Are you ready to harness the transformative power of courage in your leadership journey? Join me as I dive deep into this pivotal topic with leadership guru, Cindy Solomon, who has spent decades researching and teaching the concept of courage. Together, we unravel the essence of courage, debunking the myth that it's the absence of fear and instead embracing it as a skill that can be learned, honed, and applied in any leadership scenario.
Our enlightening conversation meanders through the multifaceted landscape of courage – from everyday bravery to moral and creative courage. Cindy and I share insights on how these various dimensions of courage can shape us into better decision-makers, emphasizing the need to acknowledge fear and yet take decisive action. We debate over the philosophy that every small act of courage, no matter how inconsequential it may seem, contributes to our overall growth as leaders.
Wrapping up our discussion, Cindy imparts invaluable advice on how to nurture your courageous leadership skills. She shares pragmatic tips on breaking down this abstract concept into smaller, achievable elements, and setting tangible goals. Cindy underscores the importance of adequate preparation, leaving you, our listeners, with a resounding message - courage is a skill within your grasp, ready to be refined. So plug in those earphones and get ready for an episode that's sure to leave you inspired and poised to lead with courage.
Cindy Solomon is one of the most sought-after leadership and CX experts in the world. Her extensive global experience includes work with 26 J.D. Power Award winners; 16 Best Places to Work; and industry leaders such as Google, Alaska Airlines, UPS, Oracle, Wells Fargo, Dow, the ABA, The Gates Foundation, and over 400 others seeking to build courageous leadership at scale.
As Founder and CEO of The Courageous Leadership Institute, Cindy works with her global team of facilitators to serve as the catalyst for organizations and individuals who want to cultivate greater professional courage, leadership skills, and performance.
Cindy’s accessible and hilarious Courageous Leadership programs are the fast track for organizations who wish to leverage their leadership potential to manifest customer and employee engagement through any disruption or challenge.
Cindy’s awards and accolades include the 2023 Top 30 Global Leadership Guru, Top 200 Biggest Voices in Leadership for 2023 by leadersHum, Fast Company’s Fast 100, Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Companies, and more. Cindy’s TED Talks have been viewed by over 1.9 million people and her best-selling books, The Courage Challenge Workbook and The Rules of Woo, are available on Amazon.
Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please support us on Patreon.
For more leadership tools, check out the free workbooks at KylaCofer.com/freestuff.
Book Kyla to speak at your event here, or to connect further, reach out to Kyla on LinkedIn and Instagram.
All transcripts are created with Descript, an amazing transcript creation and editing tool. Check it out for yourself!
Leadership School Production:
Produced by Kyla Cofer
Edited by Neel Panji @ PodLeaF Productions
Assistant Production Alaina Hulette
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Cindy Solomon (00:00):
Which is women are taught culturally that we
shouldn't be courageous and ifwe are, don't tell anybody.
Men are taught that equallydestructive, they darn well,
better be courageous and if theyaren't, don't tell anybody.
And those culturalizationpieces come through in things
like applying for jobs.
(00:20):
Right, you know famous metastudy that if a job has 10
qualifications, a woman won'teven consider applying until she
has seven or eight of them.
Men will apply with two or less.
Kyla Cofer (00:38):
Welcome to the Leadership School podcast.
I'm your host leadership andself-care coach, Kyla Cofer.
Here at the Leadership School,you'll hear leaders from around
the world sharing their storiesand expertise on how to lead
with balance and integrity.
Our goal Teach you how to be anextraordinary leader.
Welcome back, leaders.
(01:04):
I am so excited to speak todaywith Cindy Solomon.
She is one of the mostsought-after leadership experts
in the world, with accoladesincluding being on the 2023 list
of top 30 leadership gurus, thetop 200 biggest voices in
leadership and more.
Her TED Talks have been viewedby coming up on 2 million people
(01:25):
.
And today we're speaking allabout courage.
She's been doing research oncourage for decades and speaks
about it in her keynote talksand in her best-selling book,
the Courage Challenge Workbook.
So today she's sharing with uswhat is courage, how can it be
defined?
Can it be defined and is it anemotion or is it a skill?
Find out as she explains andshares with us why courage
(01:48):
matters to leaders and how youcan develop it to be a more
courageous leader yourself.
So thanks so much, Cindy, forjoining me.
It's such a pleasure to haveyou here.
And listeners, this is aperfect time to join us over on
our Patreon page at patreon.
com/ leadership school, becauseCindy and I continue this
conversation about courage overon our Patreon page and we get
(02:10):
into talking about fear and thedifference between courage and
fear.
Cindy, thanks so much forjoining me.
It's such an honor andprivilege to have you here,
cindy.
I'm really really grateful foryou joining me on the Leadership
School podcast for like dozensof reasons, and one of them
being that you are not feelingthat great and you're here doing
a conversation with me.
Anyway, it's amazing.
So thank you so much.
I really really appreciate it.
(02:31):
I'm so honored and pleased tohave you here.
My pleasure.
So can you tell us your story?
You have an incredible storythat spans decades of research
and information.
So can you tell us how you gotstarted?
Just give us the five minuteshortest version of the long
story.
Cindy Solomon (02:50):
Okay, I'll do my best, we'll see.
You'll have to remind me ofwhat we shared during our
pre-event interview.
But I started out in corporate,you know, just like most people
do, coming out of college andmade my way up through a sales
organization, then into amarketing organization and ended
up ending my career as a VP ofsales and marketing of a large
Fortune 50 back in the dark ages.
(03:12):
And when I left corporateAmerica.
I consider myself a recoveringcorporate executive at this
point.
When I left corporate America,it was always so stunning to me
how many bad leaders that I hadworked for or worked around and
how few great leaders that I hadthe opportunity to work for or
(03:33):
work around.
And I started really thinkingabout after I left what is that
secret sauce?
Like?
Why why is it so magic?
And I grew up corporately at atime where people were like well
, people are born great leaders,you know, and I thought that
just can't be true.
I just don't buy that.
So it started me on this pathof trying to understand why
(03:55):
certain leaders are, you know,go from mediocre to great, or
why certain leaders are alreadygreat, why certain leaders seem
unable to get it together tobecome great at what they do,
and it started me down thisaccidental research path of
trying to understand what thatsecret sauce was.
And after 9,000 interviews anddecades of work now, we've
(04:17):
discovered that it's really avery specific set of skills
around what I consider courage.
And it really is about couragebecause in order for us you know
, you think about any of us whoget good at something and once
you're good at it, you kind of,you know, go.
(04:38):
Oh, thank goodness, I'm good atthis, now I don't have to do
anything different, now I canfocus on other things.
But the reality is, it's in thatmoment that takes the most
courage to do somethingdifferent, when you're already
good at something.
And as the world changes aroundus and what it takes to be a
great leader now has changed sodramatically than what it was
(04:59):
pre-COVID, than what it wascertainly 10 years ago or 20
years ago, and what it means tobe a great leader changes right
along with all those externalinfluences.
And it takes courage to keepchanging your skills and upping
your game and looking at thingsdifferently in order to become
(05:20):
the leader you need to be, notjust for today, but certainly
for tomorrow.
So that's how we startedtalking about courage within my
company and it exploded fromthere because once we had this
great research, we realized thatcourage is actually just
another skill that anyone canchoose to go after to become a
(05:41):
better or eventually a greatleader.
So that's kind of the originstory of this is I really did
trip and fall into it just outof my own intellectual curiosity
about why there aren't as manygreat leaders as you can be.
Kyla Cofer (05:59):
So were you already running your own company when
you started asking thesequestions?
Cindy Solomon (06:04):
Yeah, so well, it was always asking the question,
like any of us do, when youwork for a terrible leader going
why?
Why am I working for theterrible leader?
and why is that leader overthere really good, and why can't
they sit next to each other?
So my bad leader will learnthat they can be a good leader,
right?
So I started asking thequestion, as many of us do when
we're reporting to those people.
(06:25):
So where I started to reallytry to understand it is I had an
expertise coming out of mycorporate life in customer
experience and customersatisfaction is what we used to
call with them, and I started tobe hired by companies to come
in and help them up theircustomer experience game, help
them up their customerengagement, and I realized that
(06:49):
you can teach frontlineindividual contributors all
these skills aroundcommunication and et cetera, et
cetera, but it never reallysticks unless they're working
for a leader who has the skillsto grow and develop them.
And so I started to realize thatif you want to create great
customer experiences, it isn'tjust about training that
(07:10):
frontline.
As a matter of fact, it'srarely about that.
It's really about creatinggreat leaders who will, in turn,
engage people against thoseskills and coach and develop
them.
So I would sneak into companiesunder the guise of customer
experience, because companieswill spend money on that.
They tend to not want to spendmoney on building their
leadership teams.
(07:31):
So I would sneak in under thedarkness of night as a customer
experience person, but what Iwas really teaching was the
leadership skills it takes tocreate a culture of courage
which allows you to then createthat customer experience through
other people.
Kyla Cofer (07:47):
And is that when you started really investing in
actual research on the topic?
Go ahead.
Cindy Solomon (07:52):
Well, I was just going to say we tripped and fell
into it because I startedinterviewing people and, in
order to interview all thepeople that I wanted to
interview, I had to bring otherpeople on to help me do it.
And so we had to create thestatic group of questions and a
certain methodology of gettingthrough it.
And I wasn't a marketresearcher.
I'm not a market researcher, Iknow just enough to be dangerous
.
I can read a market researchreport.
(08:13):
That's about it, but I was justcurious.
I wanted to understand it, andone thing led to another, so I
started to speak on it, and soit allowed me to interview more
people in preparation for thatspeech.
And then I started to doworkshops on it, and so I had to
interview more people tounderstand the people who were
doing it versus the people whoare struggling with it, et
(08:35):
cetera.
