S3E2: My Boss Sets Unrealistic Goals

This is the No Ego Podcast, where we ditch the drama, end entitlement, and transform your world place. I'm Sy Wakeman. Welcome listeners to another episode of season 3 No Ego Podcast. I have Alex here with me and we have dedicated this season to answering your letters. Let's do it. And emails. The thing that came to us when we were talking about some of the questions we got is there just isn't enough information to give you anything other than what we give you for free on YouTube or kind of our pat answers. Yeah. So we got to thinking, like, if you went deep and kind of poured your heart out to us— and we have paragraphs. We have just like one paragraph for each of you. But if you even went deeper, we can go deeper. So the more you're willing to just put your thoughts on paper without any censorship or editing, But back to the way— the reason we're doing this. Alex and I are taking your questions, and we want to help you, like, apply this stuff right into your workplace. Because so many people get the concept, and then they get into a situation, they go, oh, that situation's too special. That concept probably won't apply. So I have a question.

Yeah.

Do you find that happening? It's like totally—

It's like, yeah. And there's just deeper layers to it that I think this new format you're doing allows us to explore instead of just the top layer. typical technique to respond to one situation. Yeah.

And my dream, although I love Alex here and we're going to be doing a lot together, is also at times when the question is appropriate to call one of the people I've had on my show or one of my colleagues and bring them on and get their opinion or their counsel. I shouldn't say opinion. Y'all know how I feel about opinions, but their counsel. But first, I have to comment on your shirt, Alex. You are so known. Alex always has shirts on that have some saying and meaning. And today his shirt is I'm on the rise. Any secret message beside— when you were buying that, why— what was— I'm like getting that.

Not really. I think it was when I saw it, it just— these like a short sentence like that just pops out. And for me, like on the rise, it's like just always evolving, growing, evolving. We've been talking a lot about that in the last year. So I'm

like, I gotta buy that. It's so true. You're definitely on The Rise. And the cool thing is sky's the limit. Sky's the limit. Okay. And that brings us to some merchandise we have coming out, but we're keeping it a big secret for the—

Nice drop-in.

I didn't intend that, but I'm just like, now I'm like, ooh, merchandise. We got good stuff coming. So let's jump into the question. The format is I'll read the question. This is kind of a long one, but I'll read it. And then Alex and I are going to do our I'm going to do my best, part by part, not to tell you anything, but to interrupt your thinking about where you might be able to find a way to loosen the ego's grip on your reality. So, and since I now wear reading glasses all the time, here we go. Dear Sy, thank you so much for what you do. It's helping me recognize how much I feed into my ego and complain rather than looking at what I could do to make the situation better. And this is from anonymous in Virginia. And I lost my place. There we go. I've added your great coaching questions at work and home as an accountability reminder, and it's starting to help me. My situation is I'm a leader in a complex, goals-oriented team. Our boss is kind, smart, and very experienced. He's hierarchical— or he or she, they didn't say gender, is hierarchical in a pretty flat system, and has difficulty effectively communicating. So the boss is kind, smart, experienced, resistant to feedback, hierarchical, and has difficult communicating— difficulty communicating effectively. I can't talk today. The question is, how can I be most helpful to my unit? Many of my direct reports and indirect reports are frustrated with my supervisor's leadership because the boss has changed the department's scope so that the goals now seem unattainable. And she gave me some information, or he, that I will skip over. And I wanna make sure I skip over. But basically, the boss told the senior leadership that we will see nearly 85% of the population they serve this year and 90% next year. They're already doing 75% when their competition's only doing 40%, right? And so the boss, has issued these mandates, the staff thrives on crushing stretch goals, but feels defeated when something's not achievable. Similarly, my boss is frustrated that staff members offer unsolicited feedback, particularly when many of them have less experience and positional authority than my boss. And the part that you can't see is some information that would seemingly justify that if they looked at this in a normal, just straightforward way—

They're crushing their goals, right? They've been doing that.

They like to crush their goals. They're ahead of the competition. But the premise is, just so people can be clear about this, the premise is if you look at their population, there isn't even 90% of them that would qualify for the service is where they're feeling like it's unattainable because they really grabbed onto that fact. And so I don't want to out this person. I always try and protect them. But basically, I love your stuff, Cy. I'm starting to use it at home, at work. And I have a situation leading a team, very complex and fast-changing group. Our boss set some stretch goals, and we don't believe they're unattainable. And our boss isn't really interested in unsolicited feedback from various people. Mm-hmm. Kind of in the hallway. So there's a lot there. I love these juicy words.

