How to Become a HAPPY and More EFFECTIVE Leader!

Yes. The way you approach life, our genetic history plays a part. Life circumstances. Yes, play a part. But a huge, approximately 40 to 45% of our experience is based on our choices.

Leadership's a big topic, right? It's a massive topic. You know, you got the OGs like John Maxwell and Jim Rohn and all these guys out there, you know, and then you got your everyday entrepreneurs, right, who are all trying to figure stuff out, like, why leadership? Why do you want to focus on leadership? Especially happy leadership.

Yes. So for 14 years, I led sales and marketing teams in the hotel industry and I got thrown into leadership. I want, like, felt like as a baby, I was 26 years old leading a team and I had no idea what I was doing. So I always think from that early experience, I always felt that leading other people was such an honor and a huge responsibility because whether it is in an organization, church, family, there are all different types of leaders. And in my corporate career, I had incredible, inspirational, amazing leaders. And I also worked with the opposite people that I remember thinking, how is this person in such a influential, large role leading so many people, yet they treat people this way? And so that was one big motivator, was, okay, we need more happy, inspirational leaders in companies, in the world. And then when I, you know, over the last six years, as I've been researching the science of happiness and happiness at work and learning how many leaders are disengaged, how many leaders are actively disengaged, realizing also the ripple effect. Um, and so that's.

Really, it's. I want to, I want to create a positive ripple effect for people, lead others because they have such an influence on the, on who they lead and on their families.

That's amazing. Well, and you're, and you're off to a great start for sure. I am curious what, what's like the driving force behind leaders becoming disengaged. I'm saying this from some experience, right. I've. I've obviously owned a few different businesses and sometimes I'm more engaged with different businesses than others. So I am curious, what did the science and the statistics show?

Yes. So if the leaders are not feeling really connected to the meaning and the purpose in the work, if they don't feel like it aligns with their personal values and who they are. Also, if the leaders, this isn't necessarily a CEO, but leaders within an organization, if they themselves have negative, toxic leadership, of course it's going to affect them and then that ripple effect downwards. Also if they're operating from a place of extreme Overwhelm, extreme stress, overwork, and not able to be balanced in different parts of their lives if the work is negatively affecting, let's say their marriage or their parenting or they don't get enough sleep or exercise, all of that. So lots of different reasons on, on the why?

Well, I think that's one of the reasons the happy leader is so helpful. Just because there's, you know, you gotta, you have a step by step approach on how to kind of walk your way back out of that. And I can tell you that for personal experience that I've, that I had to get, you know, life coaches and mentors and guides along the way to help me kind of walk it backwards. And I'll tell you one of my recent discoveries, and I was, I, I thought I would mention this just because I was watching one of your amazing talks. If you guys haven't seen Tia online, you can totally research her on YouTube. She's got some amazing talks out there. And that was the impact of meditation. Now, I've always been, I've been a person of prayer, right? I would sit down, I would pray, and you know, I've kind of learned it now that I pray to say, but I meditate to listen, right? And I don't know the vibration thing is real or not, but I can tell you that I feel 1000% better now that I'm meditating for, you know, 15 to 20 minutes on a daily basis. Like, my wife picked up on it, my team picked up on it. And I know that's one of the, one of the attributes that you discovered as well. How important is meditation or some kind of practice like that?

It is extremely, extremely important. I actually was just talking to a meditation expert yesterday. It is, it is proven to make you more resilient, which gives you the ability to bounce back from challenges, whether it is work or in your personal life. It helps you stay calmer. And that space between when something happens and then your reaction, there's, there's, there's a space in between there that with a meditation practice, with having more presence in life, that you become better and better at choosing how to respond to life's inevitable challenges and curveballs that throw at you. And I will say, even connected to your longevity and your brain health, it increases the gray matter in your brain, which actually slowly gets less and less as we age. It helps with that executive functioning and not operating from the fight or flight. So it's so extremely valuable, especially in the world that we live in now where technology is ever present. So Yeah, I will say everyone listening should. Should definitely. If you haven't have a meditation practice.

