May 17, 2024 • 25 mins
In this episode, Dr. De Hicks gets real about the prevalence of stress and anxiety in leadership roles. The episode unfolds as a heart-to-heart conversation about the exhaustion, overwhelm and pressure responsible leaders commonly experience. It also describes the 5 most common core beliefs leaders, managers, and supervisors have that set them up for chronic anxiety.
Music Credits: Two Step Daisy Duke by Mr. Smith is licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International License from FMA
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Well, I have this impending sense of doom. It's not all the time, but it's a lot.
And I've got some headaches. I'm just a little bit irritable.
Don't ask me what's wrong, or I'll probably snap at you.
I got panic attacks. Not a lot. They're not so much of an attack as they are
the threat of a panic attack. A little depressed.
I feel tired a lot. A lot. It's not quite extreme fatigue, but when I sit down, oh, man, I'm tired.
(00:26):
My heart pounds a lot. Maybe it's just because I'm old. I don't know. I'm short of breath.
My blood pressure the other day was kind of high. I actually checked it with the machine at home.
My muscles ache all the time. I don't remember it being that way. I got joint pain.
I'm irritable with people who I used to not be. My humor's gone.
Other than that, I'm doing fine.
(00:50):
That was how my friend answered when I said to him the other day, hey, how are you doing?
If we'd been face-to-face rather than on the phone, I'm sure I would have been
able to see his face frown and a little bit of a grimace until he got to the
very end when he said, other than that, I'm fine.
(01:11):
I don't know. Sometimes I get asked how you're doing, and I realize that when
people ask me that, they're just wanting to start a conversation.
They want to know how I'm doing. But when I asked him, I really did want to know how he was doing.
And so I think my My response was, oh, wow, what's gone there?
Tell me some more about that.
That led us into the conversation about anxiety that he was experiencing and
(01:34):
has been for quite some time as a leader.
Music.
(02:01):
Hi, I'm Dee Hicks, and welcome to the School of Leadership, Leveraged Lessons
from High-Impact Leaders.
For the past 35 years, I've researched the disciplines, habits.
Music.
Mental models, and assumptions of the most effective leaders in dozens of vocations.
This podcast takes what I've learned from over 2,000 of these remarkable people
(02:23):
and distills it into practical tools and tips that you can use immediately.
So let's get started.
(02:46):
Welcome back to the podcast. Hope your day is going great.
Mine's going pretty well. I'm sitting here enjoying a little bit of Heaven Hills
bottled in Bond 100 proof.
This used to be quite the bourbon back in the day, and it actually still is.
It took a little bit of a hiatus.
It was really started off by Heaven Hill back in the 30s, I think.
(03:09):
I think it was like 1939, maybe 1940, when they first released their Heaven Hill bottled bond.
And it was pretty popular down in Kentucky for a long time.
Then it went away for a while and Then came back in 19, let me see,
2019, I think is when it came back into vogue. And it's a seven-year-old bourbon, 100 proof bourbon.
It is actually very, very good.
(03:32):
It's not a high end price point, but it is certainly, it's not cheap either.
I think it's about $60 a bottle, something like that.
It's got a little bit of a sweet smelling nose. It smells a little bit like,
I think a little bit like caramel to me.
And it smells a little bit like i don't know if you were if you were to eat if if you were to smell.
(03:58):
Roasted peanuts maybe like that with a little bit of a sweetness added to them,
it's not overwhelming at all so i noticed on the first sip that it tasted a
little bit like elijah craig but it was a little bit less complicated i don't
want to get all that picky, but it's quite good.
It has a little bit of cinnamon flavor to it.
And if I think about chocolate, then I can taste chocolate in it as well.
(04:24):
Since it's a hundred proof, it doesn't hit super hard.
It doesn't like knock you on your can like you were somebody in an old Western
saloon and pounded back a shot and you can't breathe for the next 15 seconds.
It's a little hot for the first sip. And then after that, it mellows right out.
Then it finishes after maybe the second or a third sip of that,
(04:45):
it finishes a little bit, I don't know, a little bit darker in a good sense,
a little bit more complex and robust than it's like seven-year-old age would even suggest.
And it leaves a little bit of, some people have said it leaves a Tootsie Roll vibe.
I don't know. It's quite that. But it's really a nice aftertaste.
It's very subtle. I like it quite a bit, this bottle.
(05:06):
If you were sitting right here with me, you would see that this 750-milliliter
bottle is down to the last inch or so at the bottom of this bottle. It's that good.
I've given it away to a couple of folks, and they liked it a lot.
And I'm pairing with it a cigar that I really, really like.
(05:27):
It is called the Armada Man of War.
This is an A.J. Fernandez cigar. I've got the great big ones here.
It's a 50, I think it's a 52 ring, and it's six and a half or seven inches long.
It is a beautiful Maduro, and I think it's really, it's quite full-bodied.
(05:49):
This cigar would take me about two hours to smoke, even though the podcast will
only take a few minutes. It's really complicated. It's pretty well balanced.
