Episode 135 - Mental Strength with Scott Mautz

[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to the Leadership window podcast with Dr. Patrick Jenks. Each week through a social sector lens, Patrick interviews leaders and experts and puts us in touch with trends and tips for leading effectively. Patrick is a board certified executive coach, a member of the Forbes Coaches Council, a best selling author, award winning photographer and a professional speaker. And now, here's Dr. Patrick Jenks. Welcome to Epic Episode 135 everyone. Glad to have you along. We've got a just a flurry of amazing guests coming up, probably scheduled all the way through July right now and in August and even a time or two when we might, we might have a show every week instead of every two weeks. But we'll see lots of good stuff. Not the very least of which is our guest today. I'm really excited about this. I'm about a third of the way through his latest book, his name is Scott Mountz. He's an expert at igniting peak performance and deep employee engagement. These are words that resonate with us and what we do. Motivation, inspiration, the whole thing, all things leadership. Scott is a proctor and gamble veteran who successfully ran several of the company's largest multi billion dollar businesses. He's an award winning, multi best selling author reserve at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business for Executive Education. So he knows his stuff. He's a popular LinkedIn instructor. His courses have over 2 million takes, which is just incredible. I'd like to. I might want to talk about that just a little bit with Scott and he's a frequent national publication writer. Today he is our guest on the Leadership Window and I want to say I mentioned multiple books. His books include make it Matter, which is all about how leaders create meaning. Find the Fire Leading from the Middle, which is probably going to be my next read. The one I want to spend some time talking on today is his latest book called the Mentally Strong Build the habits to productively regulate your Emotions, thoughts and behaviors. Like I said, I'm about a third of the way through it and I can't get through it fast enough because it is so good. It's one of those books that has just such practical construction to it. It's not just a book where you're just reading some guy's thoughts. There is a. It's almost like a workbook actually with tons of tools and templates and this is the kind of practical stuff that I like and I know a lot of my coachees like. So I can't wait to dive into it a little bit. With no further ado, Scott, clean up my mess. What did I Miss. And what do we need to know about you? Welcome to the show, man. [00:03:00] Speaker B: So great to be here. That book sound the Mentally Strong Leader. That sounds good. I gotta get a copy. Read that. [00:03:06] Speaker A: It's pretty good. You should do. Go to Scott Mount it. Yeah. Go to scottmounts.com mounts by the way. And actually for our listeners. Yes. Scottmounts.com I'll throw it out there right now and I'll throw it out there again at the end of the show. We'll make sure it's on the episode page. But it is. Scott. S c o t t mounts m a u t z.com Scottmounts.com and yeah, the Mentally Strong Leader. So, Scott, I guess before we get into the book, tell us a little bit about kind of what you're doing right now. I mean, obviously you're, you're spe. You're writing. What do you want a mission to do? How are you serving people, maybe even directly? Tell us a little bit about your work. [00:03:48] Speaker B: Yeah, right now my mission is probably not all that different from yours, Patrick. My mission right now, it takes on the lens of mental strength because that's what I've written about and studied, and we're going to talk that in a minute. But even beyond trying to teach leaders mental strength, my overall umbrella is really trying to help leaders follow their path of authenticity. And instead of focusing on approval, you know, one of the biggest things I work with young leaders is they're trying to figure out their way in the world, in the leadership world. They're trying to design their own style, trying to figure out the kind of leader they want to be. And a lot of times a substitute for that is they want to make sure what they do is approved by everybody around them, whether it's their boss or their co. So I'm kind of on a mission now to help people chase authenticity, not approval. Get in touch with your inner strengths, understand for sure the basics of what makes a good leader. Give them the construct and the tools to become that leader. But to do it in a voice that's genuine to themselves. Right? I mean, does that make sense, Patrick? Does that seem like a worthy cause? [00:04:59] Speaker A: Well, it does. And the part that's hitting me the most, because I did read this part in the book and I came across an individual recently on this topic of approval. So that that piece of approval is really resonating with me. There's a. Can, can I jump straight into a part in the book that hit me on that is you. You talk about the 9010 rule as it relates to approval, which is, you know, make. Make 90% of your approval your own, how you approve of yourself, and let the other 10% be that, you know, confirmation or affirmation from others. And you. And you were actually pretty trans. Cause you say, you know, there's probably some that say, no, it should be 100% your own approval. Don't rely on anybody else's approval. But I think you said you're a realist and you understand, I think affirmation is important and feedback is important to make sure that what we're doing is resonating with people. But I really liked that 9010 rule, and I was. It made me think of an individual that I came across recently who was kind of struggling a little bit with this approval thing. And he said that, you know, he had a parent who. He didn't feel like he was getting or had ever gotten, like, full approval and confidence in his capability. But he's got business leaders who are very fully competent and they want to use him and leverage him and have him do big things. And he was like, you know, I'm kind of torn between those things because over here I hear approval, and over here I don't hear the approval. And my question immediately was, what do you think of your own abilities? What's your thought on it? Let's just put the other two aside. Let's put the third piece in there. Where does your own confidence in your capabilities stand? And I don't know. That was my. I don't know if it's the right question, but that was my question at the time. [00:06:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it is the right question. Especially Patrick, because it's so easy in that the 9010 mixture. While I tell people it's realistic to seek that 10% approval from others, the external validation that tells us that we're valued and valuable, worthy and worthwhile. You know, if you don't do what. If you don't ask the question that you just said, what happens is that 10% becomes 80, 90, 100% of how we value ourselves. Right? We really start to lose the plot, and that's when we really begin to chase approval over authenticity. So, yeah, I think the question that you're asking is the right one because you want people to come back and find comfort and who they are and whether or not they're doing the right thing for themselves and their own approach, that has to be the foundation. And of course, it can be difficult in a world where your boss is always evaluating you and peers are Wondering, do you deserve the job that you're in? Should you be there? But if you don't have that solid core from the baseline of I'm acting true to myself, and then I will adjust and grow stronger from that baseline, it can really lead to a lonely journey over the years. I don't know, Patrick, I'm curious. Have you ever found yourself at a time where it was difficult for you to bring your true self to the table, that you had to adjust just to survive? Has that happened to you before? [00:08:16] Speaker A: No. No, I've never had difficulties, Scott, with my own. Nah, that's never happened to me. Yeah, all the time. I think it happens to all of us. I loved the part again in your book. I'm going to refer