CB LIVE! Courage to Leap & Lead with Stephen Covey, part 2 Episode 118

You've got courage to leap, courage to lead. Be brave and be bold. Whoa, 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.

Hi everybody. This is part 2 of my interview with Stephen M. Covey, and he made a comment in part 1 when we're talking about how do we increase our self-trust, and he said, assume and tell people about positive intent. Now I want to drill down on this because we hear this a lot— positive intent, positive intent. How can you declare positive intent if you don't trust yourself? It's kind of like, which coming— which is coming first, the chicken or the hen?

Yeah, great question. I think trusting yourself does come first. Because I— because in a sense, Assuming positive intent is a form of extending trust to another. And if you don't trust yourself, it's harder to extend that trust to another. And when you assume positive intent, you're— that's goodwill. That's, that's basically saying that we might have differences, we might see the world differently, we might come at it differently, but I'm assuming positive intent in you as a human being.

But, but Stephen, in yourself, how can you get to positive intent? How do you know that what you're thinking and what you're feeling is that positive intent? Because you're going to say to yourself, no, I, I felt positive about this all along. But now you're saying because I'm not trusting myself, and that's shown through positive intent, that I'm not trusting myself. Trusting others. So you get yourself caught in this quagmire of, I don't know if I can— if my intent would be considered trustworthy by others.

Yes. Yes. Okay. That's— that I— again, you're really drilling deep and insightful. So The more that you— when you look at intent, that's your motive, and it's also your agenda. And the motive that best builds trust is genuine caring.

Hmm.

When you care about the people that you're serving, that you're leading, that you're interacting with, that you're selling to, if, you know, even as a salesperson. But if I'm a leader of a team, do I care about the members of my team? And do they know and feel it? You know, because it's felt. Um, we know the expression, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And, and so the caring is the motive. And so you, you do ask yourself, you need to ask yourself, do I care about them, about their interests, about their needs, about their concerns? Because if your motive is based upon caring, and then, then that will— you'll be able to build trust better with someone because they feel that. I love, uh, um, let me see if I can get this right. It was Dr. Maya Angelou, who said, I have learned that people will forget what you said, they will forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

Yes, it's one of my favorite quotes.

It's a beautiful quote. It's powerful. It's a principle.

Yeah.

And they feel caring. So it's not you saying, I care about you. It's do they feel you care about them? You want to build trust with someone? Demonstrate care, concern for the person.

As you have to care about yourself first.

Self-care, self-care. It all— everything I'm saying about with another always starts with yourself. So you examine your own motive. Am I seeking to bless, not just to impress? Am I putting service above self-interest?

Mm-hmm.

And, you know, if your mindset is one of serving and of giving back and of contributing first— it's not that I don't have other desires, of course I have self-interest and I want to succeed and do these things, but what's my mindset? And the more you can kind of orient yourself around service contribution, caring, and in a relationship, seeking mutual benefit. That's called win-win.

Mm-hmm.

And my father wrote, wrote about that in 7 Habits of— yes, I wanna win, of course, but I want your win too. In fact, I want your win as much as I do my own. Seeking win-win, mutual benefit. When, when people feel that, they tend to trust me, and I tend to trust myself more. when I'm also operating on that premise, because that's the only sustainable approach when we're interdependent, is mutual benefit, win-win. So in this Trust Inspired book, here's how I phrase it: put service above self-interest. And here's the irony: in the process, self-interest gets served. We all, we all tend to win. And my mantra for this, I learned again from my father, And I, and I do this every time I give a presentation. I do this before a podcast. I did this before we started today. I had my own thoughts on this where I say these words. It's kind of a mantra for me, and I try to mean it, not just say it. Seek to bless, not to impress. Because to me, it speaks of the mind. What's my mindset going into this podcast? Am I trying to impress people that I'm smart or that? I know, trust, and this and that. If that's my mindset, then it'll be more about me and looking good and the like, but my motive is more self-serving.

Mhm.