It burns really well. It's the kind of thing I would share with a friend of
mine who likes Cuban-style cigars, but doesn't want to go to all the hassle
of breaking the law and getting a Cuban cigar.
(06:09):
It's got an Ecuadorian and Sumatran wrapper and a lot of Nicaraguan mix.
They're long fillers. It just doesn't fall apart in your mouth.
It's spicy, vanilla, really, really good, but it would take a good two hours.
This is the kind of thing you and I would enjoy together.
If we had a long discussion about the meaning of life and about how politics
has become the new religion, or I don't know, something like that,
(06:33):
maybe it would be a lighter conversation, But it'll definitely be a long one.
So I'm glad you're here. Hey, let's hop in to Managing Leadership Anxiety, part two.
We've got five of these. So this is part two.
Well, I have this impending sense of doom. It's not all the time, but it's a lot.
And I've got some headaches. I'm just a little bit irritable.
(06:56):
Don't ask me what's wrong, or I'll probably snap at you.
I got panic attacks. Not a lot. They're not so much of an attack as they are
the threat of a panic attack. I'm a little depressed.
I feel tired a lot. A lot. It's not quite extreme fatigue, but when I sit down, oh, man, I'm tired.
My heart pounds a lot. Maybe it's just because I'm old. I don't know. I'm short of breath.
(07:18):
My blood pressure the other day was kind of high. I actually checked it with the machine at home.
My muscles ache all the time. I don't remember it being that way. I got joint pain.
I'm irritable with people who I used to not be. My humor's gone.
Other than that, I'm doing fine.
That was how my friend answered when I said to him the other day, hey, how are you doing?
(07:44):
If we'd been face-to-face rather than on the phone, I'm sure I would have been
able to see his face frown and a little bit of a grimace until he got to the very end.
But he said, other than that, I'm fine.
I don't know. Sometimes I get asked how you do it. And I realized that when
people ask me that, they're just wanting to start a conversation.
They want to know how I do it. But when I asked him, I really did want to know
(08:06):
how he was doing. And so I think my response was, oh, wow, what's gone there?
Tell me some more about that.
That led us into the conversation about anxiety that he was experiencing and
has been for quite some time as a leader.
But he didn't use the word anxiety. He doesn't even really use the word stress very much.
(08:28):
He doesn't use the word fear, which is what stress actually is either.
He says things like, I got a lot going on. There's a lot of demands placed on me.
I really need to do a better job. I got to have the right answer.
I got to get things right.
And so when I asked him, how are you doing? And he was able to rattle through
that short list that I gave you. Actually, that was kind of a long list.
(08:50):
Really, you may have even gone on more than what I just suggested to you.
I don't know. It was quite a list.
But when he rattled down that list, that was a kind of a new thing for him.
Conversations before that he and I had been having, I asked him to think about
the physical sensations that are created in his job or are as a result of his
(09:11):
job or as a result of thinking about his job or as a result of trying to not think about his work.
I said, how about if you work at noticing what's going on physically at this
very moment and then try to imagine how long it's been going on.
Well, my friend, that's what we talked about in Managing Leadership Anxiety,
(09:31):
yours and theirs and mine and ours and everybody else's around us in our first
installment of this five podcast series.
And I suggested to you, as you recall, if you listen to that podcast,
that job one for us is to notice the physical sensations or the physical symptoms
that you and I are experiencing when we get anxious.
(09:54):
My friend, of course, described all oh, these things that were going on right
now and have been going on for quite some time.
And if he is like you or you were like him, we tend to notice those things and
go, huh, I wonder what that is.
And then we just lean forward and power through. We'll pound another cup of
coffee or we'll pound the desk again, or we'll pound a bourbon or something
(10:15):
like that just to distract ourself from those symptoms and think, ah, well,
maybe it's just because I'm 50 or maybe it's just because I'm 30 or because
I just had a conversation with a person. No big deal. I'll just go on.
And then after a while, this becomes our norm.
So as you and I deal with leading folks to do better things,
if we are leaders or managers, supervisors,
(10:38):
even if we don't know those titles and our job and our purpose is to lead people
to do great things and better things or to lead people to do mundane things with a great effect.
In fact, if that's our job, we know that we're swimming in a sea that everyone
else is swimming in now, where our modern culture has set us up for very high
(10:58):
levels of consistent experience around anxiety.
In fact, we're so used to it now that anxiety in other people and in us has
become the background noise of our life.
It's almost as though if you have a squeaky dryer that just squeaks rhythmically
behind you or you close the door, you could sort of still hear it squeaking
(11:19):
behind the door of your laundry room and you just get used to it. You just turn it off.
You don't notice it or it's the it's the squeak of a rattle in your car or something
as you're driving down the road.
Notice it at first and occasionally it'll show up, but most of the time it just
falls out of the background of our life like a noise.
Well, the anxiety that you and I experience as leaders and that those folks
(11:41):
around us we're leading experience as well is like that background noise.
