you want to go to lunch, they go to lunch. They talk about the weather, the waiter, the food, what's going on. They leave. And there's no architecting. There's no, I think of like social systems are things that can be shaped. You all think like at work, right? How much we talk about at work, building a culture. More books and more people have spent time on this conversation of building Culture at work and never the culture of a friendship. Isn't that weird? I don't know where along the line we lost the conversation and the desire to choose to build awesome friendships. And a culture of friendship, meaning not just friends. Most people think of, I want a friend, right? When you're in high school, you just want a friend, right? You're just like, at least I was. Can I get one? You know, it's like you worry about having friendships when you grow up, and usually that means you think. And we're all trained this way. Especially in Western cultures. We're taught to have a friend, and we think in a very individualistic mode. I and this person are in relationship, and then you have another friend. I and this person are in relationship, and maybe you go out and you try to get them together and we have a party. But even at the party, it's individual nodes. Me, that friend, and this friend. And I don't get trained, as I'm getting older, to think as a systems social architect. Oh, wow, look at all these nodes, if you will, these friends. If I like each of these people and have relationship with each of them, why don't in some way I weave them together and create a tapestry of friendship where I'm actually connecting the dots and creating a culture of friendship? See, we don't think like that, do we? I was a very, kind of solitary child. I was kind of in my own little world. I don't know about you all, but I was definitely, you know, much. I would be like an introverted kind of child. I kind of kept to myself. I like to play with my toys kind of by myself. In elementary school, from what I can remember, I was kind of solo. Brendan. I didn't see social systems right. I was in a class with kids and a teacher and. And I had a relationship with the teacher, and I had a relationship with this person, that person or not. But I couldn't see the class. I couldn't say, oh, you know, like, this group is kind of like this. Instead, it was just like, she likes me or she doesn't. Teachers like that. I didn't see the system. Today I'd like you to try to see the system a little bit. See the system of the friendships you've built in your life. See the system at play, at work. See the system of your culture or your nonprofit or your company. When you can start seeing a bigger picture and get out of your head a little bit now, something happens. There's connection, there's community. See, everyone says, I want Community. I'm like, well, you can't be an individualistic person in the community forever. You have to elevate to seeing the system. If you never be a community member or an effective one or a helpful one, if you can't get out of your head, well, I'm saying that as judgment to you. That was me. So there's. There's no judgment here. If you don't have friends, I'm like, I'm telling you my story, too. I was a solo person. I was in my own head. I couldn't see the class. I couldn't see the system. And so I felt apart. And because I felt apart and I couldn't see what was happening, and I didn't know how to engage. I was lonely. And then when I finally made a connection with a friend, that friend became my life. Later on, that perpetuated into, you know, some of you guys know my story of my first breakup with the. My high school sweetheart. I was destroyed because that was my one person, right? That was my one node in the world. And then when that relationship fell apart, I fell apart and became depressed and suicidal. And so how we relate with one or multiple people can completely shape our mental health. I know you already know that. And so I had to learn, like, wow, one. I don't want to ever be dependent on one friend. I want to build a support system. You ever heard that language before? No one says, go build a supporter. I want you to listen to the language of successful people. When successful people are speaking, they never tell you, go build a supporter. They say, go build what? A support system. A support network. Oh, I got to get out of single node thinking. A node is one individual unit. And I got to get into the system. I got to stop thinking, does Sally at the class next, does she like me? And if she likes me, my whole life is good or bad or ruined. And I got to go, hmm. There's a class here. There's an energy. Is vibe, a spirit. There's rules and norms. There's a culture here that is happening. How do I want to participate in this? And how do I want this culture to happen, too? In. In ways that I can affect? What do they want? And we all have to start thinking about that more in a society in which we're supposedly connected, but we've actually become individual nodes in the network. Hey, my friends, It's Brendon Burchard, founder and creator of Growth Day. Welcome to an awesome session where we're going to talk about the leadership principles and practices that can help you have a greater impact in the world, in your family, with your teams, in your community. As you're somebody who wants to be a person of influence, you want to help people, you want to serve people, you want to do something significant with your life that really matters, you got to start working these practices and principles in leadership. Without leadership, we don't make our impact. So I'm pumped to be here today with you and this growth day community because that's what we are all about. Our mission is how do we enable you to have a home for personal development? How do we make self improvement a way of life for you so that you keep getting better and better and better at what you're doing about who you are so you can reach your full potential and so you can serve your highest purpose here. I always begin with principle number one. My biggest belief, my biggest teaching in all of leadership. And it's five simple words. People support what they create. People support what they create. This is the defining leadership principle of my life. Every time I work with a leader and they're frustrated with the coworker, they can't get the team to be motivated and energized. The down line isn't performing, the upline isn't listening. We got this problem where you can't mobilize a movement, or you started a political action committee and it didn't stick, or you started your nonprofit and no one contributed. It always comes down to a fundamental