to your book a ton because just again, even just what I've been through it. I've been through on it. There's a billion tenants in it that really hit me. One of them was your relationship with Doubt. Yeah, you know, we have. We. We have doubt. It's a natural part of things. It actually, I think is a good thing to have. Like, you need to question things and think about, you know, hey, how am I going to make sure. And. But, but it's our relationship with Doubt that matters. And yeah, we use a thing. I use a thing sometimes in my coaching, Scott, that I call hos or History of Success. I didn't make it up, but it's for people that are kind of. Well, I don't know if I'm up for this new job or I don't know if I'm worthy of this promotion or I don't know if I can solve this problem. I'll often have them build a, what I call a history of success and write down what is everything you've accomplished. Let's just use your work career first and then we'll expand beyond that. But whatever you accomplished at work, what have you done that you're proud of? And write the list and make it pages long because it is pages long because you have accomplished a lot of things. You're just not thinking about them right now. You've forgotten about those things. And that history of success, I find builds momentum and creates the confidence says, gosh, you know, now that I think I was coaching someone last year, she was doing a History of success and we were doing kind of a verbal version of it, and she was going, you know, I graduated. I've got a PhD in such and such from such and such University, and I'm a published, blah, blah, blah, and I said, are you hearing this? And so we don't hear it ourselves sometimes. [00:10:11] Speaker B: Yeah. And what's interesting is you take people through an hos, you can almost remind them, I guarantee you had self doubt in place before you began the journey and accomplished that thing that you did. And therein lies the rub, right, Patrick? Because most people believe that if you ask them to define confidence, too many people would say, well, confidence is the lack of self doubt and it's not true. Like you had said, like I say, in the mentally strong leader, it's your ability to manage your relationship with doubt. And it's interesting, I interviewed thousands of people for the mentally strong leader and I could tell you with confidence, Patrick, that even amongst the most confident people I interviewed, none of them ever said to me, well, I just never have any doubt in my life, ever. What they describe is an incredible, mature, mentally strong approach to how they manage that relationship with doubt, how they're not paralyzed by fear, how they're able to embrace doubt to their advantage at the same time without being overconfident and just totally dismissing any need for doubt in their life at all. [00:11:14] Speaker A: That's right. And interesting too, some of the doubts I have are the same doubts that have come up before and some of them so many times and after enough time I finally have trained myself to go, Patrick, you've seen this exact thing over and over and over and that has reduced my doubt on those things. It should. And I'm glad to say that it has on some of those key things. But yeah, sometimes it's the same doubt. It's not different ones or at least they're rooted in the same place. [00:11:51] Speaker B: Yeah, that's exactly right. And you just have to be honest with yourself about that. When you have struggled, but then also not blow by and forget that you got where you are for a reason. You, you've come through things like this before and you will again. [00:12:06] Speaker A: Yeah. There's another part that you mentioned. I used this, I'm going to tell you this, Scott, I was on a coaching call this morning and used this with a coachee. Your exercise around pretending that you're a defense attorney and you got to make a court case for yourself or for someone who represents yourself, a case on why they're qualified or why they're whatever. You can apply it to a lot of different things. Case it's why are you qualified for this? Make that case as though you were a defense attorney. And I added a little bit to it. I said, if you think about what a defense attorney or any attorney is going to base their case on. It's on facts. [00:12:49] Speaker B: Yes. [00:12:50] Speaker A: So what are the facts of the case? And you make that in defense of yourself. And she loved it. She's like, oh, I can't wait to do this, because I was actually, you know. So. Yeah. So thank you for that. Thank you for this book. Really, it is. I mean, every word of it. I reflect a lot of books. The ones I really love are the ones that when I'm reading, I go, ooh, why didn't I think of this? Or, ooh, I want to apply this in my coaching. Or, ooh, this is. So, like I said, it's a framework that repeats itself. And so you get the process of the book chapter by chapter. It's the same thing, but on a different principle or tenet of mental strength. So I really just. Fantastic work. [00:13:31] Speaker B: Well, I appreciate that, you know, and I wonder, Patrick, if it'd be helpful for the listener if I kind of step back and explain the concept of mental strength. [00:13:38] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:13:40] Speaker B: Where we're drawn from. So the book is called the Mentally strong Leader, and it's about the concept of becoming mentally stronger. Mental strength being the ability to. As you said in the subtitle of the book when you read it up front, it's the ability to productively regulate not only your emotions, but your thoughts and your behaviors as well. It's how we manage internally so that we could lead better externally at work and in life. And, you know, here's the thing, Patrick. I think most of your listeners intuitively understand already that, okay, makes sense what he's saying. I got it. I can't let my emotions hijack me. Got it. I can't think whatever I want and then convert that into any action that I want at work. I got that. We know intuitively the importance of being mentally strong, but it is hard, it is really hard at times to draw and have that mental strength, to be able to have the thoughts and the behaviors that are going to be productive for you. And it's only going to get harder In a world that is more and more divided, A world where we have a hard time agreeing on the facts, a world where there's going to be more and more disruption. There's going to be more and more opportunity for us to doubt ourselves and to doubt our skills and more and more interruptions in our ability to focus. It's only going to get harder. It's what makes me believe that mental strength is the leadership superpower of our times. And I'll give you A little bit of, kind of a taste of why I believe that to be true. Patrick, if I may, please let me pause and make sure. If you didn't have any questions on the basic definition, I wanted to kind of put a definition on why I believe mental strength is the leadership superpower of our times. So we asked, as part of the research for this book, and it took me years of research on this, but we asked 3,000 executives in one study, one question, thinking of the highest achieving organizations that you've ever been a part of that overcame the most obstacles, what are the attributes and the behaviors that the key leader embodied at that time? And what we found was that over 91, usually right around 91 to 92%, actually, when you round it up, of participants, would describe a mentally strong leader. And I'm going to tell you what I mean by that now, even in more detail, they would describe what boils down to the six core mental muscles, which are. They would describe a leader that had incredible fortitude, confidence, boldness, goal focus, decision making skills and messaging skills. Messaging, the ability to communicate to the troops in a way that it energizes them rather than draining their energy. Have an integrity to the intent of your messaging. So we found that these six themes kept surfacing over and over again. When people described the best leaders they ever saw, that got them through some of the toughest times and the most challenging times that they ever saw in their life. And that makes up the