If instead I seek to bless, if that's my motive, is I want to contribute, I'm hoping to maybe say something that could be of value, helpful to someone, I'm not trying to look good. I'm trying to serve.

And you have. Gosh, such richness out of this conversation. Thank you.

Yeah. Seek to bless, not to impress. So I, for every speech, any podcast, I, I say that and I try to mean it so that my— it gets my head right. That, you know, life is about contribution, not accumulation. And I'm trying to give back and I'm trying to to help and to serve. Service above self-interest. But again, the great irony is self-interest tends to get served when you first serve another.

Yes, yeah.

That's— and that's, that's exciting. And I think courage is the same way. I think there's kind of self-serving courage, which is a good thing. You stand up for yourself.

Yes.

We need to stand up for ourselves and what we stand for. So self-serving courage, but service-oriented courage is even stronger. That's standing up For others and standing up for principles. That's doing the right thing. That's even a higher level of courage.

I totally agree. Totally. Okay, number 3.

Okay, third. So I said first, focus on your trusting yourself. Second, declare your intent and assume positive intent. Third, lead out In extending trust to others. In other words, you be the one to lead out. Yes, there's a risk. I know there's a risk in trusting people. You know there's a risk in trusting people. Our listeners, our viewers know there's a risk in trusting people. But you know what? There's also a risk in not trusting people.

I like that.

And I think in today's world, a collaborative world, an interdependent world, a world built on relationships and partnerships and collaboration, I think that not trusting might be the greater risk. Now, I'm not asking you to just blindly trust everyone in any way. I call that a blind trust. That's not gonna work, and that's not smart because not everyone can be trusted. And there are some people that are untrustworthy and are bad actors, but the majority of people can be trusted, want to be trusted. So don't let the, the few that you can't trust define for you the many who you can. Instead, start fresh with the idea that I start with trust and I lead out and extend that trust and tell people Prove otherwise, that I shouldn't. And, and, um, but it's a better starting point because it tends to change the very nature of the relationship when you take the risk of saying, I choose to trust you. And, and then what is disarming to people, and they tend to be inspired by it, they tend to want to live up to it.

It's true.

And they tend to reciprocate and return the trust back. Maybe not everyone, and acknowledge that maybe someone tries to take advantage. But, um, I think it's better to live your life trusting and occasionally be, you know, let down than to be forever distrusting and be right from time to time.

And part of that is trusting that you will know how to respond if you are let down.

It is.

That's a part of it, that you acknowledge there's some risk and sometimes we're wrong. In the trust. And we learn and we try to, we try to get more right, but we try to learn in a way that, um, that still operates on the premise of being trusting. Because it brings that— what trusting does to others is it brings out the best in them. They tend to rise to the occasion and perform better. They tend to grow and develop. You give them opportunities and they kind of live up to it. And yeah, they develop new capabilities. They have growth. And they tend to give the trust back. They reciprocate. It's a reciprocity. But I even believe that by you going first, your motive is not reciprocity. Your motive is generosity. It's abundance.

So the question I want to ask you, and, um, you talk about in chapter 4 the fundamental beliefs of a trust and inspired, uh, leader.

Yes.

But one of the things that's come to my attention, and I can't remember what it was, but it was recent, whereby there was a leader who felt that— was listening to all of the new research about leadership and being inspiring and being motivator and being trustworthy and everything. And so the behavior that this person started to display was asking people's opinions and listening to it and so on and so forth. And then what happened is that the company started to distrust him for not being able to make decisions. It was flipped.

Yeah.

That instead of caring enough to hear opinions and not giving your opinion first, which would taint the waters, And instead, people started to look at him as, you know, well, he's lost his ability to lead because he's asking. What say you about that?

I, I get it. I think I would respond this way, that it's a balancing act. It's, it's, um, we're trying to find the sweet spot. Any, any strength pushed to the extreme Hmm. It's a weakness. And so if I'm— if a strength of mine is to listen and seek out opinion and the like, that's a strength. But pushed to the extreme, it becomes a weakness. And in that case, it becomes like, this person's a, you know, he just— he listens to everyone, but he can't make a decision. And then he becomes wishy-washy. He's a great listener, but I want him to We need leadership. I want someone to make a decision and move forward. We need some vision too.

