November 7, 2024 • 52 mins
Ever wondered how the relentless drive for success can shape and even challenge personal relationships and life pursuits? Join us for an engrossing conversation with Steve Mellor, an executive coach and former world-class swimmer, as he unpacks the paradox of hyper-competitiveness. With tales from his transformation from a fiercely competitive athlete to a more aligned individual, Steve illustrates how this drive can be both a superpower and a vulnerability. His insights pave the way for understanding the delicate balance of maintaining meaningful connections while striving for excellence.
Experience the power of resilience and ownership through Steve's personal anecdotes, as he shares pivotal moments that led him to shift from sports to coaching, focusing on the non-linear paths of growth and success. From working with executives to helping athletes like Brooks Curry achieve gold at the Olympics, Steve's stories emphasize the significance of belief and perseverance. Learn about the importance of defining your journey, recognizing when to persist, and when it's time to change direction to align with your aspirations.
In a reflective discussion, we explore the integral roles of introspection and curiosity in uncovering potential and fostering genuine understanding. Steve reveals the power of intuition in coaching and how curiosity can prevent assumptions and foster clarity in communication. Our conversation also touches on his rebranding journey to Growth Ready, highlighting a commitment to personal development and creating impactful experiences. Listen in to discover how aligning with your optimal self can lead to a ripple effect of positivity and fulfillment, both personally and within your community.
Connect with Steve at:
Instagram @coachstevemellor
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-mellor-cc/
https://growthready.com/
Make yourself a priority and get more done:
https://www.depthbuilder.com/do-the-damn-thing
Download a PDF copy of Becoming the Promise You are Intended to Be
https://www.depthbuilder.com/books
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I was the kid growing up where the game didn't get to
end until I won.
You know that would mean thatwe're playing long after the sun
went down.
Communication is notcommunication.
If it's one way, it has to betwo ways.
It's not about perfection, it'sabout direction.
You will always have way morereasons not to than you will to
do something, and in order topursue your optimal self, you
(00:23):
have to focus on the one reasonwhy and find a reason to push
away the four or five reasons.
And that is my promise toanyone and everyone that I
interact with through my life.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
What is going on L&M family family.
If you have any interest,curiosity, and especially if you
have a passion for humanperformance and human potential,
I got a special nugget for you.
I had the opportunity ofspending some time with our
guest previously, maybe a monthor so back, and he has granted
(01:02):
us the gift of coming on theLearnings and missteps podcast,
mr steve meller, who you mightnotice his accent, you might be
able to tell he's from louisiana, maybe, maybe not.
He's an executive coach.
He is the founder of growthready and he also has a podcast.
Like I said, I had theopportunity to play there, so
(01:22):
clearly he is very accepting ofweirdos because he let me be on
his podcast.
And not only is he a devotedhusband and father, he's also a
professional speaker and anauthor.
There's all kinds of stuff thatI'm going to try to contain
myself and dive into so that thefamily out there can get some
(01:42):
value out of it and dive into sothat the family out there can
get some value out of it.
And folks, if you're new, thisis the Learnings and Missteps
podcast, where you get to seehow real people just like you
are sharing their gifts andtalents to leave this world
better than they found it.
I'm Jesse, and now you aregoing to get to know Mr Steve,
(02:03):
mr.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Steve, how are you?
Sir Jesse?
I'm doing wonderful, brother.
Any hour I get to spend in myday with your energy is an hour
well spent, so I just appreciatethe opportunity.
I am so well-versed in lessonsand making the incorrect step
that I could not be in a betterplace to talk, I think, right
now.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Oh, good, good, so we're going to have some fun.
So I did a little bit ofstalking on the interwebs, on
the socials, and you are aworld-class competitor, right
Like, you've been at the highestlevels, and so the L&M family
wants to know what advice do youhave for hyper-competitive
(02:45):
people, managing their pursuitof excellence and staying
connected with the human beingsthat are most important to them?
Speaker 1 (02:55):
So much in one question.
You know the connection thatyou finish the question there,
this idea of remaining connectedto the people around you.
I think hyper-competitivenessit can be a superpower.
It can also be an absolutekryptonite in terms of just how
you truly handle this thing thatwe call life.
(03:16):
And when I think about mybackground, you know the sport
we'll probably get into it, butmy sport growing up was swimming
, swam at a very high level,became a top 50 world-class
athlete in my respective event,coached at an even higher level,
and for me that competitivenessis as pure today as it was back
then.
The difference between the39-year-old Steve that's talking
(03:36):
to you now versus that 18,19-year-old version of Steve
that used to be able to rock aSpeedo and look good in it, as
opposed to is that that 18, 19year old competitiveness was at
all costs.
If I look back to that time,when it came to the costs
themselves, in the grand schemeof life they were pretty
(03:58):
insignificant.
I'm talking about I had tomaybe lose a few friendships, or
I had to maybe say no to thisparty on a Friday night, or
whatever it was.
And then, as life evolves, thestakes get greater.
Right, the stakes continue togrow.
We find a spouse, maybe we havea child, we have a house.
(04:20):
So adamant about achieving that, it becomes easy to become
disconnected to the things thattruly matter, because you get
too focused on that one thingthat matters in your mind, for
whatever reason, it matters most.
When life has this way ofteaching us that, can we, just
as we pursue this excellence andas life grows around us, can we
(04:42):
find that alignment between thetwo and you'll notice I didn't
say the word balance AlignmentCan we find that alignment
between pursuing highperformance but then holding
ourselves to the same standardswhen it comes to the
relationships that we have inour lives too, those things that
truly matter?
Are we able to shift thatalignment at times towards what
(05:03):
matters most?
So for me, man, it's anevolution.
It never ends.
I'm 39.
I'm referencing the 18,19-year-old version of myself.
There'll be a day where I'm 59.
And I look back on this39-year-old version of myself
and I'm like man.
That kid learned a lot in thelast 20 years.
The same way that kid back in19,.
He's learned a lot too.
But man, it's all about thatalignment right, and I think
(05:25):
when we get that alignment,everything else seems to fall
into place.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah, yeah, good.
I love your answer for a lot ofreasons and I hope what the
listener gets out of this islike there's no silver bullet,
particularly this alignmentversus I shouldn't say versus,
but alignment or balance.
And I have a perspective onintensity which maybe we'll get
into a little bit down the road.
But, being a competitor at thelevel that you've been at and
(05:51):
I'm sure you still bring thesame intensity to the way you
serve your clients today howearly did you discover that your
appetite to compete and growand learn and improve was
different than your peers?
When did that become aware?
Speaker 1 (06:10):
obvious I mean early, early, early early.
I was man.
I was a kid growing up wherethe game didn't get to end until
I won you know it was and thatthat would mean that we're
playing long after the sun wentdown.
Man, man Like again.
I was always the young I don'tknow why it was or how it
happened but pretty much fromthe age of about eight until 16,
(06:32):
17, I was always around kidstwo, three, four years older
than me, and you know you talkabout dog, eat dog, be
competitive.
It's like, hey, if I don't showup and keep my chest out and
hold my head high, I'm going toget eaten alive around these
bigger, stronger, faster guys inall these different sports that
(06:52):
I was playing, and what thatreally showed me, though, was
that I was never deterred andthat's kind of where I'm going
to here is like even in thosemoments where I maybe lost 20
times, but I won the 21st time,for the lesson that came out of
that every time was that youdidn't get deterred.
In those defeats, you foundways to say hey, on to the next
(07:12):
one, on to the next one, andthat's where I really noticed
the difference growing up wasthat, when you're around sport.
One of the stories that rarelygets told is the majority of
people that compete in sportgive up at some point.
Every single age group you go.
Another few kids drop out,their commitments go elsewhere.
(07:33):
And I use the term give uplightly because at the end of
the day sometimes it's just amatter of hey, my attention has
moved elsewhere, my commitmentsare elsewhere, whatever it may
be.
And so at a certain point youget to that 17, 18 years old and
you're moving into a seniorlevel of sport and you have
decisions to make about yourentire life, nevermind the sport
.
Like, hey, am I, am I in onthis sport?
Am I, should I be more in onthis part of my education now
(07:55):
and all this kind of stuff.