six mental muscles of mental strength. And I ask people to try to think about these mental muscles again. Boldness, fortitude, confidence, goal focused, decision making and messaging. Similar to the way you think of your physical muscles, if you want to get stronger, physically stronger, you have to go to the gym and you have to exercise those muscles. You have to get in repetitions. If you're already strong and you stop going to the gym, what happens? You become flabby. It's very similar with your mental muscles. It's a use it or lose it kind of group of muscle mass within the brain. And to be able to get those repetitions in it requires a little bit of help, right? You have to have repetitions. That's how you build your muscles. And the way we repeat things in life is through habits. And so that structure that you're already starting to feel in the book, Patrick, as you're a third of the way through it, that's reflective of all the work on habit building science that I've done over the years, a real understanding of how do you actually change People's behaviors. So the book is set up to create habits around each of those six core mental muscles. There's over 50 plus tools in there that help you build the habits so that it becomes. You don't even have to think about it. It becomes repetitive. And then before you know it, you become mentally stronger. And the ability to do that is part of what I think. Building those skills is really going to make mental strength and leadership superpower of our time. Let me pause for a second and make sure this is making sense. [00:18:14] Speaker A: Oh, it's making sense. I've got a billion things to say and I'm going to for half of them. You know, the thing about the habits is it's, it's an effort until it's a habit. You know, it's like we talk about, oh, well, let's just build this new habit. Okay? But it's not going to be a habit right away. We're calling it a habit now because we want to start on it and you want to start behaving this way, but it's not going to be a habit just because you started behaving this way. It becomes a habit. When it's just a habit, we don't think about it. The other thing that I know about habits or I think I know about habits is people often say, oh, I know I have a bad habit of such and such. I want to get rid of that habit. I want to break this habit. What I have heard, and it makes a lot of sense, is that you can't just end a habit. You need to replace the habit like you need, you need to replace it with something better, not just stop doing it. I can make a case for either of those, But I like the concept of that. I like the principle of that. What would the science behind habit building say about that? [00:19:20] Speaker B: It would say where your. It sounds like your gut is taking you, that the brain wants to latch onto some other pattern so that it can shut down and spend time on other things. So, yeah, quite often it's about. And you're already used to the work that it takes to get to a habit to just say, I'm not going to do that anymore. Kind of leaves you in this gray zone middle. So, yeah, most of the science tells you that it's very, very smart to switch things out. Now in some cases, let's just pick like smoking. You just want to stop smoking. Do you have to replace that with another habit? Does something always have to be in your mouth? Do you always have to chew gum? Not necessarily. In case of particularly terrible habits. But for the most part, the science shows us, yes, the brain works in such a way it wants to latch onto something else until it's so automatic it doesn't have to think about it anymore. That's probably not surprising to you, Pat. [00:20:14] Speaker A: Well, and maybe it's not. Maybe it's not the same kind of habit. In other words, maybe, no, you don't have to put something else in your mouth, but something. Maybe you go for a walk or maybe you read more, or maybe you spend time doing something else. I do think this happens with thoughts. To get rid of a bad thought, you got to replace it with something different, something better. Some good thought anyway. Won't stay on that. But that sort of is what I thought of with regard to that. That and the fact that habits are hard to break and they're hard to form. [00:20:52] Speaker B: Yes, yes. And you know, Patrick, I wanted to build on what you just said that you'll get to it if you're about a third in the way. Third of the way. Book through. You'll soon get to an exercise that I get into where I actually ask the reader to replace limiting thoughts. [00:21:06] Speaker A: Oh, I saw that. Yes, I saw that. [00:21:09] Speaker B: Oh, okay. You did, yeah. Replace limiting behaviors with empowering behaviors. And, you know, the other thing I wanted to say that I think will be very helpful for your audience to hear is that, you know, the beauty of mental strength is we don't. The opposite of mentally strong is not mentally weak. So any listener that's out there thinking like that sounds great, but inherently, I just don't have the ability to be bold and to have resilience and fortitude, and I'm not very confident and I don't make great decisions and I'm not goal focused and I don't message. What? Well, the opposite of mentally strong is not mentally weak. We all have a baseline that we could build from to become stronger. Over time, we can all build our muscles. As long as you're armed with the habits to be able to do that and to help the reader. I think you've probably gotten to this section by now. The second chapter is all about a mental strength self assessment. So it took me a couple years to develop this, working with data scientists. And basically it takes the reader about 15 minutes to take the assessment, and it has 50 questions in it. And when you take the assessment, it gives you a score. You get an overall score, so you know how mentally strong you are. And then it breaks it down by muscle. So what is my fortitude score, my boldness score, confidence score, etc. Then the other three mental muscles as well and what that allows you to do. And I don't know if you noticed or picked up on this, Patrick, but when you go through that assessment, every question in the 50 question assessment is tied to a tool you'll discover later in the book. So if you're answering, oh wow, you know, question number 33 in the confidence section, I don't like my score, I'm not feeling good about that. Whatever that question was, there's a tool in the book that's going to help you get better on that specific element of what that question was measuring. And what I'm being told is it's very, very powerful for people because it sets a baseline, they use the tools in the book and then they go back and retake the assessment three, six months later, or I even encourage them to now give the assessment to people that know you well and ask them to fill out the assessment thinking about you in their mind and you know, kind of a pre and post it and get other people's points of view on how you're improving on the key elements of mental strength. And the feedback I've been getting is tremendous and it's a very powerful and enabling tool. I believe you're a fan of assessments too, right? [00:23:28] Speaker A: If I remember right, I am. And the, the, the caution's the wrong word, the caveat or the little thing I'd put on assessments like the one you have in the book. And it's pretty comprehensive. You're right, I, and you can. What I love about this too is you can download it from your website. Yeah, I mean, Scott, you didn't even ask for my email to download it. You just let me download it. You're not even so if, if you're scared that, oh, I'm not going to download it because then he's going to start spamming me. Nope, nope. It just goes straight to the website. The tons of templates on the book and the self assessment. Here was my, here's my thought on the self assessment. I think it's good if the person taking the assessment is ready to be honest with themselves because there are a lot of leaders who just say, oh, I don't have the boldness, I don't have the kind. There are also a lot of leaders that say, hell yeah, I'm bold. Yeah. Oh, goal focused. Shoot, I wrote that a book, you know, like they think they're mentally strong and maybe they