It's just that it's gotten louder and louder and louder and ignoring it is probably
not going to help at all. So in our last podcast in this series,
which was the first one of five, I suggested that our job is to notice it.
Well, here we are. Let's talk about the next installment. What do we do next?
(12:02):
Once we notice it, we need to figure out where it comes from.
We need to give it a label. I'll
borrow from Steve Kuss's work here and suggest that we should name it.
We should be able to say this anxiety is most likely our physiological and then
psychological reaction to a threat,
(12:24):
and the threat is to a perceived need.
I feel like that a need that is very important for me to be able to function as a good leader.
As a good friend, as a good team member, etc., is being threatened by something.
There's some experience.
There's some need that's out there. There's some event that happens.
(12:48):
And then I interpret that event, for example, that circumstance as a threat
to something that I feel like I really need.
Makes all kinds of sense. Well, what are those needs that I have? And here's the kicker.
What if I think I need something, but I actually don't need it in order to be
(13:09):
effective as a leader or a manager or supervisor, as a good friend,
as someone who's trying to influence others to do great things?
What if I think I need it, but I truly don't? So once I notice this going on
physically in me, then I need to be able to say, oh, I get that.
I feel this thing because I think I need something that maybe I don't. Huh?
(13:35):
Well, what are those five things that we think we need as leaders?
And again, I'm borrowing from some of the thoughts from Steve Cuss and a few
other folks back in the day from Bowen and a few others.
And I've adapted these to fit more of my experience and the experience that
flows from those of you that I've got to be around over all these years. So what are those?
(13:58):
There are five of these, what have come to be called core beliefs.
They're so deep in us that we don't really even examine them. We just have them.
We don't maybe even understand them or their impact on us. We just have them. They're core beliefs.
Like I have a core belief that if I let go of something, it will fall to the ground.
Okay. Now, I know there's a thing called gravity, but I don't really know how it works very much.
(14:23):
I know why it happens. There's gravity.
I know there's something going on there, but I'm not somebody who deeply,
profoundly understands that threat, but I test it all the time. It's a core belief.
And these core beliefs we have throughout our life. Well, what if our core belief is actually wrong?
What if I think I truly need something as a leader that I don't need in order
(14:46):
to be successful or effective as a leader?
Well, here they are. Here are the five core beliefs. Number one, maybe this is you.
You may want to slow down or turn off the dryer in the background so you can hear these.
You may need to take a pause a little bit if you're distracted,
but here they are. They're not sophisticated, but they're very common.
(15:06):
Are these any of your core beliefs? If you have them and you're feeling anxious
in some way, it's likely because you feel like that one of those core beliefs,
one of these things I think I need is being threatened.
Here's the first one. I have to be perfect and all of my work has to be perfect.
(15:27):
Second one, I have to know what to do. I have to have the right answers.
The third one is I have to have people's approval.
And what goes along with that is they like me. I have to have their acceptance.
And the next core belief is that I have to be in control or my work has to make
(15:51):
things under control. I have to be in control.
And here's the last one. people need me
and i have to be there for them there's
a corollary to that one and that is that no one
else can do this i'm the only one that's often
presented to us in that very same way in fact people often come to us because
(16:12):
they have those very same beliefs of us we'll have the answer we'll know what
to do we'll put things under control we'll be able to help them because no one
else can, and on and on it goes.
Do you have and do you function from any of those core beliefs?
A way to check yourself to find out if you do is notice if you have one of those
(16:35):
core beliefs tested by reality.
That is, someone asks you to help them with something or to save them in some
way, and you simply can't.
Does it create anxiety for you?
You find yourself in a situation where everyone looks to you to make sure things
are under control and predictable, and yet you just can't do it.
(16:59):
How do you feel about that? You're in a situation where your work product or
your decisions or something that you are responsible for is done poorly.
It's not perfect, whatever that looks like.
How do you feel? How do you react to that imperfection in yourself,
in others, and in the work that you all do?
(17:20):
What if somebody says, we have to have the right strategy, we have to know what
to do, and they turn to you and you just don't know what to do.
This is especially true of trying to figure out what to do tomorrow, about tomorrow.
It's especially also true when you're working with people who are holding their
own agendas close to their vest and you suspect that their motives are impure.
(17:45):
How's that for a good word?
Their motives are not good. I don't know. They may not be pure evil,
but you think their motives are off a little bit.
That might be a big challenge for you. And on and on we go.
So when you look at those five core beliefs that have been presented to us and
drive them around out in real life and notice how you feel when you can't be
(18:07):
one or two or three of those things,
and then how do you react when you can't be those one or two things?
Or maybe all five of those quarterlies.
How do you react? What do you like to be around? How do you talk to yourself?
Well, take in a hot second and pause and realize, oh, I'm reacting to this situation
(18:28):
inwardly, outwardly, both, because I think I need fill in the blank.
And this thing is exposing that I can't get that need met. I can't do that. And then how do I react?
So that step right there, we call naming it. So you've already noticed it.
You've noticed all the physical stuff that's going on that is actually anxiety.