That's what we're looking for, right?

It just kept digging deeper. I love honesty, honesty, honesty. Yeah, thank you. And it did keep digging deeper. And I love that. I love it. So I've taken a few notes. You can probably see this is how I work. Scribble, right? But I always like starting where you want to start, Alex, because you always blow me away with what you come up with. We're going to go kind of piece by piece and just see—

Hang out in it.

Yeah, hang out there. So what caught your eye first? Weirdly enough,

I went to a spot I didn't expect to go when I started just taking some notes myself, and I looked at just the first sentence there about the self-reflection piece and how much just that has helped this individual. And what I've been noticing is just how often I start to ask a question, you know, what's the average amount of self-reflection you include in your day? And I've been asking groups that.

That's a great question.

How often are teams sitting in self-reflection? I've been surprised that— do you know what the answer's been in some of the sessions? Zero. Zero. And I'm just thinking about how often you talk about self-reflection as the ultimate drama diffuser. Yeah.

And the response— It's the ultimate drama diffuser.

From the data points, humans in the world, is we're having zero with our teams. Now, I'm not gonna deny there's probably some self-reflectors naturally themselves, but I just wanted to start there that I love seeing that this person has taken that first step to Just start to notice just how much power stopping to self-reflect can actually start to ditch the drama themselves before we go into some of the more detailed stuff.

I love that you brought that up. And the whole— we say the whole thing is self-reflection is the ultimate drama diffuser. It gets you out of venting. It bypasses the ego. You get still. You get into high self. It opens up portals of opportunity you never saw before. It gets still. And I know for me, from my spiritual up— There's the, you know, in the Bible it says, be still and know that I am God. And whenever I am not finding a way to move through the world skillfully, it's that reflection. And it's not just the whole thing. It's be, period. Then be still, period.

Oh my gosh, yeah.

And then I am, period. All the things I'm believing, the victim. God. Period. And as I sit with that, it just expands everything for me. But I'm finding so many leaders, I'm like, self-reflection? They're like, yeah, besides that.

Yes.

And that's the ego. They're like, no, no, no, like other leadership programs, like what technique do you have besides that? And I'm like, anything you use without self-reflection will be manipulation. It'll be with motive. It will be trying to control other people. Yeah. To the point I was just, um, I just did a great session with a team. And I just noticed that they did something that's so common. They're like, Sy, I love this stuff. And I have a question. How could I make my team do this? And I'm sitting there. And I even told this participant, I'm like, can we back up? Because I think you missed the whole point.

Yeah, it's been like a day with them.

Yeah, it's like they moved from, instead of applying this to myself, how do I apply it to others to get them to do what I want?

Yes.

And this isn't about doing. It's about being and moving from low self to high The form— the mind is all about form and concrete and knowing. And from a mind of knowing, we're like, well, how do we then do it? Knowing, doing. I want you to go to being, allowing. And this is very different because we're so wired to do— Do. To, like, know and do. And I'm trying to be and allow. Not be permissive, not— but allow this thing to unfold and find the opportunity. And so I just, I noticed so many people as leaders are in leadership development to learn what they need to do to get more results out of their staff. And that's not what we're talking about.

It's about who you can be to allow possible results for your staff.

Yeah, you raise the energy you're bringing to the table. So that's a great place because we're hearing from a lot of people that it does work, but it can't be like, oh, intellectually I got that, now move on. That's your ego. That's your ego wanting certain results.

Yeah, and I just was gonna add because with our team, I set 3 o'clock on my calendar, at least when I'm in the office. It's supposed to be pause. I like to take 20 minutes hopefully to meditate, and I just find how hard my mind talks me out of just being still meditating. It's like, oh, but there's those 2 emails you could answer, or oh, there's more you can do, check off, instead of pausing to get either more intentional, meditate, and And it's just this weird thing where I'm still trying to investigate that, how often my ego's trying to talk me out of taking some time to self-reflect. Absolutely. And so I just, I wanted to start there because I don't think we say the basics enough, that we are still running from self-reflection. We are. Our part in some of the messes we're in.

