Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hi I'm Parag Amin.
Welcome to my podcast.
From crisis to justice.
As a lawyer and entrepreneur, I'mpassionate about helping small business
owners successfully navigate situationsthat can kill a business.
As a kid, I watched my dad's dreamsof being an entrepreneur destroyed
by an unethical businessman, and I don'twant that to happen to you or your family.
(00:22):
That's why I started my law firm.
I want to protect and defend businessowners and their legacies from crisis.
Welcome to.
From crisis to justice.
Hello, everyone,
and welcome back to the From Crisisto Justice podcast.
(00:42):
I'm your host, Parag Amin.
And today I'm joinedby a very special guest, Angie Morgan.
Angie is an executive coachand New York Times best selling author.
Before that, she served in the militaryand achieved the rank of captain.
Angie, thank you so much for your service
and thank you so much for being heretoday.
(01:04):
I am honored to be hereand thank you for doing what you're doing.
I think it's wonderful
to have conversations with businessowners, entrepreneurs, people interested
and really understanding the landscapethat they're entering into.
So thank you for the workthat you do. Yeah, absolutely.
And so in terms of your transition,
can you tell us a little bit abouthow you transitioned from the military
(01:27):
into becoming an executive coachand bestselling author?
Yeah,it was an interesting transition indeed.
So I my last duty station was Marine CorpsBase Hawaii, which was fantastic.
And when you're stationed there, you don't
you don't really want to leaveand you don't want your next duty
assignmentbecause nothing gets better than that.
And so my time was up.
(01:48):
I thought,what do I want to do with my life?
I was at the time getting married and,he was living in LA, actually.
So I moved to Los Angelesand landed the easiest job in the world.
And if you've ever wonderedwhat the easiest job in the world.
It's not yours. It was mine.
I was working for Pfizer
in Beverly Hills selling Viagraand a pharmaceutical sales company so that
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Viagra, Beverly Hills, it was not a hardsales career to start off with.
A lot of time on my hands.
And I kept on thinking during this time,what was different about my Marine
Corps experience and the private sector,and what was really pronounced to me was
how we talked about the word leadershipin the military was everybody led.
We all learned the same leadershipprinciples.
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We viewed ourselves leaders, even ifwe didn't have anybody to take care of.
But in the end, the private sector leaderswere only managers
and nobody really viewed themselvesas a leader.
And this is 20, I guess is 2004.
And I'm like, this is an opportunity.
So I started writing on militaryleadership, started a business
with the woman I served within the Marine Corps.
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So for the past 20 yearsI've been coaching,
developing, delivering leadershiptraining events, writing on leadership.
And it's just a topicthat I'm truly passionate about.
Wow. That's great. So what do you think?
What are your thoughts onwhat makes a great leader?
I think a lot of questions thatpeople have are, are you born or you made?
And I think the mostinteresting thing about leadership
is that there's a part of us about 30%,the research shows, in
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identical twin studieswhere they look at identical twins
separated at birth to see thisnature nurture component of leadership.
So we're born withabout 30% of our ability to influence.
And that's reallywhat leadership is not about a job title.
It's about our ability to influence.
But 70% in those skills of influencewe grow and develop into.
Now, if we're lucky,
we've got great mentors, we've got greatrole models, we've got a great education.
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But what I've discovered, in my timeteaching and coaching
and leadership is a lot of us are just,you know, fumbling around in the dark
when it comes to learninghow to build influence with people.
We have this false ideaof what leadership is.
We think about that like, you know, hey,
if I'm the captain of the football team,if I'm the boss of the team, I'm a leader.
But if you've ever worked for a bad boss,you recognize that
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just because you get the job
title doesn't mean you've got the behaviorto learn how to influence.
So there's key skillswithin this umbrella of leadership.
Like how do you build trust?
How do you demonstrate accountability?How do you have really difficult
conversationsthat preserve the relationship?