And so if you listen to my TEDTalk, I talk about it being an
accidental research project, andit absolutely was.
It happened organically becauseI wanted to get to the root of
it.
I wanted to understand how Icould help people.
I just don't want people towork for bad leaders anymore.
I don't want people to have togo through that, and so I wanted
(08:58):
to find a way to createcourageous leaders at scale, so
fewer people would have to workfor those bad leaders.
Kyla Cofer (09:05):
Wow, and you know through your research.
You said you mentioned your TEDTalk, your keynote speaker, and
you are on all these amazingleadership lists like top 30
leadership gurus.
Congratulations on all theseaccolades.
You've really worked hard forhim, so they're well deserved,
thank you.
And your TED Talk is on courageand leadership.
Cindy Solomon (09:24):
Yeah, I actually do TED Talk.
So the first one is about howto build your courage, which is
really a personal TED Talk,because I wanted people to
understand that courage is notjust a business skill, but it
absolutely is a personal skillthat you can choose to grow.
So that one is really about howyou can build your courage
individually.
And then I have another TEDTalk on how to deal with meeting
(09:45):
overload, which I also think iscourage.
Kyla Cofer (09:48):
Yes, yes, yes, it does.
So can you clarify for me howyou centered in on this one word
?
You're interviewing all thesepeople and you're finding these,
noticing that good leaders havethese skills, and how did you
center in on this one main wordcourage.
Cindy Solomon (10:04):
I think we really discovered three things in the
research that led us to that.
The first thing is that whenpeople talked about courage that
they we always say, oh I wish Ihad the courage to, or that
leader had the courage to well,I don't have the courage to.
And so we wanted to hone in onwhat that was for people like,
how they described it, how theydefined courage, and we started
(10:28):
to dig into that and wediscovered three really
interesting things.
The first is that courage isentirely personal.
Nobody can talk you in or outof your courage, nor can they
talk you in or out of your fear.
Well, actually, they can talkyou into fear, but they can't
talk you out of your fear.
And that was kind of the firstaha moment for me.
You know, you, or anybody outthere listening, has kids, and
(10:50):
you know, have you ever tried toteach your kid or talk your kid
out of being afraid?
Right, All of us have tried it.
Has anybody been successful atit?
Like ever?
Kyla Cofer (10:59):
No, never, never, never.
So I live in town in Nashville,tennessee.
We like live in the city andjust this week there somehow is
a bear in town, like a blackbear, wandering through our
neighborhoods.
And yesterday our kids werelike all playing outside and I'd
forgotten about it and then Irealized, oh there's a bear.
Like I wouldn't let the kids gooutside again.
They're like my mom.
(11:20):
My mom and I refuse to tellthem because I have learned with
my kids they will be scared,they will never play outside
again.
So I was like I'm just notgoing to tell them.
You can't.
You're right, you cannot talksomebody out of their fear.
Cindy Solomon (11:33):
Exactly.
It's just this entirelyinternal, personal thing.
So that was kind of the firstbig aha is we just can't go into
organizations or say to peoplebe more courageous, right, so
can't do it that way.
She can't use your words to getit done.
Second thing we discovered isthat most of us don't think we
are courageous, and that waskind of a big surprise to me
(11:56):
because when we did thesein-depth interviews, really only
one in three people believethey're courageous and that's
simply not true.
100% of us are courageous.
We make courageous decisionsevery day, but we don't take
notice of them.
I mean, sometimes, let's behonest, you know, back on the
COVID year sometimes justgetting out of bed was
(12:18):
courageous act.
Taking the time to listen tothis podcast, I would argue, is
a courageous act.
It's the little everydayactions that we don't understand
are courageous because we'rechoosing a path.
And that's where I started torealize the courage is simply a
decision making skill that youcan choose to employ and use.
(12:43):
And there's this great quote,going back to my first point
about courage is entirelypersonal.
You know, we've been taughtthat courage is about being
fearless, and that's simplyridiculous.
I mean, if you're not fearfulin today's day and age, you're
simply not paying attention.
We've been taught that courageis about being fearless, and
it's not at all.
There's a great quote by RoloMay that says courage is not the
(13:05):
absence of fear.
Rather, it's the ability totake action in spite of that
fear.
And once you realize that it'sthat moment where you have that
bit of anxiety or stress oruncertainty, it's in that moment
where your choice is actuallythe courageous act.
(13:28):
It's okay to feel those things,but then the courage is in
making the choice to act.
So going, just flipping back tothe leadership piece for a
second, if I am great at publicspeaking and I just keep doing
it and I don't do anythingdifferent and I just keep doing
it, yeah I'm going to be fine atit.
But as my audience changes, Ineed to change along with it.
(13:50):
And the courageous act comes inme doing it differently, me
doing a different story, medoing a different approach to
one of the topics, me creating awhole new keynote as an example
.
I should get that anxiety, Ishould get that fear, but the
courage is not letting that fearstop you from taking the step,
(14:12):
making the decision, choosingthe path, executing differently.
Kyla Cofer (14:17):
Yeah, I love there's a current phrase going around
through social media that justsays do it scared.
Yeah, go do what you're goingto do anyways.
If you're scared, fine, just doit anyways, and be scared while
you do it.
Cindy Solomon (14:28):
Exactly Well and let's be honest, I mean if we're
only unafraid or not stressedor comfortable in the things
that we're doing on autopilot.
I mean you think back aboutlike when you learned to drive
right.
Remember how exciting and crazyit was and everything scared
you and every little noise.
And now you know you can leaveyour garage and wake up at the
(14:48):
grocery store and not have anymemory of getting there because
it's so automatic.
So if you're growing andchanging, you have to feel that
stress, you have to feel thatanxiety, you have to feel that
fear or anxiousness, and it's inthat moment where you realize
that you have an opportunity.
Just the act of making adecision off of that and not
(15:10):
freezing up with it iscourageous.
Kyla Cofer (15:13):
I was so focused on what you were saying I want to
make sure did we hit all three?
You said there were threethings that you discovered.
Cindy Solomon (15:19):
Exactly.
So, that courage is entirelypersonal, that most of us don't
think we are courageous, when infact, 100% of us are courageous
.
We're courageous every singleday, and that courage can be
learned.
Kyla Cofer (15:32):
Okay, so tell me more about this learning, the
learning just in the doing andjust going anyways.
Cindy Solomon (15:40):
Well, part of it is that there's a great quote by
Ruth Gordon that says "courageis like any other muscle it's
strengthened with use.
So part of it is recognizingthat when you have that anxiety,
you have that friction of fear,you have that even, sometimes,
anger.
Most of the time our anger isactually fear-based.
You know, you're sitting in ameeting with somebody and they
(16:00):
say something and you're justinstantly livid.
It's usually because you'reafraid that they're derailing
the project, they're going totake it in the wrong direction,
they're not being attention toyour opinion, et cetera, et
cetera.
But we went a little bit deeperis once we realized that
courage can be learned.
We wanted to really identifythe different types of courage
(16:21):
that existed.
And this is where the researchgets super cool, because we
looked at a whole bunch ofdifferent variables and realized
that there were kind of fourcategories of courage.
Okay, and I'm going to gothrough these really quickly, so
stop me and ask questions as wego.
The first type of courage thatwe identified is blind courage.
(16:41):
You know, if I had a visual ofit, it's you know, somebody
jumping off of a bridge with abungee cord on them or skydiving
.
Blind courage is that closeyour eyes and jump courage.
It's the not thinking of theconsequences leap of faith.
A lot of times it's what weconsider like that gut courage
or instinct or intuition.
(17:02):
And the reality is blindcourage we actually have
discovered is maybe not so blind.
We're working with aneuroscientist at the University
of California in Berkeley andshe is discovering that when you
put people in a position forthem to act in this blind
courage world, their brains areactually lighting up and what
(17:23):
she thinks is happening is thatinstinct, that gut feeling that
we have, like where all the datasays to go one way, but you
know you need to go a differentway.
That gut feeling is actuallynot so blind.
She actually thinks it's oursubconscious processing
information, data points,previous perspectives at a rate
(17:44):
so quickly that we can't evenconsciously absorb it.
And I think I can almost provethis and I'm speaking in front
of a big audience.
I'll say how many of you havehad that gut feeling before and
everybody raises their hands.
I say how many of you have notgone with your gut and regretted
it?
And the same 100% of handsstays up.
So blind courage really maybeisn't so blind, but it's our
(18:07):
brain working behind the scenesto try and help us make a
different decision.
And the thing that'sinteresting about blind courage
is you would think we don'treally need it, but it keeps us
alive number one most times,right.
Second piece is it really doesincorporations that I work with.
I work with a lot of globalcompanies and they need blind
(18:29):
courage.
I mean, all of us have sat inthat fifth meeting, about a
thousand dollars spend or a oneline process change and we're
like, well, there's an hour ofour life, we'll never get back,
we'll see it next week, becausepeople think you have to have
all the information to make adecision and the reality is
we'll never have all theinformation again.
You have to be able to exert alittle blind courage to keep
(18:50):
things moving.
So that's the first type ofcourage.
Second type of courage is rolecourage, and I think that's what
anybody listening to thispodcast is doing and what you're
helping people grow.
Because role courage is allabout the training.
If you believe it, you are itand you're so well trained that
you really don't have a fear offailing.
(19:10):
And I think a lot about firstresponders as an example.
They're so well trained thatthey can actually, through their
training, override theircellular need to stay safe.
They run into the burningbuilding, they thwart the crime.
They do all those things andit's because they're so well
trained that they know they'llmake the best possible decision
(19:33):
for themselves and their team.
Not necessarily the rightdecision, but the best possible
decision given the circumstances.