Well, the cool thing is for me and this personal experience, like I've been doing it now for about three months. Right. Um, I've gotten a couple of different things that I didn't anticipate. Um, first of all, increased focus with less caffeine. Caffeine, Caffeine. Right. Seriously, I'm. I'm more focused on my responsibilities in my role. I'm less, I feel less overwhelmed on a consistent basis. And on top of that, one of the other side benefits is it seems like my emotional intelligence also rose. I'm not as like hyped up or keyed or whatever when I'm going into a different, converse, difficult conversation or something like that. And you know, that one practice has made me a happier leader. Now I'm still working on maturing myself as a leader. Like, like you can imagine. But you know, I just think that it's so good. What is your actual meditation practice? I mean, what is your day by day kind of thing?

Yeah, so my meditation practices.

I mean I have a place that I do it in terms of meditation pillow and just how the environment I will say that's supportive of it. And I actually love guided meditation. So for me, I use insight timer and there are all different types and there's different meditation teachers that I love to follow and listen with. And what I do is I get still inside myself and say.

What tools or what message or where do I need support today? And it might be with work, it might be with my daughters. It could be stress, like parenting. I'm like, where do I feel I need support? And then what I do is I will do a 10 minute guided meditation.

With that.

Topic, for lack of a better word in mind. Because I feel I kind of get still. I'm like, where do I need support today?

Now, are you doing like vision, like almost like visioneering, I guess is the best way to say it. Are you? Because you know, one of the things I've been focused on is being grateful for things that haven't yet arrived as though they, as though they have arrived, if that makes any sense.

Yeah, yeah. No, semi will do visualization and I will say I have formal and informal. So I also will. When I start feeling, and this hopefully is helpful to listeners, when I start feeling life getting overwhelming and I feel it in my physical body, I use the four count, breath in for four, pause for four, out for a port where I will stop what I'm doing. I Might be in my bathroom. Right? Chaos is happening with the kids. Stop. I'm like, okay, get re centered. And I use my breath counting of the breath to remind myself that your thoughts are not reality. Your thoughts are happening in your brain. It's not who you are. Let's just get centered. But, but I have done visualization ones as well where it might be like you know, or body scans. I also love the loving kindness minute, you know, where you're reverberating loving kindness out to others. So. But I haven't, I haven't done the one that you just said. So I have to try that.

Yeah, I mean I just, you know, it's funny, I stumbled into this well through a life coach friend of mine, actually a good friend, a mutual friend of, of mine. And I just wasn't expecting the benefits that came out of it. I was always the, you know, I pray, what, I don't need to meditate. And I was like, wait a minute, I'm always talking. So if God is ever going to talk to me, I'm never going to hear him because I'm always talking like, it's like, shut up, man. So the meditation thing began to help out and I just know it really helped me as a leader. You know, you have this term or actually I think you have a position that you got in the happy leader called the chief Happiness officer. Like first of all, how did you become the chief happiness offer and officer? And then more importantly, how can we all become the chief Happiness Officer?

Yes. So I had been following. So I'm obsessed with Scandinavian, I should say I'm fascinated with the Scandinavian countries because of how they, how they operate their society, how they live and their, their well being of the citizens. Because I always read the world happiness report. Anyway, so I was following this CEO or this founder of a happy company in Denmark and he'd been doing happiness corporate work for two decades. And I saw on his LinkedIn that he had this program where you could go to Copenhagen and get certified as a Chief Happiness Officer for happiness at work. And so, you know, I of course was like, okay, I need to go do that with my company and the work that I do. And so there are different programs. You can, there is a university in the US that also certifies people. Anyway, so went over to Copenhagen and spent a week with. There's about 24 of us from 18 different countries learning all about what leaders can do to increase experienced happiness while people are working. So their emotional experience, more of the pleasant emotions than the painful Ones day in, day out, how do you increase experienced happiness org which drives productivity, motivation, creativity, retention, sales, blah, blah, blah. And so I learned, went over there and learned from CEOs and learned just how, how Danish companies are run. And it is, there's quite a bit of difference compared to North America. And so for, for Internal, you know, for people Internal, you can, you can either go to one of these formal programs where you actually get certified, but the great thing is with the Internet, there's a lot of information that's free at any time. So someone that's interested in this, I think that you can also self designate if you're the type of person within an organization that really cares about how people feel, what their experience is that you can, you know, learn, read positive psychology books. And there's, there's so much great information out there that even if you don't get a formal certification, you can absolutely bring this into your company.