Mm-hmm.

And so, you know, but I could go the other direction of, let's take a great visionary. That's a, that's a gift, that's a strength. Push to the extreme, it could be a weakness, which is we have this visionary that never involves anyone, never listens to anyone, doesn't understand what's really going on, and it's all in his head or her head. the vision. So that strength pushed to the extreme becomes a weakness. Um, you know, the person that talks straight and tells the truth— well, that's a strength to be a straight talker, but pushed to the extreme, you're going to be offending people left and right, you know, all in the name of talking straight. And you're just offensive.

Yeah.

Even, even something like respect— you think, can you have too much respect? Well, maybe pushed to the extreme, respect might look like this. At the extreme is I'm so respectful and not wanting to offend someone that I don't tell them the truth or what they need to hear. You know, you want your doctor to tell you the truth, not what you want to hear.

Mm-hmm.

And, and so you can even go too far in respect if you're not willing to share what would be valuable to know because you're worried about them taking offense somehow. So you find that sweet spot, the balancing act, and it's really good judgment. And that's why I like to say humility and courage, because I could go too far with humility and I never take action. I'm not leading. I'm just so humble. I, I just listening to everyone else because I'm so humble. I could go too far in courage where I'm so courageous and strong that I'm just kind of running people over in the sense of not being humble, not taking the time to listen because I'm so sure about myself and my courage. I've seen courageous people lack humility and come across not, you know, as, as an authentic, you know, as a vulnerable leader, an authentic someone that they would follow. But I've also seen Some humble people maybe turn into like this leader that listened so much, didn't make a decision, and wasn't seen as decisive. So find that sweet spot. I think for all of us it's an ongoing process. Same with trust. You can trust too much, get burned, not trust enough and not open up the possibilities. So you're even, even in trusting, you're also trying to find That sweet spot. But I'm making the point that I think we, most of us, need to become more trusting than we have been.

Stephen, what do you consider to be your greatest strength?

I, I think that maybe my greatest strength is that I genuinely care about people. and about principles. And so I'm trying to, um, I'm trying to teach principles that I believe endure, you know, as opposed to fads, as opposed to just practices, but instead principles like trust, like inspiration, like caring, like empathy that will endure, that work in different contexts, different cultures, different parts of the world. that will work today and will work tomorrow and that worked 100 years ago. Principles. And, and I believe in them. And I tried to write my books, Trust and Inspire, this new one, Speed of Trust, on, on the basis of principles that are enduring as opposed to just timely fads or practices that come in and out. And, and, uh, so I think I care about principles. And one of the principles is that we influence people, enduring influence is created from the inside out. So that's— we look in the mirror, we start with ourselves, as opposed to looking out the window at everybody else. Inside out. And then the second thing— so I care about principles, I care about people, and I care about their growth, their development.

Yeah.

I care about their wins, their successes. And I care about their interests, their families, their communities. And, and so I'm seeking that mutual benefit. I'm trying my best. I'm trying to bless, not to impress. I'm trying to get into their world, not just mine. And I think if I stay true to that, that I can be effective at that. And I think I have been, but I don't take it for granted and I don't assume it.

I—

that's why I always come back to seek to bless, not to impress, to remind myself of what I What I believe in, and to stay true to it, and not ever start to take it for granted.

What do you consider to be your greatest weakness?

I think that a couple of things. One is, one is that it's very easy for me to. The reason I remind myself. Seek to bless, not to impress, is because it's easy for me to want to, you know, I want to look good. I want to— who, I mean, in a sense, who doesn't, right?

Yes, we all do.

Yeah. But, but it's very easy to kind of have my motive be, I, you know, yes, I want to bless, but I really, really hope that that I was good, and they come across, you know, they view me as good. And again, I'm not against— I want to succeed with people, but I, I just don't want my mindset to be more about me. I want it to be more about them. And, and, um, and it's very easy to, you know, I go to— I mean, if I give a speech—

I understand you.