And suddenly now it's like, hey, everybody at this point has
not been deterred, everybody atthis point has kept going.
So now that you're at this level, the senior level, the
international level, as Ieventually got to, then it
becomes about okay, in thisreally small vacuum of
(08:21):
performance, can you stillremain focused and create and
maintain that momentum in yourwork and in your results where
you still don't get deterred?
And that's to really fastforward.
Now to what I'm doing withexecutives and business owners
and emerging leaders.
That is what I get to do nowwith them.
They'll tell me at some pointthis is what I want to achieve
and as we go through theadversities and the
rollercoaster that is theirbusiness and life, my goal is to
(08:42):
ensure that we don't getdeterred.
We stay on it, man.
We keep going, because thatthing that you wanted to do
three months ago, it's still thecase today.
Maybe the adversity is gettingthe better of you today, but we
cannot allow ourselves to getdeterred on whatever that end
goal, whatever that end visionis that we have in mind.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yeah, there's so much there, right?
Sometimes it's really just amatter of keeping on, just keep
going.
For me, the reason it's hard tokeep going is because it's so
easy to stop, like, I mean,you've got a podcast right?
Did you have a milliondownloads on your first episode?
Speaker 1 (09:22):
I still don't have a million downloads after 240
episodes.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
So it would be easy to just stop.
But no, I don't know about you,but I know for me.
Anytime, you know, when I startkind of losing the wind in my
sails and I'm like, man, this isa whole lot of effort, you got
to schedule, you got to edit,you got to blah, blah, blah,
right around that time somebodywill send me a text and say, man
(09:50):
, I listened to such and suchepisode and it's exactly what I
needed.
The thing I got from it isgoing to help me.
I'm like okay, I got juice foranother year, let's go, is that
the same?
Oh, my goodness, okay, good.
So, folks, if you didn't catchit, let me say it one more time
Keep on keeping on, especiallywhen it gets hard.
(10:12):
Now there's probably some well,let's get into that here in a
bit around.
What are the signals or maybecriteria that somebody should
use to decide that this is notthe direction I need to go and
maybe it's time for a shift indirection.
But we'll come back to that.
You started super competitive.
If anybody was going to play agame with you Monopoly
(10:34):
basketball, it didn't matter.
They were going to play untilyou won, which I think is
freaking fantastic.
Then you got into swimming.
Then you're a coach,professional speaker and advisor
to amazing careers.
Did you have it planned out andhas it happened in the timeline
that you expected?
Speaker 1 (11:06):
the skill of not being deterred was through the
lessons and through the missteps.
And so to this question too.
It's like if you're trying topaint this perfect picture and
we were joking before we gotrecording how growth and
progress and improvement andsuccess is not linear and I kind
of joke with you I don't thinkthere's even a line.
I don't think there's even.
Let's just stop trying to painta line period, Like why don't
we just say, hey, this thing,it's just a process in itself.
Let's not define the law, let'snot give it a line, let's not
(11:27):
give it a path, let's justaccept that this is an
experience that we're all goingthrough and we have the
opportunity to own it.
And I think that's the biggestpart for me.
I speak about this on stage allthe time when I talk about
growth.
Growth is when you actuallylook at the dictionary
definition.
It's an incredibly vague term.
It's not.
People think when I say, hey,Jesse, man, we should focus on
(11:49):
growth, and you're like heck,yeah, man, let's do it.
We both think we understandwhat one another's saying, but
if we then get pulled aside bysomeone else and say, hey, Jesse
, define growth, Steve, definegrowth, we're going to have two
different answers.
We're going to have twodifferent answers, and I'm sure
every listener on this call isgoing to have a different answer
for how they define growth.
Now, that's okay, as long asyou give it a strong enough
(12:11):
definition where you're actuallyowning it, Because when we keep
it vague, we keep it at anarm's length, we don't actually
own it in that moment.
And so when we talk about theseideas of our lives and this
direction that we want to go on,that's all well and good.
If you don't want to own it,then good luck with actually
bringing any of that to fruition.
(12:32):
And you can't then have theaudacity to complain about where
you're at if you're not willingto take ownership for the
direction you're going in.
And that's hard for people toaccept.
Man, it's really hard forpeople to accept.
But for me, when I go back andlook at my lifespan, you could
never have convinced me I wouldhave gone into swim coaching.
I did it for 10 years.
You could never have convincedme that I was going to be an
(12:54):
entrepreneur here I am threeyears into it now.
You could never have told methat I was going to be on stage
speaking about a story of how Itook an Olympic swimmer to an
Olympic gold.
That had no right, evenconsidering that that was a
possibility.
But here I am telling thesestories today because what I've
allowed myself to do is simplyown the experience that is my
life and own what it is I wantto get out of it, Outside of
(13:17):
that man I give it up to the guyupstairs.
He has a huge influence on thatbut at the same time I'm also
being comfortable enough thatthis experience that we're all
going through it's evolving aswe go through it.
We just have to be comfortableenough and own that part of it.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Why is it ownership?
You said the word multipletimes.
I'm not disagreeing, but canyou fill in the blanks for the
listener out there?
I hear you say own.
Why is that important and whatdoes that look like?
Speaker 1 (13:45):
So I'll actually do it the other way around.
So what it looks like, and thenwhy it's important.
So what it looks like, is youreally putting your stamp on
what it is you want and why itis you want it?
And then there's this thirdpiece that we rarely do why is
it that you're the one thatshould make it happen?
So it's not just what do I wantand why do I want it, but why
(14:07):
you?
Why are you called to do this?
Why are you the one that shoulddo this?
Because when we get to theheart of that third part of this
, jesse, that's when theownership happens.
That's when we actually we seeourself owning it.
It's not just this conceptanymore, it's not this idea
anymore.
It's something and this is theother word I like to use around
ownership.
It's something we possess.
We possess it.
(14:28):
It's our vision, it's our dream, it's our legacy.
However, you want to look at it, because we see us being the
one bringing it to fruition,because we've defined why.
We've defined why we are theone that can make it happen.
As opposed to, this seems likea great idea, and this is why I
want to do it.
No, no, no.
Go one step further, go onestep further.
(14:50):
Why are you the one that'sgoing to make this happen?
And answering that question andgetting better about the way
you answer that question,brother.
That's how we develop ownershipover time.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Man, I'm going to have to rewrite that and maybe
get a tattoo of it.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
You wouldn't be the first person that is considered
a tattoo based on something thatI said.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
So I appreciate that.
Well, it's clearly like 100%evidence of why you're a
professional speaker.
And so we got a lot of peoplethat are listening, that have
big dreams, hopes that maybe areterrified.
Like man, I can't motivatepeople to get tattoos of my
words, yet Maybe I shouldn't bea public speaker.
And so did you take a class?
(15:38):
What was the journey in yourhead, the evolution for you to
come to terms with being onstage and then saying, yeah, I'm
a professional speaker.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Yeah, I love the question.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
But first I want to give the L&M family member shout
out.
I got this awesome comment onthe LinkedIn from Mr Edmund.
Edmund says Jesse, your raw andreal approach in an error where
so much is camouflaged is rareand admirable.
Keep it going.
(16:14):
I respect your authenticity,edmund.
Thank you, bro.
Cause that that really makes mefeel good.
Cause sometimes I'm worriedthat I'm offending people or I
might be losing credibility, butthe truth is, if you don't have
credibility, there's nothing tolose.
So I think I'm okay there.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
I think it's such an important question because I
think there's probably going tobe people listening here that
will try to discouragethemselves and discourage
themselves, but even try tojustify why they should not
speak.
I actually have a number of myclients that I don't coach
people on speaking, but now andagain when I'm doing my
(16:52):
executive coaching, it will comeup and like, hey, I've got this
opportunity to go speak or hey,I'm going to go on this podcast
.
I just don't know why I shouldbe doing it and a lot of that.
It's an opportunity for aperson to really explore the
value that they're bringing andthe impact that they can provide
.
I think the more we make itabout the external benefit, the
less the more we get out of ourown way.
(17:12):
For me, I learned early on in mylife I was one of these
interesting kids growing up manwhere I was both the athlete and
the actor.