misperception about this topic of leadership. Leadership's fundamental principle is that people support what they create. If you want people to follow you, they must create with you. They must feel enabled, trusted, empowered, autonomous, capable, rewarded for participating in the journey in what we'll call the vision today. If they don't have any hand in shaping it, and if they have no reward, autonomy or trust in participating in it, they got no skin in the game. They got no reason to be enthusiastic, excited, hard working, excellent. So what happens? Well, as you see around the world, it's like we have these command and control old models from, you know, the past. These dictatorial ways of leading where it was like, do this, do this, do this, you know, bury like, you know, early 1800s stuff that should have been done by the 1950s, but people are still learning. And so you have this situation where a lot of people still think of like, oh, I have positional leadership, I'm the boss, or I'm this leader. Everyone needs to only do these things and it becomes a one way street, or it becomes something where the leader doesn't have the connection with everybody else because no one has a part in it. They can't play yet, they don't believe in it yet. Even if they like you, even if they think you're an okay person, even if you had great successes in the past, if you don't get them collaborating to create where we're going, how we're going there, and how we'll be together, they're not interested. They'll pretend they'll take the paycheck, but they'll be gone in six months. Or when the tough times hit or the stock price goes down, they're bailing, man, because they're thinking, you know what? I'm not part of this. I'm not part of this. You know, the new buzzword of the last decade was certainly culture organizations, even in our homes, right? Create a culture, create a culture of openness, of diversity, create a culture of enthusiasm, create a culture of accountability. Culture, culture, culture, culture. What does that mean? Culture is the outcome of the philosophy that people support what they create, that we're collectively shaping a culture. Well, we collectively shape the leadership journey too. And so if you don't feel like you have buy in from people, which is the number one complaint of all leaders worldwide. In my research at the High Performance Institute, the number one thing I ever found was that leaders are disappointed, discouraged or demotivated because they don't get buy in from their teams. Most of the time they blame the teams, they blame the organizational structure, they blame the old leaders, they blame their spouse, their partner, they blame anybody they can. Why won't the school board listen to me? Why won't this person, they won't do this. I have this idea. No one comes along. It's because you have this idea and you didn't invite anyone to come along. You just told people what to do, you told people how to think, you told people how it's supposed to go. And I'm telling you, we live in a participative global culture now where people want a voice. And so much of leadership is understanding where to open conversations, to allow diverse voices to come in, have a perspective on something. Even if you or the leaders maintain that decision making authority, the active participation and enrollment of conversation is the difference maker. And your job as a leader, listen to this, Is to hold that space, to set the standard, the expectation, the, the structure for that space for other people to participate. Now I know some of the leaders out there like, yeah, but that's super hard, the timing of that. And when and some people have a voice, but they don't know what the hell they're talking about. They're not an expert, Brandon. Why would I listen to them? And oh my gosh, does this mean more meetings for me? Don't worry, this isn't about you doing more meetings. Just to listen casually, the principle I want you to write down. People support what they create. The five most important words in all of leadership. People support what they create. If you get that principle, we can change the world. When you don't get that principle, you don't get the followers. Now with that, I want to introduce a concept, you know, that I've literally been teaching for 21 years now. I don't like the word followers. I don't like the word leaders versus or the position leaders versus followers. If you study with me before, I really believe you have leaders and instead of followers you have collaborators. It's just a different way of defining things. Unfortunately, in our world, because of popularity and ego, when someone follows you on the Internet, it all became about a one way street. And so now we've ingrained in people's human behavior this idea that I broadcast my world and you should follow it. That's coming to organizations. I tell you what to do and you should follow it versus hey, we're co creating this organization together, we're co creating this team, we're co creating this marriage, we're co creating this family. Soon as you get that, you're co creating your family together, you're a different styled parent. Most troubles in parenting relationships and familial relationships come from an old model that it's the parent versus the kids and you do what I say or you're not loved, you're dead to me. That really didn't work so good. We've learned that to have healthy and adaptive children, they need to feel part of the family process. They need to feel connected, cared for and collaborative literally in how their day goes, how their life goes. They need to have a voice in it or later in their life, they're more passive towards chasing what's important to them. They never develop that autonomy early enough. So now, unfortunately they do. They follow whatever's happened at school, they follow whatever's happening with that peer set. And they follow it often right into places you didn't want them to go. And so by controlling them too much, it removes their autonomy. By removing their autonomy now, they'll follow. Often the wrong people at the wrong time stay in the wrong relationships because they didn't develop personal autonomy. Why? Because someone in their life, too late failed to realize that this person had to be participating in shaping their life, their days, their weeks, their dreams, their destiny, earlier. I think that's so important in this world today, where you get a lot of blind followership to ideology or darker. Kind of like the darker side of humanity, where people don't question or they don't think because they haven't been participating in shaping their life. And we have to