I try and meditate twice a day, and the days that I don't, I get very confident about what I know for sure. And because we get so anchored in the mind and the concrete and the external, Absolutely. And your ego avoids that at all costs because it truly is the death of the ego. When I go inside and meditate, I unhook and I can see the ego for just what it is, a noisy voice, a whiny, tantrum-throwing, victimy voice. And instead, when you tap into stillness and Source, it's like that voice is still there, but it loses its power.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

So I just wanted to start there. Any other things on that? That's what I did. When I saw the first few lines there, I was just like, great that you brought up that first step of self-reflection and doing his or her own work. I

love it. One thing I do when I get questions, I go through and I just see where story has become adopted as truth. I like that. And it especially happens with teams. And so a couple of things that I heard this person say is, I'm a leader in a complex, goals-oriented team. And so what happens is it's like, Sai, I love your stuff and it's working. And here's a situation, very special. It's complex. I'm a leader in a complex, goal-oriented. Your ego has you believing that this stuff works in the simple, but it's really different. And so you know what I thought of with all the love in my heart? It's like, but wait a minute, you need to know I'm leading in a complex, goal-oriented culture. I thought, isn't everyone?

Yeah.

Like, what leader out there listening to our podcast is not in a complex, goal-oriented culture? One of those simple ones.

Yeah.

This I bring out because I want you guys to see how the story sneaks in there. Like, say, this one's different. The reality is that you and everybody else, we— I lead in a goal-oriented, complex culture. It doesn't set you apart. It makes you— I have many companions out there who are also leading that way. And that's your reality. And you got to be really careful when your reality slides into your specialness, because it's about to become your excuse.

Interesting. Yeah.

And so I picked that up. And then I picked up some good stuff, like my boss is bright and talented and hierarchical and resistant to feedback. Label, label, label, label, label.

Yeah.

Right? And that is where the collusion starts with the team, is the goals are unattainable, and we've tried to tell him, and we won't— he won't listen, or she won't listen. And the piece in this that I pulled out big time after kind of this story is sympathizing versus empathizing. Even to the point that the leader is sympathizing with how to get him to see the goals are unattainable. Instead of empathizing, yes, we've been better than the competition in the past. Yes, if you look at our current population, it might look pretty saturated. Yes, we've been asked to do 90%. A leader needs to focus on— Reality. Given this reality, how do we— a leader doesn't manage people, they manage the energy of people. Right now, they're managing the energy of people towards change the results, Stop the action. Another story in here is needing to tell me—

To find reasons why it's not possible.

Yeah. And needing to tell me— it's so sneaky. And by the way, he's less tenured than most of us. So that's another story in there that is a data point to justify he doesn't know what he's talking about. And so I want to talk about empathy and sympathy after I hear what you say. And I also want to talk about— All the ways that we take ourselves out of an equal relationship. It's like, you know, he's bright and she's bright and all these things and power hungry and resistant to feedback. And by the way, not very tenured. Not very tenured. And so the ego sneaks in there saying, I just need to give you some background information. But it's really background story.

Yeah.

And anytime you're looking at what happened or what was, it will limit where you can go. Yeah. In this present moment, you've been given a charge. If you spent all your time and energy on that charge, you might be surprised what you can pop open.

I, I think that's great, grabbing, um, some of that. And I was also just looking at same things you were, where, you know, the boss is also resistant to feedback. There are so many places for feedback. There's so many individual pieces of feedback, and I know, I thought I heard you say this recently. We can take a little example, blow that way out of proportion and say, that means they're always resistant to feedback. And—

Oh yeah, it happened once. And so that is the way a person is.

Could have caught them at the wrong time. Could have been, you know, just— there's so many things that come in for someone to maybe be a little defensive to feedback. I also added is just with that feedback, Or at least that input you're giving that person, is it coming with opinions or expertise? Are there more data points we're not searching for out there to, to see what's possible given our team?

Because the eagle will look for insult where there isn't any, but it also will only pull data points that supports its already drawn conclusion.

And you're talking about they already kind of have those set stories, so they will keep pumping in the team if you don't watch information to, to justify those. So Yeah.

