CB LIVE! Courage to Leap & Lead with Stephen Covey, part 1 Episode 117

You've got courage to leap, courage to lead. Be brave and be bold. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Let it roar.

Welcome to the Courage to Leap and Lead podcast, where each of our guests share the stories of courage that helped them become powerful leaders. Before we start today's show, please remember to visit courageconsulting.com where you can find all of the episodes and lots of other excellent resources. That's courageconsulting.com. Now, here's your host, Leadership Courage Coach CB Bowman.

Hello everybody. How are you today? You know, I'm actually recording this not on a Tuesday because I wanted to be sure to capture By the way, don't you like how I'm rocking this red and my hair over here? I'm, I'm looking gorgeous today. I will admit it. Welcome to Courage to Leap and Lead. We have a guest today who you're going to recognize the name so fast it's not even going to be funny, but it may be the person you're thinking of. So it's kind of like a little mystery here. Today we have Stephen M. Covey, who's going to talk to us about trust and inspiration. But you know, the question that we always want to get to is, what have you failed at and what have you learned from it? And you know, I like to bring on these, what I call superpower guests. Because we all think, oh God, yeah, they were able to do it because they are them and they're famous. And— but that's not what we're about. We're about learning from people who are at the top of the ladder, how they got there and what their experiences have been. And you know what? I want to tell you, it's not all fun and glory. We've had to get through some really challenging moments in our lives. You guys know my story, and if you don't, my book is coming out in April about the racism that I went through in corporate America. We all have something, right? And so I want to talk to Stephen about his dad. I want to talk to him about him, and I want to talk to him about failures and success. And I just want to— I want you to get to know this wonderful man. And so I want to start with I wrote to Stephen on LinkedIn and I said, will you be on my show? And he said yes. And I went, no, I didn't read that right. I, I had to read it like 10 times because you guys know I'm dyslexic. And I said, he must have said no and I'm not seeing it. So I have to read it again and again. And so I finally got in my head that he said yes.

And then?

He has one of the best support people I've ever met. She is just so charming. And you guys, I normally don't talk about this, but she was just, what could Steven do to be really good on your show? And I have never been asked that question. And you guys know, this is what, probably 110 episodes that I've done? I'm like, who is this lady that asked this incredible question? I didn't have an answer. I was just like, what do I say? And I decided I would just be honest and I would say, be himself. And then I received this book in the mail. It's his book. But more than that, I want to read you— he put in a personal card to me and he said— Dear CB, I'm honored to be able to do your Courage to Leap and Lead podcast. So he did his research. With you in a few weeks, I'm excited to talk about trust and inspire, as I believe it's aligned with you and your work. He really did his homework. I'm grateful for the, um, for the attention and exposure. His handwriting is like a doctor. you are bringing to this book through your podcast and social media. Thank you, Stephen. I said to my husband, this guy was raised the right way, right?

Absolutely.

I mean, who sends cards these days? Then in his book, he wrote, to CB Bowman, Autumn Minnelli, keep seeing and unleashing greatness in people everywhere through your remarkable Courage to Leap and Lead podcast. And through your impressive work on courage and leadership. You are a magnificent, trusted, and inspired person and leader. With admiration and gratitude, Stephen. I feel like somebody. I really do. So without further ado, we're going to talk about everything with Stephen and his book. Stephen, thank you so much for your book, your note, your card. And for coming on this show. I'm so excited. Welcome.

Well, thank you, CB. I'm, I'm excited and grateful to be on your show and to be with you. I appreciate that, that kind introduction and those words. And, you know, I will say this, my executive assistant that you said was so great, Julie, that's just who she is. She She cares about people. She's gracious. She reaches out. She always tries to follow through to serve. And so she asked, you know, what would make this great for you? How could I be good on your show? And that's that's kind of who she is. And and so I'm grateful to have someone like that as part of my team that we can work together. And and and you are rocking that red, by the way. Like you said. And, and, uh, but I really, really, uh, I prepared and learned about you and, and your work and, and, uh, and your focus on courage and on microcourage and on, on this upcoming book and this podcast. And I, I became inspired. So I'm, I'm, I'm honored to, to be here with you and to have this conversation. So thank you.

Thank you. And, you know, normally I start these days with asking people why they wanted to be on the show. What do they feel they have to contribute to people who are struggling their way through failure? Tell us why.

I wanted to be on your show because I love your intentional focus on courage. And, and And, and why that courage enables us to deal with failure, to learn from it and come out better because of it, and, and to grow from it.

Yeah.

And, and, um, and I believe that courage is so vital. And, and, um, in— so in this Trust Inspired book, I highlight when we, when we model as a leader one of the key attributes or behavioral virtues, I call it, to model is courage along with humility.

