6 Habits of The Micro-Leader

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Welcome to beyond you'd why podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually help you discover and then live your why. You see, we believe that knowing your why, that driving force behind every decision you make and every action you take, is the essential first step to really knowing yourself. It allows you to move forward faster and have a bigger impact. If you're already a fan of the show, then you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys, and then we introduce you to somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. This show will be more powerful for you if you've already discovered your why. If you still need to do that, head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. It'll only take you about five minutes. Now, let's meet today's guest.

Today we are going to be talking about the why of better way. So if this is your why, then you are the ultimate innovator. You constantly seek better ways to do everything from the most mundane tasks of brushing your teeth to improving the rocket fuel that powers the space shuttle. You can't stop yourself. You take virtually anything and want to improve it, make it better and share your improvements with the world. You invent things and take what has already been invented and improve that too. You constantly ask yourself the questions, what if we tried this differently? What if we did this another way way? You contribute to the world with better processes, better systems, and operate under the motto of often pleased, never satisfied. You are excellent at associating and taking from one industry or discipline and applying it to another, always with the aim of improving something. You generally operate with a high level of energy because after all, that too is a better way. And so today I've got a great guest for you. His name is Hayden Bratt. Now, he is the founder and partner at mindset leadership. In 2018, he published his first book, MicroLeadership, which explores the future of leadership and specifically looks at how small or micro interactions are the secret behind creating enormous success. He's a qualified coach and expert in leadership. Hayden believes in developing better leaders, building better workplaces so that more people can be inspired and love their jobs. Hayden, welcome to the podcast.

Hey Gary, it's great to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

So for those people that kind of hear your accent a little bit, tell everybody where you are.

So I'm based over in the uk, as you can hear from my accent, and I live, I'm actually a neighbor of the Queen over here So I live in Windsor, just outside London, so in the southeast of the UK and say probably five minutes walk to Windsor Castle, which is where the Queen is her official residence. So I've got good neighbors. Yes.

How often have you seen her?

Not very often at all. So she's actually in, but because of the current pandemic, she's shielding from the world. So very few.

Public showings. So, yeah, not seen too much of her. But it's quite nice to know she's there, though. Yes, of course.

So bring us all up to speed. Tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get into leadership? Where did you start? What was your journey like so far?

Yeah, great. So I have been working in the L and D field for probably 25 years now. And I started out, actually started out in operations, frontline operations in retail here in the uk and always loved the people side of the. Of retail. So I always. One of my first jobs was working for a company called Tyrac, who used to be the business that were in all of the airports and travel locations around the world. And.

When I worked there, I used to work with a manager and he was great on the displays and the numbers and I used to take care of the people side. So we used to kind of work together and that was the thing that got me. And so from there, I've always had this real belief, I guess, that people are the route to success. If you want to achieve success in anything, it's about creating a great team and how do you lead that team in a way that enables them to be their brilliant best? That's something that has always.

Been part of my beliefs. Then I moved off and because I liked the people side, I got involved in training and then moved into this kind of lnd function, learning and development function with. With always a real interest on management development and leadership development. So my career has always explored those areas.

Let me ask you a question on that. What was it that you saw that made you believe that? What did you see? What did you experience? What was going on that you said, ah, a better way to success is through people, not just the displays. What did you see?

So I saw the good and the bad. So I saw the other people around me who were leading in the way that I believed was a better way. So started to see people who were really engaged in their people and inspiring their people and seeing the results they then delivered through. And I was very fortunate that I had an area manager at the time who was probably one of the best people I've Ever worked with this ability to really connect on a human level to the people that she led. She had really high standards, she was really demanding, but she did it in a way that really cared for the people who she led. A lady called Jeanette Parker. And then I saw other managers who seemed to be much more focused on the numbers or focused on the processes. And I could see the unhappiness that they were creating in some of their teams and therefore the negative impact that had on some of their results. So that was the thing that I started to look at. I looked and thought.