And you stopped ignoring it. You realize, oh, wow, that's a flash of anxiety.
(18:52):
Or if that word doesn't work for you, then how about you just use the word stress
or pressure or something like that?
It'll work too. But it's a reactivity that you and I have got.
In fact, the more anxious we are, the more reactive we are to threats to those
five core beliefs that we need things that we don't actually need.
So the more reactive we are, the more reactive we become.
(19:13):
It just starts to build a snowball of reactivity.
And we begin to even react to things that might happen, that could happen.
We react to possibilities instead of real-time experiences.
Wow, that might actually be you. So the skill here is to realize,
oh, I'm reacting like this because that's anxiety, that's stress,
(19:36):
that's fear, something, whatever word works there for you.
I'm reacting this way because I'm anxious.
I'm anxious because I think I need this.
I feel like I need to be there for people all the time.
That's actually a false belief.
Challenge the false belief. I don't need to be there for people all the time.
(19:56):
Oh, wow, I feel this because I didn't get someone's approval.
They actually criticized me.
They actually spoke about me when I wasn't in the room in unkind terms.
Oh, I don't like that. That feels icky. I'm anxious about that.
Well, where does that come from? I feel like I need to have people's approval
(20:17):
all the time in order for me to be effective as a leader.
It's one of my performance metrics, I guess you could call it that.
Well, that's actually a false belief. I do not need everyone's approval all the time.
I do not go through each of those five. I do not need to be perfect all the time.
(20:38):
No one can even really define that in most of my work. I don't need to know what to do all the time.
I don't need to have the right answers all the time.
I don't need people's approval all the time. I don't need everyone's approval
about everything. For sure, we know that.
But I don't need everyone's approval all the time. I don't have to be in control.
(21:00):
In fact, I'm only in control of three things.
I'm in control and therefore responsible for whom I trust. That's the people I rely on and for what.
I'm in control and therefore responsible for picking my perspective.
So you don't change the facts on the ground by changing your perspective.
You just change what's possible for you to do about it or to react to it or
(21:21):
to respond to it in some way.
Things have to be under control. Well, I actually don't need to have things under control.
Control is a mirage for us.
People need me all the time. I'm the only one that can help.
I have to be there for them. Challenge that belief. No, you don't.
You don't have to be there for people. It's possible that sometimes when you
(21:42):
step in and help, you actually end up hurting.
At the very least, you delay the opportunity for that person to learn how to
carry that weight themselves.
You can be beside people, but you don't have to be the one that carries their weight for them.
All right, you get the idea here. This is one of the most important things that
I have begun to learn over the last couple of decades.
It's helped me tremendously. tremendously i still have that
(22:05):
that deeply wired response deep
in my body and in my brain if i can't be
there for someone someone i really care about and i can't be
there for them or let's layer it i can't be
there for them and i don't have the right answer for them and i can't control
it and even if i did they wouldn't like what i did i'd have those experiences
from time to time when i notice them oh there's something going on here that's
(22:28):
telling me i have anxiety then i can tip and challenge those five core beliefs for myself.
It's become something that's common and it might be once or twice a week that
I find myself stepping into that world and saying, wait, wait,
what am I believing here?
And is that actually not true?
All right, there you go. In episode one of this five podcast series,
(22:52):
it was notice it, notice what's going on physically.
And here at episode two, name it. Oh, geez, that's a reaction to a need that
I think I have that I really don't have.
In our next one, we're going to talk about how do you navigate it?
Now that you've done this, what do you do next?
All right, my friends, I hope you enjoyed this podcast. I'm certainly going
(23:14):
to enjoy the rest of this cigar, and I'm going to enjoy the rest of this bourbon.
It's a small pour. It's not even a full shot.
So when I say the rest of this bourbon, you might be thinking it's some tall
tumbler or something like that, or the rest of the bottle.
I don't know what you might be thinking. Hey, I hope you're having a great day.
It's good to spend a little bit of time with you like this, with me talking in your ear.
(23:36):
I did all the talking. I don't know. Maybe you talked a little bit as well, but I couldn't hear you.
Anyway, take care. Okay, a little bit shorter podcast.
I think I spent more time talking about Heaven Hill and about the Armada Man
of War cigar than I did talking about what those five false beliefs are.
But you can fast forward. That's the beauty of technology.
(24:00):
I hope your day goes great. You got good work in front of you, important work to do.
So keep it up. We need you to succeed. seed.
And I'd prefer if you're not riddled with anxiety at every step along the way
in trying to accomplish something great.
Hey, here's to you. Take care.
Music.
(24:28):
Thanks for joining me in today's School of Leadership.
I know your time is valuable, and I appreciate the opportunity to spend a little bit of it with you.
If this podcast has been helpful, perhaps you could consider sharing it with a friend.
And maybe you want to check out the dozens of videos that we've created for
you on our YouTube channel.
(24:48):
Just look for Hilt Academy, H-I-L-T Academy.
And Hilt stands for High Impact Leadership Training.