Mm-hmm.

'Cause I think the combination of humility and courage is very powerful. Courage by itself is powerful. Humility is powerful. In combination, it goes to another level and it takes courage To be humble. It takes courage to take a risk and to fail and to learn from that and to get better because of it. It takes courage to do the right thing. And so to have a, to have a podcast that's based upon developing this kind of courage, showing it, demonstrating why it matters, that's, that's meaningful because that's aligned with with, with my book that— because I'm saying part of being a trust and inspire leader is that we need to model. We need to go first. Someone needs to go first. Leaders go first, and they're the first to demonstrate humility and courage in combination. So that's— I felt so aligned.

Thank you. And you know, as I looked at your book— and by the way, we have some friends in common here, Amy and, and a few others— You know, I thought about, as you said, the alignment, and I thought trust, trust and courage. Are we really saying together 2 things? One is that you have to trust yourself to know that when you fail at something, you can come through it. With lessons that are lifelong, right? And can we— this is the $64,000 question— can we trust ourselves enough to be courageous? I think we're not dealing with that these days.

Beautiful. I agree. I think that all trust starts with self-trust. It's hard to think about it, hard to build trust with others if you don't trust yourself.

And so—

It'd be easy to let that distrust of self leak out, bleed out into those relationships. But if we can start with ourselves and build that self-trust, that takes courage to do it.

Why, Stephen? Why does it take trust? Why, why is that piece missing in us? You're the expert. This is your second book about trust.

Yeah.

What's preventing us? What's getting in our way?

Yeah. Well, it's difficult to kind of look in the mirror. It's easier to look out the window. Right. This is Jim Collins in Good to Great. He talks about the window and the mirror.

Yes.

And it's a lot easier to look out the window at all the people out there and say, as soon as they change, as soon as he changes, as soon as she changes, as soon as they do this or that. And, and, um, it's a lot harder to look in the mirror and say, what do I need to do? How do I need to change? How do I need to evolve? What do I need to learn? And it's a lot easier to say everyone else needs to do it first. And so, again, it takes courage to go first. It takes courage to look in the mirror because we may not like everything that we see. And we maybe say, I can be better than this. Have real self-awareness, self-reflection, and to try to be true to our highest and best self, to be authentic that way.

Do you feel— yes, yes, it does take strength to say you're wrong, right?

Absolutely, it does.

Do you feel that, particularly in America, that we have lost the ability completely to trust ourselves and to trust others? And why?

Yes, I, I think that I think the data shows in our society that we are living in a world of declining trust, and there's really a crisis of trust because we've lost trust in institutions.

Mm-hmm.

We, you know, we've lost trust in government, in political parties, in business, in media, even in NGOs. Trust has gone down in some cases. some cases never been lower than it is today. And we're seeing a loss of trust in many organizations as well and in companies. And then in a low-trust world, the danger of it is that it starts to perpetuate itself.

Mm-hmm.

Where you start to worry, well, maybe if this happened here, maybe something is happening there or with me. And I start to project distrust out and And what I find is that in a low-trust world, the distrust can become contagious.

Yes.

And people start to question and wonder whether they can trust another, because they've seen— maybe they got burned somewhere in one relationship, and they start to say, maybe I'm going to be taken advantage of in this next relationship. Very easy to have that happen. And, and, um, and that's what's going on in our society. And there's a lack of understanding and a lack of trust. And of extending that trust, giving goodwill, assuming positive intent. And so we're in a vicious cycle. Now let me give a little positive though. I do believe though that we can counteract that intentionally, specifically. And that does start with trusting yourself and going deep and not allowing the fact that there's distrust all around us. to have that then determine that, you know, who we are. But no, but we can come back and say, but this is who I am. And I could start with me and look in the mirror and say, I'm gonna give to those who I interact with a person who they can trust. And, but it starts with, and I trust myself. So we have to kind of ask that question even in a low-trust world all around us. We're not determined by that. We're influenced by it, but not determined. Can we look in the mirror and say, I'm going to focus on first trusting myself, and then second, giving to those around me a person who they can trust so that it's smart to trust me?

Do you think that somehow this concept of cancel culture is tied into people being afraid to trust? Because You know, I grew up in the day in New York, in Greenwich Village, where you went to a coffeehouse and you sat and you debated a can of soup for hours and hours. And you yelled at the other person across the table. And then you walked away and you felt so rejuvenated and happy because you had this Incredibly stupid conversation. But you got to hear somebody else. And somehow, even though you didn't agree with them, you trusted them in this kind of strange connective way.