These people are doing it this way, these people are doing it another way. Clearly there's a better way. Coming back to our why to actually do this. And I started to tune into why. Why do some people get great results and other people not. What is it that stands those people out? And that's what really triggered me to want to explore it.

And what was Jeanette doing? Give us some examples of what you saw her doing.

So she had this real ability to connect with people on a human, individual level. So she had a big team at the time. She probably had 25 sites where she was managing, and in each of those sites were probably eight to 10 people. So couple hundred people across her watch, if you want to use that, that language. And she had this ability to know something about everybody. So she would walk in and when I, when I first worked for Jeanette, I was a relatively junior member of the team, and yet she would take the time to talk to me, to discuss things, for me to ask things, my views and opinions on things. When she was making changes in the location, she would take the time to ask questions, to.

Not to just come in and tell, but to really genuinely be interested in what your views and opinions were. And if she didn't agree, she didn't just say, no, that's ridiculous. She would say, okay, that's interesting. Why do you think that way? And what I'm thinking is this. What are your thoughts on that? So again, it wasn't a just do it because I'm the boss and I'm telling you to do was really kind of, I guess what we call coaching now. Back in the day, I didn't know it was called coaching and wouldn't have called it coaching, but a real kind of coaching approach to helping to understand. But the other thing that Jeanette did really well was she had super high standards.

So it wasn't a. It wasn't an environment that was just soft and fluffy and nice. It was an environment that had human connection with a real drive for high performance.

Now a real exacting standard that actually there were consequences if you didn't meet those standards. It was all done in the right way and the behaviors were.

Were really appropriate to show care and love for her teams. But there was a real exacting standard that was required.

Give us an example of that. I love what you're saying. I mean, connect on a human level and then set super high standards. So how did, like give us an example of what a super high standard might be?

So she would come in. So one of the things, we used to have this really big long store on Oxford street, so in central London, one of the biggest shopping streets in the world, with lots at the time, it wasn't pedestrianized, so there's lots of traffic going by. So you get a lot of dust and a lot of dirt coming into the store just by the very nature. So one of the routines we had every day was to thoroughly clean the shop prior to. We used to have 30 minutes prior to opening and the first hour of the trading was relatively quiet. So you used to do a really deep clean of the shop. And if Jeanette walked into the shop, she would not just rub her finger across the edge of the cabinet, she would put her hand on the back of the cabinet and run her finger through. And if any dust came out on her finger, you would have to go and clean it again. It was a really simple habit that she formed. And one of the big things, I'm a huge fan of his habits is one of these really what I call a keystone habit, which was she knew if the person who was leading that shift had made sure that the cabinets were clean at the back.

Then everything else on that checklist of that day would have been completed, because that's the easy one to shift to shirk on. Everybody will do make sure the windows are tidy, everybody will take the rubbish out, everybody will do the make sure the place is hoovered, etc. But when you go to the degree of making sure that the backs of the cabinets are as clean as the fronts, you can guarantee that everything else is done to that standard too. And it was just one of those great examples of that attention to detail, but not just for the sake of wanting to catch you out, but genuinely because there was a reason behind it and she would explain that reason. So if she caught you. And it happened to me on a long day when I was a bit slack in what I was doing and she came in and she found some dust in the back of the cabinet. And she could just hold her finger up, look me in the eyes, and the look on her face just showed all the disappointment that you needed to know. And she would just kind of what happened today, and I would be okay. I got the message, I understand why this really matters. And she'd explain it. I know if this isn't done, then there's other things that may not be done. And it's that attention that was so. It's just a great. A great story that has always stayed with me around. You can have these really high standards, hold people to account for them, but still do it in a way that has this human touch.

And that, for me, is what great leadership is about.

Yeah.

And so then you worked there for quite a while and then keep us going on your story.

