Ep 70 Awareness Is Cheap A Conversation with Nick Musica

Welcome to Remembering the Forgotten, a space where leaders think out loud without polish or performance. No scripts, no performance, just 2 people thinking out loud. These conversations aren't about delivering insight. They are about thinking together in real time. Because there are moments where you can feel that the answer is already there, but you can't quite reach it. And then something shifts and suddenly it's simple, not new, just clear. And that's this space. Because what if nothing important about you was ever lost? There comes a time and a point where knowledge alone is no longer enough. More books, more frameworks, more assessments, more insights into who you are. And yet the same habits persist. The same reactions return. The same invisible patterns quietly shape the way we lead, relate, and make decisions. Today I'm joined by Nick Mozika. Nick has spent years helping people understand not only how they're wired, but what they choose to do with that understanding. Because eventually an uncomfortable question emerges. What if awareness itself isn't transformation? What if knowing your strengths, attachments, aversions, and patterns is only the beginning? And what if meaningful change isn't found in reinventing yourself, but in becoming willing to notice the small, deeply ingrained ways you keep recreating the life You say you want to change. Because often it isn't dramatic breakthroughs that alter the trajectory of a life. It's the millimeter shifts, the habits brought into awareness, the assumptions gently questioned, the patterns made visible long enough that choice becomes possible? And perhaps an even deeper question waits beneath all of it. What if nothing important about you was ever lost, and growth is less about becoming someone new and more about remembering who you've been beneath the conditioning all along? That's where today's conversation begins. And with that, welcome Nick to the show.

Markus, good morning. Thanks for having me on.

It's such a pleasure to have you, Nick. So before we begin, where can you just be yourself, untouched by expectation or performance?

Where can I? Oh, I think there's a couple places.

Um,

yeah, without expectations or performance. I love cats. I love, I love, I love just being on the couch with a cat. It is such a lovely, relaxing experience. And, um, no expectations or performance. They You know, it's, it's a cat's world, right? Like, you can— you, if you want to perform or have expectations of them or yourself, like, it just, it just doesn't count. It doesn't count. Dogs will care. But cats, they, they will come and go on their timeline, and they will lay on your lap because it's good for them. And your expectations of how long they will stay on your lap and— If they will need their little paws, the little needly—

So cute, isn't it?

Right, right, right into your leg, like, because they feel comfortable doing that. There's a certain amount of relaxation, and there is no performance, there is no expectation. Those things are nowhere close to that experience. It's you and this little critter just sharing space. And that's I think it's really special.

And it's a total novelty because I ask this question every single person that comes on the show, but no one ever shared that with me. And I can very much relate to it because when I have a little kitty next to me—

One of the best things in the world. Yeah.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So this brings me to another question, Nick. You and I, we deal with a lot of people and we ask ourselves a lot of questions about people, right?

Hmm.

One question I ask myself is, why is it seemingly almost impossible to just be ourselves, as I said before, wherever we are, because it shouldn't be like this, in my opinion. Well, I think it goes back to those lovely words you use, performance and expectations, right?

There's— I mean, think of the job wreck. There's expectations in that performance, right? There's— it's inherent, it's baked into that. There is not a— there is not an inherent value for showing up as a human being in that context. And there's, there's this, do I deserve the raise, right? There's this deserving, right, tied to performance and expectations. Mm-hmm. But there's— and so if we're going to, if we're going to use those items As, as the starting, as the building blocks of the construct, then we're sort of, we're asking for that. We're asking for layers of masks. We're asking for aspects of self that we're willing to sort of deal out one card at a time versus here's the entire deck, right? This is who I am. And I say that with some, some, some of those cards should not come to work, right? There's, there's some pieces that need to be worked on.

Yeah.

And they shouldn't come to work. So bring your authentic self to work? Maybe not. Not all the time, no.

So what you bring should be authentic, but don't bring your all authentic self, right?