And so role courage is allabout gaining insights and doing
things like listening to thispodcast and to build that role
courage in yourself, becauserole courage is where the
ability to try things and fail alittle and feel comfortable
(19:55):
with comes from.
It's where you don't reallyattach to the failure.
You're just learning andgrowing as you go.
So that's role courage.
Kyla Cofer (20:04):
Is that like when you apply for a new job that you
might not be 100% qualified for, but you're going to apply
anyways and go, or even just ajob, and that's just taking a
little bit of courage, knowingthat you can handle the job
Exactly?
Cindy Solomon (20:16):
Well, and the thing something I didn't say
back at the beginning aroundmost of us don't think we're
courageous, but really where wesee a big difference in this is
between men and women.
It's really the onlystatistically significant
differentiator that we found inour research, which is women are
taught culturally that weshouldn't be courageous and if
(20:37):
we are, don't tell anybody.
Men are taught that equallydestructive, they darn well
better be courageous and if theyaren't, don't tell anybody.
And those culturalizationpieces come through and things
like applying for jobs.
Right, you know famous metastudy that if a job has 10
qualifications, a woman won'teven consider applying until she
(21:00):
has seven or eight of them.
Men will apply with two or less.
And I think part of this playsinto this role courage bit.
Coming back to the role couragetype of courage, because the
better trained we are, the moreconfidence we have in our own
abilities, and we then make thecourageous choice to apply
(21:21):
anyway, even without having allof the qualifications, with the
understanding that we can learnthem as we go.
Got it Okay, absolutely.
Third type of courage is crisiscourage, and that's exactly what
it sounds like.
I mean, just say COVID.
Right, it's the first sixmonths to a year of COVID, where
you know you literally well.
(21:41):
Then it was life or death.
Right, but you feel like it'slife or death.
You're acting on instinct,you're just reacting to external
forces, and I actually thinkthis is where we've really
become bogged down in a lot ofthe organizations that I work
with.
Is because we were in thatcrisis for so long that it kind
of rewired our brains a littlebit and it got us addicted to
(22:03):
reacting instead of taking apause, taking a breath and
making a choice about whataction we then, in turn, take.
And I think about some of theresearch that we've done on this
.
And if you scare somebody todeath, no surprise, they
actually are more productive.
As a matter of fact, researchshows that you scare somebody to
(22:23):
death, they're 34% moreproductive.
Now, if you're listening tothis, don't write that down.
Does make people more, for thatis not the leadership nugget I
want you to leave with.
But if you do scare them todeath, they are more productive.
And if you think back to thosefirst six or eight months, we
were all more productive because, man, we were hitting on a
(22:44):
thousand cylinders during that.
The sad part is, you scaresomebody to death the second
time there's six percentProductivity boost, scare
somebody to death the third timeand productivity drops off the
flip and I honestly think somany people I'm one of them and
I'm sure you are as well, andmany people listening, people
are burned out because we havebeen going at it for really
(23:08):
since March of 2020 without alack of uncertainty, without
constant fear flowing at usthrough our phones and through
our social media channels.
I mean, we have been stuck inthis hyper crisis reactivity
mode for a long time and, somepeople maybe you have a team
that's going through somethingand you'd need them to be in
(23:30):
that crisis mode to get thatbump in performance, to get them
really hyper focused, but whenyou're in it too long,
productivity just brines to ahalt and it's just exhausting.
You know if you've ever workedfor that leader who everything's
a number one priority,everything's a crisis.
Kyla Cofer (23:47):
It's exhausting right, it is exhausting.
You don't want to stick aroundfor it?
Cindy Solomon (23:52):
Well, no, because you can't, because it just
drives you into the ground,right.
But so many of us have becomeaddicted to that way of working
and do it, even if we had anactual inclination to it at the
beginning.
Boy, covid just made itpermanent.
You know, I just recently heardanother speaker speaking about
this and they're just nowstarting to look at our brains
after COVID, and the way shedescribed it is that we
(24:15):
basically have a world of peoplewho have post-traumatic stress
disorder that haven't dealt withit, haven't really processed it
and have just kept moving tokeep alive, to keep doing.
I'm not saying that you some,you know, I would argue entire
industries need to should be inthe crisis quadrant right now.
I just got an email from Amazonthat they are now in the
(24:36):
pharmaceutical business.
They now have Amazon pharmacythat they're testing.
So Walgreens, cvs, dwayne Reed,you know, whatever your
pharmacy is, they should havebeen in crisis, the crisis
quadrant, two years ago, becausenow there's no catching up.
Taxi industry ten years agoshould have been in crisis
before uber ate them alive.
So there's certain times whereyou want to choose to use it and
(24:59):
it's important, but you can'tbecome addicted to it and you
can't sit in it.
Because it does drive that lackof productivity and that
burnout.
Kyla Cofer (25:11):
Hey leaders, have you ever considered starting
your very own podcast?
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tenfold by Continuing to show upand put on a really great show.
(25:36):
If I could help you to startyour very own podcast without
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If so, what I want you to do isright now, go to podcaster
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net.
That's podcaster school.
net.
You can start out by taking thequiz on what kind of podcast
(25:57):
should you create.
From there, go ahead andschedule a call with me and
let's check.
So I want to hear about whatyour potential ideas are.
What would make you interestedin starting a podcast?
It's such a fantastic way toreally grow, increase your
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So take a look at podcasterschool.
net, take the quiz, schedule acall with me and let me help you
(26:17):
get started on your very ownshow.
So that crisis mode is meantfor a temporary it.
That is the courage that youneed to get through a temporary
situation.
It's not makes our long-termcontinual ongoing process.
Cindy Solomon (26:35):
Exactly.
Yeah, it's not the way to lead.
It's the way to jumpstartpeople for a super short period
of time.
Then you got to quickly stepaway from it.
It helps with alignment.
It helps with getting reallyinnovative, because sometimes it
is life or death, like it wasfor six months of COVID.
For all of us.
Fourth type real quickly, iscore courage, and this is
probably the toughest, becausecore courage is all about
(26:59):
understanding who you are, whereyou want to go, where you want
to be in six to eight years,where you want to be in six to
eight weeks.
For some of us, it's reallyabout taking the time to
understand who you are, whatyour North Star is, what your
legacy even is going to be.
(27:20):
And the thing is so hard aboutcore courage is that you have to
do that work before you need it.
So if you've ever worked for aleader who the whole world is on
fire around them and they'rejust like steady eddy, they're
super focused on the goal,they're bringing people together
, call them cool and collected,they're acting probably from a
(27:43):
place of core courage and it'sbecause they've done the work
ahead of time, before the crisisor the difficulty hit.
And so for us, you know, Ithink a lot as it relates
directly to leadership.
What do you want your legacy tobe as a leader of people?
I mean nobody, you know, I usea slide sometimes in my keynotes
(28:03):
that has a tombstone and itsays they made their metrics.
That's not what you want yourlegacy to be.
You really want your legacy tobe that, because of your
leadership, somebody had adifferent career trajectory,
somebody took a roll on thatchanged their lives, somebody
you helped somebody build acareer that lasted so far beyond
(28:25):
you that it impacted otherpeople that they then interled.
So really getting us more usedto sitting back, taking that
pause and Thinking about what'sthe legacy that I want to leave.
That's when you're able toutilize your core courage and
it's in that moment that you'reprepared for whatever might come
(28:45):
.
So those are the four typesthat we've identified.
Kyla Cofer (28:49):
That's so fascinating because I was
expecting to come in here andgive me one solid definition for
courage.
I think I even wrote it down asa question.
I wanted to ask you, like, howdo you define courage?
But courage is really brokendown into a lot of different
ways, and I'm curious if youwould classify courage as more
of an emotion or a skill orsomewhere in there.
Cindy Solomon (29:14):
Yeah, so courage is flat out a skill, okay, I
mean, and anybody can choose tobuild it if they want to.
Kyla Cofer (29:22):
That's fascinating, so, but yet we all have courage
and we all act courageously, butwe can act more courageously.
Cindy Solomon (29:31):
Absolutely.
So let me put it, give you ananalogy.
So let's say I want to run amarathon.
Okay, which, by the way, wouldnever, ever happen.
But let's say I wanted to run amarathon.
I can't just go and jumpoutside and start running and
hope for the best.
I mean I can.
It's going to be a long haul toget to that.
(29:53):
The other piece of the puzzle isif I'm not understanding that
today I ran a mile in thisamount of time, but tomorrow I
ran a mile and a quarter andmaybe my time got a little bit
better too, right?
So you have to start measuringit and becoming aware of it so
that you can do a little bitmore each time.
And the other piece of thepuzzle is running a marathon
(30:15):
isn't just about running amarathon.
It's not just about running themillion or however many miles
marathon is.
It's about understanding yourstride, your breathing, your
nutrition, your hydration, your,how your feet land, how you use
your arms right, how much sleepyou get.
So you have to break it downinto those bite-sized pieces and
(30:40):
get better at each one in orderto bring them together.
You also need to measure it andgive yourself credit.
If I run out there and I justdo.
You know, I don't even know howmuch I do, but I just run and
go well, hope that helps andthen go do it again the next day
.
I'm never really going to makethat progress in the fastest
(31:02):
possible way.
The skill of courage is exactlythe same.
I want to be a more courageousperson.
That's the goal of running themarathon.
But how I have to do it is Ihave to break it down into
bite-sized pieces and work onthose.
And each time I do better at itI'm measuring it, I'm looking
(31:22):
at it, I'm paying attention toit, each time I do better, I say
good job, well done, that wasbetter.
Now, next time, I have thatconfidence that I can do a
little bit more.