Yeah, so I worked in that organization for a few years and then the opportunities to go. So I kind of felt I was ready to take on at that time, I was what we call a deputy manager, so an assistant manager in that location. And I was ready to take on my. My own store and just take that next level up in my career. And the opportunities there didn't seem to be available at the time. So I went and worked in a different company. And in that company that was a furnishing company. And when I was interviewed by them, I said, I've got a real interest in training and development. I've seen that within my experience in Tyrac. I see the value of it. I see how important it is in businesses. So I'm keen to come and do. And this company didn't have any learning and development function. They were a relatively new company, almost like a startup, and they were rapidly growing. So they were just looking for bright talent to come and join them. And I kind of fit the bill of bright talent, wanting to make a difference. So I joined them and I said, okay. What I'll do is.

If I get the opportunity, I'll come in and I'll start creating training for you and start to systemize and put processes and procedures in place around the training. So give me the opportunity and I'll come in and start working alongside, running my store. I'll start to share what I've learned from my time in Tyrac. So I came into that business and I was in a really quiet location, one of their smaller stores, but they used it as a kind of an academy location. So they'd send people down to be trained and I would train them upon customer experience, skills. And in the time they were quite Forward thinking in many ways because they had PC based tool systems at the time. So I had a computer where I could sit in type of way. So I was writing content and materials to share with other shop owners or shop shop managers to them to help train their teams and to start putting kind of PDF guides together and created a manual and all of that kind of good stuff back in the late 90s, which was kind of where we were in terms of training at that time. And I did that for a couple of years. And then again I went back to my manager at the time and said as we're expanding.

They were opening new sites. So they said to me, okay, well let's take you out of that site because I think there's more you can offer than just running that one site. And then I became the new site's opening manager. So every time they opened a new site I would go along and I would recruit the team for the new site. So do all of the recruitment.

Go with the display team and help set the shop up, set the store up. So spend a week there literally painting and putting things together and helping the display team.

In that time doing an induction for all the new colleagues in the store. So bringing them in, onboarding them, making sure that they all kind of knew what their roles were going to be. And then everybody else would disappear on the Sunday night and the Monday morning of opening, I would be there with the keys in my hand opening the store with all of the new team members. And I would manage that site until I was able to hand over to the new manager who was able to then run it effectively. So I'd be like two to three weeks working alongside them. And I did that for about 18 months. And I literally went around the entire of the UK opening new stores, pretty much one a month.

So it was great. It was a really good experience. And through that I could refine processes, improve things, make things better, come back to the Y again.

And kind of really help these new managers on their career as they stepped in.

And then from there I went into a more head office role in that same organization. So as they continued to grow, I actually had a team of people doing what I used to do and I then were managing that team. So I was no longer doing the on the shop floor stuff. I was in the head office starting to create management leadership development, starting to kind of professionalize their, their approach a little bit more. And that's.

That was kind of the next step. And from there I then went back to Tyrac. So back to the business. I used to work for.

Basically a really good friend of mine, my first ever manager there was now in the HR department and he approached me to say we've now got the national training manager position available. Would you be interested in coming and having a conversation? I went back and it's a business that's really close to my heart. So I went and worked there for about four years running the entire training function. So now no longer in the stores, but actually in the head office. And that was involving the regional managers, the operational management structure, as well as inductions and core kind of customer experience training.

So you had a lot of experience with building organizations, building teams, putting people together to succeed, seeing what doesn't work, seeing what does work. Which led you to coaching. Right. So now when, when did you move from Tyrac into coaching?

So I, yeah, I did tack. I then went into, I worked in the, the bookmaking industry here in the UK, so the betting industry. And I did 11 and a half.

Years.

Two of our largest bookmakers, so Coral and William Hill. And in there, that's where I started to really professionalize what I was doing. So up until that point, up until I worked in time at Tyrac, pretty much all my experience was things I'd learned from just keeping my eyes and ears open and researching myself and finding out, kind of just exploring and creating and coming up with ideas and testing them out. All of that kind of pretty much self learned.