Well, there's, there's, there's some parts that maybe you wanna, you may wanna, you're right. Like, I'm a big fan of, of dark humor. Maybe not the best place to express that is work, right? It's just, it's just not a good place for it. Out with drinks with, with, or, you know, drinks with buddies at some other place. Probably a better venue for that, right? So, and I'm not going to bring my highly analytical brain to drinks with buddies that doesn't belong there. That's just not, it's not the venue for that, as an example. So we pick and choose the elements we think are best appropriate for the situation at hand. And by doing that, there's other things that we may suppress. And there's other, you called it out in the beginning, there's aversions and attachments that are baked into All of us that at some point will show what's going on, right? Because where you come into the meeting with an idea and I just had the idea a week ago and you present it, it could be the worst idea in the world. But because I had it, I go, oh my goodness, what a great idea, Markus. This is fantastic. Let's talk about this. Now, the next 55 minutes in the meeting are focused on this thing because I'm excited about it and I'm the boss. So there's, there's various aspects of self that We choose to present. And the reality is all the pieces that we, that we haven't come to terms with will, under stress, certainly will find a place, will show up. And whether— and so the trick of it all is recognizing it or not and choosing once we recognize it. And that's a big thing to Say that's, that's a good idea, or to go, you know what, this isn't the best. I, I shouldn't— if my attachment is dark humor and that's my go-to, maybe right now in the meeting is not the right thing to do. But if I feel that coming up, I can go, that, that's a bad idea. And so now what is, what is the more appropriate contribution?

You know what I sometimes wonder is— so thank you for sharing your, your take on that. Especially if we look at job positions where there is a lot of humans involved. What I personally observe today, Nick, is there is a huge lack of vulnerability.

Mm-hmm.

And I believe it is vulnerability that produces trust. And not the stupid sense of vulnerability, get me right. I'm fully with you. But it's almost like if I look at society and economy today, it's almost like the baby has been thrown out with the bathwater. Vulnerability is almost gone. But if I recall our conversations, why we hit it off so fast, so deep, what do you think it was?

Yeah, I think it was openness to share.

This is what I wonder today. If you think about that, when you are with your kiddies, you don't think.

Right?

And you're just vulnerable.

Yes,

that's true. So what if we actually just implemented 5% increments of showing up a little bit more vulnerable? Do you think that will make a difference?

You know it will. Absolutely. Yeah.

I want to hear your Yeah, you're right about it.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. So let's, let's take the, let's take the, the attachment scenario, right? You come in, I'm, you know, I'm running the meeting, I'm the manager, you're coming, you come in and you have this great idea. And I had this great idea a week ago, I never expressed it to anyone, you're expressing it. And I'm like, oh my goodness, like, now, now I'm attached to this, to this thing. There's, there's, there's a few ways this could play out. One is I just get immediately excited and I'm going. And now I, because I'm the boss, everyone is now at least supposedly on board, at least for the next 55 minutes, they're on board with exploring this idea, right?

Mm-hmm.

Who cares if they're bought in? It doesn't matter right now. We're going. It's a great idea. Let's go. Or I could say, you know what, Markus, I had a similar idea about a week ago. And what's showing up for me right now is I feel this attachment to this idea because I had the same or very similar idea a week ago. I would like— you know, I'm feeling that coming up. So out of fairness to the idea and to the group, I'd love to get everyone's take on, on this idea. Let's, let's, let's start to understand where did it come from? What are the pros and cons? What will it do for individuals in the system, departments in the system? What will it do for the end user? Like, start to, instead of just good idea, go. Because attachment, because then you blind things out. The horse and the horse racing, right? And then there's a point why we put those on horses. But to walk around with side blinders on, with your eye on an outcome, and using this idea that has attachment tied to it as the fuel for that outcome, you're You're one, you're not recruiting the team and you should recruit the team. You should see where everyone is on this idea. We, we need to have a North Star in terms of what we're doing, right? And this, this just blinded out just about everything else. So to call up so that 5% of, of vulnerability. Yeah. Speaking the awareness of that attachment out loud, it gives permission for everyone else to go, you know what, when I was at so-and-so place, the way we did it there, which everyone loves that, right? Everyone loves when somebody comes from so-and-so place.

Right.