I love it. I love it. You know, it's, it's. And it's a really important thing. I mean, if you think about it, what is it that this is the. They referred to as the great resignation, right. People got a taste of, you know, in theory, working from home and kind of seeing, is this all, is this all my life's supposed to be? Right. It kind of shook them out of that. So they're, you know, there's, so there's, I know for, for me and my businesses, the, the culture aspect is probably the number one thing that we do because obviously the talent that you have in your company are one of the, is the greatest resource you're going to have. It's going to define whether or not the business grows or, you know, folds or whatever.

Right.

And you know, we do various levels of activities. Like we do, you know, fun stuff. Like last week we had a raffle chili, like Chili off, where people made chili. And they brought it in, of course, Winter Prize. And then we, and then we played a video where I'm getting roasted, right? You know, as the CEO and the owner, you know, of the team or whatever, which was fun, you know, just, just for just a slight enjoyment thing. One of the things that I've discovered is something as it relates to experiences. You mentioned it a second ago and I thought it was powerful because in one of your talks, again, I heard you mention the fact that there's no bad experiences, only painful ones. I think that's an important concept to break down because I feel like people look at their life as either good or bad.

Yes, yes. Or right or wrong.

Exactly. Let's break that down as we can. We can remove some myths.

Yes. And I wish I Learned about this two decades ago. I learned about it in my mid-30s. I'm like, this would have been really great at 17 onwards. So.

I learned. So there are a lot of different human emotions and human experiences. And I studied with this Harvard professor, Dr. Talvin Shahar, who taught happiness at Harvard before creating his own school. And this distinction of there's not positive emotions and negative emotions, that there's pleasant and there's painful, because when we think negative in the human brain, we think bad. Right. Just like you were talking about before. So that's one big distinction of, you know, there isn't. It's not negative, where you know, you're bad for having it. It's painful or it's uncomfortable or it's. There's a lot of discomfort with it too.

Right.

And I. And I'm a happiness expert, and I even get tripped up on this, where when you're moving through life and different things are happening, we naturally don't like to feel the painful. Right. We don't like to feel stressed or really angry. We're not like, yes, I'm so angry. This is great. No, it doesn't feel good. We're trying to, you know, we're trying to get back there. But the reminder is that those feelings and those emotions and those events you're feeling, that it's information, right. It's telling you something for a reason. And to not have the expectation. This is really crucial. To not have the expectation that there's a journey where those painful experiences don't exist. We all have it. There's different ones, but we all have it. And that. I say this a lot. A happy life is not one that's void of pain. Yeah, we all have pain because we're human beings.

Yeah. Is it. Does it come down to, like, just maybe kind of how you focus or the perspective that you use to kind of see it? The reason I'm asking is I know for me, a lot of my poor leadership qualities that I had for a number of years, many of which I've talked about on the show openly before, because I got no shame in my game. Like, I am who I am. Right. But, you know, a lot of those things came from a sense of insecurity or a sense of fear of not being found out or a fear of the. I guess the imposter syndrome that can kind of come up as leaders. So inevitably, what would happen is Is I would be living, I would be basically forecasting, if you will. I guess that's not the right word, but you know what I'm saying, like projecting. There we go. That's the right word. Projecting my limiting beliefs on other people, therefore having a bad leadership experience based on a previous event. Does that make sense? So one of the things that I'm curious about is, you know, in this, in this approach, in this pursuit of becoming a happy leader. And like when I say happy leader, I mean like you being happy with yourself, being a happy leader and then also being happy enough where people want to come talk to you. Right.

And when a company calls to try and recruit them, they don't want to leave, they want to stay with you.