be aware of that as leaders. It's like, oh, you're going to have some people on your team who are super participative and. And other people, they were never given autonomy or trust or a voice, and they're super smart, but you're not getting enough from them. They just need to be enrolled to participate in a different way than the person who's always had the benefit of being in communities where they were heard. We live in a world right now where so many people have never actually been heard, then we expect them to perform as high performers in their organizational settings. It's like, oh, you have to be aware of these things. Some members of your team and some members of your family haven't been heard, haven't felt heard, haven't been allowed space for it. And I don't just mean listened to. I mean being allowed space to make decisions together about what's important. And that's just so critical. People support what they create. So you gotta be thinking, I would love for you to evaluate yourself as a leader. Go. Okay, on a scale. This is the workshop part. This is personal development. Right. We're going to do the work. If you wrote down, people support what they create. I'm curious, on a scale of one to ten. One. Yeah. You don't get that. One's a bad number. Okay. One's the worst. I won't give you a zero. We'll give you a one. And then there's ten. I'm going to ask you two questions to score yourself here, one to ten. First score. How conscious have you been about this principle? Like when I say people who support their crate, you're like, oh, yeah, I get that. I've been doing that. I'm aware of that. That's important to me. One has not been on radar. Ten. That's been on my radar. Did you know the higher you score on that, the higher life satisfaction you have, the higher connection you have with your employees, the longer your employees tend to stay employees? I know that's not. You're not all organizational leaders, but it basically means that the Better you've been conscious about this and practicing it, the happier your culture, your team and others are. They want to be on that journey. So put that front of dashboard, I call it front of radar. That's on your radar, that's on your dashboard. Have I been leading in this style or at least aware of this? People support what they create. Okay, got it. The second way I'd love you to score that is to take a look at the most critical members of your team. Maybe this is your executive team or the most important people in your life, your family, and look at each of them individually through this lens. It's like, oh, has this person been co creating the experience with me? Have they been active in that or passive in that? And not as a judgment to them like a one, they're bad. It's that, oh, if they are a one, I as a leader need to create a process, a rhythm, a meeting, an opportunity for this person to get some decision making authority, to establish some trust, if anything to be heard more in meetings. Maybe this person is never called on, they never get the opportunity. And you're going to like, oh, I'm going to be aware this person has not been participating and I need that participation from them if we're going to have long term success and we need to participate together. So let me have that. So I'm always thinking about that. And when I work with leaders and I coach them and high performance, it's always about, okay, let's work through your team, let's walk through this principle and let's talk about each of these critical team members and do they feel empowered to be part of the process because people support what they create is ultimately people being part of the process because guess what, when they're part of the process, they've helped come up with decisions. They're working towards something they had a hand in, they fight for it, they stay focused on it, they have ego and decision making in that process and they want to protect it. When someone has an idea, you know what they want to do, they want to own that, they want to protect that, they want to perpetuate that, they want to ensure that that idea lives. And they'll do that sometimes sanely and unsanely. You could look at across humanity, the worst of the human conditions and human actions in the world came from people who had an idea and they believed it and they shaped it and they fought for it till death when it was destructive towards others. And the most beautiful parts, the better angels of our nature came from those Times in which we had an idea, we were participating in that idea, continuing, shaping it, evolving it, making it even better. And as we made that even better, oh, okay, we made it better together. We'll fight for it, we'll participate in it, but we'll do it for positive ends. It's a difference maker, isn't it? If you look around the world even today, like at higher, you know, political levels, as an example, like, I happen to be doing this today on July 1st. So we're not too far away from an upcoming Independence Day in the United States. And that idea of democracy, of a participative democracy, that's a different way of thinking. And it changed the shape of history. And you saw people still, we're still refining what our republic is and how it works together. We're still trying to figure out our systems and our rules. We're still working on an active democracy. And that's an incredible thing and incredible blessing. And it's one reason why the country, at least globally, as I'm filming this, leads the world, right? People support what they create. Now, I don't want to get political with you where people are like, oh, I don't agree with this, or I love Americans or whatever. I'm just here to say there is definable, demonstratable and great examples across organizations, across, across political systems, across socioeconomic systems that when people are allowed to participate, better ideas come up, people have more buy in, people stay committed. Over the long term, humans become more resilient themselves. It's important. It's so important. So please take an active role in this day. Score yourself, be honest and think about this and how you can amplify this. If all you did is understand this principle and you practice this principle at the deepest levels, you would so far surpass almost everybody you're working with. I promise. This can be your day for personal growth. This can be that day you committed to and you remember. You go, that was the day I got myself a community. I got better coaches. I committed to making my life the absolute best that I could. This is that day. Make today your growth day. Click the button on this page and sign up right now.