When I was working at— everyone's like, oh yeah, we know, we know where you work, Markus. We get it, buddy. We know, we know. Um, and just because it worked over there doesn't mean it's going to work over here. It's different people, different system. I don't care if it's the same— if it's the same department of a different hospital, whatever it is, right? Apples to apples is still not apples to apples. It's just not. So when— if you can be aware of those attachments, and that's an attachment, you know, it worked over here, let's do it over— let's, let's do it here now. Um, but you could frame it as, you know, I have some attachments to the things that worked at the last place. And I constantly wonder how we can get those implemented here. If they're the right things to do versus what we did over there was worked over there. Now let's do it over here. You just don't— you just don't bring the oranges from this, this truck and put them into this truck. It doesn't work that way. It just doesn't work. So that awareness of those things that show up for us and the feelings that we have, And, and here's— I think this is a fun one. I think this is fun. The awareness of using the body as an early warning signal of how does that feel when it shows up, right? Like that attachment to the thing when it shows up, like I'm excited about it. Why are you excited about it? Like, like it just, it just can take the, the reins and run that feeling, right? Mm-hmm. But if you can recognize that there is a feeling there, tied to it, right? Like, it feels like I'm, I'm about to go on a roller coaster right now. Well, what is that? What does that feel like? Like, like, what? I feel a little sweaty. I feel a little excited. Uh, well, that's— what does that remind you of? Or what, right? And now that's a whole conversation around that. But once you can start to recognize those types of things, you can start to have awareness of it. And, you know, awareness is cheap. Awareness is sort of table stakes for sitting at that table for collaboration. It should be table stakes. The more important thing is what do you do with it? Once you're aware of these things that show up, attachments, aversions, things you really like, things you really don't like that you avoid, or your habits that sort of just play in the background. We all have them. We're all a bunch of habits walking around at one point or another. Once you're aware of these items, now you can make cleaner choices and you have options. With, with attachments, you have less options. With aversions, you have less options. With habits, you have less options. They're sticky. They're sticky to things. So that a little bit, that 5% of expressed awareness. Mm-hmm. It gives other folks the permission to be aware and to express that, to pause.

I love that. I love that. I'm not sure whether you were aware of it, but this is basically a masterclass in communication you just gave, which leads me to a question of interest. I know that before you became a consultant, you've been doing What you're preaching now, and you've been in the trenches. Was that already an aspect you used to do when you were a leader?

No.

That's fascinating, isn't

it?

If somebody had asked me, what would Nick say? I would have said 75% yes. But thank you for your honesty. Yeah, because this is— think about that for a moment. So what was the turning point for you to, to actually come up with these kind of questions even?

I mean, it, it's 2 parts. Is it— it's, it's experience and it's training. It's being in the right rooms with folks who know more about things than you do, really, is what it comes down to. Mhm. Um, and having the experience to live through, to live through recognizing that your body is— I mean, I mean, and, and it was really just made explicit to me, right? Like, there's simpler versions. You know, I remember, I remember being like 5 or 6 and eating it on my bicycle. And it hurt. It hurt a lot. And I'm bleeding. And my dad's like, maybe stitches. And I'm like, like, why does it hurt so much? Like, just very basic questions coming out of this little body. Like, I just never experienced that physical trauma before. So like, none of this made any sense. I don't like— I don't understand. Why does it— why does it have to hurt so much? And I remember him being like, well, if it didn't hurt so much, you may not know something's wrong. And if you didn't know something is wrong, then you wouldn't have— you'd just be bleeding all over the place. And that's not good. I remember this very clearly. You know, so there was— so, so the body is always trying to tell us something. And we can feel anger, and we can feel happy, and we can— like, we have a whole gamut of emotions. There's, there's If you look up an emotion wheel, like there's emotions within emotions within like huge. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like it's a ton of fun. Like I feel sad. There you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I don't feel sad. I feel choose one of these eight and maybe choose one of these sixteen, right? Like so many other emotions. So you know that's just part of the human experience is to feel things. But the The maturation of contextualizing it from a self-awareness perspective, you know, from an EQ perspective, from a, you know, self-awareness, social awareness perspective. Sure. And sometimes, you know, I think there's some things that folks are more inclined naturally to do. It doesn't make them great at it necessarily, but there's— maybe they're just better at some things than other folks are. And I think a lot of us are more sensitive to how we feel about things, and other folks are maybe a little less sensitive to those things. But that doesn't mean we all can't get more sensitive to it, right? And whoever— even if you're in the deficit, you can still work on it to get to be the best at it.

Mm-hmm.

Right, within reason. So, so yes, these things have been at play for me and for everyone else. But the training of really understanding the, the slight nuances around it, it's a little bit like body language, right? Like the body doesn't lie. So to see someone You know, talking about something like they may not even be aware of what they just did. Like, and some people may just not even recognize that. But if you're like, man, this guy, either he didn't sleep or he's or he's bored or who knows what's going on? But that's a signal, right? So the more that you pay attention to these things, the more that you're aware of them in yourself, and the more that you can. then facilitate the conversations around using the body as an early warning signal for what may be showing up.