I want to do good in a speech, right? But what's my motive? Is it the best or impress? It's easy for me to fall into, I hope I impress them.

That is really beautifully said. Beautifully said. So let me ask you a couple of other difficult questions.

Okay.

You're the son of a very famous man.

Yes.

How did you deal with that? And I'm asking that from many different ways. What was it like growing up? How did you create your own true north?

Yeah.

Was your father the type of person who said, it's my way or the highway? Clearly he wasn't because we know that from the books, but I'm just asking.

Yeah.

He was clearly an inspiration to you, but how did you deal with being known as yourself?

Yeah, I think it's a great question, particularly for me because I carry my father's name, just, you know, different middle initials. Yes, but, but I carry his name. So let me share a couple of thoughts on this that will kind of show you my journey.

Yes, please.

The first is that I, growing up with my dad, it was— that's what I knew. It's what I experienced. He was— what the thing about my dad is, he lived what he taught. And you'd hope that, right? I can just tell you, you know, as a child would know, and my dad was the real deal. He was a trust and inspire parent. And, and, uh, um, and he believed in us, and he, and he helped us come to believe in ourselves, and he modeled it. He went, he went first. He was the model of what we were trying to, to do. And that, you know, that's, that's remarkable to have that kind of love and affirmation coming at you, but also a model.

Mm-hmm.

Not everyone has that. I know that. I was fortunate. I was blessed, lucky. Privileged to have that kind of model. And, and, um, and I like to say it this way, that as good as my father was in public as a, as a speaker, as an author— and he was very good— he was even better in private.

Wow.

As a, as a husband to my mother, as a father to us kids.

How many children? There's 9 of us. Holy, holy.

Yeah, I'm one of 9. I'm the third of 9.

Wow.

So we had a big, big family, and, and yet each of us felt like we were our dad's favorite because he—

That's a trick in itself. It's a trick.

Well, it was, it was genuine. He really just connected. He, he, he worked at it. It didn't— you know, he would take us on trips. We got to pick our trips that we— you know, he'd go out and speak and he'd be gone. So what did we do? Take the kids.

Wow.

We gotta pick with you. He'd lay out the schedule and say, okay, I'm going to Orlando. I'm going here, this, that. I get Orlando. I want Disney World. You know, this is growing up and things like that. And, uh, so, but he really worked at the relationships. It mattered to him and you felt the love. So I was fortunate, blessed. And by the way, everything I'm saying about my dad, my mom was, was his equal in every way. and, and an extraordinary person, leader, force in the community. Um, so I had great modeling right in front of me, and, and, uh, and, and that gave me a sense of stewardship, of responsibility. Now, having said that, I will say this, CB, that it— I still, I struggled with, um, being my father's son. And when I first when I first joined the company, and I had other opportunities to, you know, to— I had an opportunity on Wall Street and one with this big national real estate development company. Exciting, more glamorous, but I felt like my dad's stuff was going to really change the world. This was before The 7 Habits was published.

Wow.

So I, so I joined and said, this is gonna be part of something big. That took a lot of courage because it was actually easier to join one of these other places because then I would be seen for kind of who I was, not just being my dad's son. But here's how I dealt with it at first. I, I said I had a hard time thinking I could follow in his footsteps because he wrote The 7 Habits, and how are you going to follow The 7 Habits? You know, that's sold 40 million copies and influenced people, and, and he was this great teacher and speaker. And so that was intimidating to think I would go down that path. So I kind of carved out initially what I felt was, was my own identity and my own strengths. I came out of Harvard Business School, I learned business, and I, and I said, you know, I'm going to try to focus on, um, the business side of the thought leadership. My dad's the thought leader, I'll be the business operator. I'll be— I'll try to turn this into a business that can can scale, can grow, can reach people around the world. And, and, and, um, it was almost too intimidating to think I would write and speak like my dad because I thought I'd just be a poor man's version at best. And so I, I said, I'll go this other route, both because I was fearful, candidly, of not measuring up to my dad's reputation.

