What Anyone Can Do Debunking Myths

Welcome to our new show, What Anyone Can Do Podcast with Leo Bottari and me, Randy Cantrell. Our new show picks up where the last show, Year of the Peer, left off, highlighting the simple truth that who you surround yourself with matters, and that if we enlist the support of others, give back to those who give to us, and pay it forward for the next generation, we can do anything. Author and keynote speaker Leo Bottari and I will interview a diverse group of thought leaders who will share stories and insights that will help you succeed in business and in life. How? By doing the things anyone can do, but most of us never will. Well, welcome back. We have been remiss in being here. Uh, it is a new year. We're well, we're deep into the new year already. Leo Bottari, he is, uh, he's the star of the show. I'm the sidekick, Randy Cantrell. We're glad to have you here at What Anyone Can Do Podcast. A lot to catch you up on. So, uh, belated Happy New Year, Leo.

Happy New Year, you know, it's good stuff though. Been really busy, obviously, as we've been trying to pull together, you know, a lot of content that obviously we want to push out there through the rest of the year. And not just about pushing out content, but more or less about inspiring conversations and trying to, you know, get people really in some good dialogue about a lot of subjects that I think are all around this notion of who you surround yourself with matters. And one of them I thought might be fun to talk about today is at the end of last year, it just ran actually just in the January/February edition of Smart Manager magazine, which is a publication out of India actually. And it was— they do a section in every issue called Mythbusters. And it's about busted myths. So it's come up with 5 myths out there and then, you know, tell us why they are myths and they're not reality, basically. So I thought it might be fun today to— and it was kind of a fun piece, right, because it's kind of challenging to think about, all right, what are the things, what are these counterintuitive, you know, ideas that, you know, maybe common turns of phrase, but yet when you really examine them more closely, maybe they're not the best advice after all. And I think that that was kind of central to this. So if you want, we can kind of take them one at a time and you and I can kind of go back and forth and chat about them a little bit. We'll keep it pretty tight.

And we'll put links to the article in the show notes. So you guys listening on the podcast or watching the video, we'll link this up so that you can go and read this and dive more deeply into it. But yeah, and there's 5 of these, right?

Yep.

Yeah, let's go.

All right, well, the first one of course is, uh, if you want it done right, do it yourself. Which, um, you know, a lot of people take, you know, as this, um, you know, we've all heard that in the past, you know, that you, you can't really depend on anyone else, you got to step up and, you know, if you really want to handle the way you want it done, um, the only way to do that is to, is to do it on your own. And You know, when you really think about it, there's nothing more limiting in so many ways than—

Yeah, severely limiting.

You know, not the least of which is I don't know what right is most of the time. You know, right, maybe according to me, but there may be more right answers that are better ways to do things that if I don't involve other people and I don't get their input and involvement and engagement in it, then I'm going to be limited by what right is, number one. Secondly, I think anytime someone is usually investing all of themselves and trying to take it all in, that they're going to do it and they're doing it right, they're probably not doing a whole lot of other things that they should be doing.

Yeah, exactly.

Which creates a real issue as well. You know, I see it, you know, time and time again when you look at, you know, whether it's CEOs or key executives from peer groups and talk about the more people they can get involved, the more it expands their, you know, understanding of what right and what excellence and what, you know, I think maybe excellence is a really good word for that, what excellence looks like. You know, what is kind of redefines for them, you know, what it can be when you can get other people that can show you, uh, when they bring their unique gifts to the table, it can make all the difference in the world. So instead of, I think, subscribing to this notion of if I want it done right, do it by myself, you know, take, um, the time to get others involved, be clear about what it is you want, but tap into the unique talents. And I believe most of the time you're going to get something that's better than right. Um, you've got an actual chance there really having something be superb.

Well, it's simple math.

Yeah.