So usually in school it's likethere's the sports people and
there's the drama people.
I was bouncing between the two.
I was a little hybrid, and soup until as far as I went with
my sport up until about 18, I Iwas actually quite committed to
(17:34):
my acting too, performing, andso I did that all the way
through the age of 18.
And that was one of my biggestcrossroads in life.
Was I chose sports over that?
But once I committed to going tocollege in the US at 20, I
decided to do my degree incommunication media, because I
just felt as though part of mycalling in life was to just
communicate to people.
(17:55):
I didn't know how I was goingto do it, going back to that
question earlier, like I didn'thave that perfect, hey, this is
what it's going to bring me to.
I just knew where my passionand where my talents lay and I
wanted to make sure that I wasfine tuned in those to the best
of my ability.
And lo and behold, I went 15years after getting that degree
until I started consideringgetting on stages.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
So, the passion never went away.
The talent also never went away.
And here's something I reallywant to suggest to you and just
make clear to your listeners,because I'm assuming you've got
a lot of people on that listento this who are leaders, people
that are at some point in theirday or their week.
They are the voice in the room,not a voice in the room.
They are the voice in the room.
(18:39):
If you have an issue about beingon stage, forget it, because
you're already on stage.
You're already on a stage.
You're just not above people ona stage.
You're not scheduled to be on astage.
That's the only thing that'sdifferent, because those people
are giving you their undividedattention and you're doing the
work around yourself to gaintheir respect and to demand
(19:00):
their undivided attention.
That is no different thananything that I'm doing on a
stage.
The only difference is I'mscheduled to get on the stage at
a certain time.
The speech is a little bit moreworked out, there's probably a
few more people in the audience,that's it.
That's the only difference.
The game itself is the same.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
The field is only the field, that's it.
That's the only difference.
The game itself is the same thefield, it's only the field
that's different.
Oh yeah, One of my favoritethings of speaking up on stage
is that I'm too far to seepeople rolling their eyes.
I can't see them roll theireyes when I'm in the office.
I can see them roll their eyes.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
When I speak here in Louisiana.
I mean you made that joke atthe front end, but I think
that's everyone in the audienceis probably thinking man, he's a
Louisiana British dude.
And it's just like whenever I'mspeaking in Louisiana, the
response in the back is alwayshilarious because most people
are just like what is this guysaying?
You know?
Like what is he?
I think I know what he's sayingit sounds really, he sounds
really intelligent.
(19:57):
He might not be intelligent,but he sounds intelligent just
because of his accent.
But yeah, it is funny.
But like you said that, thatclose proximity, yeah, you got
to, you got to deal with those,that body language a little bit
more in your face, man.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yeah, exactly, and that feedback loop is instant.
And just to reinforce what yousaid, you're leading meetings,
you're having these crucialconversations as a leader where
you've got responsibility withinan organization.
You already have the skillsetand you have reps and reps of
doing the speaking.
It's just like you said, just adifferent field.
(20:32):
I think that's a phenomenalframework to help people get
through it.
So thank you for that.
Now, Shock the World.
You wrote a book, Shock theWorld.
Where did that happen and whatwas the experience of production
like?
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yeah, it's about to turn two years old.
The book as we record thistoday and the story itself came
from what ended up being prettymuch my last act as a swim coach
.
So I, in 2019, I had a young,up and coming talent called
Brooks Curry come to LSU.
So I used to be the associatehead coach for swimming at LSU
(21:09):
and he was very unrecruited buthighly talented, highly
motivated, but for whateverreason, people just didn't take
an interest in him.
I took an interest in himbecause I saw what he was
capable of.
And in 2019, he came into myoffice and he said listen, coach
, I'm feeling pretty good aboutmy development.
I know this might sound crazy,but I feel as though, if we do
things right, I could be in witha shot to qualify for the US
(21:34):
Olympic team.
Now, if he'd walked into justabout any other office in the
world of college swimming andswimming period, not a lot of
coaches would have taken himseriously.
I heard him and I'm like listen, if that's where you want to go
, I want to go there with you.
Just know this If we pull itoff, brother, we're going to
shock the world.
We're going to shock the world.
(21:54):
And it became Jesse.
It became our mantra for thewhole journey we went on.
At first it was only going tobe like a 10-month window that
we had to do this, and then thepandemic came in 2020.
The Olympics get pushed back ayear.
It wasn't ideal from a trainingstandpoint, but it did give us
an extra year to then pull itoff.
And, lo and behold, he was100-meter freestyle.
(22:15):
We qualified for the Us olympictrials.
They take four guys for the 100freestyle because it's an
olympic, it's a relay event, andbrooks only went in place
fourth at the olympic trials andmade it to the olympic games.
And and then he got himself anolympic gold medal on the back
end too.
So it's just, it was a wildstory.
It was too incredible andpowerful.
I mean in my hairs.
I literally can't tell thatstory without the hairs on my
(22:37):
arms going up and it was tooimpressive a story for it not to
be shared with the world, andso we shocked the world of
swimming, and what the bookreally talks to is that the
world is not as we know it interms of the universe.
The world is you, your world,you.
We all live in our own worldand there is a way that you can
shock that world in how you goabout doing what it is you do.
(22:59):
The question is, what does thatworld look like that you want
to shock?
And now how do you want to gothrough the process of actually
shocking that world?
And that's what the book does,man, we pull from all these
different podcast episodes thatI've recorded, all these
different guests, all this sortof stuff comes in, but it is
something I'm so proud of.
It blows my mind still thatpeople like not only read my
book but then come back and tellme it's good.
You know, it's just like.
(23:21):
Oh, I got some like sixth gradeenglish teachers that have been
massively proven wrong, so I'mexcited about that.
But that's another.
That's the competitor in meright now.
Man, like he's coming, yeah,like I showed you, I showed you
sixth grade english teacher.
I got that one, so I love it.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
I totally.
I don't know if she's listening, but I have a friend, dear
friend.
I've known her since sixthgrade.
We were, we'll say, boyfriendand girlfriend going around
that's what we used to call itback then and she broke up with
me because I and she told meshe's like Jesse, I'm breaking
up with you because you're badfor my image.
We're sixth graders, right Likethat.
(23:59):
That hurt that.
She's an English teacher nowand I do a lot of speaking
within the like in the educationspace for a little bit, publish
the book, and so I'm like hey,girl, like how you like me.
Now it's the competitive.
We got to get some friends onthe board and celebrate them
(24:19):
every time we get them.
Okay, now you said somethinglike this gentleman that you
that was like under recruitedgot a gold medal.
You saw capability in him thatmost people missed now.
Well, so this question isrelated to that and I'm curious
(24:42):
have you ever seen, like, how doyou?
There's the question how do youmanage seeing potential within
somebody and maybe guiding them,introducing them to it at the
rate that they can achieveversus the rate you want them to
get?
Speaker 1 (25:00):
it.
Yeah, it's an importantquestion, man.
Again, what I love about yourquestion so far is it speaks to
your experience of as a leader,working and having these
conversations with people, andit's kind of twofold in my
response.
One is how have you gonethrough that process yourself?
So how have you actuallyacknowledged your own potential
(25:20):
and worked through it?
Because you know as well as Ido that there's all these folks
over the years that we've beenon this planet, where you have a
leader who's so adamant aboutgetting the best out of
everybody else and you want togo well, hey, hey, hey, hey,
what about you?
Because I don't see you.
You seem so adamant about me,but I want to see you adamant
about you, and so for me thepotential piece is huge on that.
(25:42):
So I look back on my life.
I had hundreds of athletes whoI saw potential in that they
couldn't see in themselves, andso for me it was always about
hey, how am I?
How am I being that example tothem?
How am I showing them listen,steve is trying to get
everything out of himself, and Ican do that in ways where I'm
not literally telling them thatI'm doing it.
They can just see it beingdisplayed.
(26:02):
So that's the first part of it,but then the second part of it,
too, is are you willing topress pause for long enough to
learn what someone's potentialmight look like?
Because if you're operatingfrom your perspective, what's
probably happening is you'reputting your thoughts into what
this person's potential is andyou might be way off just
(26:25):
because you've just not beenwilling to press pause for long
enough to dial in and say, well,actually, now that we talk
about it, now that I see, nowthat I learn, turns out there's
this potential in you that Ihadn't even considered because I
hadn't been willing to presspause for long enough to
identify it.