So those are the types of skillsthat I get really excited about
when people want to commit to growingtheir personal leadership skills.
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That's fascinating because 30%
of leadership is innate,you're saying, and 70% is learned.
And is that through?
Is that developed through through activekind of leadership courses?
Is that developed through,extracurricular type activities?
Is that developed in childhoodand, and adolescence or how
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and when does that leadershipbest develop?
I would say yes to all those things.
I'd be more curious about you
when you think about your leadershipabilities,
where do you think that you learned themthe most?
It's a great question.
I think I think adversityis one of the best
teachers of leadership, providedthat you can lead yourself out of it.
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So that's one of the reasonsI created this podcast,
being from crisis to justice.
So this idea of
everyone at some
point has to face one or more crises,and ultimately it's their ability
to navigate out of those and createmeaning about that crisis
(05:26):
or those crises that help shapewho we are as a person.
So ultimately, I don't think that anybody
can become a leaderwithout some sort of adversity first.
So that is the stepping stone
or the entry wayinto the path of leadership.
So let me say, you.
Know, I think so too.
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I think that'swhen your character is tested most
and you think about building influenceand leading your own life first.
Having that sense of character is great.
So it's easy for me to saythat I'm an honest and trustworthy person,
but if I can do that on a really good day,I can be honest and trustworthy.
That doesn't really matter though.
What if I'm, you know, my back is againstthe wall and I'm in a lot of trouble?
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Am I going to really adhereto those behaviors?
And I think that's the markin which we get tested through adversity.
And you're right.
I think how we navigatethrough really challenging,
difficult timessays a lot about our character.
And I think more importantly,our capacity, like you think about
somebody who grows through their career,who can just ultimately take on more
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because they know how to dealwith the level of stress, the level of
challenge, and they get perspective like,oh, it's not a big deal, we can do this.
And do you
think, do you think it should begradual increases.
And those are the best wayto develop leadership.
Or do you believe in somebody being thrown
or jumping into the deep endand then figuring it out.
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Which is like a recipe for disaster.
Like in a perfect world, right.
It would constantly be,
two steps forward, one step back,two steps forward, one step back so
we can have a little bit of adversitiesso we can do some safe fails in our life.
But this is not a perfect worldthat we live in.
And the hard part is,
I was talking to an author the other daywho just talks about disrupting yourself.
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The reality is, is thatwe're creatures of comfort.
Why am I going to if life is pretty good,why am I going to go out
looking for problemsso I can just test myself?
But inevitably, crisis finds us
and so or,you know, or we get like a health scare
or something like thatthat we have to deal.
Like inevitably we're all going to dealwith sad news, disappointment and crisis.
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It's really what stage of lifeis it going to find you?
And so I always challenge people,you know,
certainly don't go looking for trouble.
But if you find yourself too comfortable,maybe you're not stretching hard enough.
And I ask people all the time,what do you learn more from your failures
or successes?
And people always raise their handand say failures.
I learn more from my failuresand successes.
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Now the goal isn't go fail more.
The goal is don't be afraidand get a little bit uncomfortable
from time to time.Like push yourself a little bit.
Yeah I agree with that.
You know I,I don't think the intention is to fail.
But the idea is you should be comfortable
with yourself that you'll figure it outregardless of what happens.
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Is that, is that the right idea.
Or self-trust self-reliance.
It's like building that musclethat you can really count on yourself
and get to the positionwhere you make good decisions.
I think ultimately,when I think about my marine Corps
training,what did our conversations and instruction
center on it washow do you make good decisions in crisis?
And they gave us really powerful visualthat they're like,
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okay, imagineyou're a car driving down a highway
and what's going to keep you on the roadare these two guardrails.
And one of these guardrails representsyour values or your organization values.
And that's going to keep you safe.So one guardrail are your values.
The other side is the law and policiesand rules of engagement.
So if you can make your decisionsthat mind your values
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and then also mine the law, you're goingto find yourself in a good path.