I mean, it's simple math. You know, I had a breakfast with a person who's got a number of direct reports. And as we were talking about some of her challenges, it was, she desperately wanted to take kind of her A-team. And elevate each one of them as opposed to just doing, doing, doing herself. You know, she felt like she was a little bit bogged down in her own just execution, to your point, doing it herself.

Right.

And, uh, you know, it dawned on her somewhere in the middle of our conversation, it's math, right? And I said, it is math. I mean, if you get, if you get your 5A players to up their game, and now there's 6 of you, it's— you're gonna get an infinitely different result, right, than if you even make a quantum leap in your own particular engagement about it.

So yeah, so the next one was most people know what they want, right?

So I mean, I would counterpunch that with— I think more true is most people know what they don't want.

That's exactly right. That's, that's Laura Goodrich has been saying that for a long time now. You see her seeing red cars. She's got a book. She talks about that all the time. Right. People answer that question, well, what I don't want is blah, blah, blah.

Exactly.

Um, and they really don't have a clue. You know, I'm teaching a course at Rutgers right now that I've been doing for a little while. Um, it's a course really that's, um, a real— about how people can harness their personal brand in a way to advance their careers. And for most people, they really— the first step and the reason this becomes hard is they don't know what they want to do. They don't have the slightest idea. And what's fascinating though is if you give people the time and the space to really think about it and to kind of shed, you know, any shyness about saying out loud, you know, what it is they're, they're really looking to do, and you can free them to do that, it's enormously empowering. You know, I see these students, and once they get clarity around that, or at least get a little clarity, or at least directionally what they're looking to do, I mean, it's really powerful. And obviously key too, you can't surround yourself with the best people that you can be surrounding yourself with unless you have really good, great idea about what you want. Because now all of a sudden there's increased focus, right? So the more that I know whether, like we've talked about before, if I want to learn a language or run a marathon, you know, this, that's a bit, that's different people I'm going to surround myself with to make that possible. All really good. But I think this idea of knowing what you want is not something we're particularly comfortable with. Robert Fritz, who did a lot of work Structural Dynamics talks about the fact that most people hold one or both beliefs that they are either powerless or unworthy. And I think it's so important that if we can shed those things, I think that can be key to freeing us to be able to say, here's what I want to do, here are my special gifts, and here is ideally how I would like to apply them, and then to start looking for opportunities to to make that possible.

But do you think— I mean, I have no way of knowing statistically as far as the number of people who feel one way versus another way, but it seems to me that it's so commonplace for us to discount our value, for us to discount those things that may be uniquely positive for us. I mean, it's easy for— for instance, it's hard— you can't go back and not know what you now know. And as a result sort of discount it and think, yeah, you know, that's nothing special, everybody knows that. But you start expanding the horizon and you realize, you know what, no, not everybody does know that.

Take this whole subject. I have people all the time that said, how did you write a book about that? Could there be anything more obvious than surrounding yourself with the right people? Right? Yeah. You know, when you really get right down to it, And they're absolutely right. That doesn't mean it's not worth talking about. And I think so many of these things fall into that category.

And because it doesn't get talked about enough is kind of our whole point.

Yeah. And because we tend to think of these things as givens or, you know, and, you know, maybe part of the issue, too, with a lot of folks that I think we really need to get over is this idea that if I put myself out there and I try and I don't achieve that particular goal, that somehow I've failed. And I don't want to fail myself. I don't want to fail publicly, certainly. And yet, you know, if we can embrace that idea, you know, kind of like when Sekou Andrews always talks about, you win some, you learn some. It's not about you win some, you lose. It's not about failing. It's not about— it's Every time we may not get exactly what we want in any given moment, it's most often a cause and opportunity to learn and to pivot. And, you know, I think about any great job that I thought I wanted, didn't get, and because I didn't get it, I mean, by definition, it freed me up to do the next thing that I ended up loving doing. That I never would have had the opportunity to do had I gotten what I thought I wanted in the moment.