I can go another quarter mile,I can go another eighth of a
mile, or I can do the samesprint but a little bit faster.
(31:44):
But until you get conscious ofit, you can't build it because
there's no yard marker.
Does that make?
Kyla Cofer (31:53):
sense Absolutely, and I'm thinking how that can
directly apply to being thatcourageous leader, because the
leader is all about the peoplewho follow you.
So when you have practicedsomething, you understand that
the people behind you need topractice it as well, and then
you have some skills to pass onand also some compassion and
(32:14):
empathy, while they're stilllearning.
Exactly.
Cindy Solomon (32:17):
Exactly so.
Let's talk about leadership fora second.
Really specifically, one of thethings that we teach in our
courageous leadership courses ishow to create an inspiring
message in less than fiveminutes.
People completely flip out,like that we're going to make
them do this and we make thempractice it.
And then we make them stand upand do it and people are like
literally like sweating, theyfeel like they're going to pass
(32:38):
out and, without exception, 100%of people are able to do it.
I mean, we have a process thatwe take them through and they do
it step by step by step.
But after this process, about20 minutes later, they create
these messages that they can'tbelieve are coming out of them.
And when I asked them, how manyof you would have believed me
(33:03):
had I said now it's been 30minutes ago, right 30 minutes
ago that you were going to standup in front of the room and
knock this exercise out in thepark, how many of you would have
believed me?
And not a single person willraise their hand.
And I say okay, now how many ofyou believe that with another
two or three rounds of practice,you can be really good at this?
(33:24):
Raise your hands.
Almost everybody will raisetheir hands.
So then we send them out intothe wild and have them tested
out on their people.
And that takes even morecourage because now they're not
in the safe environment of theskill practice but they're
actually out with their people.
And some will report back thattheir teams are like, why are
you talking like that?
Like, did they break you whileyou were in that training?
(33:46):
Stop talking like that.
It's just weird.
Like nobody comes out of thegate and it's perfect.
People might be like, stop,you're acting weird.
Who is this?
But they are able to, becausethey have the confidence that
they went from zero to this good, that if they just keep
practicing it they'll get alittle bit better each time.
But they have to intellectuallythink about okay, what worked
(34:08):
in that?
And now next time I do it, whatwould I do differently to be
better?
And it's the courage of havingthat moment to take a pause and
self-evaluate, not just whatdidn't go well, but what worked,
that you want to keep doing.
That's what actually starts tobuild that courage muscle.
Kyla Cofer (34:25):
I don't really know what to ask you next.
I really was.
I've just been like listeningand soaking it in because
thinking about, of course, myown situations and plenty of
examples and stories that I'veheard and how this could really
change leadership If you haveevery leader who's acting
courageously in the way that wedo that and the way that, yes,
it does build that muscle.
And I was thinking too aboutwhen I have run half marathons I
(34:47):
have not made it to a full, buthalf marathons and I remember
day one being terrified and thenthe pride that you build after
you do it and after youaccomplish it, and that you do
create more pride in yourself asyou practice and you try and
you go forward anyways.
Cindy Solomon (35:04):
Well, and think about just even that example,
going back to those four typesof courage.
Right, like, think about thatfor a second, because it's blind
courage.
Probably that makes you startit, which is like I'm going to
do this.
I don't know how it's going towork, let's try it.
You're using blind courage.
But then, more than likely, yougot into some role courage
because you were like, okay, Ineed to figure out, what do I
(35:24):
need to be eating?
What time of day do I do this?
Like, how do I set my practice,my, whatever it's called?
I don't run it all.
So I'm like you're runningschedule, whatever it's called.
You crazy runners.
How do I work on my breathing,etc.
Etc.
Right, so that's the rolecourage part.
I would argue that you, I'm sureyou had a moment of crisis
courage where either you, like,got to the middle of the race
(35:48):
and you started to feel bad, oryou weren't hydrating enough or
whatever, and you are acting oninstinct.
You're trying to figure outwhat do you need to do to keep
going.
And then the core courage.
Part of that example is it'swhen you've had those
difficulties throughout thetraining for it that you've kept
going because you had in yourmind's eye that you can do this,
(36:12):
that you want to be the personwho finishes the half marathon.
So you actually use all fourtypes of courage.
Probably and all of us use allfour types of courage in any
given day.
I mean, hopefully we don't haveto use crisis very much, but if
you have children, you're usingcrisis every day.
It's being able to understandthat there's no one type of
(36:32):
courage that's better than anyother.
You can employ all four in anygiven situation.
But understanding that helpsyou, because there's something
that I want to go out and dothat's going to require blind
courage, and I'm a blind courageaddict.
I love blind courage, but inthis one particular situation I
have more fear around it becauseit's something physical and I'm
(36:52):
worried that physically, I'mnot going to fail at it.
And I literally had thediscussion with myself in my own
mind a couple of days ago.
I'm like, oh, for Pete's sake,Cindy, you are the courage girl.
You're all about blind courage.
You just need to exercise alittle blind courage right now
because it's going to be fine.
And having that conversationwith myself, I was like, oh my
(37:13):
gosh, of course that'sabsolutely right.
Kyla Cofer (37:16):
So what that tells me is that, yes, it's a skill
and you're constantly developingit and as you grow in that
skill, the process becomesshorter, from I am not going to
do that and I have to talkmyself into it.
You know the process of how towork through it because you're
seeing that end goal.
You know where you want to goand you know what that process
is and where you're trying to be.
(37:37):
And so the gap between I can'tdo it to I've accomplished it,
you can shorten that bypracticing and developing that
skill and be intentionally.
Absolutely.
Cindy Solomon (37:47):
It's the lifting the weight.
The more I'm lifting the weightand paying attention, the
stronger and stronger I get,thus making that time from
thought to result so muchshorter, absolutely.
Kyla Cofer (38:01):
It's so fun because these are things that I've
intuitively been talking aboutfor years and years and years,
but to hear you talk about it inresearch and data terms it
makes it so much more clear andhelps understand.
When you can break it down intodifferent pieces and different
definitions, it really helpsunderstand this full picture of
what courage is and why itreally matters.
(38:22):
But to be to like it's noticingright, so we all have it.
What you're doing is you'rejust you're noticing the courage
within you.
Cindy Solomon (38:31):
Yeah, Well, and I think the other thing about it
is the tricky part of this is,until you understand that every
single one of us is courageous,we can't teach others.
So I think about this a lot asa parent.
I mean, I did all this researchwhen my daughter was a lot
younger and I thank God for itbecause it made me realize that
(38:53):
until I was conscious about myown courage and talking about it
and helping define it andhelping her understand that it
was a skill, that helped her inher development.
And so we can't teach othershow to do it until we understand
that we are doing it and thatwe are also growing the skills
(39:13):
simultaneously.
Kyla Cofer (39:15):
Sydney, if you had one piece of advice or to give
to our listeners, or maybe evena summary or one thing that you
want to make sure our listenershave heard and walked away with,
what would it be?
I?
Cindy Solomon (39:25):
think the most important thing is to understand
that 100% of us are courageous.
And courage is not the absenceof fear or anxiety or stress or
uncertainty.
It's the ability to take actionin spite of that fear.
And that quote if you could seemy office here as huge poster
(39:50):
on my wall is that quote?
Because I think we hurtourselves and therefore those
around us by believing we shouldbe fearless.
But we shouldn't be fearless.
We should have the fear andmake the choice to take action
in spite of it.
Every time you have that littleanxiety, that frisian, that
(40:12):
anger, stop, take a breath andthen think about what choice
you're going to make at thatpoint, because that's the
courageous moment.
Kyla Cofer (40:24):
Well, thank you so much, Cindy.
How can we learn more from you?
Cindy Solomon (40:28):
Absolutely Well.
As I mentioned, we train aboutprobably about 50,000 leaders a
year now at the CourageousLeadership Institute.
So just go to our website,courageousleadershipinstitute.
com.
Check out my TED Talks.
On TED how to deal with meetingoverload, which again takes a
lot of courage, or how to buildyour courage and get in touch.
I'm really easy to reach Cindy@thec
(40:51):
ourageousleadershipinstitutecom.
If you're looking to buildcourageous leadership at scale
for the leaders within yourcompany.
Kyla Cofer (40:58):
Thank you so much.
This has been such a pleasureand I really really just do
value the breakdown and theexplanation and understanding
and being able to relate it tosomething in our lives, Because
I'm thinking about all the timesin my life where I was like, oh
yeah, that's just something youdid and there are not things I
ever thought that werecourageous.
But there have been times whenI've been like I have no idea
(41:20):
what I'm doing.
I have a goal and I'm going togo forward and do it anyways.
I'm going to figure it out, andsometimes it's taken longer to
get there because I've had towork through the fear in it, but
I've been actively working itout and I've never labeled
myself as courageous, like yousaid.
So that's a really reallyfascinating piece to me,
(41:42):
Absolutely.
Cindy Solomon (41:42):
But it takes some mystery out of it.
It's not just some magicalthing that people have or don't
have.
Anybody can build their courageif they choose to go after it.
Kyla Cofer (41:52):
We see that a lot.
We see people, we look at themand they're like oh, they're
just natural born gifted greatleaders no.
Cindy Solomon (42:01):
I'm so glad you mentioned that, because every
single person that I talk tosomebody will invariably say
well, aren't leaders born andnot made?
It's like no.
To be a great leader, it issimply a set of very teeny, tiny
skills that are repeatedconsistently over time.
Great leaders work really hardat it.
(42:23):
It might look effortless.
It is not.
They have done the heavylifting and kept getting better
and better and better because ofbeing conscious about wanting
to build those courageousleadership skills.
Kyla Cofer (42:38):
Cindy, thank you so much.
This has been such a greatconversation, so honored and
privileged to have you here withus.