And that is again when I think,coming from sport, man like you
(26:48):
get used to it, especially onceyou become a coach of.
Every parent thinks they've gotthe next Michael Phelps right.
Every parent thinks their kid'sthe next Michael Phelps and at
a certain point you're like'sthe next Michael Phelps, and at
a certain point you're like I'msorry, kid's not, and that's
hard for you to hear right now.
But here's what they can be.
They can still be really,really good, but if you treat
them like Michael Phelps,they're going to quit.
(27:09):
They're not even going to try.
If you treat them in terms ofwhere their potential truly lies
, they're going to go on andhave a wonderfully successful,
fulfilling career in this, butyou've got to want to see it for
them and stop wanting to see itfor you.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
It's like you're reading my mind.
You can see all the garbageI've put people through.
I had one apprentice he wasamazing.
The dude was solid, like justnaturally gifted apprentice.
I was a plumber.
He was my apprentice and Idecided that I was going to
coach him through there's like anational craft championship
where it's an installation thingand it's national competition.
(27:50):
He hadn't even started hisapprenticeship program but I
decided that David was going tobe competing in that thing and I
was going to help him get thereand he was going to be a
foreman within three and a halfyears.
Like, I mapped this whole thingout for him and after maybe a
year of working with me, he quitand we worked together every
(28:12):
day.
We had lunch together and he Ihad there was no indication that
he was going to quit and hequit and he went to work for the
school district and I'm like,why would you do that?
And finally, after he left, hefeed me.
A couple of days later I becameable to get ahold of him.
He's like Jess, you just puttoo much pressure on me, like,
and you never asked me what Iwanted to do, and I was like, oh
(28:36):
and?
So there's this thing whereI've done it I know some of the
L&M family members have done itwhere we see a glimmer or
something that resemblespotential in an individual, but
we don't take account that maybewe're projecting something A, b
.
Yes, we are seeing something,but what we're seeing is the
(29:00):
resources that the individualhas and what we would do if we
had them.
And then we try to force themand push them into these nooks
and crannies that they're notdesigned for, or rather, that
the nooks and crannies aren'tdesigned to help them thrive and
wear them out, whereas what weshould be doing is help them
become resourceful so that theylearn how to access those things
(29:23):
.
And, like you said, the pauseright, what else is there?
Because there's not just onething.
So, again, like that's a master, master skill.
Did you write that skill?
Like, how did you come to termswith picking that apart and
saying, okay, I need to pause,which sounds simple, but I don't
think it's simple no, and andwhat one thing you'll learn.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
One thing I I kind of describe myself as a social
scientist like because it's.
I'm probably doing a little ofa disservice to the true meaning
of a social scientist when Isay that sometimes, but what I
mean by that is that I learnedthrough doing.
I am a graduate of the Schoolof Trial and Error, and for me
and I go back every year torenew it too so I look back to
(30:06):
when I was 24 and I startedvolunteering in the summer to
coach some swimming with thecollege team that I just
finished swimming with and I wasa backstroke swimmer and I
would look at the backstrokersand I would just be like I don't
get it, why are you not gettingwhat I'm trying to get you to
understand?
Well, I was looking at itthrough my many, many years of
swimming backstroke.
I wasn't looking at it throughany of their years of swimming
(30:28):
backstroke, and so for me, I wasable to see that quickly, and
one thing I've always been verygood at again is just that
ability to say like hold upintuitively, something's off
what you're saying and whatthey're hearing, or what you're
hearing and what they're saying,my intuition's kicking in
saying there's something up here, and for me to learn that
ability to pause at 24, 25 whenI'm working with these athletes
(30:48):
and saying, hey, help meunderstand.
Going right back to that firstanswer that I gave you here
today what is it you want?
Why is it you want?
Why is it you want it and whyare you the one that can
actually go and do it?
To have that kind ofconversation with someone and
then coach them?
It's just like, oh wow, nolonger am I holding you
accountable to something that Iwant for you.
Now I'm helping you beaccountable to what you want,
(31:13):
and it's just like let's go,baby, let's go.
This is when great things happen, because now the accountability
is shared, if not owned, by theindividual.
And then you talk aboutpotential.
You're basing potential on whatis right in front of you and
what that person wants, and thatis.
That's huge.
That's really how I've learnedthings over the years.
And again to the whole premiseof this show man, I am
(31:35):
comfortable getting that lessonby taking that misstep,
acknowledging the misstep andthen coming right back into my
own shoes and saying, okay, whatdid we learn from this and how
do we move forward and make itbetter in the future?
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Yeah, oh.
So a couple of things.
I love what you said in thatyou're not holding them
accountable, You're helpingholding them accountable.
You're helping them beaccountable.
A lot of people know I have ahangup about the word
accountability and the way weuse it or the way we think about
it, because it's almost alwayscoming from a punitive
(32:09):
perspective, in that we don'thold people accountable.
You can't.
You can't hold me accountableto any commitment I haven't made
, which speaks to what you justsaid.
If I've made a commitment, youcan help me be accountable to my
commitments.
If you want accountability, beaccountable.
It doesn't work any other way,or at least not in Jesse land.
(32:32):
So thank you for that Super,super good.
Now the other thing that comesthrough is I feel like you have
a very developed muscle forintrospection and evaluating
your motives and the impactthey're having on the experience
you're having in the moment.
(32:52):
Is that something that youbuilt?
Did you?
How did you build that?
Or is it something that justkind of man, I got lucky and I
used the hell out of it?
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Well, I have no doubt that God blessed me with it.
There's no doubt about that.
It freaks people out.
Sometimes, I'll be honest withyou, I can be having a very
surface level conversation withsomeone and we're about five
minutes in and we've only knowneach other for five minutes, and
they'll say something and myintuition will kick in right
away and I'll say something tothem and they're just like how
could you possibly sort of readthat?
Like how did you and I like toplay with people at times when
(33:21):
it comes to that, have a littlebit of fun, but as a coach, it's
a superpower, no doubt itallows me to really be in a room
with someone, pick up on bodylanguage, pick up on energy.
All this kind of stuff is askill that you must practice and
it's that willingness tosometimes maybe think that
you're being intuitive and speakto something and be comfortable
(33:42):
knowing that when you speak toit, someone's going to turn
around and say, no, that's notwhat I'm feeling at all, and
it's like okay, that's great, myintuition was wrong.
Now I know better, movingforwards, and what I now know is
that, based on our relationship, I can now be intuitive more
effectively with you.
You know again, I'm a marriedman you use too much intuition
with your wife.
(34:02):
You end up in the doghouse.
Real often it's just like hey,check in and ask the question,
don't like.
And again, there's a very fineline between intuition and
assumption.
I believe the fine line is theability to speak on it versus
act on it.
So the intuition piece youspeak on, the assumption piece
you just go and act on and thatusually ends up in trouble.
(34:24):
Again.
Going back to my education incommunication, I do believe that
degree served me, even in thesports world, because it allowed
me just to really honor thattwo people have to be involved
in communication.
Communication is notcommunication.
If it's one way, it has to betwo ways, you know.
And so again, like getting anathlete to actually say yes,
coach, and this I understand,coach, and all this kind of
(34:46):
thing, as opposed to scream andthen walk away.
So for me that is huge.
But I think that fine line,when we start to notice that
we're acting withoutcommunicating, that's when we
move away from that intuitionand we now moved into assumption
and typically, well, we knowwhat a suit is right.
It makes you an ass out of youand me.
So there you go right there.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Yes, yes, Okay.
So I perused your website and Inoticed like there was like a
four-step thing.
It was a framework, a process,I'm not sure, but it was
curiosity.
The first thing that stood outto me was curiosity.
What's the relationship betweenthis intuition and speaking on
it and curiosity in terms of howyou serve your clients?
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Yeah, again, curiosity.
It's such an underutilizedskill because I believe that
there's a point in our liveswhen we're kids and we're going
through school and everything isplay, play, play, play, play
right.
And I've got a four-year-oldboy.