Mm-hmm.

and just being a poor man's version at best. I was fearful, but also in fairness to myself, standing up for myself, I did feel like I had strengths that were needed in the company to grow the business, to build, to find a business model that worked, to scale it. And I felt like I did have strengths there too, and that there was a greater need for that. So, I went that path.

Wow.

And then I kind of had 2 career paths. That was the first half. And we built the business. We became the largest leadership development company in the world, doing things all around the world. And then I— we— when we did a merger with Franklin Quest to form Franklin Covey, I saw what happened there, that we were struggling. We'd been arch competitors, and at first we struggled. We didn't trust each other at first because we'd been competitive in the marketplace. And then we began to say, we gotta build trust internally in order to have the impact we have— want in the market. And we did that, and we built the high— a high-trust team and culture in this combined company. And I came outta that experience saying, wow, I just think I found what I want to say to the world. I just think I found my voice.

Mm-hmm.

It's around trust. It changes everything. We're underestimating it by a factor of 10, maybe 100. It— and it's learnable, it's movable. You can build trust on purpose. And I came out of that saying, I think there's a need for this in the world— why trust matters and how to build it. Because most of the stuff on trust was either too academic or too simplistic.

Mm-hmm.

I felt like I could make a contribution. And it's interesting, CB, once I found my voice, I lost my fear. I no longer Was afraid to be Stephen R. Covey's son, and I saw it rather as wow! What what an opportunity to be Stephen R. Covey's son, to to stand on the shoulder of a giant, and and you know don't care what other people think. Seek to bless, not to impress. I don't. I I have something to say. I think I have a contribution to make. So have my motive be to bless, not to see how I stack up compared to my dad. Don't don't worry about any comparison. just, you feel called around trust, seek the bliss now around it. And I lost my fear and I moved down that path. And I've been doing that as the second act of my career, is me as a thought leader riding on trust and inspiration and with a lot of courage and not worrying about any comparison.

Have you read Jaworski's book called Synchronicity?

I have not.

I'm going to send it to you. No, I'm not going to tell you about it. I'm going to send it to you. We've talked a lot about a lot of different things that are all so valuable. Thank you so much. I want to ask you now a pointed question as we wrap up.

Yeah.

What was your biggest failure? And how did you turn it into success?

Yes.

Okay, I'm— can I pick 2?

Absolutely, you can. We're lucky that you can pick 2.

Yeah, because it will kind of describe my 2 acts, my 2 careers, my, you know, the business side and the thought leader side.

Okay.

So on the business side, um, I'll never forget one time I, I was, uh, you know, I learned the business from the ground up. I, I sold, I delivered, I kind of built a team, then built a team of teams, and then Um, you know, led different groups. And at some point though, I, I became the CEO. And again, it's my father's company, so I'm— I've, I, you know, I have that advantage. I know that. And, and, um, but along the way, I kind of had formed judgments and opinions of different, uh, groups. And there was one group in our company that I felt like they were not, um, really contributing a lot to the bottom line, to the growth of the business, and that we were putting a lot of resources in them, and that the— what they were, you know, getting back to us was not very strong. And I kind of labeled them, judged them, and even sometimes spoke about them, um, that in unfavorable terms. And, and, um, and here's what happened to me is, you know, I became the president and I still kind of treated him this way, almost like the stepchild of the, you know, of the organization that, that wasn't pulling their weight.

Yes.

And, and, um, and that was the perception that everyone had. I had it and I perpetuated it, and I even maybe helped create it. Then we brought in an outside firm because we didn't have any— we didn't have good systems and and good data to really tell us how our business was doing and where we were profitable and not. And so we brought in this outside firm, consulting firm, that did activity-based costing to kind of really help us understand where we were making money, where we were not. And we did this and we applied it across the entire business. And then to my shock, what came back to me was that this division that I'd been disparaging, when we actually looked at all the data and all the spin-off and all the different elements that came from this, that they were the 2nd most valuable and profitable part of our company after I had been kind of badmouthing them. Not mean-spirited, but kind of downplaying them. And I mean, it wasn't a mean-spirited thing, but just kind of acting like you're just a hobby. And we have these other things that are real businesses, and, and they come back and they're right near the top.