Thank you, my pleasure.
Cindy Solomon (42:44):
Thanks so much for having me.
Kyla Cofer (42:49):
So I started this podcast because I wanted to
learn and grow in my leadershipjourney and I have been so
incredibly inspired by theguests and the conversations.
So once the interview ends, Iactually keep the conversation
going, because I have found thatsometimes the richest part of
the conversation is when we feellike the interview is over and
we can just kind of have arelaxed, more casual
(43:11):
conversation.
Also, if you've noticed, ifyou've been following this
podcast for some time, I used toask every guest two questions
what does integrity mean to themand what does balance look like
to them?
Well, I haven't stopped askingthose questions.
We're just putting those overon our Patreon page.
So go check it out at patreon.
com/leadershipschool.
And for $6.50 a month you cansupport this podcast.
(43:36):
It takes a lot to produce everysingle episode and honestly, I
could use a little bit ofsupport.
So anything that you're able tocontribute would really mean a
lot to me and would be able tohelp me to continue to bring
these high caliber guests in tohave conversations on what does
it look like to be anextraordinary leader and how do
we practically do that.
(43:56):
So those conversations arecontinuing over at patreoncomcom
slash leadership school, whereI'm asking guest some extra
questions, some bonus questions.
You'll get some bonus contentover there, so be sure to go
check it out.
Thanks so much for your supportand thanks so much for
subscribing, listening andsharing this podcast.
It really does mean a lot andI'm so honor to show up here in
(44:17):
your podcast feed.
Hey, thank you so much forlistening.
If you've liked what you heardand you want some more tools and
resources to help you on yourjourney, go check out
kylacofercom forward slash freestuff.
Which is women are taught culturally that we
shouldn't be courageous and ifwe are, don't tell anybody.
Men are taught that equallydestructive, they darn well,
better be courageous and if theyaren't, don't tell anybody.
And those culturalizationpieces come through in things
like applying for jobs.
(00:20):
Right, you know famous metastudy that if a job has 10
qualifications, a woman won'teven consider applying until she
has seven or eight of them.
Men will apply with two or less.
Kyla Cofer (00:38):
Welcome to the Leadership School podcast.
I'm your host leadership andself-care coach, Kyla Cofer.
Here at the Leadership School,you'll hear leaders from around
the world sharing their storiesand expertise on how to lead
with balance and integrity.
Our goal Teach you how to be anextraordinary leader.
Welcome back, leaders.
(01:04):
I am so excited to speak todaywith Cindy Solomon.
She is one of the mostsought-after leadership experts
in the world, with accoladesincluding being on the 2023 list
of top 30 leadership gurus, thetop 200 biggest voices in
leadership and more.
Her TED Talks have been viewedby coming up on 2 million people
(01:25):
.
And today we're speaking allabout courage.
She's been doing research oncourage for decades and speaks
about it in her keynote talksand in her best-selling book,
the Courage Challenge Workbook.
So today she's sharing with uswhat is courage, how can it be
defined?
Can it be defined and is it anemotion or is it a skill?
Find out as she explains andshares with us why courage
(01:48):
matters to leaders and how youcan develop it to be a more
courageous leader yourself.
So thanks so much, Cindy, forjoining me.
It's such a pleasure to haveyou here.
And listeners, this is aperfect time to join us over on
our Patreon page at patreon.
com/ leadership school, becauseCindy and I continue this
conversation about courage overon our Patreon page and we get
(02:10):
into talking about fear and thedifference between courage and
fear.
Cindy, thanks so much forjoining me.
It's such an honor andprivilege to have you here,
cindy.
I'm really really grateful foryou joining me on the Leadership
School podcast for like dozensof reasons, and one of them
being that you are not feelingthat great and you're here doing
a conversation with me.
Anyway, it's amazing.
So thank you so much.
I really really appreciate it.
(02:31):
I'm so honored and pleased tohave you here.
My pleasure.
So can you tell us your story?
You have an incredible storythat spans decades of research
and information.
So can you tell us how you gotstarted?
Just give us the five minuteshortest version of the long
story.
Cindy Solomon (02:50):
Okay, I'll do my best, we'll see.
You'll have to remind me ofwhat we shared during our
pre-event interview.
But I started out in corporate,you know, just like most people
do, coming out of college andmade my way up through a sales
organization, then into amarketing organization and ended
up ending my career as a VP ofsales and marketing of a large
Fortune 50 back in the dark ages.
(03:12):
And when I left corporateAmerica.
I consider myself a recoveringcorporate executive at this
point.
When I left corporate America,it was always so stunning to me
how many bad leaders that I hadworked for or worked around and
how few great leaders that I hadthe opportunity to work for or
(03:33):
work around.
And I started really thinkingabout after I left what is that
secret sauce?
Like?
Why why is it so magic?
And I grew up corporately at atime where people were like well
, people are born great leaders,you know, and I thought that
just can't be true.
I just don't buy that.
So it started me on this pathof trying to understand why
(03:55):
certain leaders are, you know,go from mediocre to great, or
why certain leaders are alreadygreat, why certain leaders seem
unable to get it together tobecome great at what they do,
and it started me down thisaccidental research path of
trying to understand what thatsecret sauce was.
And after 9,000 interviews anddecades of work now, we've
(04:17):
discovered that it's really avery specific set of skills
around what I consider courage.
And it really is about couragebecause in order for us you know
, you think about any of us whoget good at something and once
you're good at it, you kind of,you know, go.
(04:38):
Oh, thank goodness, I'm good atthis, now I don't have to do
anything different, now I canfocus on other things.
But the reality is, it's in thatmoment that takes the most
courage to do somethingdifferent, when you're already
good at something.
And as the world changes aroundus and what it takes to be a
great leader now has changed sodramatically than what it was
(04:59):
pre-COVID, than what it wascertainly 10 years ago or 20
years ago, and what it means tobe a great leader changes right
along with all those externalinfluences.
And it takes courage to keepchanging your skills and upping
your game and looking at thingsdifferently in order to become
(05:20):
the leader you need to be, notjust for today, but certainly
for tomorrow.
So that's how we startedtalking about courage within my
company and it exploded fromthere because once we had this
great research, we realized thatcourage is actually just
another skill that anyone canchoose to go after to become a
(05:41):
better or eventually a greatleader.
So that's kind of the originstory of this is I really did
trip and fall into it just outof my own intellectual curiosity
about why there aren't as manygreat leaders as you can be.
Kyla Cofer (05:59):
So were you already running your own company when
you started asking thesequestions?
Cindy Solomon (06:04):
Yeah, so well, it was always asking the question,
like any of us do, when youwork for a terrible leader going
why?
Why am I working for theterrible leader?
and why is that leader overthere really good, and why can't
they sit next to each other?
So my bad leader will learnthat they can be a good leader,
right?
So I started asking thequestion, as many of us do when
we're reporting to those people.
(06:25):
So where I started to reallytry to understand it is I had an
expertise coming out of mycorporate life in customer
experience and customersatisfaction is what we used to
call with them, and I started tobe hired by companies to come
in and help them up theircustomer experience game, help
them up their customerengagement, and I realized that
(06:49):
you can teach frontlineindividual contributors all
these skills aroundcommunication and et cetera, et
cetera, but it never reallysticks unless they're working
for a leader who has the skillsto grow and develop them.
And so I started to realize thatif you want to create great
customer experiences, it isn'tjust about training that
(07:10):
frontline.
As a matter of fact, it'srarely about that.
It's really about creatinggreat leaders who will, in turn,
engage people against thoseskills and coach and develop
them.
So I would sneak into companiesunder the guise of customer
experience, because companieswill spend money on that.
They tend to not want to spendmoney on building their
leadership teams.
(07:31):
So I would sneak in under thedarkness of night as a customer
experience person, but what Iwas really teaching was the
leadership skills it takes tocreate a culture of courage
which allows you to then createthat customer experience through
other people.
Kyla Cofer (07:47):
And is that when you started really investing in
actual research on the topic?
Go ahead.
Cindy Solomon (07:52):
Well, I was just going to say we tripped and fell
into it because I startedinterviewing people and, in
order to interview all thepeople that I wanted to
interview, I had to bring otherpeople on to help me do it.
And so we had to create thestatic group of questions and a
certain methodology of gettingthrough it.
And I wasn't a marketresearcher.
I'm not a market researcher, Iknow just enough to be dangerous
.
I can read a market researchreport.
(08:13):
That's about it, but I was justcurious.
I wanted to understand it, andone thing led to another, so I
started to speak on it, and soit allowed me to interview more
people in preparation for thatspeech.
And then I started to doworkshops on it, and so I had to
interview more people tounderstand the people who were
doing it versus the people whoare struggling with it, et
(08:35):
cetera.
And so if you listen to my TEDTalk, I talk about it being an
accidental research project, andit absolutely was.
It happened organically becauseI wanted to get to the root of
it.
I wanted to understand how Icould help people.
I just don't want people towork for bad leaders anymore.
I don't want people to have togo through that, and so I wanted
(08:58):
to find a way to createcourageous leaders at scale, so
fewer people would have to workfor those bad leaders.
Kyla Cofer (09:05):
Wow, and you know through your research.
You said you mentioned your TEDTalk, your keynote speaker, and
you are on all these amazingleadership lists like top 30
leadership gurus.
Congratulations on all theseaccolades.
You've really worked hard forhim, so they're well deserved,
thank you.
And your TED Talk is on courageand leadership.
Cindy Solomon (09:24):
Yeah, I actually do TED Talk.
So the first one is about howto build your courage, which is
really a personal TED Talk,because I wanted people to
understand that courage is notjust a business skill, but it
absolutely is a personal skillthat you can choose to grow.