So does that mean that teaching and coaching it helps you observe it and then understand it?

Without a doubt.

This is fascinating, isn't it?

Yeah.

So basically, we could almost say for anyone who listens or watches this episode, if they actually invest a little time of a meeting in regards to observing and studying other people. And yeah, just take some notes and then begin to ask yourself some questions.

Yeah.

Then it's almost like a self-study guide, right?

Totally. Totally. Yeah. So you, I, I imagine you do something similar. Well, when I'm working with folks, we have, we have, you know, the basic curriculum of what we're working on. And I'll include 3, 3 ways to measure that, the high-level goal and competencies. And it's things we're working on, right? And so we're working on a competency because we find that very— we find it core to what we're looking to accomplish.

Mm-hmm.

And we've realized that maybe on a scale of 1 to 10, today I'm a 2 as a baseline for patience. But what I really need to understand is how to develop my patience to better give my folks time to learn things, or else I'm jumping in to solve all the problems. Not only am I jumping in to solve all the problems, I'm training my people now to come to me with each and every problem. Right.

And then I'm frustrated that—

Right, right. Then I'm frustrated. That they keep coming to me with every problem that I keep solving. Like, what's your contribution in this? Right? Well, I'm not patient. I won't give them what they need to be autonomous. I won't give them the leash to make mistakes. I don't get— well, that's a system problem. Like, there's, there's a bunch of things going on there. But from an individual perspective, let's, let's talk about patience. Where are we today? We're a 2. I'm largely a 2. Okay. At the end of the day, after your 8, 10, 12 hours of meetings, whatever it is, uh, reflect on a couple, a couple meetings. Reflect on times where you felt— because now it's like, what does it feel to be impatient, right? Going back to using that body as a signal. What does it feel to

be?

Where were you? And what happened? Did you react to it? And then after the fact, you, you go, oh, I reacted. Did you see it happening in real time and you couldn't quite catch the ball as it was rolling downhill? Did something show up and you go, aha, here is the thing, here's, here's my trigger. I'm going to intentionally choose anything else other than reaction. Now we're breaking the habit.

Mm-hmm.

So, and, and, and that, and then like, now you can use that type of thinking to go, well, On any given day, I'm typically a 2, but today I felt like I was a 4. Awesome. Great. And what did that afford the system now? What did that do? Because they're gonna have to go, what's going on with Markus? Like, what Markus usually would bite my, you know, bite my head in this moment. Like, what's going on here? I don't know what to do.

Mm-hmm.

So now the team has to adjust to this new dynamic. And this is not an overnight thing. It takes time to, to turn the wheel.

There is one aspect which I just wondered. What you're saying, Nick, requires a high level of awareness. And my observation shows me that most people do not have the awareness of even sensing these things in themselves. They're so body obtuse. Now think about if leadership had a guide which actually shows them, like the wheel, the emotional wheel, which is way too complex for me in terms of that. But if you actually could provide them with 3 or 4 characteristics in terms of impatience. That's how it shows up. If you think about what are the triggers that can bring distortion and interference, so they can actually begin to observe these things. I'm not sure whether I shared it with you, but it's kind of a different topic. But imposter syndrome is a huge thing, right? I say sorry. That's pseudo stuff. Imposter syndrome is a single symptom of you have no bloody clue who you are. Because if you knew who you are, you would not doubt yourself that much. If you were aware of the successes, you wouldn't doubt yourself. You would actually trust yourself.

Interesting.

And this is parallel. So this time I didn't go much on the detour, Nick. I just chose a parallel example. So the same, if somebody actually understood what is going on, if they had a guide and they could say, okay, you know what, let me do that for a month. Every single meeting I observe myself. I have this little roster. And I make little ticks during the conversation, for example. And then I do a little analysis. And at the end of the day, I go through these, let's say, you know, probably yourself, you had up to 10 meetings a day.

Yeah. Yeah.

So I would go through all these 10 meetings, would look at what was it. And if I actually knew what I'm looking at and looking for, change would almost be immediate.

Yeah, incremental for sure.

Exactly. But I think it comes down to understand that today's society is not trained in terms of recognizing these things. And I believe that's where we have to start.