Exactly right. I don't know if people know this or not. Maybe you do. I'm sure you do. Actually, um, you know, if, if I am trying to build a business, if I have to replace a team member because they chosen to go somewhere else, it cost me four times as much as it would to hire somebody brand new for a brand new position because of all the training and stuff, wouldn't it? But I'm curious in that, in that experiential space and time, what can someone do now to become, I guess, more aware and start the eight step journey of becoming a happy leader?

Such a great question. Yeah. The first part is, and I always start with this is recognizing that so much of your experience as a human and as a leader is based on your choices. That yes, the way you approach life, our genetic history plays a part. Life circumstances, yes, play a part. But a huge, approximately 40 to 45% of our experience is based on our choices. So to know that you have a lot of control, so that's the first of knowing you're not stuck. It's not like destiny is you're always going to be this way. There are possibilities and there are great options for you to evolve and grow and become better. That's the first step is knowing that you have so much of that control. Then the second part I would say is to whether you do this with a coach or a friend or even quietly with meditation and a journal is look at where your strengths are. I would start what are you kicking ass at? And great. And where are the areas that you think you need to prove? Might be emotional intelligence, might be on the connection, might be on, you know, you're, you know, having positive communication, all of these other things. But do your own sort of self assessment because we actually, we know ourselves really, really well, yeah, so that would be the first step of just pausing to say, okay, what's working really well and where, where is some opportunity for improvement.

Now do you find that? And now again now, because we're seriously talking about leadership. Right. So one of the things that I struggled with early on was having team members that felt comfortable telling me that I had blind spots. Right. Because, you know, part of that was because the position I was in, the founder, the CEO, the owner or whatever, I. So I get that. But I've had to go out of my way to say no, you can tell me if I suck. Right. Because I want to, I want to get better, I want to become a better leader. Um, but that self awareness of even wanting to be that vulnerable or wanting to be that transparent with my team, you know, if I'm being honest, hasn't always been there. It's. It's only been there maybe the last five to 10 years and in a variety of forms. As, you know, as, as I kind of see it as maturity. So we're maturing up.

Yeah.

You know, what is, would you say it's, it's safe to have a team member go up to a leader and try to encourage them? Like how would you, how would you, I guess, how would you coach them to get their leader to shake out of it? Also become susceptible or accepting of the fact that they may need to change themselves?

Yeah. Such a great question. And.

The know that to. You want to be the type of leader where exactly what you just said, where people on your team or peers can come in, come in, shut the door in your office, or say, hey, let's hop on a zoom call and say, hey, I gotta give you some feedback. What you're trying to do right now is backfiring and everyone is, you know, feels this way. Yeah, that. But naturally people are uncomfortable with feedback. That's, that's human. That's human nature. People are uncomfortable with it. So in a leadership position, you need to be.

Saying it over and over that, hey, I want the feedback. I want you guys to tell me what's going well and where you think I can improve. And every, it's not realistic that every single person on your team will have that comfort, but you at least need to have, you know, I would say at least a handful of people that, where you have such a close relationship with them and they feel comfortable enough to come give you that. But the leader needs to. It's kind of like open door policy, open mindset. The leader needs to say, hey, I want to hear it. Let me know where I'm. Where I'm not doing well.

Yeah. An open door policy should always equal an open mind policy.

Yes.

I love that. I'm gonna have to put that on my. Like, literally put that on my wall, you know. Cause one of the things that I've struggled with as a leader, creating, you know, trying to develop new leaders is, hey, watch out, you're about to hit your head on that. It really hurts. I've done it 10 times myself, that kind of thing. And, you know, one of the things that we've. We've dealt with in my organizations over the course of years is we said, yes, everybody, we have an open door policy. Everybody come in. And then someone tries to schedule a meeting or tries to walk in, and we're like, hey, I'm, I'm. I'm super busy right now. Can I just like, you know, and it's taken some time to slow down enough and just say, hey, let me pause what I'm doing for a second. Is it okay if we schedule a time to have it to, like, you know, because. And most people are okay with that. Yeah, it seems like, yeah, No, I.