are and maybe they aren't. And so this, your assessment is not what I would consider to be a psychometric where, where an algorithm is revealing a profile. It's simply a direct self assessment score. [00:24:43] Speaker B: That's right. [00:24:44] Speaker A: And so you've got to be honest to be able to do that, which is what I love about what you just said around doing maybe a360 right around that which I want to get your thoughts on this a little tough. That would be a tough 360 because I can see your behaviors, but I don't know what's going on in your head. I can't assess the mental strength. I can only express the symptoms or the manifestation of what I believe is your mental strength. Am I right? [00:25:12] Speaker B: Yes. And that's the power of doing it and why I suggest that people do it internally and being honest, like you say, and being willing to be vulnerable to yourself, but also when other people assess it, while it can be difficult to assess what's going on in your head, they sure as heck can assess how it's making you show up. They could see that. And if they really know you, maybe you've had some deep heart to heart discussions and maybe they do actually have a window into your head a little bit. Especially if you're. I'm making this up now, Patrick, if you share the assessment with someone, a longtime friend, that, that they know you've always struggled with, let's say your confidence, right. One of the core mental muscles. And if they know that about you sometimes, but for the average person that might not know that you're right, but at a minimum they can say how it's showing up in their assessment, but it requires, you're not wrong. It requires vulnerability. And to know that it's vulnerability. Vulnerability sounds like truth and it feels like courage. And you know that if you were to admit to an audience, hey look, I scored a 3 on this instead of a 5 or a 2 instead of a 5. If you were to announce that to somebody, if it feels like it's true and they would know that that's true about you, but it also feels like you're being brave and it's courageous in what you're saying, then you know you're truly being vulnerable and honest with yourself. And so to get around what you're talking about. Yes, taking a self assessment requires self honesty. I often have a discussion with a group before we do this where we talk about what does it really mean to be vulnerable with yourself and how can you be honest with yourself and what are the benefits of doing that. But if they can do that, you know, I put a lot of work into making sure it correlates with accuracy to how well does it measure you against the six mental muscles that equate to mental strength. [00:27:00] Speaker A: I think it would make a great tool for a one on one coaching engagement with someone who already sort of realizes that they might lack some confidence or maybe one of their self, maybe one of their psychometric assessments says they lack some self appreciation, like an EIQ assessment or something like that. And so having them do this where it's safe, they're not announcing it to anybody, they're not applying for a job. You know, if this were a job interview assessment, I'm just going to answer it the way I think you're going to want. But, but if it really is a, if someone is really trying to think about themselves and work on themselves. I mean, I looked at these and there were several of them that I just went, oh, I don't score where I want to score on that. Darn it. It's like, you know, but yeah, if it's, if it's a self thing, I think it can be very valuable. I envisioned it as a tool with, if not all my coaches, some of them for whom that kind of would really guide them where they're needing to go. [00:28:11] Speaker B: Yeah. And based on your score, there's four different levels of scores. And you know, there's no wrong score again because the opposite of Melly Strong is not Melee Weak, but based on where you land and specifically how you scored on each question, it allows you to then develop along with the 50 plus tools in the Melee Strong leader, essentially your own customized mental strength training program. You know, one of my pet peeves. And you know, Patrick, you're a speaker, so you know this to be true. And knowing what I know about you, I wouldn't be surprised if you share this thought with me. But sometimes, you know, one of my pet peeves from speakers are those that give either, you know, very. They create the sugar rush, they're very inspiring. But then the audience has no idea what to do next or the advice they give is so generic it's not going to be applicable to half the people in the audience. And so, so what the assessment allows you to do is you now pick. I have no expectation that somebody would use all 50 tools for all six mental muscles that equate to mental strength that are in the book the mentally stronger. I think that'd be a ridiculous assumption. But what you can do based on your assessment is pick out the tools in the menu that are right for you. And your variation is going to be different than, you know, 99.9% of the other people that will take the assessment. So it's a very tailored and personal output that, you know, that I'm really proud of. [00:29:31] Speaker A: For the reader, I love it. One of the tools that I've picked up recently in doing some systemic team coaching is when we're coaching systems rather than just individuals, we do stakeholder mapping. And so we'll ask a team, who are your primary and secondary stakeholders? And one of the things we do is if you can't actually do the 360, you can speculate the 360. So a coaching question would say, who's your primary stakeholder over the next six months? Who are you most focused on? And a coachee might say, right now it's my leadership team. I've got to show up for them right now. They need me. We're in a crisis. Whatever, whatever. And I might say, okay, what would your leadership team, looking at this assessment, where are two or three areas that your leadership team would say they need most from you? Yeah, the mental strength, the test that they most need you to pass. Because you call these tests, which I like, the tests that you most need to pass, what would they say those are? And that's kind of a way to kind of get around the 360. If it's not practical to do it, but to make you pause and go, my team would say this. My board might say this. My donors might say this. My community partners might say this. My family might say this. Because the perspectives are different. [00:30:59] Speaker B: And by thinking about them as tests, tests that you have to. The six tests of leadership you have to pass if you want to be the most powerful leader, especially in challenging times. It raises the stakes a little bit, doesn't it, Patrick? [00:31:12] Speaker A: Yeah, it does. [00:31:13] Speaker B: It makes you put a little bit more into it. One of the things, Patrick, I thought it might be interesting for me to highlight a tool or a tool in the book with kind of an interesting story or two. Would that be. You think that'd be a good place to go? [00:31:27] Speaker A: Stories make it stick. So absolutely. [00:31:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, let's do it. So remembering that there's six mental muscles to mental strength, I can't possibly give you examples of the tools in the book for every mental muscle, but there's over 50 plus. I just thought I'd pick a tool or two out to give. Something I would love to discuss with you and to just give the audience more value, even More value from the discussion. So I'll just pick an example. So one of the core muscles. We talked a little bit about confidence. Let's talk about the boldness muscle boldness. By way of definition, boldness paves a direct pathway to growth. It forces you to push your thinking. You have to get out of grooves if you want to be bold, you got to push past discomfort. It sparks innovation. It sparks and all kinds of good things. So one of the areas I wanted to talk about for just a second was the importance of boldness when it comes to kind of risk taking. And so it poses this question of how, as a leader, can you get your organization to be more bold, to be more comfortable with taking important and valuable