Yeah. And I think it's even worse. I think it's inconvenient for a lot of folks to slow down.

You're right. But it's paramount.

100%. I mean, the slowing down is a temporary thing, which then fuels quicker— I'm going back to the trust conversations you and I have had,

right?

So if we can slow down and understand each other at just a human level, when the shit hits the fan, we— and sooner or later it does, right? It's just the nature of things. Mm-hmm. Sooner or later it does. We can be one-to-one in the solution-making, right? The emotions are going to be high. I think we're going to have to— we're going to be, you know, voices are going to be raised. People are going to feel scared. They're going to be looking to whoever they think is the leader regardless of title, right?

Mm-hmm.

Which is another dynamic depending on who actually has the title. But if we can know each other with a little, just like a little bit of vulnerability, a little bit. Markus, what was the hardest thing you had to deal with growing up? Nick, what was the hardest thing you had to deal with growing up? Now I know Markus on a different level, right? Like basic, basic. So that when we walk into the room, we can be shoulder to shoulder with the solution when the shit hits the fan. That, that, and we slowed down in order to be available for when we need to speed up.

Mm-hmm. This reminds me of when I got to know my wife. You know, she's from Boston originally. I'm from Switzerland, so we're different cultures. And I said to her, honey, we have a foundation, and that is trust. And I translate that into a leadership lesson for a moment. If we have that foundation of trust, then the shit can hit the fan. Voices can be raised. But I said, whatever you or I say to each other, it never changes our foundation.

That's right.

And I think that's so vital to work on that foundation. It's the same thing when people tell me, Markus, I'm so sorry, I have no time for an 8-minute mindfulness exercise in the morning. I said, who am I trying to kid? If you cannot afford 8 minutes per day—

You better be doing an hour.

Exactly.

Exactly.

But isn't it amazing? We're living in a society where we soon travel to Mars, but we have not managed to actually answer this simple question, which leads to the sentence, know thyself.

Why do you think that's the case?

I think it's a deep question to answer. I believe there is almost a systematic approach behind it, which does not want people to know themselves.

Oh, interesting.

Because I would actually go to that point, Nick. If I want to be able to control people so they don't become individuals, I would totally go that path. Totally. I would inject fear. Let's be honest. Let's look at the—

That's true.

At the birthing grounds of the US economy. I hear companies, there is so much fear implied in leadership. People don't even dare to speak out anymore. And then I think, gosh, how crazy is that? Let me give you an example. I was a member of an extended executive team, and I was just someone who listened all the time. But I was in this one particular meeting where we were the executive team, and I could not shut up. And it was literally 5 minutes before the fatal decision would have taken. 5 people in that room, the board, 4 enthusiastic, euphoric about what's going to happen next. I began sweating profusely. Literally, my body reacted in ways like, Markus, if you walk out of here, And you've not spoken out, it's disaster. Hmm. So I raised my voice 3 minutes before the end and I said, guys, here it is where the guys are missing it, absolutely missing it. And it would've cost us a deal of $20 million and the company would've gone bust. So the owner came to me in the end, they said, Markus, Please do me one favor. Never ever wait that long. And I said to him very clearly, I did not feel safe to do so before. Safety, psychological safety is a huge topic today.

Yeah, it is.

So you probably heard that thing as well where they say, it's not so much what you actually do and say that hurts, it's the stuff you don't do and you don't say. So now think about if that vulnerability is paired with psychological safety so people can and do speak up.

Hmm.

Because I know this company would've gone bust. Literally, because they missed a little increment thing. And I had it because I came from another company where we went through that. But if I had not found the courage, if I had not had that desire to see the company thrive, it wasn't my company.

Oh, interesting. Yeah.

And if I had not spoken out, and I went to the boss and I said to him, honestly, René, it was because I did not feel psychologically safe with you, because you tend to ridicule stuff, you tend to speak stuff down. But here, I just knew if I don't speak out, it's disaster. So think about how often that happens in team meetings.

Yeah. Yeah. I worked someplace a while back where we had— and it came with mixed reactions. But we had a— and you also need time for it. But a voices in, voices out exercise. We're talking about a thing, how we all feel about that. Yeah. Yeah. Like, You know, a leadership meeting, maybe. It's an hour, hour and a half. Like, you need, you need space for what we call, like, crunchy topics, things that were not, not easy things to talk about, you know, big decisions, there's gonna be consequences one way or the other, there's gonna be something will happen. And so voices in, like, how are we feeling about this topic today?