And if you want to check out our in-depth leadership management and supervisory
courses, head on over to Hilt Academy at thinkific.com and see what we have to offer there.
(25:12):
Once again, thanks for taking a little bit of time and spend it with me.
Music.
Well, I have this impending sense of doom. It's not all the time, but it's a lot.
And I've got some headaches. I'm just a little bit irritable.
Don't ask me what's wrong, or I'll probably snap at you.
I got panic attacks. Not a lot. They're not so much of an attack as they are
the threat of a panic attack. A little depressed.
I feel tired a lot. A lot. It's not quite extreme fatigue, but when I sit down, oh, man, I'm tired.
(00:26):
My heart pounds a lot. Maybe it's just because I'm old. I don't know. I'm short of breath.
My blood pressure the other day was kind of high. I actually checked it with the machine at home.
My muscles ache all the time. I don't remember it being that way. I got joint pain.
I'm irritable with people who I used to not be. My humor's gone.
Other than that, I'm doing fine.
(00:50):
That was how my friend answered when I said to him the other day, hey, how are you doing?
If we'd been face-to-face rather than on the phone, I'm sure I would have been
able to see his face frown and a little bit of a grimace until he got to the
very end when he said, other than that, I'm fine.
(01:11):
I don't know. Sometimes I get asked how you're doing, and I realize that when
people ask me that, they're just wanting to start a conversation.
They want to know how I'm doing. But when I asked him, I really did want to know how he was doing.
And so I think my My response was, oh, wow, what's gone there?
Tell me some more about that.
That led us into the conversation about anxiety that he was experiencing and
(01:34):
has been for quite some time as a leader.
Music.
(02:01):
Hi, I'm Dee Hicks, and welcome to the School of Leadership, Leveraged Lessons
from High-Impact Leaders.
For the past 35 years, I've researched the disciplines, habits.
Music.
Mental models, and assumptions of the most effective leaders in dozens of vocations.
This podcast takes what I've learned from over 2,000 of these remarkable people
(02:23):
and distills it into practical tools and tips that you can use immediately.
So let's get started.
(02:46):
Welcome back to the podcast. Hope your day is going great.
Mine's going pretty well. I'm sitting here enjoying a little bit of Heaven Hills
bottled in Bond 100 proof.
This used to be quite the bourbon back in the day, and it actually still is.
It took a little bit of a hiatus.
It was really started off by Heaven Hill back in the 30s, I think.
(03:09):
I think it was like 1939, maybe 1940, when they first released their Heaven Hill bottled bond.
And it was pretty popular down in Kentucky for a long time.
Then it went away for a while and Then came back in 19, let me see,
2019, I think is when it came back into vogue. And it's a seven-year-old bourbon, 100 proof bourbon.
It is actually very, very good.
(03:32):
It's not a high end price point, but it is certainly, it's not cheap either.
I think it's about $60 a bottle, something like that.
It's got a little bit of a sweet smelling nose. It smells a little bit like,
I think a little bit like caramel to me.
And it smells a little bit like i don't know if you were if you were to eat if if you were to smell.
(03:58):
Roasted peanuts maybe like that with a little bit of a sweetness added to them,
it's not overwhelming at all so i noticed on the first sip that it tasted a
little bit like elijah craig but it was a little bit less complicated i don't
want to get all that picky, but it's quite good.
It has a little bit of cinnamon flavor to it.
And if I think about chocolate, then I can taste chocolate in it as well.
(04:24):
Since it's a hundred proof, it doesn't hit super hard.
It doesn't like knock you on your can like you were somebody in an old Western
saloon and pounded back a shot and you can't breathe for the next 15 seconds.
It's a little hot for the first sip. And then after that, it mellows right out.
Then it finishes after maybe the second or a third sip of that,
(04:45):
it finishes a little bit, I don't know, a little bit darker in a good sense,
a little bit more complex and robust than it's like seven-year-old age would even suggest.
And it leaves a little bit of, some people have said it leaves a Tootsie Roll vibe.
I don't know. It's quite that. But it's really a nice aftertaste.
It's very subtle. I like it quite a bit, this bottle.
(05:06):
If you were sitting right here with me, you would see that this 750-milliliter
bottle is down to the last inch or so at the bottom of this bottle. It's that good.
I've given it away to a couple of folks, and they liked it a lot.
And I'm pairing with it a cigar that I really, really like.
(05:27):
It is called the Armada Man of War.
This is an A.J. Fernandez cigar. I've got the great big ones here.
It's a 50, I think it's a 52 ring, and it's six and a half or seven inches long.
It is a beautiful Maduro, and I think it's really, it's quite full-bodied.
(05:49):
This cigar would take me about two hours to smoke, even though the podcast will
only take a few minutes. It's really complicated. It's pretty well balanced.
It burns really well. It's the kind of thing I would share with a friend of
mine who likes Cuban-style cigars, but doesn't want to go to all the hassle
of breaking the law and getting a Cuban cigar.