Think, I think that's great, even. Even if you know the time. But just pausing and a one minute, right. Of saying, I hear you. I want to spend time with you right now.

Yeah.

Understood.

Yeah. And I've learned a long time ago that if I have dinging and buzzing and a screen on and stuff like that, I'm completely ADHD and distracted, like I'm chasing squirrels.

We all are. I think we all are.

Well, look, I want to break down some of the steps to becoming a happy leader. Obviously, we talked about the other, the first one, which is kind of like just being aware, really, you know, the starting with you side. And I know we can't get into everything, and the book is phenomenal. Everybody's got to check it out for sure. But what does it mean to really zoom out? Like, what do you mean by zoom out?

So zooming out is the recognition and awareness that your experience is not reality. It's only a micro slice of reality that you see and that you're experiencing based on your childhood experiences, based on your life, your beliefs, all of it. So. And knowing that everyone else is also having a similar experience, but it's not yours. So zooming out is having this perspective. It's kind of like with photography in the camera of using a really wide lens and saying, especially with an organization, okay, what does the owner of this organization see what does the CEO see? What are my peers seeing?

And I give some different strategies and tactics on how to actually have this perspective. And by doing so, you're going to make better decisions. You're going to have a lot closer connected relationships with the people you work with. It's basically the opposite of tunnel vision.

Right.

And by having that, the other benefit of this perspective is that work is going to be so much more exciting and enjoyable and fun because you're not just going to see this slice, you're going to see this whole sort of living organism. And, and I mean, I, I feel, I think businesses and organizations are fascinating. So that's another benefit too, is that you're, even if you're not the owner of the company, if you could think like that work is going to be so much more interesting.

Yeah, no, I totally agree with that. In fact, you know, I actually appreciate a team member that has taken the time to look at things from as many different perspective as possible, getting realistic feedback, not emotional feedback. You know, like, they're not trying to, like trying to drum up, you know, help for what they believe or trying to sell a case. And I've seen that a lot. You know, but with, with our team specifically, you know, we are always trying to gain it, grant, gain a greater perspective. And I thought it was really interesting that you brought up the fact of zooming out even, even past your own emotional state. Right.

You know, there's, there's so many wonderful potential leaders with amazing potential. I just really want to like, shake them and wake them up and say, there's a better way, there's a better way. It's part of the reason why I went ahead and bought books for all of my team, bought your book for all of our team members, because I'm like, there are a lot of practical tips here and this is a fantastic resource to help you go from step A to step Z and not just becoming a happy leader, but also becoming a happier person, like more meaning and fulfillment on a regular basis. And, you know, and I just think it's such important and you know, when we talk about executing brilliantly, it seems like you can't get to execution brilliantly until after you've had a chance to gain all the perspective in the first place.

Yeah.

Right. So why, why, why was that such an important step? As part of the, as part of your process?

Yes. So executing brilliantly. I was, I was horrible at, at the beginning, part of my career. I, I, and I know we talked about this and I always was a Happy workaholic. I've been grateful and thankful that I've loved what I've done.

Yeah.

But I always worked really, really hard, but I didn't necessarily work really, really smart.

Yeah.

When I became a mother and I had a baby, and then soon I had two little girls at home, I was forced to have boundaries for work. I couldn't work all the time. I didn't want to work all the time because I also want to spend time with my kids. And because of those strong boundaries of get when you start work and when you stop work, I still needed to achieve, you know, my hotel would have a $60 million goal. It wasn't like, oh, you're a mom. Okay, we'll bring down the goal. No, you still had. I still had to make $60 million with my whole sales team. So I needed to figure out how to do it in way less time. And what I realized was by having those time blocks, I actually became way more efficient, way more productive. I want to say like a ninja, you know, because I was like, I only have till five. So I learned, and this is what's in this chapter, is how to get super crystal clear on what are the priorities, what do I say yes to, what do I say no to, what do I focus on? How do I work smart, not hard, and how to also inspire and teach my team to do the same.

Yeah.

Right. Where it's. It's not about hours, it's about results.

Yeah.