You

can call it voices in, you can call it a weather report, mood check, or something about, like, what, like, how's everyone feeling about it? And then discussion ensues, and then a voices out, like, how did we do? Where are you landing? Where are you landing on it? And round robin. And maybe it's a word or a statement, maybe has a little more color. You set up, set up the rules. But if, if 9 out of 10 people on voices out are saying something like uncertain or nervous, or, well, maybe we didn't land, maybe we didn't get what we needed. If that is the theme, if it's, if it's, you know, cautiously optimistic, okay, great. Like, we're moving forward and we're seeing that there's some risk in this opportunity. That feels fair. What are we doing to mitigate the risks?

Right?

Mm-hmm. But it's— they were clear and it was explicit. Today we're going to introduce Voices in, voices out, you know. So having clear frameworks, or else people go, what the hell are you talking about? This sounds weird. You have to— and the point of this is to, to give everyone a playing field, an opportunity at hitting the ball.

Mm-hmm.

Because we're here to contribute. You're— the expectation, going back to expectations, but the expectation is contribution. So we, we, we need— you're here for a reason. And

here's the reason. Why didn't you say what you guys think? Why did you use fear?

You know, I, I can't be I can't be perfectly clear as to what the words were at the time, but my, my language today is, you know, I still use the word thank God. That'd be sort of silly to not say that, use the word. But there's, there's more. I think, I think you get more of an honest reaction when it's a feel to it.

Why is that?

It goes back to the body not lying. It goes back to what's on the— I can, if you ask me how I think about things, I can rationalize that all day, Markus. Right? I can shine it up in a second or two.

And it's all up here, right?

Yeah, that's right. In your mind. Yeah, yeah.

Stuck and static.

There's, there's, there's an Excel spreadsheet up there. There's a logic tree structure. There's like all those things exist up there, right? And we can all do it so quickly. But here's, here's the thing. Polished, right, right, right, right out of the factory. It's right

here.

Versus the raw. Here's what I think about it. I'm excited. I'm afraid. I'm what? Like, tell me more. And that goes back to the vulnerability, and that goes back to the trust aspect of things. So it builds that foundation. It's layers of concrete.

And what I find so fascinating about Think or Feel is Feel, you cannot dodge. Think, I can absolutely dodge. I don't have to share what I think. But ask someone, how do you feel about that? There comes nothing, nothing. Not one time will come nothing. Or if people say, I don't know. So give it some time.

That's fair.

Give it some time. This is so fascinating because the feeling aspect connects the person to themselves, whereas the think connects it to the mind storage.

Yeah.

And I believe this is one of the biggest issues, Nick, which I personally realized. And by the way, this is why I do my show. Remembering the forgotten. Because the mind, I believe, has received a seat in the driver's seat, which it never, ever wanted. Never, ever desired. That's why I'm saying, if you have your mind in the driver's seat, You're basically screwed because you're overtired the whole time. You're stressed out the whole time. You're close to a burnout. And guess who controls that burnout? It's the mind. That mind that says, Markus, are you crazy? How should I compute all that? And in the end, If we look at science, every single decision is basically, depends how people look at it, is a gut-based decision because everything is based on assumptions. So even people who believe they decide with their minds and brains, in the end, decide with their gut. Because there's almost nothing that has no variables. You know, I've been a, what's it called, like a high voltage recruiter. And I always said, in the end, I take the decision based on how I feel about someone and never based on the facts. And I can tell you, knowing how to manipulate facts, I could not trust the facts are true. And especially in recruiting, you know how many people faked their curriculum vitae, their resumes? You know it yourself. So that feel thing is beautiful, which you brought up, Nick. I'm really grateful you mentioned it this way. Because the body does not lie. You know, I had to teach body language, right? My colleagues— I've been teaching for 20 years, so my colleagues taught 2.5 hours body language, watching body language movies, telling them how to override their bodies. I said to my class, look, forget about it. Literally, your body will not lie. So I taught them what's behind a reaction in the body. If you're insecure, yes, your body will react. So I taught them how to build up security when they go into a job interview so they do not have to fight this all the time. There you go.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

And that goes down to what you said about the feeling aspect. I love that. Like, literally everyone who listens, try it out. Switch that, what do you think about, with how do you feel about it? Which is deep. And that's when you get the answers you're looking for.