and good, solid risks? And so I have a tool in the book and to set it up. I just want to tell you a quick story. So. So I had a chance to go to dinner with people that run a casino in Las Vegas. I was out there doing a leadership keynote for them and for their entire organization. We went to dinner the night before, and we went out to dinner, and they were telling me about this interesting problem they were having on the casino floor. And I can't tell you the name of the casino. You know how that works, Patrick. Right. So they were telling me about an interesting throughput problem they were having on the casino floor, meaning that one game in particular on the casino floor was kind of a bottleneck for them. The ratio of people that were standing around watching the game being played passively without spending any money to the number of people that were actually stepping up and playing the game and betting on the game that was so out of whack that it was causing this unproductive bottleneck. Now, let me pause for a second and see if you wanted to take a wild guess at what that game might be and then why you might have said that. Do you have any thoughts? If you. Have you ever been in a casino? I used to start with that. [00:33:45] Speaker A: I have. I'm not a casino kind of guy, but, yeah, I've been in. I've been in a few. And I don't know, I'm trying to think of two that I. I think of the movies, Scott. And so I'm picturing. I'm picturing what are the most lively events. And I'm thinking either craps or roulette, because those have so much movement in them. It's not just a poker game. It's got movement in it. So I'm thinking one of those two would be my guess. [00:34:11] Speaker B: Yeah. And you, you got on the first guess, you know, the game they're talking about was craps. And for those of your listeners that don't know, and I'll show you where I'm going with this, those that don't know, craps is a game. You roll dice. It's played in a sunken pit. And if you've never seen a craps table, after this episode, go Google craps table and take a look at what it looks like. And what you'll see is it is incredibly complicated. There's squares and all over. You know, you can bet this thing and bet it in this way, and you get this amount. And it can be very intimidating to people that don't play the game. I often joke that every once in a while, I like to play craps with grad school friends, and I still don't know how to play craps. I have to be retaught every single time I play it. And what the reason I bring that up is, you know, the. The casino owners were finally starting to really understand that people didn't understand the rules of the game, so they weren't going to step up. And, you know, if you've ever heard the term step up and roll the dice, that comes from the craps game in Las Vegas. People weren't willing to step up and roll the dice and risk their money, take that risk because they didn't understand the rules of the game. Well, meanwhile, back at the office, Patrick, guess what? If people don't understand the rules of risk taking, they are not going to step up and take risks either. So one of the tools in the book gives you kind of a 20 set, 20 questions. A set of 20 questions that you can ask as a leader to help define proactively what the rules of risk taking are. Imagine if you took the time to spell out to your organization what constitutes a good risk, what's a bad risk, what happens if you take a risk and succeed or fail? Who needs to approve what level of risk? And so on and so on and so on. And what we've seen when we've used this tool pre and post is a tremendous change in cultures where because the leader spelled out these are the rules, people understood it, and then they followed through. As long as the leader doesn't do what we've seen all too many times, say one thing and do another, where they say they welcome risks, and then when the risk goes wrong, they end up slapping people, and it's like, yeah, okay, well, that was a lie. As long as they Remain true to the behaviors that they outline up front. It's an incredibly powerful tool. And by the way, if you sit down with your boss and say, hey, I want to talk about the rules of risk taking, no one is ever going to say the rule is don't take any. Ever. Right. Unless maybe you're talking to legal, but you know, the legal department, in most part, that's going to force them to articulate the rules of risk taking and it changes the game. Right. Does that make sense, Patrick? [00:36:38] Speaker A: It makes total sense. And maybe just using the word rules might. People might infer different connotations to that. This is a part of the book I love the most because of the questions. So, I mean, I make my living asking questions as a coach, and these are such great coaching questions. I want to, if I can hit on a few more of them, they really hit me up, man. This is a great coaching question. What assumptions need to be true to make the risk one worth taking? What a great question. You know, these are not just. These are not binary, hey, is it worth it or not? Right. How big a risk is it? Those are simple questions. You're really getting deep here. What information is needed to create more comfort with this risk? Who needs to be comfortable with my taking this risk or us taking this risk? So, and there are actually several. This question asking tool repeats itself in other parts of the book, too. So I really love that because I think that asking the right questions is what unlocks all the good answers. And we don't ask the right questions. We do a pros and cons listen, right? What are the pros doing it? What are the cons of doing it? And which I won't, I won't go into that. But there's a better, there's even a better model for that. This is so much better because it opens and unlocks other thought beyond the binary choice of do I do it or do I not do it? [00:38:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And I've had plenty of leaders that take the list of 20 questions, you know, that I provide in the book, the mentally strong leader in this section, and they just, they just print it out. You know, I said, go ahead, photocopy it. I don't care. They take it in and they literally just use it. That becomes the discussion at the town hall that week. We are going to go through, maybe they pick 10 of the 20. We're going to go through these 10 questions and I'm going to define how I, as a leader, see smart risk taking. Right. I'm not advocating here by the way, Patrick. Right, that. Don't worry about it. Just take whatever risk. It doesn't matter. [00:38:39] Speaker A: As long as you can answer the 20 questions. [00:38:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're trying to, you know, trying to boil it down. I want to, you know, because I get asked so often about this, Patrick, with your permission, I wanted to share a tool to help people build fortitude, but in a way that they may not normally associate with fortitude. Is that a good place to go? [00:38:57] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. [00:38:58] Speaker B: I get asked a lot, you know, if I, and I test this all the time when I ask, you know, hey, what do you think are the six core mental muscles that associate with mental strength? Most people can guess confidence and most people can guess fortitude. Right. And then, you know, the other ones we've talked about boldness, goal focus, decision making and messaging. And I most often get requests for help on confidence, which we've talked about a little bit. And fortitude or, you know, resilience, the ability to push through challenges onward towards achievement. So the book is filled with lots of tools on how to build fortitude, but I wanted to focus on one that maybe is a little bit unusual. It's fortitude at a different way way, which is the fortitude and resilience that is required for us to conduct difficult conversations as a leader, even as a coworker. And sometimes people don't give enough credit or thought to. It takes resolve to be willing to have that difficult discussion. So I go through a pretty extensive tool that allows you to figure out how to prepare for and conduct difficult conversations. And I just wanted to highlight the slightest