But you got to keep making decisionsto move forward.
So I use that all the timewhen I think about like when I don't know
because most people,
when they're in crisis are in situationsthey've never been in before.
And so they just don't know.
But using that as a wonderful,I think, visual for how do I get myself
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out of hereis really it's just great and useful.
And so how does onefigure out their values.
Do they sit down with a pattern paperand think about what are my values.
Or what is that process.
So in the Marine Corps they were great.
They're like okay here are your valueshonor courage and commitment.
And so they made it pretty easy for us.
But then yeah, as an adultand your values change I mean, in my 20s,
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independenceand freedom are really important to me.
Now in my 40s, I have kids.
And, you know, I think about security and,
and happiness.
It's like different valuesfor different stages in our career.
But I would always advise you. Yes.
And it's nothing that you can do.
Like, you know, I'm going to black outTuesday from 2 to 3.
I'm going to focus onwriting my values. Great.
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That's a start.
But I think it's a starting in the processof making sure that we really identify
what is most important to us.
And I've never met anybody
who has regretted making a decisionwhen they consulted their values.
It's not because it was an easy decision,it was just what they had to do.
It's like their Northstar and anything.
And do you think that leadership
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has any core values in common?
Good.
Yeah, I would like to think integrity.
I think that's integrity because that'sgoing to be the gateway to trust.
And I feel like your personal integrityis your gateway to self-trust.
If I can trust myself,I can be a trustworthy person.
Therefore I can at least ask,and you can count
that you'll be able to trust me.
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So I think that integrityis one of those core values.
Trust is accountability.
Personal accountability.
I think many of us kind of bastardizethat word a little bit.
We think that accountability is something
that's going to happen to us,but in reality,
being able to say,I'm sorry and I was wrong,
and leading with accountabilityis the best expression of accountability.
I would rather admitI was wrong than being held
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accountable to a situation.
I feel like I'm more on the offenseof that situation.
I definitely do believe thatthose are some of the core fundamentals.
Yeah, I agree with that and I love that.
Those are you name two of my firm's corevalues.
One is integrity,the other is the accountability.
Then we have growth.
We have value, commitmentand service to our clients
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and ultimately results in dependability,the dependability.
It's your teammembers and teammates with you as well.
Because without those things,I think that,
any team is really lost.
Let me let me ask you this.
When it comes to integrity, here's here'sone of the hardest ones, I think
when it comes to leadership is I think
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there's a big part of leadership
that is having that integrity,
having that candor, having that honesty
with yourself and your team.
And then there's also,
another component of it that even withsetbacks in the face of setbacks,
that you remain steadfast and certainthat you're going to get there,
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even if the the path is flexible,the result and the goal is not.
So can you talk a little bitabout how those
align or square?
Yes, I for first,
I always think that the plan rightas a reference point for change.
So it's great always to have a planwhen you're in crisis, but recognize
it's not going to survive,as we were, say, in the Marine Corps,
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you know, first contact from the enemy,because that's just life.
Like you have plans all the timeand they just don't work out.
But starting with a really good plan.
But, you know, with your questionabout, integrity,
I just think about moments in my lifewhen I've been in crisis,
I have this moment where I say,how do I want to get out of this?
Like, what? What do I want to be?
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Success on the other side of this messthat I've found myself in?
Like, you know, I think about
I went through a divorceand, you know, in the process,
I thought,okay, on the other side of this,
what is in my best interests,my relationship with my kids, my,
it's in my best interest that even thoughI don't like my husband right now,
it's really in my best interest
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that he has a really great relationshipwith his kids,
that he is a solid, successful personbecause that could cause so much damage
down the road.
So again, kids, him, meand I think sometimes
when you say, okay,so how I act to get to that.
And I think that that helps drivea lot of your behavioral decisions.
And that's to me,when you can keep integrity with yourself
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and you hold yourselfaccountable to an outcome.