Which is what better way people do.

Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

That's where we thrive is in finding better ways and sharing them. Right?

Absolutely. And that's the way that I'd kind of done it. And there came a point where I kind of thought to myself.

I do need some kind of validation of what I'm doing is actually right.

I've created all this stuff and I've built teams together and it's all worked and I've done really well. But actually is this really based on anything other than just my opinions of what works? So I sought out an opportunity to go to a much bigger organization than TIRAC was with other professionals to go and see actually can I cut it in the world of big business rather than just what was still a relatively small organization, it was a global organization, but it was still relatively small in comparative terms. So I joined.

The betting industry again, working as head of training in those environments. And that's where I started to get really involved in leadership development as opposed to kind of management development. Really focused on those senior leaders in the organization. And William Hill is Or it was at the time a FTSE 250 organization, 14 and a half thousand employees.

Some high profile leaders who for me to get involved and engaged with was a step up in terms of the expectations on me. And I absolutely loved it, thrived in that. And that's where I had the opportunity to start to get some professional qualifications, really explore coaching.

Did some, started to get some validation of my skills and knowledge from that organization. And then that led me to, seven years ago, taken the decision to leave the corporate world and set up my own consultancy, which is Mindset Leadership, the business that I run today. And that was where I'd always had this itch of wanting to be an entrepreneur. So my dad's an entrepreneur by definition, I guess he's always been an entrepreneur all his life. And I'd always had this kind of feeling in the back of my mind which is, is that something I can be successful at? And it came to a point in my career and my life where I just thought if I don't do it now, I never will. And I'd hate to look back in 10 years time and think, if only, let's be honest. Part of it was I believe I can do this pretty well and maybe I can do it better than some other people who were providing me at the time with services. So I looked around at other suppliers and said, well, I could do what they do and I can maybe do it better. So let me go out and have a look at can I make it on my own? And that's what's led me to run my business that I run now.

And so you wrote your first book. It came out a couple of years ago. About three years ago, yeah.

Let's talk about it.

What's the name of your book and what does your book teach?

Yeah, so the book is called MicroLeadership and Micro Leadership is really focusing on the small interactions that when cumulated together, create enormous results. So in effect it is thinking about leadership and thinking around how do I make small changes to the things that I do day in, day out? How do I change my habits as a leader to create the big results that I'm trying to achieve in my career, my life, my business and what I identified. And again, this is through all of the work that I've done over the years is it started and I'm really passionate about human performance. I'm passionate about kind of elite performance when it comes to athletics.

I'm really interested in what drives certain people to go above and beyond and to reach the Kind of real elite levels of capability. So I do loads of reading around that and I'm really interested in concepts of flow state and concepts of purpose and all of these things that really kind of sit as you talk to people who push and go beyond. And what really started to crystallize for me was there were six, what I call the six habits of a micro leader that started to kind of come together to coalesce into this way of looking at people who are really successful. They all seem to demonstrate these six attributes. Or in my mind, that's what they kind of coalesce into these six attributes or habits that really successful people do really well. And that's what the book is based around. So those six habits are. The first is live in the gap. And live in the gap is this ability to analyze a current situation and to identify the edges.

To look for the untrodden path to find the better ways. So I guess in your language is that ability to spot the opportunities to improve things and do things better. Continuous improvement, always striving for more.

So give us an example of that.

So that would be. Actually I've just been on a coaching session with a lady who does this. So somebody who's able to look at some market conditions and be able to spot the opportunities within that to innovate or to make a gain. So.

That ability to spot very quickly patterns that exist and then to.

Mobilize self and others towards maximizing that opportunity, it also has a secondary element to it which is the ability to manage your own state in any moment. So part of living the gap habit is the gap between stimulus and response. Which means that in any moment I'm able to manage my emotional state. That means that I can maximize opportunities that are there, that I'm not getting too drawn into the drama or I'm not getting too excited. That means I'm going to make rash decisions. So it's this ability to spot opportunities, but then to have the emotional.