So. And in that. Which I never would have thought, I was like, oh, my God, am I going to be as great? I can't work till 9pm anymore. Am I, you know, am I going to be? In those years, I would get double bonuses, I would get raises, and I was like, oh, my God, I'm better than I ever have been before.

Yeah.

So that's what Execute Brilliantly is about. It's about being really smart with the hours you have.

Yeah. And the crazy part is, I want to say a national study said that the average American, depending on their age, so your baby boomers and higher are spending three and a half hours of media consumption and. Or distraction, but your younger generation is spending almost five hours a day with media consumption, with media consumption of some kind. Which means, and this is something that I've been percolating, I guess, in my own heart, my own mind, is if we're wasting that much time in a given time and day, but yet we're just as stressed out and just as, like, frustrated with our progress, then it seems like this is a key piece of it. This is this, this removal of distractions and the doing the priorities, prioritizing the most important thing forward.

Yeah.

Why do you think people don't typically go that direction? You think it's because they stumble their way into it, or you think it's a, it becomes like, almost like a choice?

Yeah. I would say, I would say all. You know, I would say the first part, I mean, talking about it's unfortunate how addictive and how many distractions are in the modern day world facing people, you know, because it really, I mean, I haven't. It feels like social media is more addictive than heroin. You know, it's like, it's. So what we're fighting, what we're going. There's this uphill battle that, you know, people previous generations didn't have to, didn't have to go against. So the first is, is setting up your environment for success. So for me, sometimes that means putting my phone in my kitchen, my office is downstairs, so that I am fully focused and present and the text message or the whatever is not distracting. So look at your environment and what's supporting you and what's causing distraction. And then I believe if you.

Work will seep into every single aspect of our life and technology and social media and media will do the same. So we have to be very intentional and we have to design our days, our nights, our weekends to set ourselves up for success. You know, whether it's perfect example, I put a date night in my calendar with my husband. Right. Work. Work could fill it. I could never go on date nights and I could just work. No, I want to be intentional. You know, we're celebrating 10 years this year. I want to get to 20 years.

Yeah.

So it's, it's being really intentional and planning. Right. Also whether it's Sunday nights or, or at the beginning of the month, but being really intentional on how you want to set up your workday, how you want to set up your weeks so that you achieve the law, the results, and have the life that you want.

Yeah. Well, you know, something else you mentioned too earlier was, you know, people getting kind of frustrated with the fact that they don't feel like they're doing something meaningful and purposeful.

Right.

As an organization, one of the things that we try to do is we've tried to literally have them write out their goals and their aspirations. They don't have to get super specific. Right. Just because, you know, some, some goals are personal. Right, Right. But we typically try to sit, try to get them to turn those in. And we sit down and talk about them. And then we try to say, okay, this is your goal and your purpose. This is how we see the company by achieving the company's goals that we can then merge these together. We call it goal alignment.

Yeah, that's great.

Is it? Are you seeing things like that in the marketplace that are. That are helping to assist people staying on board with companies for long term rather than, you know, going to the next greatest thing?

Yes, yes. So, and this is actually an area that was touched on a lot when I was over in Copenhagen. So the.

A huge motivator for people while they're working is. Is feeling progress in meaningful work.

Yeah.

So the work itself is meaningful to them. And then they're seeing. And their boss is helping them see that they're making progress. And so a few questions that I ask leadership teams and I'm working with companies is I say, how does your organization help society? You know, not the stakeholders, not about the profit.

Yeah.

How are you actually making society better, whether it be people planet, how are you helping? And then have people reconnect with that and then break it down to their role. Right. What are you doing? That's adding meaning and purpose and. Yes, absolutely. There's a great book called how to Be Happy at Work. And they talk about just what you said about alignment with your values and connecting that with the company. But the research shows that if people feel like their work has meaning and is purposeful and they're making progress, there's not a bigger driver of motivation. So it's really, really important.