Yep.

And I was completely wrong. And the data— I had data now, and the data, you know, and so I, I had to kind of confront this and take it head on because I felt like I was flat out wrong. And I need to own it. And I'll lose people's trust if I kind of skirt it, ignore it, push it to the side. And everyone knows what I've been saying, and now we got this new data and everyone's excited to see the data, you know. And, and, um, and so I, I felt like I had to confront the reality that I was wrong. I had to own it and hold myself accountable and say the words I was wrong. And so I did that, and it took a lot of courage. It'd be easier to kind of skirt it and downplay it and just move on, but I thought I wouldn't have the trust of that division, certainly, because they knew what I had done, but maybe even of others too that kind of felt that I had done this. So I, I exercised my courage muscles, and I, I said, I've got to own this. And I went to the leader of the group, and I said, I was wrong, and I apologize because, because I was wrong, and I need to make up for it. And so in the same way that I'd been kind of creating this perception and perpetuating that perception that you're more of a hobby, less of a business, Mm-hmm. I need to become your greatest advocate and champion. I need to make restitution. I need to make whole because I was wrong and I need to acknowledge that to everybody. And I do it to you and I'm gonna do it to your team. And then I met with their team and I acknowledged this, that I was wrong and I've learned I was wrong and now I'm gonna change and, and point out and become your greatest advocate and champion. And I did that with the team. I did it, I did it first with the leader. who was very grateful for that. Second, did it with that team, that division. And third, I did it for the whole company.

Wow.

And I got up and said, I was wrong. The data shows this. I, I, I had a bias, a stereotype. I perpetuated it. I saw things through that lens. I filtered what fit it, filtered out what didn't, magnified what did, and it was wrong. And I acknowledge this and I apologize for that.

What did you learn from that?

What I learned was that that did not weaken me, it strengthened me. Sometimes we're afraid to be wrong 'cause we think that I look bad, I'm weak, I was wrong as a leader, maybe I'm gonna be wrong again. Yeah, we're wrong a lot. The question is, what do we do when we learn that we're wrong and how do we learn from it? How do we get better? How do we grow? We fail, but we get up and we grow and we learn. So we're always learning. And, and this was a learning experience for me. I failed. I misjudged this group. But the big test was, what do I do about it?

What are you gonna do about it?

And because I responded strong and owned it, not skirted it, took it head on and took responsibility for it, I came out of that actually with more respect more trust and more strength as perceived by people, even though I'd made a huge mistake. And, and, um, and I realized that doing the right thing requires courage, but it also, um, it— that is how you gain the respect and the trust of the people that you're with. And it requires both humility and courage.

Did you trust yourself more? After you responded like that?

I absolutely did. I trusted myself more because I knew this, that I'll course correct if I'm wrong and I figure it out. I'll get it right. I just did here on the biggest thing, public thing, very, very public. And I, and I got it right and I, and I earned respect. And I said, you know, so I can always course correct. That's why, you know, the— we always like to say that vision is the breakfast of Excuse me, feedback is the breakfast of champions. That's the expression. Feedback is the breakfast of champions. I don't think feedback is the breakfast. I think vision is the breakfast of champions, and feedback is the lunch, and course correction is the dinner. In other words, you have your principles, you stand for something, but then you might learn, you get feedback that it's not working, and You know, you were wrong. Now what do you do next? You course correct. You, you don't just ignore it, bury your head in the sand, act like it didn't happen, and you don't overreact, you know, but you, you course correct. Like an airplane flying from New York to Los Angeles, they're slightly off course, just slightly, 90% of the time. They have these little constant little course corrections. And they land right there, you know. And, and so you're just always course correcting. And, and so I learned we just course correct, and, and, uh, that way we learn from our mistakes. And there, there— failure is learning. Failure is growth. It's a mindset. Now, obviously, you try to avoid the colossal failures that could sink the company, but, but, uh, there's not that many colossal ones. They're mostly smaller ones. Yeah, we learn from them, we grow from them, we get better because of them, we get stronger, we build more self-trust because we know we'll do the right thing, we know we'll course correct. And when you have a track record of doing that, it gives you more confidence. You'll continue to do that as we go forward. So that's the first. I'll go really fast in a second.