He, all he does is play and hiscuriosity is off the charts.
And as we go through education,curiosity not to make this a
(35:52):
completely differentconversation, but the fact is,
curiosity is kind of slowly madesmaller and smaller, squeeze
out of us because we're toldit's this test, this is right,
this is wrong, all this kind ofstuff, and our mind goes in that
direction, understandably so.
And so the question becomes howare you working that curiosity
muscle?
It's a muscle, it's like anyother of these traits that we've
(36:14):
talked about today is what doesit mean to be curious but
actually intentionally becurious, to wonder, to ask
questions that typically youwould maybe keep quiet and not
keep to yourself because you'retoo scared about asking the
question, whatever it may be.
And so curiosity, I believe inthe coaching world.
What that does for me is itmakes it about the person, it
(36:35):
doesn't make it about me.
If I'm truly curious.
Again, I'm not assuming I'masking questions, I want to
better understand, I want toknow, and I'm not doing it for
my own purpose, because I don'tthink that's curiosity.
Curiosity is to trulyunderstand, based on another
person, whoever it may be, oranother situation, whatever that
may be.
So I think, for me, the reasonI put it right there, square and
(36:58):
center on my website website'sabout to get a huge upgrade
through my rebrand and all thiskind of thing but curiosity is
one of these three Cs that Iutilize in my coaching.
And it's the first C, becausewithout curiosity, the other two
Cs, which are challenging andcommitments, those two don't
make sense if we don't startwith curiosity.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Which again frees us from the pitfalls of assumptions
.
To be curious means I'm notgoing to act on my assumptions,
and it's one thing that I liketo spend a lot of time is like
whenever I'm in the right space,because I don't do it all the
time, but it's OK, I'm making adecision.
I want to respond in a certainway based on this set of
(37:39):
assumptions.
I know I have assumptions.
Why do I think that?
Where is that assumption comingfrom?
Because it may not be right.
Most often, like you saidearlier, it's not, and so that
requires a huge, huge degree ofcuriosity.
Now, with your clients, thecuriosity might feel like this
(38:04):
squishy kind of Disneyland typeof notion.
And you're serving highperformers, people that have
significant responsibility,significant authority and
influence, so curiosity feelskind of squishy.
And then you also mentionedearlier a delineation between
(38:24):
balance and alignment.
Yeah, alignment.
And so how do people respond tothat when you're interacting
with your clients and you'resaying, well, no, no, no, not
balance, alignment and curiosity, what does that feel like for
you?
Speaker 1 (38:38):
I love that notice because, again, curiosity it's
not much of a skill if we don'tknow why or what we're being
curious toward.
There's still so much to bebetter framed and articulated
and created within the coachingworld.
The coaching world remains thiskind of big bag of gray right
now.
People just sort of maybe theyget an attaboy about how they
(38:59):
recently dealt with anothercolleague and they're like, hey,
you could be a coach.
And suddenly now this person'son LinkedIn saying that they're
a coach.
And sadly, that is the spacethat the coaching world is right
now, that there's not much of aprocess to actually define what
a coach is and what a coachisn't.
For me, the curiosity piece andthe alignment piece, you
couldn't have connected betterone-two punch of what I do as a
(39:20):
coach, because the first thingwe do whenever I work with
anyone is we go through what'scalled a strategic alignment and
it's like, hey, this is wherewe are.
Let's get super clear on wherewe want to get to Now.
We're not going to get again.
Like I said before, there's nostraight line.
We're not going to get focusedabout perfection, it's about
direction.
It's not about perfection, it'sabout direction.
So that's the destination, thisis the current state, and all I
(39:42):
want to know is what is thecommitment towards getting over
here at some point to thedestination?
Once we're clear on that, nowthe curiosity is towards how do
we get there?
Not just about, hey, how do Iwork on this or how do I work on
that, or something came in myemail today and I'm really
curious about what that mightmean for my life and I'm like,
well, what does that have to dowith anything that we're working
on right now?
(40:02):
It's like I'm not here just tosort of hypothesize and wonder
and generalize when you broughtme in to go from here and
achieve this specific direction.
Ideally, if we are so aligned inthat agreement on the front end
, then all the curiosity isbeing held accountable to that
(40:23):
destination.
And so, again, it's why, for me, part of my curiosity and
challenge and commitment is thatevery commitment we make, once
we go through curiosity and Ichallenge you around the
curiosity once we make acommitment, one of my sort of
absolute non-negotiables is thatthat commitment must bring us
back around to curiosity.
(40:43):
So, whatever you achieve,whatever you achieve in that
commitment by going away anddoing it in the time between
when I saw you last and when Isee you next, if we've not come
back with greater curiosity bypursuing that commitment, it's
the wrong commitment.
If it takes us just to, hey,check it off the list, okay, now
(41:04):
what, coach?
That's not serving the process.
Great thing is that, hey,sometimes you're going to make a
commitment and you're not goingto follow through with it, and
that's okay, because we can comeback and then be super curious
about well, hey, you soundedsuper excited about this
commitment last time we spokeand then you've done nothing
about it.
Let's talk about that.
Yeah, are we aligned?
Are we off or whatever it mightbe?
And so again, the curiosity inthe alignment piece.
(41:26):
Man, you couldn't have hit itbetter, like in terms of those
two truly working using thatword in alignment, but they're
collaborating with one anotherthroughout the process, because
where we're aligned in terms ofthe strategy and the vision,
we're going to constantly becurious towards that vision man,
it's a beautiful reinforcingloop and if it's not having that
(41:47):
cycle, that reciprocal effect,then that's a signal.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Well, maybe we need to go a different direction,
maybe we pick the wrongdirection.
Oh my goodness, thank you forthat, because that excites me.
There's questions that I runthrough my head, especially when
I'm stuck.
I'm wondering, so I'd like acheck from you.
Does this kind of land in thecuriosity bucket?
One of the questions I askmyself is what is also true,
(42:16):
what could I do to address theissue and what's the worst thing
that can happen?
Speaker 1 (42:26):
I'm writing these down, man, we're doing a little
impromptu coaching session now.
So what I would say about thatis that there is no doubt that
that is moving towards curiosity, and there's almost an
opportunity to see it to add onemore thing to that of just like
always running it through thefilter of the other, and again,
I'm sure you're doing that to anextent but to say, like what is
(42:48):
also true, what could I dodifferently or better?
And then what's the worst thingthat could happen?
And I think, with thatcuriosity, when we make it only
about ourselves and typicallypeople like yourself and those
working in high performance,there is some sort of collateral
damage to every decision that'smade, right, yes, so again,
that is such an important partof this piece is that?
(43:08):
And it's what I love about thework that I do, as opposed to
just working with one member ofan executive team, I work with
the entire executive team, andso when one member of the
executive team is speaking tosomething in a group environment
, we then get to get into thereally powerful good stuff,
because we're now talking aboutit.
Okay, I hear what you're saying.
Hey, other four, what are youhearing when you hear that?
(43:30):
And it's just like well, Idon't think you're hearing it
from the perspective of ourdepartment or from this section
of the company.
Okay, let's talk to that.
Let's get curious about thatpiece of this.
How can we see it from everysingle angle?
And so like that for me is, ifwe can do that and I know you're
working with people wherethere's always going to be that
knock-on effect to the work thatyou're doing, and I have no
doubt that you're alreadyconsidering that but to be
(43:51):
really intentional about thatpiece of just hey, what is that
knock-on effect of anything thatwe're talking about, that
commitment that you're going togo away and do?
Awesome, really excited aboutit.
Let's just check in before wego.
Is there a potential knock-oneffect that we're not
considering?
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Yeah, yeah, thank you for that, because full
transparency I don't do that asoften as I should and I end up
like, oh, I created problems,this is my fault, I did it again
.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
And I want to be and just to be clear.
I love that vulnerability onyour part to even share that
with your listeners, and Ialways try to make this clear in
any of these kind of interviews.
This is not me speaking from aposition of perfection.
I cannot be any more clearabout that.
Just because I'm speaking tothis and the service and the
impact and the value that Ibring as a coach, as a speaker,
however you want to look at itdoesn't mean that I'm crushing
(44:41):
it.