So that one is really about howyou can build your courage
individually.
And then I have another TEDTalk on how to deal with meeting
(09:45):
overload, which I also think iscourage.
Kyla Cofer (09:48):
Yes, yes, yes, it does.
So can you clarify for me howyou centered in on this one word
?
You're interviewing all thesepeople and you're finding these,
noticing that good leaders havethese skills, and how did you
center in on this one main wordcourage.
Cindy Solomon (10:04):
I think we really discovered three things in the
research that led us to that.
The first thing is that whenpeople talked about courage that
they we always say, oh I wish Ihad the courage to, or that
leader had the courage to well,I don't have the courage to.
And so we wanted to hone in onwhat that was for people like,
how they described it, how theydefined courage, and we started
(10:28):
to dig into that and wediscovered three really
interesting things.
The first is that courage isentirely personal.
Nobody can talk you in or outof your courage, nor can they
talk you in or out of your fear.
Well, actually, they can talkyou into fear, but they can't
talk you out of your fear.
And that was kind of the firstaha moment for me.
You know, you, or anybody outthere listening, has kids, and
(10:50):
you know, have you ever tried toteach your kid or talk your kid
out of being afraid?
Right, All of us have tried it.
Has anybody been successful atit?
Like ever?
Kyla Cofer (10:59):
No, never, never, never.
So I live in town in Nashville,tennessee.
We like live in the city andjust this week there somehow is
a bear in town, like a blackbear, wandering through our
neighborhoods.
And yesterday our kids werelike all playing outside and I'd
forgotten about it and then Irealized, oh there's a bear.
Like I wouldn't let the kids gooutside again.
They're like my mom.
(11:20):
My mom and I refuse to tellthem because I have learned with
my kids they will be scared,they will never play outside
again.
So I was like I'm just notgoing to tell them.
You can't.
You're right, you cannot talksomebody out of their fear.
Cindy Solomon (11:33):
Exactly.
It's just this entirelyinternal, personal thing.
So that was kind of the firstbig aha is we just can't go into
organizations or say to peoplebe more courageous, right, so
can't do it that way.
She can't use your words to getit done.
Second thing we discovered isthat most of us don't think we
are courageous, and that waskind of a big surprise to me
(11:56):
because when we did thesein-depth interviews, really only
one in three people believethey're courageous and that's
simply not true.
100% of us are courageous.
We make courageous decisionsevery day, but we don't take
notice of them.
I mean, sometimes, let's behonest, you know, back on the
COVID year sometimes justgetting out of bed was
(12:18):
courageous act.
Taking the time to listen tothis podcast, I would argue, is
a courageous act.
It's the little everydayactions that we don't understand
are courageous because we'rechoosing a path.
And that's where I started torealize the courage is simply a
decision making skill that youcan choose to employ and use.
(12:43):
And there's this great quote,going back to my first point
about courage is entirelypersonal.
You know, we've been taughtthat courage is about being
fearless, and that's simplyridiculous.
I mean, if you're not fearfulin today's day and age, you're
simply not paying attention.
We've been taught that courageis about being fearless, and
it's not at all.
There's a great quote by RoloMay that says courage is not the
(13:05):
absence of fear.
Rather, it's the ability totake action in spite of that
fear.
And once you realize that it'sthat moment where you have that
bit of anxiety or stress oruncertainty, it's in that moment
where your choice is actuallythe courageous act.
(13:28):
It's okay to feel those things,but then the courage is in
making the choice to act.
So going, just flipping back tothe leadership piece for a
second, if I am great at publicspeaking and I just keep doing
it and I don't do anythingdifferent and I just keep doing
it, yeah I'm going to be fine atit.
But as my audience changes, Ineed to change along with it.
(13:50):
And the courageous act comes inme doing it differently, me
doing a different story, medoing a different approach to
one of the topics, me creating awhole new keynote as an example
.
I should get that anxiety, Ishould get that fear, but the
courage is not letting that fearstop you from taking the step,
(14:12):
making the decision, choosingthe path, executing differently.
Kyla Cofer (14:17):
Yeah, I love there's a current phrase going around
through social media that justsays do it scared.
Yeah, go do what you're goingto do anyways.
If you're scared, fine, just doit anyways, and be scared while
you do it.
Cindy Solomon (14:28):
Exactly Well and let's be honest, I mean if we're
only unafraid or not stressedor comfortable in the things
that we're doing on autopilot.
I mean you think back aboutlike when you learned to drive
right.
Remember how exciting and crazyit was and everything scared
you and every little noise.
And now you know you can leaveyour garage and wake up at the
(14:48):
grocery store and not have anymemory of getting there because
it's so automatic.
So if you're growing andchanging, you have to feel that
stress, you have to feel thatanxiety, you have to feel that
fear or anxiousness, and it's inthat moment where you realize
that you have an opportunity.
Just the act of making adecision off of that and not
(15:10):
freezing up with it iscourageous.
Kyla Cofer (15:13):
I was so focused on what you were saying I want to
make sure did we hit all three?
You said there were threethings that you discovered.
Cindy Solomon (15:19):
Exactly.
So, that courage is entirelypersonal, that most of us don't
think we are courageous, when infact, 100% of us are courageous
.
We're courageous every singleday, and that courage can be
learned.
Kyla Cofer (15:32):
Okay, so tell me more about this learning, the
learning just in the doing andjust going anyways.
Cindy Solomon (15:40):
Well, part of it is that there's a great quote by
Ruth Gordon that says "courageis like any other muscle it's
strengthened with use.
So part of it is recognizingthat when you have that anxiety,
you have that friction of fear,you have that even, sometimes,
anger.
Most of the time our anger isactually fear-based.
You know, you're sitting in ameeting with somebody and they
(16:00):
say something and you're justinstantly livid.
It's usually because you'reafraid that they're derailing
the project, they're going totake it in the wrong direction,
they're not being attention toyour opinion, et cetera, et
cetera.
But we went a little bit deeperis once we realized that
courage can be learned.
We wanted to really identifythe different types of courage
(16:21):
that existed.
And this is where the researchgets super cool, because we
looked at a whole bunch ofdifferent variables and realized
that there were kind of fourcategories of courage.
Okay, and I'm going to gothrough these really quickly, so
stop me and ask questions as wego.
The first type of courage thatwe identified is blind courage.
(16:41):
You know, if I had a visual ofit, it's you know, somebody
jumping off of a bridge with abungee cord on them or skydiving
.
Blind courage is that closeyour eyes and jump courage.
It's the not thinking of theconsequences leap of faith.
A lot of times it's what weconsider like that gut courage
or instinct or intuition.
(17:02):
And the reality is blindcourage we actually have
discovered is maybe not so blind.
We're working with aneuroscientist at the University
of California in Berkeley andshe is discovering that when you
put people in a position forthem to act in this blind
courage world, their brains areactually lighting up and what
(17:23):
she thinks is happening is thatinstinct, that gut feeling that
we have, like where all the datasays to go one way, but you
know you need to go a differentway.
That gut feeling is actuallynot so blind.
She actually thinks it's oursubconscious processing
information, data points,previous perspectives at a rate
(17:44):
so quickly that we can't evenconsciously absorb it.
And I think I can almost provethis and I'm speaking in front
of a big audience.
I'll say how many of you havehad that gut feeling before and
everybody raises their hands.
I say how many of you have notgone with your gut and regretted
it?
And the same 100% of handsstays up.
So blind courage really maybeisn't so blind, but it's our
(18:07):
brain working behind the scenesto try and help us make a
different decision.
And the thing that'sinteresting about blind courage
is you would think we don'treally need it, but it keeps us
alive number one most times,right.
Second piece is it really doesincorporations that I work with.
I work with a lot of globalcompanies and they need blind
(18:29):
courage.
I mean, all of us have sat inthat fifth meeting, about a
thousand dollars spend or a oneline process change and we're
like, well, there's an hour ofour life, we'll never get back,
we'll see it next week, becausepeople think you have to have
all the information to make adecision and the reality is
we'll never have all theinformation again.
You have to be able to exert alittle blind courage to keep
(18:50):
things moving.
So that's the first type ofcourage.
Second type of courage is rolecourage, and I think that's what
anybody listening to thispodcast is doing and what you're
helping people grow.
Because role courage is allabout the training.
If you believe it, you are itand you're so well trained that
you really don't have a fear offailing.
(19:10):
And I think a lot about firstresponders as an example.
They're so well trained thatthey can actually, through their
training, override theircellular need to stay safe.
They run into the burningbuilding, they thwart the crime.
They do all those things andit's because they're so well
trained that they know they'llmake the best possible decision
(19:33):
for themselves and their team.
Not necessarily the rightdecision, but the best possible
decision given the circumstances.
And so role courage is allabout gaining insights and doing
things like listening to thispodcast and to build that role
courage in yourself, becauserole courage is where the
ability to try things and fail alittle and feel comfortable
(19:55):
with comes from.
It's where you don't reallyattach to the failure.
You're just learning andgrowing as you go.
So that's role courage.
Kyla Cofer (20:04):
Is that like when you apply for a new job that you
might not be 100% qualified for, but you're going to apply
anyways and go, or even just ajob, and that's just taking a
little bit of courage, knowingthat you can handle the job
Exactly?
Cindy Solomon (20:16):
Well, and the thing something I didn't say
back at the beginning aroundmost of us don't think we're
courageous, but really where wesee a big difference in this is
between men and women.
It's really the onlystatistically significant
differentiator that we found inour research, which is women are
taught culturally that weshouldn't be courageous and if
(20:37):
we are, don't tell anybody.
Men are taught that equallydestructive, they darn well
better be courageous and if theyaren't, don't tell anybody.
And those culturalizationpieces come through and things
like applying for jobs.