No, don't go fast.

Okay, I just want to make sure that I'm not taking too much time. So that was the first, the, the business one. On the thought leader one, kind of when I found my voice around trust and inspiration and, and, uh, wanting to write about this, talk about this, had to learn how to do this. And, you know, my dad was a great speaker and teacher, but I had not done that.

Mm-hmm.

And, and so now I'm writing about trust because I did, I did earn some insights from my merger experience and all the work I'd been doing with clients. And so I had insight and I was writing about it. But when you start to write about it, you'll start to speak about it. You're doing this and, and others, and you start to speak about it. And, but I'm not really— I didn't know really how to best present and speak, and, and I was kind of learning how to do that. And I remember I went out, one of my very first presentations, I had a couple of colleagues that went out with me. To coach me. And, and, um, and so I gave a presentation about an hour long and everything, and then I met with them afterwards and we spent like 3 hours critiquing what I did, what worked, what didn't work, and all these things. And they gave me all this advice, and they were, they were really good and expert and everything. But I came out of that 3-hour critique session, I came out of it with 43 things I needed to do different And better. And, and my next speech was just a day later. See, you know, no, excuse me, 2 days later. And I got 43 things I got to do different in this next speech. And so I went into that next speech thinking about all these things. I got to do this, I got to make sure I do that. And, and I went into that speech with 43 things on my mind, and I was so confused, so all over the place. I kind of bombed.

What?

It was much worse than my first one because I was trying to do 43 new things, and I— and it was just too many. And I came out of that and I said, now that one I know I blew. But I, I— and I didn't— it was easy to kind of blame— it was you guys' fault for telling me all these things. But no, I realized it was my fault for how I interpreted this, but I had too many voices. Too many things going on in my head of all these things I had to do. And what— but what I learned from that is that there's not— for me, there's not 43 things I need to do. It became clear that I need to do, you know, just these 4 things. And I became clear—

How did you get down from 43 to 4?

Because I said the 43 things are what other people are telling me But what do I feel? What do I need? What is— who am I and what do I feel? And it was very clear, and it included this. Like, the first one is to bring energy, excitement, and passion to my topic, because if I don't, who is going to? I need to be the one that does that. Second, to connect with people. You know, face to face, eye to eye. This is about connecting and not just giving a speech. I gotta connect with people. Third, to tell great stories, because people remember stories, they relate to stories, and I'd become too conceptual with content, and I need to tell great stories. And then fourth was to be present in the moment. And not worried about this before, this after, but just to be with people present in the moment. And that was basically my way of taking all this advice they'd given, and it was good advice. And I said, but I can't remember 43 things, and I can't try to implement 43 things when I'm speaking. But these 4 things— to bring energy, excitement, and passion, to connect with people, to tell great stories. and to be present. I can do those 4 things every time I speak. Then I added to it later, and to remember my motive: seek to bless, not to impress. So I learned. And then now I give a lot of speeches and presentations, and, and, um, and I, I hopefully I'm effective at it. And, and, uh, and but I kind of had to I learned from a failure of just bombing, trying to just be all things to all people, do everything. And I had to become clear of what do I feel is most important to me being me. Like, you know, you said when you talked to Julie, just be myself.

Mm-hmm.

And so, you know, I had to learn how to be myself also as a speaker and not to be all these other great speakers out there, but to be who I was. which was authentic and real and vulnerable and genuine, but passionate about principles and about, uh, about trust and inspiration. So that's my— that's my learning, my failure and learning on, on, uh, the second act side, the— of my— me being a thought leader.