Sure. Yeah. And I think, and I think we glossed over the— oh my goodness, you were talking about it earlier. When you show up and you think you don't— imposter syndrome. Jeez. The imposter syndrome, right? So like, even in this context, I'm not, I'm not qualified. Like, there's an undercurrent of I'm not qualified for this job. If I'm going to show up with all fours crossed and tight and right, like, can't even get the words out, the throat's so tight. But, and you just, I think you just called it out to a large degree, which is, well, what are we insecure about? What if you're up for the interview? Someone thinks you should be there. What are the parts of yourself or the, or the, as opposed to the job wreck that you feel are A little wonky, not quite aligned. You don't feel as strong at. I never, I never liked, I never liked the phrase imposter syndrome. I never liked it.

No, it's pseudo. It's pseudo, pseudo imposter syndrome.

It's I, and it's become pervasive. I, I,

I think people make a lot of money with it, by the way.

Oh God, I don't like it. Um, for whatever reason, this is showing up for me. So my, my, we, we, you know, like most garages, we have a, a remote, you know, you know, the garage door, and you hit the little button, the garage door goes up. It's run by this little, little device in the ceiling. Um, and about 2 weeks ago, my wife Hits the button and, and the belt rips off the gear on top. It just, it's just whatever. It's 10, 10 years old. It rips off, right? So now she's hitting the button. The garage door is not doing anything. And she's like, can you fix it? And I'm like, sure. How long do you think it'll take? I have no idea.

That's a different question, right?

I have no idea. Like, I'm assuming I can fix it. I have no idea what goes into it. I don't know. Right. So I'm making an assumption. How long? An hour? A year? Like, I have no clue. I, I, I've never done it before. And then I, and I said that, I said, I, I don't know. I've never done it before.

Mm-hmm.

I don't know. You know, so I do what any person in desperate straits does. I go to YouTube and I start looking for shit, which, you know, you watch 5 videos and you're like, you come back, you come out with like 80% of the information you need, right? And then you go look at your own ceiling, your own wall or whatever it is, and you go, It's a little different, right? Then you have to figure out the rest. And so I was able to do it. But I started at a place, and it took— it probably took too long. But I started in a place where I didn't know what I was doing. And that's, you know, I could have been like imposter syndrome. I don't know. It just— it doesn't even feel good to say that. It doesn't even feel good to say it. But just going through the process of figuring it out. And, you know, I made more than one mistake doing it. That's

how we learn, right?

But that's how you learn. And that's, and that's the point of all of it is, well, imposter syndrome. Why? If you're, if you're either you've done it or you haven't done it, either you've learned by screwing it up a couple of times. Or you did it a little bit better and you'll find your learning edge is at some other point, right? Like, at some point you're going to start to butt up against your learning edge. And if you're actively doing the work, I don't— there shouldn't be— I shouldn't— there shouldn't be— I don't— I just don't like it. I don't like the phrase imposter syndrome.

Let me add something to that which might change your view of it a little bit. I've realized that I probably worked with at least 95% of my clients who suffered from imposter syndrome. I just didn't know the term, fortunately. So I looked at it slightly different. There were not one lazy person. There was not one slacker. In those people, they were all high performers. I remember I sat in my double-seating swing chair one day on my terrace, and I suddenly had an epiphany. What if every single time when that imposter syndrome thingy shows up, it's actually the universe's way of saying, Markus, you have what it takes. That fear you have is adrenaline. Yes, you have never done it, but you know what? You have what it takes. Now close your eyes, fingers crossed, curl your toes, and just go through it as if you would go through the atmosphere into the stratosphere. With a little rocket. And I can tell you, when my clients got that, they said, Markus, that means my project is worth the while. Because if it wouldn't be, I would not feel like that. And that's when I realized, gosh, if I can teach my clients how amazing they really are equipped,

Totally.

That's when the fun begins.

Yeah.