(06:09):
It's got an Ecuadorian and Sumatran wrapper and a lot of Nicaraguan mix.
They're long fillers. It just doesn't fall apart in your mouth.
It's spicy, vanilla, really, really good, but it would take a good two hours.
This is the kind of thing you and I would enjoy together.
If we had a long discussion about the meaning of life and about how politics
has become the new religion, or I don't know, something like that,
(06:33):
maybe it would be a lighter conversation, But it'll definitely be a long one.
So I'm glad you're here. Hey, let's hop in to Managing Leadership Anxiety, part two.
We've got five of these. So this is part two.
Well, I have this impending sense of doom. It's not all the time, but it's a lot.
And I've got some headaches. I'm just a little bit irritable.
(06:56):
Don't ask me what's wrong, or I'll probably snap at you.
I got panic attacks. Not a lot. They're not so much of an attack as they are
the threat of a panic attack. I'm a little depressed.
I feel tired a lot. A lot. It's not quite extreme fatigue, but when I sit down, oh, man, I'm tired.
My heart pounds a lot. Maybe it's just because I'm old. I don't know. I'm short of breath.
(07:18):
My blood pressure the other day was kind of high. I actually checked it with the machine at home.
My muscles ache all the time. I don't remember it being that way. I got joint pain.
I'm irritable with people who I used to not be. My humor's gone.
Other than that, I'm doing fine.
That was how my friend answered when I said to him the other day, hey, how are you doing?
(07:44):
If we'd been face-to-face rather than on the phone, I'm sure I would have been
able to see his face frown and a little bit of a grimace until he got to the very end.
But he said, other than that, I'm fine.
I don't know. Sometimes I get asked how you do it. And I realized that when
people ask me that, they're just wanting to start a conversation.
They want to know how I do it. But when I asked him, I really did want to know
(08:06):
how he was doing. And so I think my response was, oh, wow, what's gone there?
Tell me some more about that.
That led us into the conversation about anxiety that he was experiencing and
has been for quite some time as a leader.
But he didn't use the word anxiety. He doesn't even really use the word stress very much.
(08:28):
He doesn't use the word fear, which is what stress actually is either.
He says things like, I got a lot going on. There's a lot of demands placed on me.
I really need to do a better job. I got to have the right answer.
I got to get things right.
And so when I asked him, how are you doing? And he was able to rattle through
that short list that I gave you. Actually, that was kind of a long list.
(08:50):
Really, you may have even gone on more than what I just suggested to you.
I don't know. It was quite a list.
But when he rattled down that list, that was a kind of a new thing for him.
Conversations before that he and I had been having, I asked him to think about
the physical sensations that are created in his job or are as a result of his
(09:11):
job or as a result of thinking about his job or as a result of trying to not think about his work.
I said, how about if you work at noticing what's going on physically at this
very moment and then try to imagine how long it's been going on.
Well, my friend, that's what we talked about in Managing Leadership Anxiety,
(09:31):
yours and theirs and mine and ours and everybody else's around us in our first
installment of this five podcast series.
And I suggested to you, as you recall, if you listen to that podcast,
that job one for us is to notice the physical sensations or the physical symptoms
that you and I are experiencing when we get anxious.
(09:54):
My friend, of course, described all oh, these things that were going on right
now and have been going on for quite some time.
And if he is like you or you were like him, we tend to notice those things and
go, huh, I wonder what that is.
And then we just lean forward and power through. We'll pound another cup of
coffee or we'll pound the desk again, or we'll pound a bourbon or something
(10:15):
like that just to distract ourself from those symptoms and think, ah, well,
maybe it's just because I'm 50 or maybe it's just because I'm 30 or because
I just had a conversation with a person. No big deal. I'll just go on.
And then after a while, this becomes our norm.
So as you and I deal with leading folks to do better things,
if we are leaders or managers, supervisors,
(10:38):
even if we don't know those titles and our job and our purpose is to lead people
to do great things and better things or to lead people to do mundane things with a great effect.
In fact, if that's our job, we know that we're swimming in a sea that everyone
else is swimming in now, where our modern culture has set us up for very high
(10:58):
levels of consistent experience around anxiety.
In fact, we're so used to it now that anxiety in other people and in us has
become the background noise of our life.
It's almost as though if you have a squeaky dryer that just squeaks rhythmically
behind you or you close the door, you could sort of still hear it squeaking
(11:19):
behind the door of your laundry room and you just get used to it. You just turn it off.
You don't notice it or it's the it's the squeak of a rattle in your car or something
as you're driving down the road.
Notice it at first and occasionally it'll show up, but most of the time it just
falls out of the background of our life like a noise.
Well, the anxiety that you and I experience as leaders and that those folks
(11:41):
around us we're leading experience as well is like that background noise.
It's just that it's gotten louder and louder and louder and ignoring it is probably
not going to help at all. So in our last podcast in this series,
which was the first one of five, I suggested that our job is to notice it.
Well, here we are. Let's talk about the next installment. What do we do next?