Thank you so much for sharing. You have no idea how much that has helped me.

Absolutely.

I've been like, you know, I naturally speak quite well. And for some reason in my head, I keep saying, okay. And I used to be a member of the National Speakers Association. I have no problem. But for some reason now, I say to myself, uh-oh. Now you've got to really do it. You're gonna have to back it up with a book, and what are the things you're gonna have to learn about speaking again? And all of this stuff is going through my head, so I'm so glad to hear.

Well, absolutely. If you thought enough about it, you'll come up with 43 things. And instead, it's already in you, CB. This is who you are. You know, you know this. You love, you know, the everything that you're about in this book that you're putting out, and, and, uh, the courage to lead and to leap.

And I'm gonna let you be my coach on this.

Wonderful. Well, it's already in you. It's already in you. And like you say, you are natural at this because it's who you are. It's how you lead. It's how you engage with people. You feel it.

Well, this has just been miraculous. That's all I could think of. Thank you so much. Audience, wow. I'm either getting better or my guests are getting better. That's what it is.

I think you're great. So I think it's the former. You are getting— you're terrific. It's what I like most Is, uh, I feel like I've just had a conversation.

That's, that's our goal, is to always let our guests feel like we're sitting in the living room having a glass of wine and chatting it up. Because I feel that, that I am highly dyslexic. And so for me, the best way to learn is visual and hearing and listening. Hearing and listening, 2 different things, right? And, and so I so appreciate you and the work that you're doing and sharing with us how you got there and your blips and your successes. You were just so honest and raw. It's, it's wonderful. It's a good thing. Thank you.

Thank you, CB. Thanks for having me and to our viewers and listeners for listening to me. And I hope that, I genuinely hope that I've said something here that can be of value, that can bless.

Absolutely. And I want to, I know we're not supposed to do this on LinkedIn, but I'm gonna do it anyway.

I appreciate it.

Get Stephen's book. And you know what, maybe the first book, should we say it's a sequel?

Um, I would see it not as the sequel. They're kind of— The Speed of Trust is more of how you build trust in a relationship, team, and culture. It's more of a, of a build— building trust. This one is more of a leadership book of saying the world has changed all around us. We need our leadership style to change with it. And the old style, command and control, doesn't work in a new world of work. We need to move from command and control to trust and inspire because people don't wanna be managed. People wanna be led. They wanna be trusted. They wanna be inspired. It brings out the best in people. And maybe command and control worked for some in the past, but it's not gonna work today in this new world with, you know, people having choices and options and these younger generations, Gen Z and the Alpha Generation and Millennials. They wanna be led, they wanna be trusted, they wanna be inspired. So it's more of a leadership book. So you could read 'em in parallel. We could read one before the other, either way. But this is the one that's out. I'd say grab— you don't need to read Speed of Trust first. Grab Trust and Inspire. I hope that you'll find it of value to you.

Well, you know, so this is gonna start another conversation, but I— so I won't. So I'll just ask you to come back again. I think this is something that our leaders need so much for 2 reasons. One, because of where we are as a society right now.

Yes.

I mean, we're just— we're in the midst of 5 different pandemics at once, right? The other reason is, is that I sincerely think that we've lost both trust and the ability to inspire.

Yes.

And our leaders, I feel, are losing this. I have been doing some studying on the suicide rate of the C-suite. And I think that your book will help them get past that moment of despair.

Yes, I hope so. We need that hope. We need that inspiration.

We need it.

Yeah.

And nothing is so serious in life—

yes—

that you can't trust and inspire yourself and others.

That's right. We need this, all of us. Our communities do, our neighborhoods do, our families do, our homes do, our businesses do, and each of us does. And each of us, I believe, can become a trust-inspired person and leader in all of life.

And let this be your guide.

Thanks, CB. So great to be with you.

Thank you. Thank you, audience. See you next week.