element of one of them. I have found that to prepare for a difficult conversation, Patrick, and you're a coach, so I'll be really interested to get your input on this. I have found that we're thinking about, let's say you're a leader, you have to have a difficult discussion with somebody, or you're a co worker, you want to have a difficult discussion with a difficult co worker or a parent that has to have a difficult discussion with a kid. The source of tension in that discussion that you're anticipating impacts how you should prepare for the conversation. And I'll give you an example. Let's say, you know, I want to focus on power structure. When you think about the source attention quite often at work, what creates tension in a difficult conversation is the power structure. You are either going to have more power than the other person you're giving difficult feedback to, you're going to have less power, or you're going to have equal power to them. And those all create their own dynamics. If you're giving me difficult or feedback, you're either going to have more power than me. And that puts me in this habit of I always become deferential. I shut up, I never push back. If you have less power than me, I might blow off what you say. If we have equal power, I may say, well, I don't report to you, so I don't need to listen. Listen. What happens is it's part of you have to identify what is your role in the power structure. Do you have more, less or equal power in the conversation that you're engaged in. And then you simply have to commit to change your patterns. You can't change the power dynamic. You can't change the fact that your boss is giving you feedback and that they have more power than you. What you can do is change the way you react if you always react that way. Every time my boss, I've noticed this about myself. Every time my boss gives me feedback, I become deferential. I don't stand up for myself. I just do whatever he or she says without at least really trying to understand. I just want to get out of that room fast enough. It's not productive. You have to just understand the nature of the power structure and then commit to change your own patterns Instead of fighting or trying to, you know, try to overcome the power of relationship. Right. That's just one of the two tips in there for conducting and preparing for difficult conversations. But does that make sense? Patrick? [00:42:25] Speaker A: Yeah, you, I'm glad you chose that tool to highlight because that is man, right now I'm just thinking I don't have stats for this, but my gut is telling me that right now with the people that I'm coaching, and I'm coaching right now, several teams. But from individual one on one coaching, I probably have about 40 different individuals I'm coaching right now. And I would say half of those at least might struggle with this idea of crucial conversations, as the classic books would say, or just. And I was in a workshop the other day doing a manager training and when we got to the end of it, I asked for closing thoughts, any insights, ahas, you know, all those. And a young lady raised her hand in the back of the room. She said, patrick, I've written this word down probably a dozen times throughout the day and I think it's the key word of the day for me. I said, share it. She goes, conversations, I said, say more. And she goes, have them, have them. That's what we're. She said that's what we're missing. We're often just don't have the conversation. We stew on it. Or we'll have the wrong conversation with the wrong person. [00:43:40] Speaker B: Yes. [00:43:40] Speaker A: The person that can't do anything about it. The person with whom the direct conflict is not happening. We'll go instead to a trusted friend and have a conversation about how this person is behaving rather than going to that person. So I think long and short of it for me is if we can just get more people to have the conversations. Now we move into the actual, the emotional intelligence space, not the mental strength space, but the emotional intelligence component of it. Now can I have the conversation in a productive and valuable way? [00:44:13] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. And if you think about it, Patrick, you know, I would argue and you could tell me if you disagree or not. I would argue. Most people probably intuitively understand the need to have a difficult conversation. They just don't want to do it right because they're afraid it's going to go wrong. They're afraid, they're not prepared on how to do it. They think in their mind of how badly it could go. They catastrophize the worst case scenario. And what I have found and in teaching people through the mentally strong leader, teaching them how to prepare for that discussion, prepare for it first creates that comfort level, then how to actually execute it so that if anything goes wrong in the execution, you are prepared and you've already anticipated a lot of the things that could go wrong and they don't surprise you, they don't catch you off guard and it becomes more comfortable. I don't know that even people that are super strong at that difficult conversations. I don't know if the word comfortable is ever really accurate because if you are getting too comfortable and something's wrong, in my opinion, but you can become more confident with them. I think that's. That's for sure. We call it. [00:45:20] Speaker A: Yeah, we call it becoming un. We call it becoming comfortably uncomfortable. [00:45:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I like that. That's a good way to put it. Yeah. [00:45:28] Speaker A: Comfortably uncomfortable because they're not fun. You know, some of those conversations are not fun. Conflict is not fun. Not for most people. People. Right, right. Well, for a few people it actually is. But you know, not for most people in, in the workplace. You know, it's. It. Or even, even with a manager who has an underperforming employee. [00:45:46] Speaker B: Yes. [00:45:47] Speaker A: They don't want to deal with it. And it's. And it's not because they. It's because they care too much sometimes. Right. It's that over empathy or as Kim Scott says, ruinous empathy. But. But yeah. And maybe it's fortitude that. That gives us the courage to have the conversation. And it's intelligence and emotional intelligence that helps us have the conversation the right way. But first you gotta have the bravery to have it. [00:46:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's right. You gotta have, you know, you really do have to have the bravery to have it. And I like that that person wrote down, heard it, and then wrote it down and then pointed out that that's half the battle. Right. Is committing to actually have those discussions. Because it's true. It really, it really is true. [00:46:35] Speaker A: Yeah. So much, so much issue can get resolved if two people will just have a conversation. It's just a conversation. And I like the word because it's not an argument, it's not a debate, it's not a. It's not a negotiation, it's not a mediation. It's just a conversation. That's all it is. Relax, have it. [00:46:57] Speaker B: That's exactly right. Patrick, with your permission, may I share one more tool? Do we have time for that? [00:47:02] Speaker A: Yeah, share one more and then I've got a couple of sort of overarching thoughts or observations I'd like to make with you and then we'll wrap the show with a couple of questions I like to ask all my guests. So get ready for those. Yeah, give us another tool. [00:47:17] Speaker B: Sounds good. And I wanted to share this one because it's an area I get asked about a tremendous amount. Down. It's within the mental muscle of messaging, the ability to stay as a leader, stay positive minded in your messaging when as a person so much negativity might be surrounding you. And I'm asked more than ever. I'm going to be very careful here. Patrick, I am not going into politics. I'm just going to say that whatever side of the fence you fall on, I think it's safe to say that both sides are feeling some pain and there's a lot of negativity in the world with a lot of things that are going on, on. And I'm asked constantly. Scott, as a leader, it's very hard for me at work right