When it comes to all of this,all of this, all of this I said
it before it's a muscle andthere's so many elements of what
we've talked about here todaythat involves the training, the
testing and the trust of themuscle.
How do you train the muscle?
How do you test the muscle andthen build trust in the muscle
so that the majority of the timeit's going to serve you well
(45:01):
and that's what I've been ableto do the majority of the time
it serves me very well.
Do I still make missteps 100%?
And am I going to keep makingthem Absolutely?
And I think that's.
I just want to give thatencouragement to everybody.
It's like all of this stuffthat I'm saying.
This is not plug and play andyou've got it figured out.
No, no, no, no, no.
This is a consistent trainingprocess so that over time you
(45:24):
can keep developing that trustaround all of this kind of stuff
.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Yeah, man, got to get the reps in.
Keep at it, keep on keeping onand learn from the missteps,
learn from the bumps and thescrapes.
So, before we get into theclosing question, steve, where
can people find me?
I'm sure people are fired upright now, like Jesse.
Would you just ask them how wecan get a hold of them, because
I'm tired of listening to you.
(45:47):
So where should people go tofind you, interact with you, and
so forth?
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Yeah, I don't know when this is going out, but I
will say this I'm about to do ahuge rebrand Everything that you
heard in the introduction.
Growth Ready is coming.
Growth Ready is not what mycompany was about a month or two
ago.
I've changed the name.
It was Career Competitor as mycompany's grown and my clients
have grown.
Growth Ready speaks a lot moreto what the work I'm doing now,
(46:15):
and so the podcast was the firstthing that changed.
So the Growth Ready podcast is agreat place to start.
You're going to find incredibleguests like Jesse on there
where you can go check out andlisten.
Got to give you the shout out,but then, from that point on,
LinkedIn is my favorite.
Got to give you the shout out,but then from that point on,
link Mala on next.
I love hearing from people howanything that I said maybe be of
impact.
If you've got any curiosityabout you know just what I can
do, how I do it, all that kindof stuff.
Steve at growthreadycom Supersimple, Reach out to me there,
(46:39):
Otherwise all my handles atcoach Steve Mala you can find me
on pretty much anywhere elsethat way too.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
So Awesome, oh, thank you for that.
And, folks, I'm going to haveall the links.
We'll have them down in the inthe thing so that you can click
and connect with Steve.
And so now here's the closingquestion.
You ready, bring it.
You've had an amazing life,steve and and I.
What I really really appreciateis you've taken those
experiences, those lessons, andyou're pouring them into other
(47:08):
people, I mean even me.
When you and I had the firstconversation on the podcast on
your podcast I felt like a champbecause of the honor and care
and attention that you gave me,and so, having had those effects
and the impact andcontributions you've made to so
many lives thus far, I imagineyour answer is going to be
(47:31):
amazing.
And so here's the question whatis the promise?
You are intended to be?
Speaker 1 (47:38):
What is the promise that I'm intended to be.
You know I'm going to answerthat.
I'm going to answer that withreally what has brought me to
this point.
Okay, so firstly, just thankyou for everything that you just
said, because, believe it ornot, that experience that I
provide, I see it as anexperience when people come on
(47:58):
my podcast and just to throw itright back at you.
This has been nothing but anincredible experience for me too
.
But I have this term that Icoined when I finished some
coaching and I started mybusiness and I started to get
creative around words andterminology and things like that
.
I had this thing called theoptimal self, and for me and I
mentioned it in the book tooit's like too often in life, we
(48:21):
are given the five reasons notto and it takes our attention
away from the one reason that weshould, and that is why I wake
up every day, literally.
I got kids.
Now I got a wife, and I know inthe four walls of my house, I
(48:42):
can help them see the one reasonto do something, as opposed to
focus too much on the four orfive reasons not to.
So that's how I get to do itclose to home.
And then I'm a spiritual guytoo.
I get to do that through mychurch too.
I get to help people, encouragepeople through that too, and
then any client that I work withit's the same.
So any listener that's listeningto this right now, it's all I
want to tell you is that youwill always have way more
reasons not to than you will todo something, and in order to
(49:06):
pursue your optimal self, youhave to focus on the one reason
why and find a reason to pushaway the four or five reasons
not to.
And that is my promise toanyone and everyone that I
interact with through my life isthat if you give me one reason
to buy into you and believe inyou and to support you, you are
going to get all of Steve andnothing else.
But if you just want to focuson the four or five reasons not
(49:30):
to, chances are I'm going to tryto bring your attention to the
one reason.
But that is my promise, brother.
I love the question because forme, my promise to anyone and
everyone is that if you want tobe in my world, because I want
to be in yours, let's focus andtalk about what it means to
pursue your optimal self,because that is a life worth
living right there.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
Amen, and that's going to help people share their
gifts and talents with the restof the world.
So again that reciprocal,exponential, beautiful
amazingness, Steve.
Thank you, man, Did you have agood time?
Speaker 1 (50:03):
Brother, I had an incredible time.
I had an incredible time mainlybecause you, my friend, are
incredible.
Your energy is phenomenal, yourintentions are real and the
people in your world I have nodoubt see that and appreciate
that all the time.
So I just appreciate your timeas much as the opportunity to be
here.
I was the kid growing up where the game didn't get to
end until I won.
You know that would mean thatwe're playing long after the sun
went down.
Communication is notcommunication.
If it's one way, it has to betwo ways.
It's not about perfection, it'sabout direction.
You will always have way morereasons not to than you will to
do something, and in order topursue your optimal self, you
(00:23):
have to focus on the one reasonwhy and find a reason to push
away the four or five reasons.
And that is my promise toanyone and everyone that I
interact with through my life.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
What is going on L&M family family.
If you have any interest,curiosity, and especially if you
have a passion for humanperformance and human potential,
I got a special nugget for you.
I had the opportunity ofspending some time with our
guest previously, maybe a monthor so back, and he has granted
(01:02):
us the gift of coming on theLearnings and missteps podcast,
mr steve meller, who you mightnotice his accent, you might be
able to tell he's from louisiana, maybe, maybe not.
He's an executive coach.
He is the founder of growthready and he also has a podcast.
Like I said, I had theopportunity to play there, so
(01:22):
clearly he is very accepting ofweirdos because he let me be on
his podcast.
And not only is he a devotedhusband and father, he's also a
professional speaker and anauthor.
There's all kinds of stuff thatI'm going to try to contain
myself and dive into so that thefamily out there can get some
(01:42):
value out of it and dive into sothat the family out there can
get some value out of it.
And folks, if you're new, thisis the Learnings and Missteps
podcast, where you get to seehow real people just like you
are sharing their gifts andtalents to leave this world
better than they found it.
I'm Jesse, and now you aregoing to get to know Mr Steve,
(02:03):
mr.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Steve, how are you?
Sir Jesse?
I'm doing wonderful, brother.
Any hour I get to spend in myday with your energy is an hour
well spent, so I just appreciatethe opportunity.
I am so well-versed in lessonsand making the incorrect step
that I could not be in a betterplace to talk, I think, right
now.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Oh, good, good, so we're going to have some fun.
So I did a little bit ofstalking on the interwebs, on
the socials, and you are aworld-class competitor, right
Like, you've been at the highestlevels, and so the L&M family
wants to know what advice do youhave for hyper-competitive
(02:45):
people, managing their pursuitof excellence and staying
connected with the human beingsthat are most important to them?
Speaker 1 (02:55):
So much in one question.
You know the connection thatyou finish the question there,
this idea of remaining connectedto the people around you.
I think hyper-competitivenessit can be a superpower.
It can also be an absolutekryptonite in terms of just how
you truly handle this thing thatwe call life.
(03:16):
And when I think about mybackground, you know the sport
we'll probably get into it, butmy sport growing up was swimming
, swam at a very high level,became a top 50 world-class
athlete in my respective event,coached at an even higher level,
and for me that competitivenessis as pure today as it was back
then.
The difference between the39-year-old Steve that's talking
(03:36):
to you now versus that 18,19-year-old version of Steve
that used to be able to rock aSpeedo and look good in it, as
opposed to is that that 18, 19year old competitiveness was at
all costs.