And I think it is so important when you look at the story in here, because if I get out of the story, it's like, sigh, I'm working on— I'm with a team that loves to crush their goals. In fact, we have crushed them. We're far ahead of the population serving the clients that we serve. And our leader has asked us to give another 5%. Uh-huh. And our team loves crushing goals. What should I do? Well, I would go to the goal-crushing team and pull out some more magic in them and figure it out. If you get down to just the edits, I work with a team who has achieved in the past. I work with a team that's far ahead of the competition.

The boss is giving you an opportunity to crush another goal. That's basically the boss has given what the team supposedly loves.

So my question would be, is the team really goal-crushing? Because if they— Were, why aren't they crushing a new goal? Why aren't they ready for the stretch goal? And it tells me sometimes that it wasn't all the team, that they did great, but it's like another 5%. So when you get down to the story, if we just went with the story, it's like, Cy, I run a team. They've been known— people will tell you we crush goals. So we got a high goal, and now we aren't going to crush it. And instead determine that our leader is inexperienced, demanding, and that the population doesn't even exist to get there. So I would just go back to when somebody gives a goal-crushing team a goal, where should you be spending all your energy?

On goal crushing.

And it's like, well, the boss doesn't like unsolicited feedback. And I would check yourself on that because most people don't like reasons, stories, and excuses.

Yeah.

They don't like— whining in the form of feedback. They don't like resistance, which people disguise as feedback. So feedback is resistance when you haven't tried to make it happen, but you just come back with your personal opinion about why you can't. Yeah. Maybe the boss would respond to, we love this goal, we're all in, and to achieve it, we Um, you know, we'll be shifting this around. We figured out a couple paths to get there. Some of them would include, you know, a couple things from you. Like, is the feedback about why we can't, or is the feedback about how we could, but it will take some of this other stuff? Like, so a lot of times when people say that person's resistant to feedback, they're really resistant to you trying to manipulate them through feedback and stop the action and stop the change.

I always like to pause and, and just Have the team look at their initial response to this, and when the goals are set out there, is it a yes like you just said? Yes, I'm all in, and trying to talk about how or consider some things we might need to be able to do it. Or is that first response a no? That that initial energy I think so important. It's like yes, we're all in, and let's talk about how. Or just like you said, is it this no that's like almost a reaction that's strong, which I feel here in some ways with the team sitting. Yeah. So

this is a big moment because according to the math the ego did, it's like, you know, this is a dumb goal because there isn't even that amount of population to serve. Like, if we did the epidemiology, I'm assuming, you know, this is healthcare or human services, you know, that there isn't even that there. Well, what I like to do is instead of saying no to the goal is look at what the overall goal is, is growth. Yes to growth. And so I don't think my boss would argue if we grew in some way, which you can always do. It's hard for me to believe that somebody comes and says, our market is completely saturated. There's not one more sale that we could have.

No opportunity.

And whenever it's ultimatums like that about it's not even possible, I'm pretty sure the ego's in charge. It may be we've never done that before, but it's not impossible. And for a leader, it's so important that you know the difference between empathy and sympathy. Empathy is, yes, goal-crushing team. We got a goal that seems like it's a bit challenging to crush. Yes.

Yeah.

And now let's talk about how. And then you call on somebody and they're like, well, I don't even think we should have to, and I don't even think it's a realistic goal. I would say that just wasn't even— yeah, that wasn't the question. I'll go to somebody else. You don't have to know the whole answer, but what's your idea? How can we grow? Forget the metrics for a minute. How can we grow?

Yeah.

Talk to me about that. And instead, a lot of times, sympathy— people come into meetings and they're like, I'm so sorry, and I agree it's not a good goal, and I just really— I don't know what the boss is thinking, and he's super new here. And I get it, you guys. You've always been wonderful. You're super goal-crushing. But I don't know. We're just kind of stuck. We've tried giving him feedback. We've tried to change the goal. And so I guess we'll just all try and survive together.

I just felt the energy drop in the room as you did that.

And so leadership is not letting the ego You have to bypass the ego. It's not possible. Well, let's get into potential here. How would it be possible? Well, if we expanded our service area, what would that look like?

That'd be growth in a different way.