Presence to be able to make the right choices in that moment, that's the live in the gap habit. Love it. Okay. Second habit that in the book is what I call be a connector. And that's that ability to build really strong networks and relationships to draw people together, to recognize that you can't do it alone. And we are way better when we are engaged with others. And this ability to draw people towards you and form either formal or informal networks connecting to others around who can bring them together. So when you have the live in the gap behavior, it's how do I then mobilise a team to maximize that opportunity. How do I connect people together? So it's people, processes and ideas coming together and connecting them into this ability to create alignment towards an output that you're looking to maximize. So that was the second thing that really kind of stood out as I was looking at the people around me who were great or reading the research. The third one was the habit, which I call find a way, which in effect is resilience. Am I willing to wrestle with a problem long enough for me to come up with a solution.

So linked into that? There is some creativity in there, there is some ideas around improvement, but fundamentally it is, am I going to be deterred by the first setback, or am I willing to wrestle with that problem for long enough for me to discover an alternative way round?

And let's say within, there is all tenets around being resilient, dealing with setbacks, dealing with obstacles.

Being creative, looking to innovate, find alternative solutions when the first thing doesn't work. All of that kind of great strategic thinking that comes as part of that.

Live in the gap, be a connector and find a way.

Find a way. Fourth one is dare to fail, which is the willingness to step outside your comfort zone, put yourself to places where you may not have the right answer or right solution and go there anyway. And it's really the attitude of there is no such thing as failure. I'm only going to learn so I either win or learn. Type methodology, which is lots, lots spoken around that it encompasses things like growth, mindset, the work from Carol Dweck sits in that space. The desire to want to test yourself and push yourself beyond to see how far you can go.

Again, I use.

The analogy. People often talk about the comfort zone, but I tend to call it a comfort blanket because it gives us this false impression that we're in this safe, protected place. And actually, it's the willingness to throw off that comfort blanket and step into unknown territory and see how well you perform in those environments. That willingness to go beyond what you currently know into that place of the unknown and see how well you cope in that environment is what the dare to fail behavior is all about. And two ways it shows up in business predominantly is how big a goal do I set for myself? Am I willing to put myself out there and set myself big, audacious, exciting goals, knowing that I might fall short, but I'm still going to go for it? And the other way it shows up is, am I willing to let go and delegate to others? Am I Willing to be held to account for the actions of other people and willingness to let go and allow others to steer the ship. So those are kind of two sub elements of the data fail. The fifth habit is the habit of show up. So this is me arriving as a leader and being willing to be held to account and own the choices that I make in any moment. And it's also the habit of a lot of leadership is you say the leader is because you're out front, but a lot of leadership actually is from behind where you're empowering other people to be out front and to represent your business and to delegate to them and empower them to make choices. But there are key moments as a leader where you have to a cycling term, you have to put your nose into the wind. You've got to be at the front of the peloton who's willing to take the buffeting of the wind and be the person who's going to stand up and own the decisions that you made. So a key part of being a leader is sometimes knowing when I've got to really show up and perform in my own right. Role modeling, demonstrating those standards that we talked about earlier to really.

Showing up. And then the final one is the habit live to serve, which is very in alignment with. I know you've done work with Simon Sinek before, aligned with his views around servant based leadership, but it's this willingness to use the skills and attributes that I have as a leader for the betterment of the people around me, whether they be my customers, whether they be my colleagues, whether they be my suppliers, but me putting myself at service of others. So I transcend myself rather than just looking to serve me and my own ego. So those were the six kind of habits, principles, behaviors that really kind of come to the fore of what I believe leadership in the future is demanding.

While we take a moment to give our guest a quick break, I hope you're hearing how how important it is to know your why. If you're ready to put an end to your frustration and unlock the code to your personal and business success, then after the show make sure to head to why institute.com and discover your why. Today it only takes about five minutes. Let's get back to the show.