(12:02):
Once we notice it, we need to figure out where it comes from.
We need to give it a label. I'll
borrow from Steve Kuss's work here and suggest that we should name it.
We should be able to say this anxiety is most likely our physiological and then
psychological reaction to a threat,
(12:24):
and the threat is to a perceived need.
I feel like that a need that is very important for me to be able to function as a good leader.
As a good friend, as a good team member, etc., is being threatened by something.
There's some experience.
There's some need that's out there. There's some event that happens.
(12:48):
And then I interpret that event, for example, that circumstance as a threat
to something that I feel like I really need.
Makes all kinds of sense. Well, what are those needs that I have? And here's the kicker.
What if I think I need something, but I actually don't need it in order to be
(13:09):
effective as a leader or a manager or supervisor, as a good friend,
as someone who's trying to influence others to do great things?
What if I think I need it, but I truly don't? So once I notice this going on
physically in me, then I need to be able to say, oh, I get that.
I feel this thing because I think I need something that maybe I don't. Huh?
(13:35):
Well, what are those five things that we think we need as leaders?
And again, I'm borrowing from some of the thoughts from Steve Cuss and a few
other folks back in the day from Bowen and a few others.
And I've adapted these to fit more of my experience and the experience that
flows from those of you that I've got to be around over all these years. So what are those?
(13:58):
There are five of these, what have come to be called core beliefs.
They're so deep in us that we don't really even examine them. We just have them.
We don't maybe even understand them or their impact on us. We just have them. They're core beliefs.
Like I have a core belief that if I let go of something, it will fall to the ground.
Okay. Now, I know there's a thing called gravity, but I don't really know how it works very much.
(14:23):
I know why it happens. There's gravity.
I know there's something going on there, but I'm not somebody who deeply,
profoundly understands that threat, but I test it all the time. It's a core belief.
And these core beliefs we have throughout our life. Well, what if our core belief is actually wrong?
What if I think I truly need something as a leader that I don't need in order
(14:46):
to be successful or effective as a leader?
Well, here they are. Here are the five core beliefs. Number one, maybe this is you.
You may want to slow down or turn off the dryer in the background so you can hear these.
You may need to take a pause a little bit if you're distracted,
but here they are. They're not sophisticated, but they're very common.
(15:06):
Are these any of your core beliefs? If you have them and you're feeling anxious
in some way, it's likely because you feel like that one of those core beliefs,
one of these things I think I need is being threatened.
Here's the first one. I have to be perfect and all of my work has to be perfect.
(15:27):
Second one, I have to know what to do. I have to have the right answers.
The third one is I have to have people's approval.
And what goes along with that is they like me. I have to have their acceptance.
And the next core belief is that I have to be in control or my work has to make
(15:51):
things under control. I have to be in control.
And here's the last one. people need me
and i have to be there for them there's
a corollary to that one and that is that no one
else can do this i'm the only one that's often
presented to us in that very same way in fact people often come to us because
(16:12):
they have those very same beliefs of us we'll have the answer we'll know what
to do we'll put things under control we'll be able to help them because no one
else can, and on and on it goes.
Do you have and do you function from any of those core beliefs?
A way to check yourself to find out if you do is notice if you have one of those
(16:35):
core beliefs tested by reality.
That is, someone asks you to help them with something or to save them in some
way, and you simply can't.
Does it create anxiety for you?
You find yourself in a situation where everyone looks to you to make sure things
are under control and predictable, and yet you just can't do it.
(16:59):
How do you feel about that? You're in a situation where your work product or
your decisions or something that you are responsible for is done poorly.
It's not perfect, whatever that looks like.
How do you feel? How do you react to that imperfection in yourself,
in others, and in the work that you all do?
(17:20):
What if somebody says, we have to have the right strategy, we have to know what
to do, and they turn to you and you just don't know what to do.
This is especially true of trying to figure out what to do tomorrow, about tomorrow.
It's especially also true when you're working with people who are holding their
own agendas close to their vest and you suspect that their motives are impure.
(17:45):
How's that for a good word?
Their motives are not good. I don't know. They may not be pure evil,
but you think their motives are off a little bit.
That might be a big challenge for you. And on and on we go.
So when you look at those five core beliefs that have been presented to us and
drive them around out in real life and notice how you feel when you can't be
(18:07):
one or two or three of those things,
and then how do you react when you can't be those one or two things?
Or maybe all five of those quarterlies.
How do you react? What do you like to be around? How do you talk to yourself?
Well, take in a hot second and pause and realize, oh, I'm reacting to this situation
(18:28):
inwardly, outwardly, both, because I think I need fill in the blank.
And this thing is exposing that I can't get that need met. I can't do that. And then how do I react?
So that step right there, we call naming it. So you've already noticed it.
You've noticed all the physical stuff that's going on that is actually anxiety.
And you stopped ignoring it. You realize, oh, wow, that's a flash of anxiety.
(18:52):
Or if that word doesn't work for you, then how about you just use the word stress
or pressure or something like that?