So I think, you know,if you're listening to this and you're
finding yourself in a mess right now,I mean, whoever has a perfect life,
nobody there's always going to besomething picking in the background.
So just ask yourself, like,how do I want to get out of this?
What do I want to have intact?
Okay, now what are the behaviorsthat are going to get me there?
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And how do those jive with my valuesand where might they not jive?
What conflict do I anticipatein the process of it?
Like what bad else could happenand kind of play it out?
Like, how am I going to respondwhen this does happen?
Because I think sometimeswhen we're in crisis are hunker down
and get quiet and get smallcan really cloud our judgment.
So sometimes thinking about the future
outcomecan be a really great guide for us.
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Yeah, I agree with that.
You know, it's interestingbecause my office obviously dealing
with a lot of businessdisputes, partnership disputes, litigation
that a lot of times is a client's.
First reaction when it comes to
a lawsuit is to contract,or to shrink like you were talking about.
I mean, it seems counterintuitive,but a lot of times the
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the right decision is really expansionand growth to help sustain yourself,
your message, your businesswhile undergoing this adversity.
And so let me ask you this.
I mean, where does one find that strength?
Well, it's not wine.
Or any of your vices that you go to.
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So don't do that.
I, you know, for me personally,I think it's life experience.
I have this really great filein the back of my mind that reminds me
of the times I have felt this way beforeand what I did to get out of it.
And so I think a really healthy exercisefor you,
anyone listening is think about tosome of your track record of your troubles
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and how you overcame them, because that'sgoing to help you feel more confident
and it's going to help overridethat instinct to contract.
So I don't want to say that you have likea failure hit list in your mind,
but maybe it'sbetter to call it like have,
a resiliency hit list becauseyou've been in this position before.
Maybe it wasn't as significant or severe,but those behaviors are going to lead you
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out of it.
So we start with that.
Like resiliency comes from that.
I cannot say though if you are in crisis,like do not neglect your sleep.
I think you have one of these twoon your fingers.
You have an ordering I do, yeah.
I notice that when I get eight hoursof really solid, you know,
and I get that a minus in the morningand I've got a great sleep score.
(16:10):
I am better prepared for stress.
So you really do have to take care of you.
The the psychological impact
of a stressful system situation just bearsdeep within your body.
And I would say walk.
You know, if you really wantto clear your mind, get outside.
Because the answer and the solutionis it going to come as you ruminate
and fret and just,you know, create something bigger?
(16:32):
I always think to like there's
three lenses that I like to advocatefor, people to think about,
to when they feel likethe pressure is so big.
The first lens is,if you were a kind friend,
how would you,you know, with the reverse lens,
how would you talk to yourselfin this situation?
What would you tell yourself?
The second lens is take the wide lens.
How big of a deal is this?
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In the course of everything elsegoing on in the world right now
and then thethe long lens in three years from now,
how are you going to feel about thissituation?
Are we going to laugh about it?
Are we going to, you know, think about it.
And so if you can do that trick,you can help reframe
to the magnitudethat you think the crisis that you're in.
I love that.
So let me ask you this.
(17:13):
And so there are a number of great leaders
that we can think of thathave accomplished great things,
but maybe in their personal livesthey weren't the best of people.
They weren't the best leadersof themselves, in a way, despite the fact
that outside of their personal lives,they created great results.
So in a way,they were great leaders of others,
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despite their their personal failings.
So do you have any thoughts on why?
Sometimes it's easier to lead.
Others tend to lead oneself.
Yes, absolutely.
I think it's it's hardto have self confrontation.
But I also think, you know,why do good people do bad things?
It's because they don't have their valuesconnected to them.
They have values, but they haven'trevisited them in a very long time,
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and they lose sight of the personthat they want to be in those moments.
It is so easy to be busy.
I think nobody has a problembeing too busy.
The hard part is slowing down
and really reflecting,which is why I look at the work that I do.