In a different way. And then my feedback becomes, here are the statistics for our current geographical area, and we see expensive or limited growth opportunities here, but we know you want growth. So we are coming with this plan and to tell you how we could do this. And my hunch is the boss would be a little more open to feedback.

You know what I felt in there when you did that was I just see our SBAR tool being a way that you could use that if you are— it's not really necessarily feedback, but bringing an idea forward. I wonder if that's been used by this group or some of the team.

Or thinking inside the box.

Either one of those tools. And the SBAR to review for some of you guys is just a mental template that's 4 pieces to process. You just go through the situation, try and keep it 1 or 2 sentences, which is like in our current area that we're looking at, we don't see the opportunity like you said. Background, keep it relevant, relevant background. Analysis would be, or assessment, some expertise on it, which some people get into their opinions. And then recommendations, which is where you went. Plural. Plural is multiple ideas. And I wanted to share one thing I wrote down here is I have been trying to use this a lot when I speak with you, when we're talking. And one thing I look at if I'm, I guess, not the authority figure decision maker, is I come in with those recommendations. I have 3 or 4. I try and be nonjudgmental, but pick one. And if you don't pick that one, I don't get upset. But what I like to do is use that as a check-in to see if I'm in sync with my leader at all.

I love that.

And so I was just telling another group, there was a story where I saw There was like 3 times I did it and you wouldn't have known it was an S-part necessarily, where you picked like 1 and I was thinking 3. And that was a sign for me to realize like, I'm off track. Let's have a discussion about that.

Yep.

It's a way I don't think we've ever talked about. If you're gonna speak with someone about this, and it might be unsolicited feedback, it's— you're really clean on the information you're bringing forward. So it's not out of nowhere. It's not really unprocessed, because I think that's where A leader can be feeling like it's unsolicited ideas or feedback.

And feedback with motive or feedback— I would just insert other words. My boss isn't open to feedback. It could be my boss isn't open to manipulation. My boss isn't open to my motive. I'm not kind of the star anymore. And so it's just so important to me. I love that they have this boss because this team has been crushing it. According to the writer. I love that they have this boss who's only asking them to go 5% more.

Yeah.

And so look at that disconnect. We crush our goals, and when asked to go 5% more, it's like, yeah, but we can't do that. Which is it? Which is true? These are the Crossroads team. Is it true or not true? But they've retreated back into, we're the victims. When you hear about a change and your instant answer is no, it's not possible, anything after that is resistance and corrupt the data. If you hear about a change and from a neutral place you can go, yeah, let's figure out how to make that happen. Yeah. Then innovation begins. And innovation is the natural state once the drama is gone. And this team doesn't even know if it's possible or not because they haven't hit innovation because they haven't gotten out of the drama. And I just want people to be very careful what they know for sure. And the other thing is the ego makes everything a high-stakes game. I don't know what the consequences of missing the goal.

Yeah. And I was also thinking—

It sounds like they all completely get fired. A new leader comes in, gives them a stretch goal, they don't make it, and everyone's fired because that's how they're playing this. It's life or death.

But that comes back to we might not have crushed our goals. I think that crushing goal—

Is big ego. It's pride. It's a bunch of pride.

And then you're wondering, were the goals you were crushing before actually big enough goals? Yeah. So yeah, you might have to go back, depending on how long the team's been together. Some teams pride themselves on being either super resilient, or they always crush goals, but then if you go back and measure, were those actually good, big-ass goals or stretch goals, it's like, oh, maybe they weren't as high as they should be, which could be now.

There's so much time for reflection. I think what I would first ask you to do, Anonymous in Virginia, is you yourself reflect and go through here and take out all the story. Even goal crushing is a story, right? You know, we're willing to do anything except not. I mean, take out all of the stories. Yeah. And so if I took out every story, it would be now read something like

Ooh, this is a live edit your

story.

Live edit your story.

So it would be, instead of, I'm a leader in a complex goals-oriented team, if I took out any judgment, it would be, I am told I'm a leader. I don't know if you're a leader or not, but the organization has called you a leader. So that one would be, I'm called a leader. Our boss is kind, smart, and very experienced. experienced, though has a relatively short tenure with our organization. I would say I have a boss I've only known for 6 months. It appears that he or she at times is— I've experienced them being kind and smart, in my opinion, and their resume indicated they have a lot of experience. The boss is also resistant to feedback is pure story, right? I would imagine if that boss put their hand on a hot stove, they would remove their hand. So whenever—

Oh, I see what you're saying.