That you know, you are just speaking my language. And so I wonder, I totally agree with all those. Those are kind of exactly. Here's what I'm wondering is that are those six habits of being a micro leader, are those related to being, having the why of better way? Because that's exactly the process that I go through. But you've put it in a great format that makes it better useful, easier to understand, systematized useful. Right. And so I'm curious with your clients because now you know about your why certified, you know about the why, how and what, you know all this stuff. And I'm. I'm curious if you're going to find over time that your best clients are the ones that have the why a better way.

Yeah, it's a really interesting.

Viewpoint. And I think when we first connected and I first understood my why a better way, I think I asked you a question of are you. Are you likely to only attract people who have the same belief as you have or the same way as you do? I think naturally the book is based on my perception, so I am going to resonate very closely with the things that fit in with my ethos of how I believe the world should be and what is the better way to lead people. So I think there is definitely going to be a connection to them. I think what's going to be interesting to explore. And if I think about the clients that I work with, I work with a range of clients that would have a very broad range of their whys. And I think certain parts of the habits will then resonate differently. So if I think about.

I know Dan, and your team is wise contributor and a good friend of mine, Dave McLennan, who introduced me, is the wise contributor. And I've got another couple of really close associates who've got the wire contribute. I think if they look at the six habits, they will go to live to serve first and be a connector probably second.

Because that will be really fitting with their why of contribute to others. Whereas when I look at it, I go to my dominant habit in the six microleadership habits is find a way and my secondary is live in the gap.

You know, we could almost go through all six of those and attach one of the whys to them.

Yeah, right.

You know, living in the gap, finding a better way, be a connector, could even be trust. Finding a way is. Makes sense, you know, dare to fail, challenge, show up, you know, live to service, contribute. And show up. Could be, gosh, could be also contribute.

But it. Yeah, mastery.

Could be mastery. Yes. Could be mastery.

Yeah.

So I love those six. I mean that you've made it so easy to understand this process of being a leader.

That was my aim is I wanted to create a book that was a modern manual for somebody who is in leadership who wants to learn how they can Day in, day out, make simple changes to what they do to be able to become a more effective leader. That was my ambition when I started to write the book, was to create a guide or a blueprint for leaders to be able to pick up. And in the book, you've got each of the habits, then has two or three thinking practices that you can apply every day to be able to adopt that particular habit of behavior. So in each of the six areas, there are two to three very simple thinking practices is what I call them. But they're daily practices that if you apply them, then will help you become more adept in that particular habit and also a more effective leader in the whole. And the idea of that is all about. I'm a massive fan of habit creation. Understanding the importance of habits to our success. When we know that 90% of our daily choices are driven below the rational level of thought, you know how important habits are to you. 9 out of 10 of your choices happen at a subconscious level. Then how we set our mindset and how we create our inner frameworks to guide our choices becomes such an important part of our ability to succeed as leaders and individuals and to have happy lives and to live into our purpose.

So you automate. You automate success or automate leadership by creating habits?

Absolutely, yeah. And then we're already doing it. So my. My guidance to people is to be intentional about the habits that you're creating as opposed to leaving them to chance or to. To a default position. So design getting better. Absolutely, yeah. Getting better by intentionally focusing on the things that you need to improve to. To. To get better results and better outcomes.

I love that. So who is you? Who is your ideal client? I've got a lot of people listening to this. Who would you like to connect with you? I know you're looking for people that are looking for a better way.

Yeah.

But what would be your ideal.

Client?

Yeah, so I'm really. There's two areas. I work, but they both have a very similar ethos. And I am looking to work, and I only want to work. Actually, this is stronger than looking to. I only want to work with people who genuinely want to create environments where people can love what they do. So in your introduction that you shared earlier, I'd say I create better leaders, I build better workplaces. And the purpose behind both of those is so that more people can go to work and love their jobs. So I've got this. Cause I believe that everybody should have the right to find a job that they love and be well rewarded for doing A job that they love and enjoy every day. That would be my kind of utopia. We all have to work. So therefore, I would love for people to go and do a job in an environment that helps them to maximize their personal.