Uh-huh.

And it made you feel like Hey, I learned something today. I learned a different perspective. I don't agree with it.

Right.

But I trust that that perspective is okay. Right now we come to cancel culture. And before, before we can even get the words out from somebody, we're like, zip, scratch. No, you know, they're out of the picture. We're, we're no longer gonna dialogue with them. We no longer trust them.

I think there's something to that. I, I really do believe that perhaps our strongest unconscious bias is who we decide to trust or not and extend trust to. And because, you know, if you think about it, to have trust If trust is the outcome, what we want, trust the noun. To get that, yes, we need to be trustworthy, but by itself that's not enough. Because I've seen 2 trustworthy people working together, both trustworthy, and yet no trust between them.

Whoa.

So, so here's what, what's needed.

What's— wait, wait, wait a second. What does that look like? What is that?

Well, people could literally be capable, competent people of character, people of competence. They have credibility, they're trustworthy. They could be working together, but like you're suggesting, for whatever reason, they are not willing to extend trust to the other. And so to have trust, yes, you have to be trustworthy. You also need to be Trusting. Need to be willing to give that trust. It takes courage to extend trust to another person. And, and I like how you phrased it. You may not agree with them, you might completely disagree, but just the very— it's an act of generosity, goodwill to extend trust to another person. It's an act of abundance. And again, that doesn't mean agreement.

No, right.

An understanding, and you're seeking to— you value them as a human being. You might disagree with their positions, their stances, their views, but you're treating them respectfully as a human being, and you're extending trust to them in that sense. Not that you necessarily buy into that.

Yeah.

Who they are, and you're assuming positive intent.

Yes.

They have a different approach. So I find those are key elements of this, but It's not enough to be trustworthy as leaders. We also need to be trusting as community members. We need to be trusting in appropriate ways.

But that's interesting because it's saying, it's kind of saying that our leaders have not developed the tools which allows them to be trusted. allows people to accept that they can trust that leader? What is going on there? I mean, is it— I think that for me, the big eye awakening was Enron, Tyco.

Yeah.

Barbarians at the gate. Is it because media has become so blatant that we have given up. And we've said— now, and of course, I will admit I come from Fortune 500 companies.

Right.

Where I saw leaders stumble and not be willing to admit that they've stumbled. Now, so we're putting all this together. You can't trust and inspire Because the two go together. If in fact you're presenting yourself as a leader that's not trustworthy. So where have— what caused us to lose this? Or did we, did we never have it? Is the greater question.

Yeah.

And it's becoming more visible now?

Yeah.

Thank you, Stephen.

Yeah, I think that you're identifying important factors to this. I think it somewhat has ebbed and flowed over time, but there's no question right now in the moment that we're in, in most of the world, we're seeing that decline in trust and where people are saying, can we trust? Is it smart to trust?

It's a fad. It's a fad to trust.

Exactly, that maybe that's a fad. And so we've gotta, that's why I really come back to saying we need models who can become mentors. We need people to show that there's a better way to lead, there's a better way to operate where we can turn our differences into strengths. But what's foundational to doing that is there has to be a level of trust.

Yeah.

that we're willing to give. Yes, we have to model it. We have to be trustworthy, but we also have to be trusting. I think the bigger gap is that we're not trusting enough. And, and again, I'm not downplaying the trustworthiness.

Right, right, right.

We've seen those shortfalls in leaders, and when you see it, and then you're right, the media, you know, highlights it, you start to wonder, well, maybe everyone's falling short. And in a sense, none of us are perfect, so we all are falling short in that sense. But, but people could be of goodwill coming at things together, and they could have their own credibility, their own capabilities, their own competence and character, but they may not extend the trust of the other. They may not be trusting. That, I believe, is our bigger gap today.

Okay.

In the trust equation. I'm not downplaying the trustworthiness. That's modeling. Gotta do that. But as leaders, we need to be trusting and willing to give that trust and extend that goodwill and assume positive intent. That's how we're gonna turn our differences into our strength, into creativity, into innovation. I like to put it this way. Differences are our strengths. When people trust each other. The differences can sometimes be viewed, you know, suspiciously, and maybe in some cases even divisively, when people don't trust each other. So if we want to run with our differences as the greatest form of strength, of creativity, of innovation, start with trust. And somebody needs to go first.

So let me challenge you, Stephen.

Please.

What are the 3 things that we can personally do to increase our ability to trust someone else?

Yes.

What are the 3 things we can do?

Yes, I would say this. First, focus on your own self-trust.

Okay.