The boss isn't resistant to feedback. The boss is resistant to the way you're giving feedback in the moments that you gave it, potentially. I just want to loosen the eagle's grip on this thing.

Yeah.

The way I'm giving feedback is not being warmly welcomed by the boss. My feedback attempts have not yet changed the goal. Those are more honest, right? He or she is hierarchical in a pretty flat system, right? Hierarchical is a judgment. Flat system is a judgment.

That hierarchical word brings it— there's power in that.

I don't— he or she is not leading the way I want them to in our system. They have difficulty communicating effectively. It's pure judgment. It could be I'm not willing to hear what they have to say. It could be that I collude and enable my team to not go back and have clarifying good conversations. Yeah. I don't encourage my team to be curious one minute longer. So when you really— if I had to take everything out of this so far, I'm called a leader. I have a boss of, let's say, 6 months. Sometimes they do things I like, and sometimes they do things I don't like. The boss set a goal. It's higher than what we've done in the past. If we look at the goal with our current view of reality, we are not yet seeing a way to achieve it. We've spent most of our energy focused on why we can't and why we shouldn't have to, and very little of our energy on how we could. And my team is feeling frustrated. Mm-hmm. And you know what? If I were resisting the goal and instead judging, whenever I do that, I get very frustrated.

And then it says the boss is frustrated as well at the end.

Yeah, everybody's frustrated. The frustration comes from the story, not the reality. So here's the reality. I'm your boss, Al. Al, last year you did 75. I need you to do 80.

I'm frustrated.

Yeah. That's basically what I'm saying. That sounds ridiculous. Yeah. Because I'm like, why are you frustrated? When you get down to it. Well, I know it can't be done. And I know we haven't done it in the past. I know our competitors haven't done it. And I'm like, whoa, back up.

Yeah.

All I said was, I'm going to raise the goal. And if you want to be at peace, you go, hey, let me go make that work. This isn't a dictatorship. But this resistance, if you say no, anything that comes after it's resistance, unless it's illegal, unethical.

And that's gonna feel like unsolicited feedback on it. Yeah. And I had to bring in here, as we were doing that, look where Psy took us. We went back to self-reflection. And it was this—

Edit your story. That's all we have.

Our simplest story that you, you know, a lot of people prep with that, which is kind of what we talked about. I'm doing a lot of self-reflection. Yeah, I'm getting really good at that. And then let me submit something that is not as reflective as it could be. That would be really helpful. We went back into editing our story, which is, I mean, one of the ultimate forms of self-reflection. And that really freed up at least some neutrality and some ideas to move forward.

And that's it. So like when Buddha said in meditation, it's like, first, it's like you have to sit and notice what your response is And then be gentle with yourself. We're not picking on you. And then let go and move through neutrally. Yeah. So as a leader, basically this comes down to, I am a leader. I have a boss. They set a stretch goal. My team has decided it's not possible. And everyone's frustrated. And they've tried to get the goal changed or convince the boss why it's not possible. And that hasn't worked.

And then?

What should I do? And my best advice is accept the goal, and work the goal, and see what you come up with.

Yeah. You know—

But work it wholeheartedly.

Not to put us on a tangent, but I always thought a little mini book that would be one of the best things you could ever write is like a book of apologies after this, like exit lines. I think you do both of those well, where it's like, team, I am— it's like a Monday, come in after this and say, I need to apologize.

Yeah. I sympathize. I fed right into your story.

Butts back up. We're going to read you this. You guys be you, I be me, and we are going to look at this goal, 5%, you know, challenge here. And let's talk about how we could— like that whole book of— it's like a book of apologies you could help people script out for after.

People like, it's not even possible. Leader is, we're going to table that. We don't have a way of knowing if something we've never done before is possible or impossible, especially since we've made no effort towards it.

Yeah.

Right? We shouldn't have to. What I know is I'd like to focus energy on how we could.