It'll work too. But it's a reactivity that you and I have got.
In fact, the more anxious we are, the more reactive we are to threats to those
five core beliefs that we need things that we don't actually need.
So the more reactive we are, the more reactive we become.
(19:13):
It just starts to build a snowball of reactivity.
And we begin to even react to things that might happen, that could happen.
We react to possibilities instead of real-time experiences.
Wow, that might actually be you. So the skill here is to realize,
oh, I'm reacting like this because that's anxiety, that's stress,
(19:36):
that's fear, something, whatever word works there for you.
I'm reacting this way because I'm anxious.
I'm anxious because I think I need this.
I feel like I need to be there for people all the time.
That's actually a false belief.
Challenge the false belief. I don't need to be there for people all the time.
(19:56):
Oh, wow, I feel this because I didn't get someone's approval.
They actually criticized me.
They actually spoke about me when I wasn't in the room in unkind terms.
Oh, I don't like that. That feels icky. I'm anxious about that.
Well, where does that come from? I feel like I need to have people's approval
(20:17):
all the time in order for me to be effective as a leader.
It's one of my performance metrics, I guess you could call it that.
Well, that's actually a false belief. I do not need everyone's approval all the time.
I do not go through each of those five. I do not need to be perfect all the time.
(20:38):
No one can even really define that in most of my work. I don't need to know what to do all the time.
I don't need to have the right answers all the time.
I don't need people's approval all the time. I don't need everyone's approval
about everything. For sure, we know that.
But I don't need everyone's approval all the time. I don't have to be in control.
(21:00):
In fact, I'm only in control of three things.
I'm in control and therefore responsible for whom I trust. That's the people I rely on and for what.
I'm in control and therefore responsible for picking my perspective.
So you don't change the facts on the ground by changing your perspective.
You just change what's possible for you to do about it or to react to it or
(21:21):
to respond to it in some way.
Things have to be under control. Well, I actually don't need to have things under control.
Control is a mirage for us.
People need me all the time. I'm the only one that can help.
I have to be there for them. Challenge that belief. No, you don't.
You don't have to be there for people. It's possible that sometimes when you
(21:42):
step in and help, you actually end up hurting.
At the very least, you delay the opportunity for that person to learn how to
carry that weight themselves.
You can be beside people, but you don't have to be the one that carries their weight for them.
All right, you get the idea here. This is one of the most important things that
I have begun to learn over the last couple of decades.
It's helped me tremendously. tremendously i still have that
(22:05):
that deeply wired response deep
in my body and in my brain if i can't be
there for someone someone i really care about and i can't be
there for them or let's layer it i can't be
there for them and i don't have the right answer for them and i can't control
it and even if i did they wouldn't like what i did i'd have those experiences
from time to time when i notice them oh there's something going on here that's
(22:28):
telling me i have anxiety then i can tip and challenge those five core beliefs for myself.
It's become something that's common and it might be once or twice a week that
I find myself stepping into that world and saying, wait, wait,
what am I believing here?
And is that actually not true?
All right, there you go. In episode one of this five podcast series,
(22:52):
it was notice it, notice what's going on physically.
And here at episode two, name it. Oh, geez, that's a reaction to a need that
I think I have that I really don't have.
In our next one, we're going to talk about how do you navigate it?
Now that you've done this, what do you do next?
All right, my friends, I hope you enjoyed this podcast. I'm certainly going
(23:14):
to enjoy the rest of this cigar, and I'm going to enjoy the rest of this bourbon.
It's a small pour. It's not even a full shot.
So when I say the rest of this bourbon, you might be thinking it's some tall
tumbler or something like that, or the rest of the bottle.
I don't know what you might be thinking. Hey, I hope you're having a great day.
It's good to spend a little bit of time with you like this, with me talking in your ear.
(23:36):
I did all the talking. I don't know. Maybe you talked a little bit as well, but I couldn't hear you.
Anyway, take care. Okay, a little bit shorter podcast.
I think I spent more time talking about Heaven Hill and about the Armada Man
of War cigar than I did talking about what those five false beliefs are.
But you can fast forward. That's the beauty of technology.
(24:00):
I hope your day goes great. You got good work in front of you, important work to do.
So keep it up. We need you to succeed. seed.
And I'd prefer if you're not riddled with anxiety at every step along the way
in trying to accomplish something great.
Hey, here's to you. Take care.
Music.
(24:28):
Thanks for joining me in today's School of Leadership.
I know your time is valuable, and I appreciate the opportunity to spend a little bit of it with you.
If this podcast has been helpful, perhaps you could consider sharing it with a friend.
And maybe you want to check out the dozens of videos that we've created for
you on our YouTube channel.
(24:48):
Just look for Hilt Academy, H-I-L-T Academy.
And Hilt stands for High Impact Leadership Training.
And if you want to check out our in-depth leadership management and supervisory
courses, head on over to Hilt Academy at thinkific.com and see what we have to offer there.
(25:12):
Once again, thanks for taking a little bit of time and spend it with me.
Music.
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