That's awesome. Well, you know, one of the other things I picked up in your book that I love was the importance of relationships over, like, your task. Right. Trying to go to that, that next level. And, you know, I'm. I am 100% guilty of putting the task before relationship. My family's had to come to me on numerous occasions, say, dude, you realize it's 8pm Again, 10 days in a row. We were supposed to go out to dinner. Xyz, we need you.

We want you.

Exactly. And the crazy part was, is, you know, I was talking to, I think, a mutual friend that we might have. If not, I need to introduce you guys. Guy by the name of Anthony Trucks. And he were texting back and forth one afternoon and I was asking him kind of what his approach was to balancing it, and he said it's. He said, it's a choice. It's a choice. He says that. He told me that. He says, when I'm working, I'm 100% work. Like I've got my, my set time, I'm 100% engaged. He goes, but once I get. Once I leave and quit doing my thing for the day or. Because he travels a lot, you know, as a personal brand himself. And as he travels and stuff, he said, you know, when I would get home, I just, I completely disconnect. And he told me, one of the things that he told me that was really interesting was he said, I realized that it wasn't even the amount of time that I was spending with my family. It was the quality of the time that I was spending with my family. He goes, I thought that I had to do a three day trade off. So three days at work, three days at home, three like that kind of thing. He said, I discovered all they want is my attention. He said, you'd be surprised off of three hours, three meaningful hours with your family with no distractions and none of this other stuff that we've been talking about chasing. Right?

Yeah.

And I just thought it was so interesting that he said that because it, to me it's. We're chasing the wrong thing.

Yes, yes. The, the concept of work life balance has people think it is about hours. I completely agree with Anthony. I've heard it. I heard him speak once, so I've never met him, but I've heard him speak. He was fantastic.

I'm gonna introduce you guys. He's phenomenal. He's. He's a great. Okay.

Yeah, he was so great. His story, I remember his family story actually.

But, but that it is, it's about presence. And I read this really awesome book recently and it's called When It Works Succeed at Life by Michael Hyatt and his daughter Megan. And you know, if you people like you and I and probably like Anthony, if you are really ambitious and you love what you do and you want to succeed and you want to help people, work gives us a lot of. It gives affirmation. There's so many, there are so many things that it gives us. Mind, body and spirit, I think. And you know, let's say in my case, if I'm playing Guess who with my 5 year old, am I getting all of that? Like, yeah, I'm so awesome. No, no, no, not really. Right?

Yeah.

So I think that there, it's, it's also connecting to. There's a lot of value is the way that says and it was awesome. There's a lot of value in non achievement activities.

You know, so whether that's having Movie night or going on a date or hiking or whatever. But. But just. Just understanding that that achievement feels really good and is addictive and, you know, happy workaholic. I know we shared this before, you know, that, that, that, that recognition and. But also when you do take time, you know, like, I was skiing last weekend with my husband and kids. I got a lot of really. Aw.

Away from my computer, you know, so taking that break also, you can have creativity and insight. So there's work benefits, too, also.

Well, yeah, I mean, you're. Because you're. You're. I think, you know, and whether people believe in the term flow or not, you. You become more in flow, right? Because. Because you are.

In my. In my. In my opinion, you are becoming more balanced, even though it might not be directly tied to time. You know, I was talking to my youngest son, who's actually working for one of my businesses now in our social media department. And in talking to him, they came in to wish me happy birthday and like, see me happy birthday. My birthday was a few weeks ago.

Oh, happy belated.

Yeah, thank you. And then so they comes in and, you know, my executive assistant, Kelly, she comes up and she says, all right, guys. So she's like, talking to the team. She's like, okay, everybody tell. Everybody say. Making you feel really uncomfortable, right? Everybody say one good thing about Stephen. Why you appreciate Stephen? Like, they were going around the room, right? And, you know, and of course you. I'm squirming the entire time because those affirmations don't really feel that good. I'm not used to it. Right, right. And then we get to my youngest son, and he's. And he didn't. He wasn't thankful for any achievements. He wasn't thankful for business success. He wasn't. He's like, just, thank you for being a good dad that raised me well. You know what I'm saying? And it dawned on me that the. When we chase prestige or we chase ambition and we chase those other things, we are not really serving ourselves in the things that have greater meaning. You know, God willing, I'm going to leave a huge legacy to my kids behind, regardless of whatever achievements that I may or may not achieve. Right. How important is it to really spend time, maybe even meditate on this, to really kind of figure out what the priority is and try to find balance? Because I find out that a lot of leaders are gritty, they're tenacious, they're ambitious. They want it. You know, they want to make a huge impact. For various reasons, I find that most of us have a hard time slowing down for our key relationships.