Assets and capabilities and their unique brilliance and that they can bring that unique brilliance to bear on a job that they love doing.

And that's what they. So if they get to. Well, how we talk about if you get to live your why while pushing the why of the organization forward.

Absolutely.

You're gonna love what you do.

Yeah. And that's the bit that I'm driven by. So the clients I want to work with, I'm not interested in clients who, who are looking to make tons of money at the expense of people. I only want to work with companies who genuinely have a belief in the value of people to their organizations. And that is more than a strap line that's on a website now. Everybody can say people are at the heart of our organization and yet they'll then make choices that explicitly demonstrate that that's not the case.

So that's a great question. So now I'm a business owner, I'm listening to this. I believe what you're saying. I believe in what you're saying, but I don't know how to do it. I don't know how to create a culture where people are valued. I don't know how to create a place where people love what they do. How do I do that? Like what are the steps to doing? Is that what the six steps are all about? Or is there another process that you know that you use to help people create that?

Yeah, so there's another process we use. So I've got a, a program that I call them a business design framework. So it's really is to design, to design your business in a way that fulfills the dream life that you have. That's really what the process is about. And through that, you're designing your dream life, but you're also designing the dream business that facilitates and builds these great value led organizations. That's what the business owned framework does. But if you're a business owner sitting here listening to this and saying, right, okay, this all sounds great, but I know where do I start? The first place for me to start is your why. So the first, first thing we do with people and the reason why I was so keen to work with your organization, Gary, is because the first start point is understanding your why. Know what? Your why is know why you're here and why you do what you do and what you believe in. And when you've understood your why, and your why could be any of the other nine ways that are there. It may not be a better way like yours and isa, but it could be another. Another one of the whys. But once you know what your why is and you understand what it is that you're trying to achieve and what. What really kind of ignites your passion, from there, it's then about recognizing the values that sit next. So we kind of go from your why and your purpose to understanding what are your core values.

And we. We encourage people to go beyond talking about core values in a very cliched way. We like to ask people to get values that really resonate with them on a personal level, that connects to their why, but start to really define their value. So that would be my first point of call to people, is to come and do the why discovery. If you've not done it already, understand your why, because it makes it a much quicker process to get to where you want to get to. And then once you've got your why, to then start really tuning into what really matters to me. And I ask people to identify just four core values and those four core values, the way I ask people to go looking for them is think about the things that make your heart sing. What are those moments in your business that really get you excited?

And then I ask people to think about now on the other side. What are the things that really wind you up, that really get you frustrated? Because often our values are in the intersection between the things that light us up and the things that really frustrate us. Because we don't get excited about things that don't matter. And we typically don't get frustrated about things that don't matter either. If you're being excited by something and being lit up by something, or you're being really frustrated to the point of almost anger about something. In there is the things that really matter to you about business in your life. And those things are already deciding your choices. So what we do is encourage people to bring them out into the open and make them explicit.

Love it. That's a lot easier way to think about core values. Much better way. It just simplifies it to where I could actually do it, which is kind of the point of all this. You got to be able to do it or doesn't have any value. So first you know your why, then you look for your core values. What do you do?

So after that, we then look at.

The way. I love analogies Because I want to just kind of make it again, better way in sharing is I want to make it simple for people to connect with and understand. So the way I articulate it is you create the values, create these four foundation blocks for imagine that you are building a physical office, which is going to be your business representation. So whether it is a physical office or whether it's a virtual one, but if you were physically building, you'd lay the foundations and they're the values. They're into the ground. Values don't necessarily need to be seen, but they should feel them. So when you walk into that building, you want to know that you are walking into a site that's on really solid foundation, really grounded, solid base as you walk into that building. For me, the culture is what happens when you open the front door and you walk into the site. The culture is what you feel.