now to put a positive face on things my own. Those are my own personal struggles about some of the things that are happening. [00:48:06] Speaker A: I hear it all the time. That same thing all the time. [00:48:09] Speaker B: So that's why I wanted to close with this as a last tool very quickly. There's a tool in the book under, you know, in the mentally strong leader that I call the plus sign. And you'll get to it eventually. As you read the book, it's. It's kind of a simple, proven model that gives you a couple of ways to stay positive as a leader. So first of all, you have to be forward facing, right? You have to keep saying to yourself, big picture, small step. If you feel yourself struggling and you're emotionally, you feel down and everything's going wrong and you feel like the world is competing against you, you have to say to yourself, okay, what is a small step I can take to get towards the big picture thing I'm trying to accomplish as a leader? You have to set bother boundaries. And I literally encourage people, as an exercise to. I want you to write down the things you can control. Write down the things you can't control. The ones you can't control, that bother, you circle them, they are outside of the boundary. Articulate your bother boundaries so you don't spend time thinking about them. As always, you have to choose your orbit wisely. Right? As author Jim Rhone said, you're the average of the five people you spend your most time with. So you want to make sure that you're surrounding yourself with positive people. But you also have to create offsets, your own little pockets of positivity. You have to be the epicenter of encouragement yourself. And I often tell people you can't control the world around you. You can create little offsets of positivity. You can be an epicenter of encouragement by giving informed encouragement, which is the best kind, which is where I pull you aside, Patrick, and I tell you with specificity why I think you're such a great podcast host, how powerful your conversations that you create are, why I think people will want to listen to you in the future. But I'm specific about it. It's informed encouragement rather than general rah rah. So there's quite a few tools to be able to do that. But I often keep coming back to the bother boundary element that we let too much into the inner sanctum of things that shouldn't be bothering us. And it takes some discipline, some time, but you can separate those things, right? Does that make sense, Pat? [00:50:13] Speaker A: Oh, well, yes. I use a slightly different model for it that will probably resonate with you. My dad used to say, control what you can and roll with the rest. But there's a nuance to that. There's a deeper level to that that I picked up years later in an acronym CIA and not Central Intelligence Agency, but CIA. And I'll often do this with a leader who's struggling with a challenge or a conflict. I'll ask in the C column, what are the things that you completely control? Your. Your hands are on the knobs and levers. You get to decide. You control it. Most of those things have to do with self, our own behavior, our response to things. If we're a manager, we can control a system or protocol or a policy. But what are those things that we completely control? The I stands for influence. We can't control it, but maybe we can influence it. Right. If we can inspire, if we can have the tough conversations, we might influence a different behavior. I can't control your behavior, but I can influence it with artful leadership. And then the A is the bother boundary. What are the things I can't control? I can't influence them. And I need to do one of two things. Accept them or adapt to them. I like that because I can't change or influence them. And what I say is that we often make two big mistakes. One, we try to control or influence something that we can't beat our heads against that wall to the point of frustration and even burnout. Or we make the opposite mistake. We accept things that with some effort and some mental strength, we could have controlled or influenced. So I like bother boundaries. The reason I like the term is because again, we control the boundary. We set the boundary. It's our boundary. [00:52:07] Speaker B: That's right. [00:52:08] Speaker A: So I love that. [00:52:09] Speaker B: And the extent to which you can hold firm to those boundaries, it helps because of course people are going to say, okay, Scott, I know that. But it's really hard to maintain the parameters. Well, it starts by understanding what the parameters are. Sometimes we just, we find ourselves drifting into worrying about things, and if we're really honest with ourselves, it's not even worth worrying about. You set aside the control factor, Patrick. It's not even worth being bothered by. So setting the boundaries is a good solid place, fundamental place to start for a foundation. [00:52:37] Speaker A: I love it. I love it. A couple things that come to mind. You and I had a brief offline conversation a week or so ago and we talked about this concept of emotional intelligence. You say right off in the book that mental strength and emotional intelligence are not synonymous terms the way that you're defining them, but that certainly emotional intelligence is a part of it. So I'm going to give you this moment of honesty as I was reading it. I'm reading, I'm reading, I'm reading, I'm reading. And everything I'm seeing, I'm Going, this is emotional intelligence. This is emotional intelligence. This is emotional intelligence. Every bit of it. Even the, you know, I mean, because I use the EIQ framework a lot in the psychometrics and things, there are these components of self appreciation and regulation and this, all these things and everything I'm reading, the further I got into it, it, the more I went, oh, I see. Now, wait a minute. No, this is beyond emotional intelligence. It's beyond that. I won't, I don't give any more away than that. And I might not be able to put my finger on exactly the things that were leading me to that, but the further I got into the book, the more I realized what you meant by the difference. I do think, and in a very positive way, a very powerful way, there is a thread of emotional intelligence competencies all through this, all through this book. And what I always say about emotional intelligence with my coaches is our IQ is pretty hardwired, but our EIQ can be strengthened with effort, with awareness, with intentionality, and all of these things in this book are doing that as well. So I just wanted to say that I, maybe I went into it with a bias. I think they're the same thing, but they're not. They're not the same thing. They're related. And I really appreciate how you, how that came out as I went further into the book. [00:54:32] Speaker B: Yeah, that's good. And I think the reader will understand too, that, you know, when I, when I'm talking the topic in keynotes, I'm very upfront about the fact that, you know, mental strength is the broader umbrella. Emotional intelligence, for sure, is a component that fits under that umbrella. And yes, for sure. You know, there's a lot of things that blend, but I think the reader will get a sense too, of like, oh, wow. That's why I always say, you know, we've heard about emotional intelligence for the next, you know, for the past 10 years. I do believe mental strength is what you're going to start hearing about for the next 10 years. It can be the only thing to explain, and I say this with all humility, why mentally strong leaders selling so well. It could be the only thing that can explain why over a quarter million of people have already taken a course that I teach on LinkedIn, learning about mental strengths. I do think that people sense that mental strength is the power of our times. And you remember that piece of research I talked about earlier, Patrick, where we asked the 3,000 executives that one question, think of the time of the leader, that the attributes of the leader that really got you through tough times with excellence. When we followed back with those 3,000 people and we said, okay, now, thank you for the general description you gave us of those leaders that led to the identification of the six core mental muscles. Now