And so step one may be just the mere admission or the willingness to admit that you don't know what you want, or you're not even sure what you want, which is perfectly okay.

You don't know how to translate it. You know, we talked about Tina Martini, you know, as we've had on the podcast, as you couple times, and, you know, she's an intellectual properties attorney. Well, my guess is, you know, when she was 5, you know, she didn't even know what that was, right? Yeah. So this idea of understanding our gifts but of constantly being open to discovering where and how we can apply them in ways that fuel our passion, I think is kind of cool, you know. So anyway, that was myth number 2, was that somehow this idea people really know what they want I'm not sure they really do. And mostly because they just don't take the time to reflect on it. And they often don't— they just don't want to just put themselves out there, even to their own self. Yeah. What that looks like. But anyway, third, by the way, the myth on this thing was we've all heard the expression, keep your eye on the prize. Right? Boy, if you just keep your— you focus on that big goal out there, you do whatever, and you just stay, you know, pointed toward the North Star, boy, you are going to get there and do that. Well, I think for most people that can be pretty poor advice because we don't have a lot of patience, you know, for waiting the amount of time it often takes us to reach, you know, really big goals. And if we don't have things along the way, that allow us to declare victory and celebrate, we're not really gonna make that happen. We've talked a few times in the podcast about, you know, whether it was taking my daughters to climb the mountain that day, and they're focused on the peak, and they keep looking at it, and it's hard, and it's one foot in front of the other forever, and they look at the peak and it's no closer, and they're like, Dad, really? I mean, what are we doing up here? You know, and, and, but yet when you start getting them focused on get to this point, get to that point, look behind you, see your progress, you know, start figuring out ways to reframe the situation so that you can, you know, as they say, eat the elephant one bite at a time. You know, then you have a, you stand a chance of keeping the energy level and keeping everything working.

Um, you know, there's some positive serendipity that can happen along the way too.

No doubt.

You know, if you'll be open to it, some pretty wonderful, some pretty wonderful views are probably somewhere along the way.

That's right. Yep. Um, but yet it's really cool that when you do that and you just keep that forward progress and to your point, you know, Enjoy the views, enjoy the victories that the journey provides, that it isn't just about the destination. But at the same time, the destination is pretty cool. You know, there's really nothing like the view from the top of the mountain, and the only reason you get that view is because you had to earn it, which makes it that much sweeter. But I think that, you know, again, for most of us, keeping our eye on the prize versus You know, understanding how to take things bit by bit, you know, I think it's really important.

There's a lot of conversation, you know, people get— Kit, there's some criticism. I mean, it's kind of an ancillary myth as well of that not getting focused, you know, on the how, which is virtually, I think, impossible for most people. Our brains naturally go to, okay, well, how, how am I going to do that? And not to be so fixated on To your point, some of our earlier conversations and really every conversation that we've had is there's more than one way. I mean, that whole myth number 1 of listening to other people and being open to— it's fascinating to me that in all of our conversations, it almost always comes back to a really high, high degree of our willingness to be open and vulnerable And just frankly, to be honest with ourselves and with other people.

But you know what, why that's hard in some respects is it's hard because of myth number 4. Myth number 4, um, it isn't just in and of itself horrible advice, but it, um, it, other things start to be lumped into the same category. And myth number 4 is avoid conversations about politics and religion. I don't know about you, but any kid I know, and certainly my situation and all that, your parents were always telling you that. I think there was a certain element of—

add money to it.

Well, you know, parents don't want their kids being questioned about these kinds of things because then it becomes a referendum. I mean, it just becomes more than anyone wants to deal with. You know, they're just like, yeah, don't talk about that stuff, that's not good, it'll be a fight, it'll be an argument, it'll be this and that. So we never set up those conversations as opportunities opportunities to learn, it's opportunities to fight, opportunities for debate in ways that are not particularly healthy. So we don't get to learn about why someone has a certain political point of view because we're not willing to dive into that conversation. We're not willing to understand how someone's brand of faith fits into their lives and why it's so important to them, why it's so central to what they do and who they are. You know, but then because of that, again, because those conversations are fodder for debate, not for learning, it starts— that circle starts to broaden, right? And you get into— how many people do you know who they talk about Thanksgiving dinner, they have to set up ground rules about what things they can talk about, things they can't, because they're going to have people throwing food at each other by the end of dinner. Right.