Those are just scripts, I think. Yeah. Yeah,

there's a lot of sympathizing. The team has emotionally blackmailed you on this one, and you're repping for the wrong team. You're supposed to be helping them step up and move forward, and you're getting down in the dirt with these folks. These folks have hit a challenge, and you as a leader need to facilitate that pain and just continue driving it forward, focused on how we can rather than why we shouldn't have to, because it's not a reasonable goal. Mm-hmm. And I can't tell you the number of times in my life that I can say, you know, it's not even possible. I can't lose weight because I travel. Like, if somebody works my schedule, it's like it's not even possible. But you know what? About 30 times in my life, I proved it is possible losing weight while traveling. only when I want to.

Yeah.

I can prove that it's impossible. Why? Because I don't want to. When I want to— and that's where a lot of things have to do with whether you're saying yes or no to the universe. So I think we probably have dumped on this one enough. All of you folks that are out there as leaders, put your thoughts on paper. Write it out. Go back and question every single thought. I'm a leader. Question that. What do you know for sure? The organization gave me that title. My boss is smart. What do you know for sure is that sometimes my boss says things that I agree with, and therefore, I judge him as smart. Mm-hmm. My boss comes with a lot of experience. On his resume, it says that he has experience, right? I want you just to play around with it, not because I want you to split hairs, but I want you to sit in meditation And notice how much of what you come to believe is true isn't true. So what do I do in this case? I can't tell you what to do in the case where things are impossible and your boss is unrealistic, because that's all your story.

Yeah.

But I can tell you what to do in the case that you have a goal higher than what you had last year, and you're going to have to get creative in figuring out ways to achieve that goal. And if it can't be serving new population because they don't exist, then it's like, what can we come back with, with strategy in different ways? So sit with your stories and don't censor yourself if you're going to write a story for us, because we don't want to— we don't grade these. We love these because this courageous person wrote this. Yeah. And the egos can be ticked about the unwinding when they hear this. But the most peaceful place— feel how harsh your same reality sounds when your boss is ridiculous and won't listen to you and is not open to feedback. But when you get down to the facts, it's like, my boss set a goal that we're still trying to figure out how we might accomplish. And I need you to get out of colluding with your people. And if you are a leader, lead your people. And that leadership is going from toggle switch down to toggle switch up. How do you do that? So, Self-reflection. What do we got? Tools for self-reflection, like the SBAR and thinking inside the box.

Which we'll link. We got to link those for sure. We got to link those.

Yeah, we have to link those. I just think it's good, good stuff. Your team is throwing a tantrum. If this were my team, I would probably be more direct than you. Team, you're throwing a tantrum. You've led me to believe you're goal crushing. We got a little increase in our goal. I would say you're crumbling. Crushing? No. Crumbling. Crumbling. Right now, you're goal crumbling. When you get the new goal, you crumble. Let's get back to being goal crushing. And let's focus our energy on how we can. And by the way, be very careful of the names you give teams the day after they accomplish. Like, if you have not accomplished something new, Today, if you're still talking about yesterday's victories today, you didn't get stuff done today. And pretty soon you'll be talking about how great you were 10 years ago. It's over. It's in the past. They're fearful of the future. It's not here yet. Today, figure out how you can do this. Because here's the bottom line, folks, is it seems like there might be people out there who need the service you offer that you haven't found yet. Yeah. And that sounds more on point with your mission. Let us know, people, if these are good uses of your time. If you like, as we move into these, to jog people's thinking. You'll— your ego will leave a little frustrated we didn't give you the perfect how-to plan. But the thing is, is once you're neutral and once you're the one in that situation and only you can know the how-to. Otherwise, you're just looking for magic bullets and new manipulations from me. Magic bullets. You're looking for new manipulations from me. When you get neutral and you get Still, you will know. Trust it when it lands, when it sinks in. So keep your questions coming. Absolutely adore it.

Season 3 is on fire.

I know. I think that we'll get better at this as we go. So tell us feedback, feedback, feedback. What's helpful? What's not helpful? Share our podcast. If the most— the biggest thing you can do to help yourself not be frustrated is to get more people self-reflecting by listening to our podcast. Share it. If you haven't reviewed it already, get out there. Give us A review so we can know how we're going and we can be found by even more people. Until then, keep self-reflecting.

Keep ditching the drama.

This is the No Ego Podcast, where we ditch the drama, end entitlement, and transform your world place. I'm Sy Wakeman.