It's inside out. And one reason why sometimes we have a hard time trusting others, because we sometimes don't trust ourselves, and it's hard to do that. So that self-trust always comes first. I'll get— I'll give you the other 2 in just a moment, but let me just tell you a little story on this.

Yes, please.

Because this happened at a recent, uh, um, workshop I was doing. And I talked about how trust is built from the inside out and made the point that self-trust precedes relationship trust, which precedes team trust, which precedes organizational trust, market trust, societal trust. So I said it's inside out, not outside in. So you look in the mirror, you start with yourself. And this person— then we took a break, and this person came up to me at the break and said, Stephen, this is really, really helpful. Because it explains so much of what's going on in my life and has been for years. And he said, look, I'm not happy with where I'm at in my career, my life, and I've always blamed everybody else. You know, I can't trust my boss, so then I go to get another boss. I can't trust that boss either. And then I go to another company, can't trust this boss, can't trust that boss, because I've gone through boss after boss and boss, never been able to trust any of them. Because then I go home into my neighborhood and I can't trust my neighbor. And then I even look at my family, I'm not sure I even trust my kids. He went on and on. And then he goes, and then when you gave that model that trust is built from the inside out, I realized what my problem is. And then he looked around to make sure that nobody was hearing our conversation and he leaned into me, CB, and he whispered, These words he said, I don't trust myself. I don't trust myself. And I realize that I am projecting that distrust of myself out onto everybody else and into every relationship. That's why I've never been able to trust anyone, that I don't even trust myself.

Okay, Stephen, so When— I'm leaning into this conversation.

Me too.

When you don't trust yourself, where can you start to trust yourself? That's really hard. I mean, what do you do? Do you sit in front of a mirror and say, okay, you will trust yourself? How do you recognize that you're not trusting yourself? If they don't hear Stephen Covey talk about this?

Yeah. So here's what I would do, what I would recommend. And this is actually your question that you just posed there was the very question this person told me after he said, I don't trust myself. That's my problem. So what do I do? It's your question. Here is my response. I, I thought about it and then I, I said, The best way I know to increase self-trust is to learn to make and keep commitments to yourself. It's interesting, CB. Here's what the data shows. The number one behavior that builds trust with other people is to make another person a commitment and then to keep it. And then make another commitment and to keep it, especially if it's a value-added commitment. You make a commitment, you keep it. You make a commitment, you keep it. You repeat that process: make, keep, repeat. Make, keep, repeat. You can build trust fast with people that way. Well, guess what? That's also the fastest way to build trust with yourself. Learn to make and keep commitments to yourself. And we often don't keep a commitment. to, you know, we don't treat a commitment to ourselves with the same respect we might treat a commitment to another person. And so, we overpromise and underdeliver. And it could be as simple as I set the alarm clock.

Yeah.

You know, I set the alarm clock at 6 because I got a meeting at 7. And then I say, hey, I need to exercise. So, I'm going to set it for 5 so I can have an hour and go exercise. Then the alarm goes off in the morning and what do I do? I say, oh gosh, I'm going to go back to bed. And, you know, I kind of turn it off and I kind of rationalize in the moment, I think I need the sleep more than the exercise. And, and, uh, but that was— you might not say that was a commitment, but when I said it the night before, it kind of was. I was saying, I want to get up and exercise. And in the moment of choice, I didn't have the courage. I didn't. have the integrity. And I turned it off, went back to sleep. You know, you do that time after time, you, you don't treat a commitment to yourself with the same respect you might another, you start to become a little bit less trusting of yourself that I can do this. But if you start with those little things, it's in the little things, the micro courage, those small moments, strength in the small moments, courage in the small moments, getting up, to go exercise, keeping a commitment that you made to yourself, then that begins to snowball and become something that gives you clarity and integrity and power. That's how it starts.

By the way, Stephen, you have just called me out with that. I have just been so upset with myself. Because writing this book, I had to— it's just a mess. I made a mess. You know, I wrote the book, I sent it in to the publisher, I didn't even read it. I got it back after they edited it, and I said, this is junk. I said, why didn't I read this before? I literally had to rewrite the book. Okay, send it in again. I got it back, and I see all of these spelling and grammar mistakes, and I'm like, Why didn't you take the time to run it through Grammarly? That would have saved you aggravation, right? So this time I went through Grammarly. But meantime, each time I did this, my confidence is going down and down and down. And each morning I'd wake up and I'd say, okay, I'm gonna get to this today. I'm gonna get it off my back. And I talked myself out of it. So now I realize I went through a period of not trusting myself. Shame on me.