I do executive coachingand you would think, oh,
business strategy, you know,getting people to lead through change.
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Yeah. All that is fine.
But one of the hardest
leadership relationships that we haveis the one with ourself.
And so getting to knowyour authentic leadership style,
really understanding your values,really pulling from within you
these strengths that have just beenpushed down and are within you.
But they haven't had their momentin the sunshine yet.
That's the type of workthat I really enjoy doing, because that's
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when you seepeople really step into their potential,
when they're more comfortableand confident in their own skin.
So yes, there's some peoplewho are just incredibly charismatic,
really good with people.
Their life in the backgroundis kind of a drama show,
and it's often just that disconnectfrom their best intentions
of who they want to be.
And so you mentioned leadership style.
(19:03):
Can you talk to us a little bit moreabout what
that means or the like specific termsthat connote different kinds of styles.
And if so what.
What are they.
Yeah yeah there's a lot of work right.
There's like the big fivethat if you Google it,
you could take a test right nowto get a sense of where you stand with,
you know, empathy and interactionand all these great things.
There's this, this Myers-Briggs, like,there's so many different assessments
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that you can get to really understand yourcommunication style, your preferences,
how you deal with conflict,how you manage stress.
So there's there's that.
There's also, again,if you Google right now
like six different types of leaders,you're going to find that there's,
you know, a championa challenger, an advocate.
Like there's a whole different things.
And I would I would say thislike before you go there looking at all
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the external knowledge,consult yourself first
and really think about who you areat your core.
What are your strengthsthat you were given?
What are some of your limitations?
So do the homework on youand then go take the assessments.
Those are always fun learning too.
And so is there is there a way
that you suggest that leadersget to understand or know themselves best.
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Is that meditation.
Is that a silent retreat.
Is that what do you do.
How do you haveyou've grown and developed as a leader?
I have grown and developed as a leader.
I think based on,
I'm an avid believerin, in real results in feedback.
I mean, I think that there really isno substitute for,
(20:33):
adversity facing the adversityto the result that you get
and then adjustingand of course, correcting. So,
ultimately I look at, okay,what was the action, what was the result?
And then I had just analyze it.
I think that's just how am I and works.
And so I'll go back and look at
could I have said this differently?
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Should I have said this differently?
Was my inflection on a certain wordor phrase?
Said in a certain waythat could have been misinterpreted?
What was the context?
So I'll go back and reviewthe mental game tape, if you will, about
what happened and
like what actually happened in that momentand then what the result was.
And I just assess things that way.
(21:16):
It's really the only way I know how.
So I just keep using that.
I think that reflection and feedback
and self analysisand candor are all great ways for me
personally to like, in addition to those,I do walk a lot.
I spend a lot of time in my own mind.
I do have behind me.It's kind of hysterical.
(21:36):
It's like a dog bedand it's my mindfulness meditation mat.
So I do
spend time meditating too,just to kind of clear my mind.
I try to read more on my phonethan engage in social media,
and I think that that's where, I knowI grow and develop is I spend more time
thinking about what
thoughts are mine versus what are thoughtsthat have been given to me.
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And that helps me get a little bit moreclarity on how I show up in this world.
Yeah.
Many times I mean, how easy for is is itfor you to distinguish
original thoughts of yours versussomething somebody said to you,
especially when those things maybehave seeped in from childhood or something
you didn't even noticethe TV was on one day and somehow
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it got slipped into your subconscious orit's just not clear to you how it came in.
And this seems like your thought,but maybe it's not.
But think about it like I'm suresomebody on this listening to this podcast
heard at some stage in their lifethat they were bad at math
and they just took that as a,you know, that grain of salt
and they just adopted itas part of their DNA.
But it's probably not true.
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Like I was once told I was bad at math.
And the reality was thatwhen I went to grad school, I discovered
I wasn't bad at math, I was slow at math,and how different my life would have been
had I realized that,you know, you're just impatient,
and that's why you're slow at math.