Yeah, that's family.

We have set ourselves where all of a sudden the emotions go, nobody's listening, everyone's just teeing up for, you know, people's, you know, brand of listening is wait for my turn to talk. This is really what that's all about. Everything's washed over them and it's just, I have a point to make and I'm I'm going to make it right, wrong, and different. I really don't care because you're wrong anyway.

You know, well, we've lost our ability to disagree without being disagreeable.

Oh, well, there's that, you know, for sure. I mean, it's that my beliefs are correct at the expense of any other way to look at something. Yeah.

And I don't, and I don't know why. And you see it, I mean, every day you see it. I mean, the Twitter wars abound. They are a real thing. We've all seen them, whether it's done between two athletes or celebrities or on whatever, on all kinds of topics. And it's like we seem to feel compelled to— this myth number 4— that if I'm going to disagree, I have to be disagreeable, and so must you.

And so Oh, and not only that, but it's about ad hominem attacks. It's about, you know, I remember the first time, one of the first times I just like remember in a jarring kind of way, it was a political science class and this conversation going on. And I was the lone person in the room or one of them who was advocating a certain position on whatever policy we were talking about. One of the kids finally says, "Forget him. He's from Massachusetts. What the hell do you think he's going to think?" I'm like, "Seriously? This is what we're doing here? You don't want to debate this topic on the merits. You want to just say, 'Yeah, that guy, forget that.'" He's a liberal from Massachusetts.

What does he know?

This is right because just attack the person. You know, why not?

Well, when you lack logic, you have to, you got to pull something out.

Yeah. And these shows, you know, whether you're watching Fox News or MSNBC, you know, these shows become places where people, you know, mostly get lines for cocktail parties that they can throw out there. Like their knowledge of the subject is pretty much no more than what they're spewing. But it gives them fodder just to be able to be dismissive to other people in ways that don't allow for listening and learning and understanding and real conversation about things. And if it begins with politics and religion, I think it expands oftentimes to other subjects and I think contributes to our inability to have civil discourse and real dialogue, not just debate about everything. And yeah, I think it sets us up pretty poorly for collaboration oftentimes. Yeah.

Well, hey, if you can't communicate, it's impossible to collaborate. So there's that.

So the final myth, myth number 5, is this article that Angela Myers, I'm sure, would, you know, love to weigh in on here. Was it in the scheme of things? You don't really matter that much. You know, this is a big world, right? You know, we're dealing with, you know, 7+ billion people on this planet, and it's like, you know, what would— would it— would it— like, would it— why are we even wasting our time having this conversation right now? Because who cares? Uh, but yet what's for you anyway. Yeah. But what's fascinating to me is that, um, I think as Angela Meyers would most certainly say, and I would agree with, is that we all have special gifts and we all bring them to the world and hopefully we are, um, you know, using them in the right ways, in the right forums. And when we do, we matter a lot. Um, you know, I work in these workshops, as you know, with, um, CEO groups and key executive groups. And oftentimes, in fact, there was one meeting where CEO was talking about the fact that, hey, you know, he can't be there all the time and it's just, it is what it is. He pays the money, it's kind of his loss and all this other stuff.

And I finally— to these meetings you're talking about?

Yeah, yeah. And so I'm finally getting, you know, I'm getting his perspective on it and all that. I said, all right, I said, I hear you. And then I started asking the other people, I said, I forget his real name, but let's—

and there's how many people in this room to give us some context?

About 15 people.

Okay.