As you walk into that site. It's what you feel in that environment. And the culture represents that business in the way that colleagues are made to feel, the way that customers are made to feel, the way that suppliers and partners are made to feel when they walk into your environment. And again, I'm using the language walk in. It could be a physical representation, or it may be when you land on a website, when you send an email to that client, to that company, it's just all of the interactions that happen is how you are made to feel when you're there. That's for me, what the culture is about. And again, what we would do is we would help them to design that intentionally.

And there are 10 blocks that we base it around. Not every company will have all 10, and that's okay. But there are 10 kind of facets of the culture that we help them to intentionally design their business around. Almost as if you were saying, right, we're opening the doors on this brand new office. How are we going to decorate the reception area? That's what your culture should be. It should be the way that it feels, the ambience that you get when you walk into that environment, the, the warmth, or.

The kind of high design feel that you might get when you walk in, depending on what your business is and what the culture you want it to be. How does it want to feel when you walk in? Is it something that excites me? Is it something that makes me feel like there's a lot of trust here? Is it something that makes me feel comfortable? Is it something that's really clean and makes me feel like it's clinical? What's the feeling that you want to have when you walk into that environment. And that's the culture. And then the last thing that we help businesses with is again, taking this analogy a step further. As I've walked in, I've had this feeling when I walk over to the receptionist, it's the behaviors they then demonstrate that make that culture live or breathe. So I can walk in, I can have this feeling. But if I walk up to the first member of team that I meet, whether that be the owner of the business or whether that be a receptionist or whether that be a colleague going about their work is the experience I have when I connect with them tells me whether this culture actually lives and breathes in the business and is a feature of everything they do or whether it is just wallpaper that they put on to make their reception area look pretty.

Wow. I love what you've done there. Again, you've found a better way and simplified it for us to where I can look at that and say, you know what? I could do that. I could take my company through that. I could figure that out. Where sometimes it's this airy fairiness around some of these terms that, you know, like core values and culture and behaviors and all that, and you're just like, man, I don't even know where to begin with any of that. So. You don't?

Yeah.

So you just leave it at that. Well, Hayden, I know we've probably gone over our time already, but, man, I appreciate you being here with us today. You've given me. I've got, what, four pages of notes now? So I've got a lot to look at.

That's great.

Very, very helpful. Way more than I even expected. Even though we've spent some time talking, the way you've put all this together has been super helpful. So thank you, Gary.

It's been real pleasure to come along and talk to you. And every time we connect, I'm massively inspired by what you do and your why. Matching mind, your ability to find a better way and simplify things as well is something I'm really inspired by. So to come and share some timing has been great. And, you know, it's my aim is just to help people become better leaders so we can all create better places for people to go to work. So every chance that I get to talk and help people to refine what they do is a real pleasure for me.

So if people are wanting to get in touch with you, they say, man, I love what Hayden said. I'd love to have him come work with us. How should they get in touch with you.

So the best place to find me is on LinkedIn. That's where I'm most active. So, Hayden Bratt. I'm very fortunate. I've got a slightly unusual name so it's pretty easy to find me. So Hayden spelled without, without an e. So H, A, Y, D, N and then B, R, A double T. So LinkedIn is good. My website is mindsetleadership.co.uk so if people want to check out our work on there, then they are very able to come and have a look at us on the website. But yeah, LinkedIn is the best place.

Awesome. Well, I can't wait till we can travel again. I'm going to come to London and hang out with you and the Queen.

Absolutely, yeah. You're very welcome.

Thanks for being here.

Brilliant. Thanks, Gary. Appreciate it.

I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and that through today's guest, you heard how important it is to know your why and how impactful it can be in your life and the lives of those around you. Be sure to head over to why institute.com and discover your why today. Remember, the more you know about yourself, the more you'll know about others. I'm Dr. Gary Sanchez and I'll see you on the next episode.