Right, you know famous metastudy that if a job has 10
qualifications, a woman won'teven consider applying until she
(21:00):
has seven or eight of them.
Men will apply with two or less.
And I think part of this playsinto this role courage bit.
Coming back to the role couragetype of courage, because the
better trained we are, the moreconfidence we have in our own
abilities, and we then make thecourageous choice to apply
(21:21):
anyway, even without having allof the qualifications, with the
understanding that we can learnthem as we go.
Got it Okay, absolutely.
Third type of courage is crisiscourage, and that's exactly what
it sounds like.
I mean, just say COVID.
Right, it's the first sixmonths to a year of COVID, where
you know you literally well.
(21:41):
Then it was life or death.
Right, but you feel like it'slife or death.
You're acting on instinct,you're just reacting to external
forces, and I actually thinkthis is where we've really
become bogged down in a lot ofthe organizations that I work
with.
Is because we were in thatcrisis for so long that it kind
of rewired our brains a littlebit and it got us addicted to
(22:03):
reacting instead of taking apause, taking a breath and
making a choice about whataction we then, in turn, take.
And I think about some of theresearch that we've done on this
.
And if you scare somebody todeath, no surprise, they
actually are more productive.
As a matter of fact, researchshows that you scare somebody to
(22:23):
death, they're 34% moreproductive.
Now, if you're listening tothis, don't write that down.
Does make people more, for thatis not the leadership nugget I
want you to leave with.
But if you do scare them todeath, they are more productive.
And if you think back to thosefirst six or eight months, we
were all more productive because, man, we were hitting on a
(22:44):
thousand cylinders during that.
The sad part is, you scaresomebody to death the second
time there's six percentProductivity boost, scare
somebody to death the third timeand productivity drops off the
flip and I honestly think somany people I'm one of them and
I'm sure you are as well, andmany people listening, people
are burned out because we havebeen going at it for really
(23:08):
since March of 2020 without alack of uncertainty, without
constant fear flowing at usthrough our phones and through
our social media channels.
I mean, we have been stuck inthis hyper crisis reactivity
mode for a long time and, somepeople maybe you have a team
that's going through somethingand you'd need them to be in
(23:30):
that crisis mode to get thatbump in performance, to get them
really hyper focused, but whenyou're in it too long,
productivity just brines to ahalt and it's just exhausting.
You know if you've ever workedfor that leader who everything's
a number one priority,everything's a crisis.
Kyla Cofer (23:47):
It's exhausting right, it is exhausting.
You don't want to stick aroundfor it?
Cindy Solomon (23:52):
Well, no, because you can't, because it just
drives you into the ground,right.
But so many of us have becomeaddicted to that way of working
and do it, even if we had anactual inclination to it at the
beginning.
Boy, covid just made itpermanent.
You know, I just recently heardanother speaker speaking about
this and they're just nowstarting to look at our brains
after COVID, and the way shedescribed it is that we
(24:15):
basically have a world of peoplewho have post-traumatic stress
disorder that haven't dealt withit, haven't really processed it
and have just kept moving tokeep alive, to keep doing.
I'm not saying that you some,you know, I would argue entire
industries need to should be inthe crisis quadrant right now.
I just got an email from Amazonthat they are now in the
(24:36):
pharmaceutical business.
They now have Amazon pharmacythat they're testing.
So Walgreens, cvs, dwayne Reed,you know, whatever your
pharmacy is, they should havebeen in crisis, the crisis
quadrant, two years ago, becausenow there's no catching up.
Taxi industry ten years agoshould have been in crisis
before uber ate them alive.
So there's certain times whereyou want to choose to use it and
(24:59):
it's important, but you can'tbecome addicted to it and you
can't sit in it.
Because it does drive that lackof productivity and that
burnout.
Kyla Cofer (25:11):
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(26:17):
get started on your very ownshow.
So that crisis mode is meantfor a temporary it.
That is the courage that youneed to get through a temporary
situation.
It's not makes our long-termcontinual ongoing process.
Cindy Solomon (26:35):
Exactly.
Yeah, it's not the way to lead.
It's the way to jumpstartpeople for a super short period
of time.
Then you got to quickly stepaway from it.
It helps with alignment.
It helps with getting reallyinnovative, because sometimes it
is life or death, like it wasfor six months of COVID.
For all of us.
Fourth type real quickly, iscore courage, and this is
probably the toughest, becausecore courage is all about
(26:59):
understanding who you are, whereyou want to go, where you want
to be in six to eight years,where you want to be in six to
eight weeks.
For some of us, it's reallyabout taking the time to
understand who you are, whatyour North Star is, what your
legacy even is going to be.
(27:20):
And the thing is so hard aboutcore courage is that you have to
do that work before you need it.
So if you've ever worked for aleader who the whole world is on
fire around them and they'rejust like steady eddy, they're
super focused on the goal,they're bringing people together
, call them cool and collected,they're acting probably from a
(27:43):
place of core courage and it'sbecause they've done the work
ahead of time, before the crisisor the difficulty hit.
And so for us, you know, Ithink a lot as it relates
directly to leadership.
What do you want your legacy tobe as a leader of people?
I mean nobody, you know, I usea slide sometimes in my keynotes
(28:03):
that has a tombstone and itsays they made their metrics.
That's not what you want yourlegacy to be.
You really want your legacy tobe that, because of your
leadership, somebody had adifferent career trajectory,
somebody took a roll on thatchanged their lives, somebody
you helped somebody build acareer that lasted so far beyond
(28:25):
you that it impacted otherpeople that they then interled.
So really getting us more usedto sitting back, taking that
pause and Thinking about what'sthe legacy that I want to leave.
That's when you're able toutilize your core courage and
it's in that moment that you'reprepared for whatever might come
(28:45):
.
So those are the four typesthat we've identified.
Kyla Cofer (28:49):
That's so fascinating because I was
expecting to come in here andgive me one solid definition for
courage.
I think I even wrote it down asa question.
I wanted to ask you, like, howdo you define courage?
But courage is really brokendown into a lot of different
ways, and I'm curious if youwould classify courage as more
of an emotion or a skill orsomewhere in there.
Cindy Solomon (29:14):
Yeah, so courage is flat out a skill, okay, I
mean, and anybody can choose tobuild it if they want to.
Kyla Cofer (29:22):
That's fascinating, so, but yet we all have courage
and we all act courageously, butwe can act more courageously.
Cindy Solomon (29:31):
Absolutely.
So let me put it, give you ananalogy.
So let's say I want to run amarathon.
Okay, which, by the way, wouldnever, ever happen.
But let's say I wanted to run amarathon.
I can't just go and jumpoutside and start running and
hope for the best.
I mean I can.
It's going to be a long haul toget to that.
(29:53):
The other piece of the puzzle isif I'm not understanding that
today I ran a mile in thisamount of time, but tomorrow I
ran a mile and a quarter andmaybe my time got a little bit
better too, right?
So you have to start measuringit and becoming aware of it so
that you can do a little bitmore each time.
And the other piece of thepuzzle is running a marathon
(30:15):
isn't just about running amarathon.
It's not just about running themillion or however many miles
marathon is.
It's about understanding yourstride, your breathing, your
nutrition, your hydration, your,how your feet land, how you use
your arms right, how much sleepyou get.
So you have to break it downinto those bite-sized pieces and
(30:40):
get better at each one in orderto bring them together.
You also need to measure it andgive yourself credit.
If I run out there and I justdo.
You know, I don't even know howmuch I do, but I just run and
go well, hope that helps andthen go do it again the next day
.
I'm never really going to makethat progress in the fastest
(31:02):
possible way.
The skill of courage is exactlythe same.
I want to be a more courageousperson.
That's the goal of running themarathon.
But how I have to do it is Ihave to break it down into
bite-sized pieces and work onthose.
And each time I do better at itI'm measuring it, I'm looking
(31:22):
at it, I'm paying attention toit, each time I do better, I say
good job, well done, that wasbetter.
Now, next time, I have thatconfidence that I can do a
little bit more.
I can go another quarter mile,I can go another eighth of a
mile, or I can do the samesprint but a little bit faster.
(31:44):
But until you get conscious ofit, you can't build it because
there's no yard marker.
Does that make?
Kyla Cofer (31:53):
sense Absolutely, and I'm thinking how that can
directly apply to being thatcourageous leader, because the
leader is all about the peoplewho follow you.
So when you have practicedsomething, you understand that
the people behind you need topractice it as well, and then
you have some skills to pass onand also some compassion and
(32:14):
empathy, while they're stilllearning.
Exactly.
Cindy Solomon (32:17):
Exactly so.
Let's talk about leadership fora second.
Really specifically, one of thethings that we teach in our
courageous leadership courses ishow to create an inspiring
message in less than fiveminutes.
People completely flip out,like that we're going to make
them do this and we make thempractice it.
And then we make them stand upand do it and people are like
literally like sweating, theyfeel like they're going to pass
(32:38):
out and, without exception, 100%of people are able to do it.
I mean, we have a process thatwe take them through and they do
it step by step by step.
But after this process, about20 minutes later, they create
these messages that they can'tbelieve are coming out of them.
And when I asked them, how manyof you would have believed me
(33:03):
had I said now it's been 30minutes ago, right 30 minutes
ago that you were going to standup in front of the room and
knock this exercise out in thepark, how many of you would have
believed me?
And not a single person willraise their hand.
And I say okay, now how many ofyou believe that with another
two or three rounds of practice,you can be really good at this?
(33:24):
Raise your hands.
Almost everybody will raisetheir hands.
So then we send them out intothe wild and have them tested
out on their people.
And that takes even morecourage because now they're not
in the safe environment of theskill practice but they're
actually out with their people.