Is that— well, first of all, this is— it takes courage to say, I realize this now. I also think you're in good company because I think we all struggle. I could tell you my story on the same thing, and it was, you know, where just so many things going on and it was, it was so hard to address That I started to lose some self-trust in myself. And, and, um, because it was just, it just was so hard to kind of get liftoff.

Yes.

Break gravity.

Yeah.

And, uh, and I lost some self-trust in myself. And so I think we're in good company that, that, uh, we all have to come back to this foundation.

Letting me off the hook.

Yeah, well, I'm saying we, we all need to get better from it, right? We all need to improve. You know, I was really moved by, um, Admiral William McRaven. He was the commander of Special Operations for the U.S. military. That it was under his— you know, Special Operations is the elite fighting forces.

Mm-hmm.

So Army Rangers, Navy SEALs, Green Berets, the best of the best. And it was under his command that they got Osama bin Laden. You know, so he was this elite, um, uh, fighting forces, the, the leader of them. Great, great leader himself. In fact, um, here, you know, to have these elite fighting forces, they need to have real high trust with, with each other.

Absolutely.

And so they're maybe the best in the world at trust, and yet he was bringing me in to work with his team to get even better. I found that interesting, isn't it? You know, that the people who are already the best in the world at trust are trying to get better because they never, they never arrive. They always see that we're on a journey trying to get better. Well, when he retired, he became the chancellor of the University of Texas system, of, you know, the university system.

Right.

And then he was invited to give a commencement address. So, he went down to Austin and he gave the commencement address and it went viral. And here's what he said. He said, If you want to change the world, make your bed.

Make your bed. I've heard that. Yeah, I've heard that.

It's a viral speech. You could look it up. Yeah, Google it. If you want to change the world, make your bed. And his point was this: start by making a commitment that you can keep, and then keep it. And then go from that commitment to the next commitment, to the next commitment, to the next. And you'll find yourself growing in integrity, in clarity, in power. And so, you know, in a sentence, the basic idea was, if you wanna change the world, make your bed. It starts with those little things, the courage in the moment of change.

Yes, yes, absolutely. Oh my gosh, this— okay. All right, this is more than what I bargained for today.

Well, me too.

This is fun.

All right, so I understand that. Number 2. Okay, you start to trust.

Look in the mirror. You start with yourself. You work on your self-trust. Second, then I would do— I would focus on intent by doing these 2 things first. I, you know, this is all part of number 2. I would declare my intent and assume positive intent. 2 halves of that. So declare my intent means I'm open, I'm transparent, I'm, I'm vulnerable. I don't, you know, I, I don't only share the what, I share the why. Always give the why behind the what. Sometimes leaders give the what, but they often don't give the why.

Yeah, I agree.

The why gives meaning. The why gives context. The why can change everything. Give the why. So you come in into a new relationship and you're questioning whether you can build trust, or, you know, you can trust this person. If you come in and you say, look, here's what we're trying to do, here's why we're trying to do it, I don't have a hidden agenda, it's an open agenda, I'm transparent, there's nothing to hide. And I even— I might even go beyond my intent. I might even declare myself. I learned that from Doug Conant, who was the former CEO of Campbell Soup Company. And he took them from bottom 10% in engagement to top 10% in engagement. And by the way, their financial performance also went from the bottom to the top as well. Mm-hmm. But, but he felt it started with the engagement. And they— he said the number one practice that enabled them to build the trust and the engagement was he would declare himself. He'd come in and say, here's my intent, here's my agenda, and here's who I am. Here's how I like to work. Here's how I like to lead. I like to focus on getting results, but I wanna build the relationship and I've gotta build trust. If we can trust each other, it's always better. So I'll go first. Wow. And here's what I'm gonna try to do. And he declared, His intent, he declared himself. And then as a starting point, he started by assuming positive intent as opposed to, you know, negative and reading things into it and projecting. And he said that by doing that, he literally kind of gave a clean slate for someone. And so often we don't trust people because we've already labeled them, branded them, said, you know, I don't agree with them. So already we're starting with Not assuming positive intent and not really listening and understanding. But if we do, if we focus on this intent, by declaring our intent, giving the why behind the what, being open, being transparent, authentic, vulnerable, and then assuming positive intent coming from the other person, we get in a far better place to actually build trust in that relationship. Because they tend to reciprocate and model back when we're vulnerable. And it takes courage to be vulnerable, right? When we're vulnerable and real, they tend to reciprocate a little bit. And not everyone will, but many will. And they say, maybe we can build trust here. So that would be my second step: declare your intent as soon as possible.

I'm going to check the time here.

Okay.

And the reason why I want to check the time is I want to take a break and continue this because I have a challenging question to what you just said. So ladies and gentlemen, come back for part 2.