I'm going to give you a piece of paper with 100 choices on it. There are one or two word choices. You have to pick in one or two words. Now how to describe the leader that was the best in challenging times. We found 95% of the time they circled mentally strong. And we also had emotionally intelligent on that cheek, which told us that mental strength is a broader, maybe more, even more useful term. And it's what has led me to really believe, like we really do think we're onto something here, that mental strength is the leadership superpower of our times that I think you're going to be hearing about for the next decade. [00:56:26] Speaker A: Yeah. So that leads me to my last thought that I'm just going to bounce around in my head until I finish the book and probably even beyond. And I don't have it framed perfectly. So let me think out loud a second. My thought is that when I think of the term mental strength, I think internal, I think inward, my fortitude, my confidence, my boldness, the fact that I'm focused on a goal, I can make decisions, I can give good messages. When I think of the term emotional intelligence, though, it has two sides, a self and an others. I think more external, I think more outward facing. And when I think about mental strength muscles, I can't disagree with any of these six. They make perfect sense as mental strength muscles. If I define them as the six tests of an effective leader, I might want to add one. Yeah, I understand around the external facing, the outward, the people development, the people connect, being connected to people, drawing people in, making them feel. And it's, it's in here because it's in confidence and it's in decision. It's in messaging for sure. Because you talk about, you know, the upload and the download of messaging. It's not always just talking. But do you follow what I'm saying? That's that was my one thing is that if I were think of all the tests of a leader and maybe it's because of the coaching focus I'm in and the sector I'm in or something, but I tend to be more focused on how the leader is connecting with external stakeholders. External meaning anybody but themselves. [00:58:09] Speaker B: Yes, yes. And I've gotten that question before. You know, you could be. Well, Scott, why these six mental muscles? I Can think of other things that are very helpful for leaders. [00:58:19] Speaker A: Well, you did the research, answered it for you. That's incredible. [00:58:23] Speaker B: And they link to achievement more than any others. But part of the key discerning point is because for sure, Patrick, we could make an argument for other. Okay, Scott, why isn't vision setting on there, for example, why isn't strategic thinking on there, for example, as part of the six core mental muscles? And one of the key things that discerns the six core mental muscles, which is set aside the definition of a test of leadership for a second is that we've also found these are the six things that leaders need to do, the six muscles they need to use that require incredible self discipline. You have to be able to return and to resist things that aren't going to be helpful. You have to show, you know, kind of an inner strength to be able to represent these. And so they kind of closely weave in with mental strength that way. Are there other skills of leaders that are useful that aren't in the book? Of course. These are the ones that tie most. [00:59:24] Speaker A: That's good. [00:59:25] Speaker B: The concept of mental strength. [00:59:27] Speaker A: It does. And it makes me think. I've been doing some research recently on vertical development. Vertical human development versus horizontal. And if you think about horizontal development and the skills you just mentioned, right. You know, the ability, public speaking is a skill that you can develop. Strategic planning or thinking, you know, vision casting, those are all, you know, I got a degree in organizational leadership and I got a promotion and I've been a CEO now twice. And I've. Those are all horizontal developments across a lifetime timeline. Whereas vertical development is more about our worldview and how we approach the context of our horizontal development. And so when I think of things like confidence, you know, messaging, boldness, fortitude, I think based on what I've been researching and digging into recently, those tend to. You could almost see those developing with life stages. [01:00:25] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. Yeah. [01:00:26] Speaker A: And so, so yeah, I kind of think of this somewhat as, as the sort of vertical horizontal and, and these may, these may overlap a little bit, but that's a great point. There's. These are six. There's. [01:00:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:38] Speaker A: Obviously there's a lot to being a good leader, but you've hit on what, what you're calling this is muscle strength, in particular mental strength muscles. I love it. I really do love it. Sky, this is, this is really great and thank you. You've challenged me and, and really, really got me thinking about some things afresh too. And I love to just continue to learn and this is Great. Yeah, appreciate that. So, Scott, I asked all my guests, at least my first time guests, two questions at the end of every show because I love the stories and I love the final tenants that we get. And so let me ask them to you. The first question I have for you is who comes to mind immediately as a leader in your life, whether you know them or not, but a leader in your life who you would say has had profound impact on your leadership and your view of leadership. And why does that person come to mind? [01:01:30] Speaker B: Yeah, the first leader, his name was Julian Minneberg. He was one of my very first leaders at Procter and Gamble. He went on to become CEO of Helen of Troy. He's now retired, just recently retired. And he taught me very early on that leadership. When you become a leader of others, it is no longer about you. It is about figuring out how to get the most out of your people. And I know that's so basic, it's such a platitude, we've heard it a thousand times. But As a young 26 year old leader who for the first time had responsibility for others, it was game changing for me to understand. It's no longer about becoming, you know, getting the work done through myself, it's getting it done through others in a way that uplifts them too and still produces the goals that we have to produce. [01:02:18] Speaker A: Beautiful. I often quote Dwight Eisenhower's leadership definition. The art of getting people to do things you want done because they want to do it. [01:02:27] Speaker B: That's right, that's right, that's right. [01:02:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I love it. Last question. You're at the top of a mountain with a giant megaphone. And all the leaders of the world are at the base of the mountain hearing what you're about to say. And you've got 15 seconds to share with all the leaders of the world what you believe is the most important tenet to keep in mind in leadership. What do you say? [01:02:51] Speaker B: It's a repeat of what we've said. But I would say confidence is not the lack of self doubt, it's your ability to manage your relationship with doubt. Never forget it. [01:03:04] Speaker A: Our relationship with doubt. Read recently a book called the Upside of Stress and the Research in it. Scott, you'll love this. Says that it's not stress that's bad for our health, it's our relationship with stress that's bad for our health. And there's some new, there's some new science research behind it. I think this really applies to doubt too. Our relationship with doubt, it's not the doubt itself. It's how we navigate and manage our relationship with it. Hey man, thank you so much for sharing. This is great. This is rich, rich, rich folks. Go to scottmountz.com Mountz is M A U T Z dot com and go there or go to Amazon or go somewhere, get this book, the Mentally Strong Leader. It doesn't matter what position you're in, it's in your organization. This is not about position or authority. It's about leadership. It's about influence. You'll love it, I promise you. And in the meantime, we'll see you next time. Lead on.