And that's when I realized, gosh, in the end, it's literally, you have no bloody clue who you are, how you got where you are, and where you go from here. That's why you go into imposter syndrome, because otherwise you just feel like, oh, it's one of those moments. Let's pay attention. Let's breathe in. And that is the crazy thing about imposter syndrome. So I can tell you, I'm invited to sales podcasts because of my take on imposter syndrome. You can imagine why. They have no feedback. They're all relying on themselves. So if they fall into the imposter syndrome trap, they're screwed. Literally screwed. But I wanna leave you with something else. I'm really curious, what do you think? When I did my high voltage, high level recruitings, right? And somebody made it into the first interview, how assured do you believe I as the recruiter was that this person could be a fit? Between 0 and 100%.

I don't, I don't know. I said I don't know. I'm not sure.

You'll be surprised the answer. It's 50.01%. And you know why? No recruiter with a sound mind wastes their time.

Hmm.

If they do not believe on paper, at least you could have what it takes. So for everyone right now who watches and listens, who is in the job search situation, which sadly a lot of are, put that into mind. When you're invited into an interview, the other side believes 50.01% you have what it takes to be the one for that job. And now it's your job to raise that level to 75% by the end of the, of the first conversation.

Hmm.

And most people, Nick, imposter syndrome, right? Uncertainty, not knowing shit about yourself. They dabble somewhere between 0 and 20, 30%, and then they try to raise the bar to maybe 40. Maybe 49. No, start at 50.01% certainty. And that's when you almost can't fail, or you can walk out of the interview and say, I've given my best. But if you go in doubting yourself, not believing you have what it takes, It's the worst for a recruiter.

Yeah, that's true.

Absolute worst.

Yeah, it's true.

Oh gosh, brother, I just love our conversation, but I still wanna get closer to, to the end now because I wanna be mindful of our time. Can you hear me?

You just came back. You just came back. Yes, we're back. I got you.

Perfect. Okay, so I basically said, I want to be mindful of our time, so I'm coming slowly to the end. So if someone feels overwhelmed right now, which is pretty likely, right? What would you want them to return to?

Yeah, I mean, there's, there's so much going on these days. Um, Take, take, take a deep breath. And I, I think too, let's, let's keep it really simple. One is, what are we looking to achieve? Let's just be really clear about what we're looking to do. And 2 is, what's in our control to, to move towards that objective? If, if we just— and that, that's, that's overly simplified, but it's a really good place to start. Be clear about what we're looking to do. And what's in our goal? What's in our control? Our specific control, not, well, me and Markus, we could— no, no, no, no. You just created a dependency. What can I do? What can you specifically do? And create a timeline for yourself for 2 weeks. Start there. What can you get done in 2 weeks around this thing you want to accomplish? Things that are in your control, 2 weeks. Keep it simple. Doing little things, accomplishing little things over a long period of time tends to, tends to build some really lovely things. But we got to be clear about what we're building, where we're going.

It's the clarity aspect again. Yeah.

Yeah.

And before we go, What are you taking away from this conversation?

I love to cry. I've been enjoying— we've talked a couple of times. I've enjoyed the conversation. So what I get to walk away with a feeling of— and we talked about this— I feel like it was a good use of time. I enjoyed my time. Markus, thank you for your time. And we know what that means. I'm walking away with, you know, I, I love that we, you and I chatted about the aspects of vulnerability in ways maybe, maybe it's not talked about online a lot or in rooms a lot. I don't know if it is or not. But providing a different lens into how we can show up and what it can afford folks. that is not— it's not as available as maybe it could be.

Mm-hmm.

Now I'm recalling some of the articles I saw last night before going to bed that I saved, and it's in and around this type of topic. And here's sort of the headline. We need more X, Y, and Z in the workplace. That's the headline around what we're talking about here. And we're talking about it from that lens and how we do work. So this comment helped to ideally contribute to a different view. Working individually, you know, from our own self-awareness as well as working with the teams.

That's beautiful. And you know, the amazingness, even if we have some disturbances in terms of the image, we're still connected. And that's what it comes down to. So thank you so much for this conversation. I really enjoyed it. This was remembering the forgotten. As you move on, notice what may have been quietly remembered. Ask yourself for a moment, what if the thing holding us back is not a lack of capability, but a system that has been carrying too much for too long? And if that's true, what if nothing important about you was ever lost? There are moments where you can feel the answer is already there, but you can't quite reach it. And then something shifts and suddenly it's simple. No force, no second-guessing, no internal negotiation. Just a clear sense of what's next. And the capacity to move. If something shifted, let it stay. A few quiet pointers are waiting below.