And some will report back thattheir teams are like, why are
you talking like that?
Like, did they break you whileyou were in that training?
(33:46):
Stop talking like that.
It's just weird.
Like nobody comes out of thegate and it's perfect.
People might be like, stop,you're acting weird.
Who is this?
But they are able to, becausethey have the confidence that
they went from zero to this good, that if they just keep
practicing it they'll get alittle bit better each time.
But they have to intellectuallythink about okay, what worked
(34:08):
in that?
And now next time I do it, whatwould I do differently to be
better?
And it's the courage of havingthat moment to take a pause and
self-evaluate, not just whatdidn't go well, but what worked,
that you want to keep doing.
That's what actually starts tobuild that courage muscle.
Kyla Cofer (34:25):
I don't really know what to ask you next.
I really was.
I've just been like listeningand soaking it in because
thinking about, of course, myown situations and plenty of
examples and stories that I'veheard and how this could really
change leadership If you haveevery leader who's acting
courageously in the way that wedo that and the way that, yes,
it does build that muscle.
And I was thinking too aboutwhen I have run half marathons I
(34:47):
have not made it to a full, buthalf marathons and I remember
day one being terrified and thenthe pride that you build after
you do it and after youaccomplish it, and that you do
create more pride in yourself asyou practice and you try and
you go forward anyways.
Cindy Solomon (35:04):
Well, and think about just even that example,
going back to those four typesof courage.
Right, like, think about thatfor a second, because it's blind
courage.
Probably that makes you startit, which is like I'm going to
do this.
I don't know how it's going towork, let's try it.
You're using blind courage.
But then, more than likely, yougot into some role courage
because you were like, okay, Ineed to figure out, what do I
(35:24):
need to be eating?
What time of day do I do this?
Like, how do I set my practice,my, whatever it's called?
I don't run it all.
So I'm like you're runningschedule, whatever it's called.
You crazy runners.
How do I work on my breathing,etc.
Etc.
Right, so that's the rolecourage part.
I would argue that you, I'm sureyou had a moment of crisis
courage where either you, like,got to the middle of the race
(35:48):
and you started to feel bad, oryou weren't hydrating enough or
whatever, and you are acting oninstinct.
You're trying to figure outwhat do you need to do to keep
going.
And then the core courage.
Part of that example is it'swhen you've had those
difficulties throughout thetraining for it that you've kept
going because you had in yourmind's eye that you can do this,
(36:12):
that you want to be the personwho finishes the half marathon.
So you actually use all fourtypes of courage.
Probably and all of us use allfour types of courage in any
given day.
I mean, hopefully we don't haveto use crisis very much, but if
you have children, you're usingcrisis every day.
It's being able to understandthat there's no one type of
(36:32):
courage that's better than anyother.
You can employ all four in anygiven situation.
But understanding that helpsyou, because there's something
that I want to go out and dothat's going to require blind
courage, and I'm a blind courageaddict.
I love blind courage, but inthis one particular situation I
have more fear around it becauseit's something physical and I'm
(36:52):
worried that physically, I'mnot going to fail at it.
And I literally had thediscussion with myself in my own
mind a couple of days ago.
I'm like, oh, for Pete's sake,Cindy, you are the courage girl.
You're all about blind courage.
You just need to exercise alittle blind courage right now
because it's going to be fine.
And having that conversationwith myself, I was like, oh my
(37:13):
gosh, of course that'sabsolutely right.
Kyla Cofer (37:16):
So what that tells me is that, yes, it's a skill
and you're constantly developingit and as you grow in that
skill, the process becomesshorter, from I am not going to
do that and I have to talkmyself into it.
You know the process of how towork through it because you're
seeing that end goal.
You know where you want to goand you know what that process
is and where you're trying to be.
(37:37):
And so the gap between I can'tdo it to I've accomplished it,
you can shorten that bypracticing and developing that
skill and be intentionally.
Absolutely.
Cindy Solomon (37:47):
It's the lifting the weight.
The more I'm lifting the weightand paying attention, the
stronger and stronger I get,thus making that time from
thought to result so muchshorter, absolutely.
Kyla Cofer (38:01):
It's so fun because these are things that I've
intuitively been talking aboutfor years and years and years,
but to hear you talk about it inresearch and data terms it
makes it so much more clear andhelps understand.
When you can break it down intodifferent pieces and different
definitions, it really helpsunderstand this full picture of
what courage is and why itreally matters.
(38:22):
But to be to like it's noticingright, so we all have it.
What you're doing is you'rejust you're noticing the courage
within you.
Cindy Solomon (38:31):
Yeah, Well, and I think the other thing about it
is the tricky part of this is,until you understand that every
single one of us is courageous,we can't teach others.
So I think about this a lot asa parent.
I mean, I did all this researchwhen my daughter was a lot
younger and I thank God for itbecause it made me realize that
(38:53):
until I was conscious about myown courage and talking about it
and helping define it andhelping her understand that it
was a skill, that helped her inher development.
And so we can't teach othershow to do it until we understand
that we are doing it and thatwe are also growing the skills
(39:13):
simultaneously.
Kyla Cofer (39:15):
Sydney, if you had one piece of advice or to give
to our listeners, or maybe evena summary or one thing that you
want to make sure our listenershave heard and walked away with,
what would it be?
I?
Cindy Solomon (39:25):
think the most important thing is to understand
that 100% of us are courageous.
And courage is not the absenceof fear or anxiety or stress or
uncertainty.
It's the ability to take actionin spite of that fear.
And that quote if you could seemy office here as huge poster
(39:50):
on my wall is that quote?
Because I think we hurtourselves and therefore those
around us by believing we shouldbe fearless.
But we shouldn't be fearless.
We should have the fear andmake the choice to take action
in spite of it.
Every time you have that littleanxiety, that frisian, that
(40:12):
anger, stop, take a breath andthen think about what choice
you're going to make at thatpoint, because that's the
courageous moment.
Kyla Cofer (40:24):
Well, thank you so much, Cindy.
How can we learn more from you?
Cindy Solomon (40:28):
Absolutely Well.
As I mentioned, we train aboutprobably about 50,000 leaders a
year now at the CourageousLeadership Institute.
So just go to our website,courageousleadershipinstitute.
com.
Check out my TED Talks.
On TED how to deal with meetingoverload, which again takes a
lot of courage, or how to buildyour courage and get in touch.
I'm really easy to reach Cindy@thec
(40:51):
ourageousleadershipinstitutecom.
If you're looking to buildcourageous leadership at scale
for the leaders within yourcompany.
Kyla Cofer (40:58):
Thank you so much.
This has been such a pleasureand I really really just do
value the breakdown and theexplanation and understanding
and being able to relate it tosomething in our lives, Because
I'm thinking about all the timesin my life where I was like, oh
yeah, that's just something youdid and there are not things I
ever thought that werecourageous.
But there have been times whenI've been like I have no idea
(41:20):
what I'm doing.
I have a goal and I'm going togo forward and do it anyways.
I'm going to figure it out, andsometimes it's taken longer to
get there because I've had towork through the fear in it, but
I've been actively working itout and I've never labeled
myself as courageous, like yousaid.
So that's a really reallyfascinating piece to me,
(41:42):
Absolutely.
Cindy Solomon (41:42):
But it takes some mystery out of it.
It's not just some magicalthing that people have or don't
have.
Anybody can build their courageif they choose to go after it.
Kyla Cofer (41:52):
We see that a lot.
We see people, we look at themand they're like oh, they're
just natural born gifted greatleaders no.
Cindy Solomon (42:01):
I'm so glad you mentioned that, because every
single person that I talk tosomebody will invariably say
well, aren't leaders born andnot made?
It's like no.
To be a great leader, it issimply a set of very teeny, tiny
skills that are repeatedconsistently over time.
Great leaders work really hardat it.
(42:23):
It might look effortless.
It is not.
They have done the heavylifting and kept getting better
and better and better because ofbeing conscious about wanting
to build those courageousleadership skills.
Kyla Cofer (42:38):
Cindy, thank you so much.
This has been such a greatconversation, so honored and
privileged to have you here withus.
Thank you, my pleasure.
Cindy Solomon (42:44):
Thanks so much for having me.
Kyla Cofer (42:49):
So I started this podcast because I wanted to
learn and grow in my leadershipjourney and I have been so
incredibly inspired by theguests and the conversations.
So once the interview ends, Iactually keep the conversation
going, because I have found thatsometimes the richest part of
the conversation is when we feellike the interview is over and
we can just kind of have arelaxed, more casual
(43:11):
conversation.
Also, if you've noticed, ifyou've been following this
podcast for some time, I used toask every guest two questions
what does integrity mean to themand what does balance look like
to them?
Well, I haven't stopped askingthose questions.
We're just putting those overon our Patreon page.
So go check it out at patreon.
com/leadershipschool.
And for $6.50 a month you cansupport this podcast.
(43:36):
It takes a lot to produce everysingle episode and honestly, I
could use a little bit ofsupport.
So anything that you're able tocontribute would really mean a
lot to me and would be able tohelp me to continue to bring
these high caliber guests in tohave conversations on what does
it look like to be anextraordinary leader and how do
we practically do that.
(43:56):
So those conversations arecontinuing over at patreoncomcom
slash leadership school, whereI'm asking guest some extra
questions, some bonus questions.
You'll get some bonus contentover there, so be sure to go
check it out.
Thanks so much for your supportand thanks so much for
subscribing, listening andsharing this podcast.
It really does mean a lot andI'm so honor to show up here in
(44:17):
your podcast feed.
Hey, thank you so much forlistening.
If you've liked what you heardand you want some more tools and
resources to help you on yourjourney, go check out
kylacofercom forward slash freestuff.
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