If I look back to that time,when it came to the costs
themselves, in the grand schemeof life they were pretty
(03:58):
insignificant.
I'm talking about I had tomaybe lose a few friendships, or
I had to maybe say no to thisparty on a Friday night, or
whatever it was.
And then, as life evolves, thestakes get greater.
Right, the stakes continue togrow.
We find a spouse, maybe we havea child, we have a house.
(04:20):
So adamant about achieving that, it becomes easy to become
disconnected to the things thattruly matter, because you get
too focused on that one thingthat matters in your mind, for
whatever reason, it matters most.
When life has this way ofteaching us that, can we, just
as we pursue this excellence andas life grows around us, can we
(04:42):
find that alignment between thetwo and you'll notice I didn't
say the word balance AlignmentCan we find that alignment
between pursuing highperformance but then holding
ourselves to the same standardswhen it comes to the
relationships that we have inour lives too, those things that
truly matter?
Are we able to shift thatalignment at times towards what
(05:03):
matters most?
So for me, man, it's anevolution.
It never ends.
I'm 39.
I'm referencing the 18,19-year-old version of myself.
There'll be a day where I'm 59.
And I look back on this39-year-old version of myself
and I'm like man.
That kid learned a lot in thelast 20 years.
The same way that kid back in19,.
He's learned a lot too.
But man, it's all about thatalignment right, and I think
(05:25):
when we get that alignment,everything else seems to fall
into place.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah, yeah, good.
I love your answer for a lot ofreasons and I hope what the
listener gets out of this islike there's no silver bullet,
particularly this alignmentversus I shouldn't say versus,
but alignment or balance.
And I have a perspective onintensity which maybe we'll get
into a little bit down the road.
But, being a competitor at thelevel that you've been at and
(05:51):
I'm sure you still bring thesame intensity to the way you
serve your clients today howearly did you discover that your
appetite to compete and growand learn and improve was
different than your peers?
When did that become aware?
Speaker 1 (06:10):
obvious I mean early, early, early early.
I was man.
I was a kid growing up wherethe game didn't get to end until
I won you know it was and thatthat would mean that we're
playing long after the sun wentdown.
Man, man Like again.
I was always the young I don'tknow why it was or how it
happened but pretty much fromthe age of about eight until 16,
(06:32):
17, I was always around kidstwo, three, four years older
than me, and you know you talkabout dog, eat dog, be
competitive.
It's like, hey, if I don't showup and keep my chest out and
hold my head high, I'm going toget eaten alive around these
bigger, stronger, faster guys inall these different sports that
(06:52):
I was playing, and what thatreally showed me, though, was
that I was never deterred andthat's kind of where I'm going
to here is like even in thosemoments where I maybe lost 20
times, but I won the 21st time,for the lesson that came out of
that every time was that youdidn't get deterred.
In those defeats, you foundways to say hey, on to the next
(07:12):
one, on to the next one, andthat's where I really noticed
the difference growing up wasthat, when you're around sport.
One of the stories that rarelygets told is the majority of
people that compete in sportgive up at some point.
Every single age group you go.
Another few kids drop out,their commitments go elsewhere.
(07:33):
And I use the term give uplightly because at the end of
the day sometimes it's just amatter of hey, my attention has
moved elsewhere, my commitmentsare elsewhere, whatever it may
be.
And so at a certain point youget to that 17, 18 years old and
you're moving into a seniorlevel of sport and you have
decisions to make about yourentire life, nevermind the sport
.
Like, hey, am I, am I in onthis sport?
Am I, should I be more in onthis part of my education now
(07:55):
and all this kind of stuff.
And suddenly now it's like, hey, everybody at this point has
not been deterred, everybody atthis point has kept going.
So now that you're at this level, the senior level, the
international level, as Ieventually got to, then it
becomes about okay, in thisreally small vacuum of
(08:21):
performance, can you stillremain focused and create and
maintain that momentum in yourwork and in your results where
you still don't get deterred?
And that's to really fastforward.
Now to what I'm doing withexecutives and business owners
and emerging leaders.
That is what I get to do nowwith them.
They'll tell me at some pointthis is what I want to achieve
and as we go through theadversities and the
rollercoaster that is theirbusiness and life, my goal is to
(08:42):
ensure that we don't getdeterred.
We stay on it, man.
We keep going, because thatthing that you wanted to do
three months ago, it's still thecase today.
Maybe the adversity is gettingthe better of you today, but we
cannot allow ourselves to getdeterred on whatever that end
goal, whatever that end visionis that we have in mind.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yeah, there's so much there, right?
Sometimes it's really just amatter of keeping on, just keep
going.
For me, the reason it's hard tokeep going is because it's so
easy to stop, like, I mean,you've got a podcast right?
Did you have a milliondownloads on your first episode?
Speaker 1 (09:22):
I still don't have a million downloads after 240
episodes.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
So it would be easy to just stop.
But no, I don't know about you,but I know for me.
Anytime, you know, when I startkind of losing the wind in my
sails and I'm like, man, this isa whole lot of effort, you got
to schedule, you got to edit,you got to blah, blah, blah,
right around that time somebodywill send me a text and say, man
(09:50):
, I listened to such and suchepisode and it's exactly what I
needed.
The thing I got from it isgoing to help me.
I'm like okay, I got juice foranother year, let's go, is that
the same?
Oh, my goodness, okay, good.
So, folks, if you didn't catchit, let me say it one more time
Keep on keeping on, especiallywhen it gets hard.
(10:12):
Now there's probably some well,let's get into that here in a
bit around.
What are the signals or maybecriteria that somebody should
use to decide that this is notthe direction I need to go and
maybe it's time for a shift indirection.
But we'll come back to that.
You started super competitive.
If anybody was going to play agame with you Monopoly
(10:34):
basketball, it didn't matter.
They were going to play untilyou won, which I think is
freaking fantastic.
Then you got into swimming.
Then you're a coach,professional speaker and advisor
to amazing careers.
Did you have it planned out andhas it happened in the timeline
that you expected?
Speaker 1 (11:06):
the skill of not being deterred was through the
lessons and through the missteps.
And so to this question too.
It's like if you're trying topaint this perfect picture and
we were joking before we gotrecording how growth and
progress and improvement andsuccess is not linear and I kind
of joke with you I don't thinkthere's even a line.
I don't think there's even.
Let's just stop trying to painta line period, Like why don't
we just say, hey, this thing,it's just a process in itself.
Let's not define the law, let'snot give it a line, let's not
(11:27):
give it a path, let's justaccept that this is an
experience that we're all goingthrough and we have the
opportunity to own it.
And I think that's the biggestpart for me.
I speak about this on stage allthe time when I talk about
growth.
Growth is when you actuallylook at the dictionary
definition.
It's an incredibly vague term.
It's not.
People think when I say, hey,Jesse, man, we should focus on
(11:49):
growth, and you're like heck,yeah, man, let's do it.
We both think we understandwhat one another's saying, but
if we then get pulled aside bysomeone else and say, hey, Jesse
, define growth, Steve, definegrowth, we're going to have two
different answers.
We're going to have twodifferent answers, and I'm sure
every listener on this call isgoing to have a different answer
for how they define growth.
Now, that's okay, as long asyou give it a strong enough
(12:11):
definition where you're actuallyowning it, Because when we keep
it vague, we keep it at anarm's length, we don't actually
own it in that moment.
And so when we talk about theseideas of our lives and this
direction that we want to go on,that's all well and good.
If you don't want to own it,then good luck with actually
bringing any of that to fruition.
(12:32):
And you can't then have theaudacity to complain about where
you're at if you're not willingto take ownership for the
direction you're going in.
And that's hard for people toaccept.
Man, it's really hard forpeople to accept.
But for me, when I go back andlook at my lifespan, you could
never have convinced me I wouldhave gone into swim coaching.
I did it for 10 years.
You could never have convincedme that I was going to be an
(12:54):
entrepreneur here I am threeyears into it now.
You could never have told methat I was going to be on stage
speaking about a story of how Itook an Olympic swimmer to an
Olympic gold.
That had no right, evenconsidering that that was a
possibility.
But here I am telling thesestories today because what I've
allowed myself to do is simplyown the experience that is my
life and own what it is I wantto get out of it, Outside of
(13:17):
that man I give it up to the guyupstairs.