So next thing you know, so I decided this could be kind of interesting. So, um, and like I said, let's call the CEO Bob. And I walk, I turned to one of the other members of the group and I said, tell me what's missing when Bob doesn't show up to the meeting. And then that person weighed in on all that's lost in the conversation because of Bob's unique contribution. Then I went around to about 5 or 6 other members just to make a point. And they all had the thing there. And Bob actually was astonished. He was looking at this, he had no idea, you know, and yet when we think about it in terms of, you know, we all love to listen, or I think you and I do anyway, love to listen to a good jazz ensemble. And, uh, you can't pull instruments away from it without it changing the sound. I mean, there's just no way. And once we realize that we are contributors to that overall, you know, beautiful music, in many respects, whether it's a meeting or whether you are part of that ensemble or part of a great team or whatever that looks like. Whatever your contribution is matters a lot. And the more that we can kind of embrace this idea that we matter, you know, the more I think it does inspire a lot of things. You know, it inspires us, I think, to find out and to be more clear about what we want to, you know, and to do the kinds of things that serve actually to bust all the other myths, you know, quite frankly, that we talked about today, if we're willing to do that.

Well, and if we define the scheme of things as your little corner of the world, it's interesting to me, a lot of people, you know, I want to change the world, meaning super huge impact. And that really kind of speaks to this myth as well, you know, that, that you don't matter, but you've got family who matter to you and you matter to them. And you've got acquaintances and you got friends like me to whom you matter and people that matter to you. You know, I lost a week ago, I lost a 75-year-old mentor of mine. And, you know, a nobody by the world standards, but a man that had known me my entire life and knew my full context, knew the whole story, and somebody that I had relied on at 61, a guy who's up the trail at 75, that's an important time gap. So the value that, that I got from him, priceless. Priceless. There's, there's no money. And that's just me. That's just, I'm just one guy, but you know, so I think the context of, well, in the scheme of things, well, what are those schemes? What is that scheme of things? There's an awful lot of people that get touched every day by all of us. Some knowingly, maybe some not. Uh, yeah, the impact's there for sure.

You know, if we can make a positive difference in the lives of the people closest to us, I mean, how great is that? You know, I mean, how wonderful is that for this one life that the people around us have to live, that we can be a bright light in that life? And I think it's, you know, it's essential for us to really understand and think about that. And then when we say we're going to show up to some place, be there, you know, be true to our word, do the kinds of things that, you know, make us a good friend, make us a good mentor, make us that person that can really make a difference for others. And I think when we start really embracing that and doing what, you know, Angela Meyer says is so natural for the 5-year-old and yet such a struggle for the grown-up, that, you know, I think it, you know, imagine if we were all just understood it that way and took that attitude. What a better place, you know, the world would be.

So, well, Gary Vaynerchuk asked the question, how do you, what's the ROI of your mom?

There you go.

You know, what is the ROI of any mother, you know, that, that's trying to do a good job and does a good job. And, you know, your role as a grandfather now, my role as a grandfather now, I mean, what's the ROI? What's the ROI of our, of our being granddads now?

You know, and what's the line about, um, you can't accomplish something that doesn't get measured or something like that. What's, what's the specific quote there? You know what I'm talking about?

Yeah. Well, are you, are you talking about, you know, you, you can't improve it unless you measure it kind of a thing, unless you quantify it.

Yeah.

And is that what you're thinking of?

Something like that. Yeah.

I don't know exactly what the quote is, but I know what you're thinking.

This idea of having to apply metrics everything. And to your point, right, the ROI of mom— how do you measure love? Or how do you measure like some pretty important things in our lives that don't have metrics to them specifically? Are not things that aren't important to, to our lives, to our companies, to a lot of things. Um, you know, you oftentimes can't put metrics around the value of your culture, for example, or the dynamic or the, um, you know, the essence of a of a certain environment that allows people to do what they do to achieve those other metrics that we're talking about. And yet, it's