You know,
I probably had you taken those coursesand you gave it a little bit more time.
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You would have done more successfullyin math.
So it's so it's imagining,
it's like reimaginingthat a lot of the truths
that we hold about ourselvesare those ideas that we've authored.
They've just been given to us.
And then having the self accountability
or self candor to,to be able to say like it's
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maybe that I'm not slow or bad at mathor it could just be like,
I just don't like mathand I don't really want to deal with it.
And maybe that's okay for for whateveryour chosen path is.
Yes, being slowat math is not slowed me down in life,
but it was a real moment for me to knowthat,
(23:41):
you know, the things that we tellourselves and, you know, going back
to like the
this crisis injustice thingthat you're talking about, you know,
I think about,you know, when people find themselves
in really difficult situations,there's a lot of things
like we turn on that self doubtand you know, how we can't get through it.
Like, I can't do this, I can't do that.
This isn't going to happen.
And also we have this switchthat turns on to binary thinking like,
(24:05):
I can only do this
or this in the situation that we failto see possibility and opportunity.
It's just kind of amazing when we arestressed and stretched as humans,
how limit we how many limitationsjust come crawling
into our thinking when it comesto making decisions to get us out of it.
And so I think about those things too,like if again,
if you need to find yourselfto a better situation,
(24:26):
just know that you're thinkingmight be holding you back.
Hundred
percent and so on that note,if you could give the listeners
a piece of advice on their journey towards
becoming great leaders,if you had to impart
one piece of advice,what would that piece of advice be.
Oh that's a good one.
(24:49):
Well I, my last book was called Bet on You
and it was all abouttaking risks in your life.
So we do manage risk in our businessand please manage risk in your business.
But when it comes to your dreamsand your goals, lead with risk.
There is so much about risk thatwe don't know or we're misinformed about.
Like we think about riskbeing the opposite of reward.
(25:11):
But the reality is that any good thing
that has ever happened toyour life has been
because you took a chance on you,you bet on yourself, and it paid off.
And so as you think about the positionthat you're in right now,
what got you here isyou've taken a lot of risks.
You might be telling yourself,
I'm risk averse,but really rethink that for a second.
You've taken a lot of risks.
(25:32):
What's going to get youfurther is more risk.
So lean into that skill set for yourself.
And part of that, too, is I thinkabout the positions that I find myself in.
Like what often,
you know, when I'm at a crisis situationor from a bad position in my life,
I do want to hunker down and play itsmall.
Like I don't want to really takeany risks at all, but it's actually
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the skill set that you need to lean into just get yourself out of it.
So really think about
how you're going to be taking risksand how you're thinking about risks, and
perhaps how you can reframe it to usethat skill set to help you in a situation.
I love that. Yeah. And I agree with that.
Because it's only, through the risks
that you can really also risk growing.
(26:15):
I mean, without without risk,you don't really have
a true opportunity for the reward,which is, which includes
not only financial rewards,but also personal growth and, the ability
to navigate additional crises or problems,even better.
100%.
So, Angie,I've really enjoyed talking to you,
(26:36):
and I'm sure the listenersgot a lot out of this today.
So if they wanted to find more informationabout you,
find more information about potentiallygetting some executive coaching
towards leadership,where can they find you?
So they can go to Angie connect.com.
And that is where I host my blog.
I Bet on you podcastand a ton of other resources too.
(27:00):
I've got a lot of free courses that areavailable to you, so check it out.
And I have my monthly or not monthly,my weekly newsletter
that's called Rally Carthat you can sign up for. Awesome.
Go check it out.
Everyone, and thank you allso much for joining me today.
If you haven't already,make sure you subscribe so you know
when the next podcast episode is dropping.
(27:22):
So you can hear from incredible guestslike Angie and others.
Angie, thank you againfor joining us today and imparting
some of much of the wisdom that you have.
Thank you for having me.So enjoyed the conversation.