Yes, yes. So the research shows, and there is an 80 plus year Harvard study and many others shows that the number one predictor of our happiness, of our wellbeing as a human being is human connection, spending time with people that you care about and who care about you. So, and the other, the other thought that comes to mind is no one on their deathbed said, oh gosh, I wish I did five hours more of email. You know, nobody, they're like, oh, did I, you know, did I see my dad enough or my, or my grandchild or all of that. So I think it's the acknowledgement that achievement feels really good. There's nothing wrong with being ambitious and wanting things, but that the richness of life and what I call sort of the rainbow of life isn't just work and sleep, you know, so whether it is family or hobbies or all of these. And that my life coach, the woman that I used to work with, said such an awesome comment, she said, when I work with people, and I've adopted this as well, is like if you go surfing, think of that as part of your business plan.

Yeah.

It's not separate, it's not work and life. It's all life. And you want to be this incredible entrepreneur, you want to be this amazing CEO that you, you investing in your kids or your marriage or you investing in surfing time, in mother nature is going to benefit you. Your brain is going to operate differently. You're going to be a better leader, you're going to be a better entrepreneur by having this well rounded experience.

Yeah, no, I love that. You know, there's, gosh, there's so much, there's so many good things in your book. So many good things. I am curious, what does it truly mean to measure to excel?

So measure to Excel is focusing every single week on the lead measures. So within a company you're measuring revenue, profit, customer acquisition. You know, there's all the different metrics that you're measuring. Those are all lag measures. So in my book I talk about this process called the four disciplines of execution. There's other ones out there like called measure what matters. But basically the whole point is get really crystal clear on what are your one or two big goals that you're trying to achieve or be, you know, by the end of the year and what activities do, does each team, each person you do on a weekly basis that, that drive that metric and that, let's just say revenue, for example. So I Worked a lot with sales teams, sales and marketing teams. So a very simple example of this is making prospecting calls. Right. So you know you're not going to get a report that says so what? What you need to do is measure how many prospecting calls people are making. Because, you know, if you make 15 every single week, it's going to drive the revenue.

Yeah.

So.

And, but I will say this. It's not easy. You have to always be evaluating. Okay, are we measuring the right lead measures? What's working, what's not? Is the number higher enough, low enough? Yeah, but. And the leader of the team needs to drive this and get everyone rallied around it and excited about measuring these lead measures. Because it's not the sexy stuff, it's the hard stuff.

Yeah, no, it's so good. I have loved hanging out with you. You're always such a bright light. When we get the chance to hang out and talk, I'm curious, where can everybody actually go and pick up the happy leader? Because they should.

Yes. So my website's arrive@happy.com or you can go to happyleaderbook.com and I do on my website, I have a free challenge for leaders. So if anyone wants to go and do this, this four part free challenge, you're going to get a lot out of that as well.

That's awesome. Tia. I'm telling you what your big things ahead. I appreciate everything you're doing. You've been amazing. I can't wait to watch your career just continue to blossom and skyrocket, especially heading on this and you were already crazy successful before this. It's just mind blowing. I'm a little jelly, you know, a little jealous. But you know, it'll work out in time, I hope.

Oh, well, thank you so much for having me and I'm, I'm so glad that, that we're connected.

Absolutely. I can't wait to do it again. We'll check to you soon. All right, take care.

Thanks.

If you love that interview, go ahead and check out this next one.

Right here are the things that are on my, on my task list, on my to do list. Do they get me the business that I want in three years? Did they get me the life that I want in three years? Or did other opp. Other people's priorities, did those whittle their way in and you didn't even realize that your agenda is filled with other people's priorities?