He has a huge influence on thatbut at the same time I'm also
being comfortable enough thatthis experience that we're all
going through it's evolving aswe go through it.
We just have to be comfortableenough and own that part of it.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Why is it ownership?
You said the word multipletimes.
I'm not disagreeing, but canyou fill in the blanks for the
listener out there?
I hear you say own.
Why is that important and whatdoes that look like?
Speaker 1 (13:45):
So I'll actually do it the other way around.
So what it looks like, and thenwhy it's important.
So what it looks like, is youreally putting your stamp on
what it is you want and why itis you want it?
And then there's this thirdpiece that we rarely do why is
it that you're the one thatshould make it happen?
So it's not just what do I wantand why do I want it, but why
(14:07):
you?
Why are you called to do this?
Why are you the one that shoulddo this?
Because when we get to theheart of that third part of this
, jesse, that's when theownership happens.
That's when we actually we seeourself owning it.
It's not just this conceptanymore, it's not this idea
anymore.
It's something and this is theother word I like to use around
ownership.
It's something we possess.
We possess it.
(14:28):
It's our vision, it's our dream, it's our legacy.
However, you want to look at it, because we see us being the
one bringing it to fruition,because we've defined why.
We've defined why we are theone that can make it happen.
As opposed to, this seems likea great idea, and this is why I
want to do it.
No, no, no.
Go one step further, go onestep further.
(14:50):
Why are you the one that'sgoing to make this happen?
And answering that question andgetting better about the way
you answer that question,brother.
That's how we develop ownershipover time.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Man, I'm going to have to rewrite that and maybe
get a tattoo of it.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
You wouldn't be the first person that is considered
a tattoo based on something thatI said.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
So I appreciate that.
Well, it's clearly like 100%evidence of why you're a
professional speaker.
And so we got a lot of peoplethat are listening, that have
big dreams, hopes that maybe areterrified.
Like man, I can't motivatepeople to get tattoos of my
words, yet Maybe I shouldn't bea public speaker.
And so did you take a class?
(15:38):
What was the journey in yourhead, the evolution for you to
come to terms with being onstage and then saying, yeah, I'm
a professional speaker.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Yeah, I love the question.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
But first I want to give the L&M family member shout
out.
I got this awesome comment onthe LinkedIn from Mr Edmund.
Edmund says Jesse, your raw andreal approach in an error where
so much is camouflaged is rareand admirable.
Keep it going.
(16:14):
I respect your authenticity,edmund.
Thank you, bro.
Cause that that really makes mefeel good.
Cause sometimes I'm worriedthat I'm offending people or I
might be losing credibility, butthe truth is, if you don't have
credibility, there's nothing tolose.
So I think I'm okay there.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
I think it's such an important question because I
think there's probably going tobe people listening here that
will try to discouragethemselves and discourage
themselves, but even try tojustify why they should not
speak.
I actually have a number of myclients that I don't coach
people on speaking, but now andagain when I'm doing my
(16:52):
executive coaching, it will comeup and like, hey, I've got this
opportunity to go speak or hey,I'm going to go on this podcast
.
I just don't know why I shouldbe doing it and a lot of that.
It's an opportunity for aperson to really explore the
value that they're bringing andthe impact that they can provide
.
I think the more we make itabout the external benefit, the
less the more we get out of ourown way.
(17:12):
For me, I learned early on in mylife I was one of these
interesting kids growing up manwhere I was both the athlete and
the actor.
So usually in school it's likethere's the sports people and
there's the drama people.
I was bouncing between the two.
I was a little hybrid, and soup until as far as I went with
my sport up until about 18, I Iwas actually quite committed to
(17:34):
my acting too, performing, andso I did that all the way
through the age of 18.
And that was one of my biggestcrossroads in life.
Was I chose sports over that?
But once I committed to going tocollege in the US at 20, I
decided to do my degree incommunication media, because I
just felt as though part of mycalling in life was to just
communicate to people.
(17:55):
I didn't know how I was goingto do it, going back to that
question earlier, like I didn'thave that perfect, hey, this is
what it's going to bring me to.
I just knew where my passionand where my talents lay and I
wanted to make sure that I wasfine tuned in those to the best
of my ability.
And lo and behold, I went 15years after getting that degree
until I started consideringgetting on stages.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
So, the passion never went away.
The talent also never went away.
And here's something I reallywant to suggest to you and just
make clear to your listeners,because I'm assuming you've got
a lot of people on that listento this who are leaders, people
that are at some point in theirday or their week.
They are the voice in the room,not a voice in the room.
They are the voice in the room.
(18:39):
If you have an issue about beingon stage, forget it, because
you're already on stage.
You're already on a stage.
You're just not above people ona stage.
You're not scheduled to be on astage.
That's the only thing that'sdifferent, because those people
are giving you their undividedattention and you're doing the
work around yourself to gaintheir respect and to demand
(19:00):
their undivided attention.
That is no different thananything that I'm doing on a
stage.
The only difference is I'mscheduled to get on the stage at
a certain time.
The speech is a little bit moreworked out, there's probably a
few more people in the audience,that's it.
That's the only difference.
The game itself is the same.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
The field is only the field, that's it.
That's the only difference.
The game itself is the same thefield, it's only the field
that's different.
Oh yeah, One of my favoritethings of speaking up on stage
is that I'm too far to seepeople rolling their eyes.
I can't see them roll theireyes when I'm in the office.
I can see them roll their eyes.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
When I speak here in Louisiana.
I mean you made that joke atthe front end, but I think
that's everyone in the audienceis probably thinking man, he's a
Louisiana British dude.
And it's just like whenever I'mspeaking in Louisiana, the
response in the back is alwayshilarious because most people
are just like what is this guysaying?
You know?
Like what is he?
I think I know what he's sayingit sounds really, he sounds
really intelligent.
(19:57):
He might not be intelligent,but he sounds intelligent just
because of his accent.
But yeah, it is funny.
But like you said that, thatclose proximity, yeah, you got
to, you got to deal with those,that body language a little bit
more in your face, man.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yeah, exactly, and that feedback loop is instant.
And just to reinforce what yousaid, you're leading meetings,
you're having these crucialconversations as a leader where
you've got responsibility withinan organization.
You already have the skillsetand you have reps and reps of
doing the speaking.
It's just like you said, just adifferent field.
(20:32):
I think that's a phenomenalframework to help people get
through it.
So thank you for that.
Now, Shock the World.
You wrote a book, Shock theWorld.
Where did that happen and whatwas the experience of production
like?
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yeah, it's about to turn two years old.
The book as we record thistoday and the story itself came
from what ended up being prettymuch my last act as a swim coach
.
So I, in 2019, I had a young,up and coming talent called
Brooks Curry come to LSU.
So I used to be the associatehead coach for swimming at LSU
(21:09):
and he was very unrecruited buthighly talented, highly
motivated, but for whateverreason, people just didn't take
an interest in him.
I took an interest in himbecause I saw what he was
capable of.
And in 2019, he came into myoffice and he said listen, coach
, I'm feeling pretty good aboutmy development.
I know this might sound crazy,but I feel as though, if we do
things right, I could be in witha shot to qualify for the US
(21:34):
Olympic team.
Now, if he'd walked into justabout any other office in the
world of college swimming andswimming period, not a lot of
coaches would have taken himseriously.
I heard him and I'm like listen, if that's where you want to go
, I want to go there with you.
Just know this If we pull itoff, brother, we're going to
shock the world.
We're going to shock the world.
(21:54):
And it became Jesse.
It became our mantra for thewhole journey we went on.
At first it was only going tobe like a 10-month window that
we had to do this, and then thepandemic came in 2020.
The Olympics get pushed back ayear.
It wasn't ideal from a trainingstandpoint, but it did give us
an extra year to then pull itoff.
And, lo and behold, he was100-meter freestyle.
(22:15):
We qualified for the Us olympictrials.
They take four guys for the 100freestyle because it's an
olympic, it's a relay event, andbrooks only went in place
fourth at the olympic trials andmade it to the olympic games.
And and then he got himself anolympic gold medal on the back
end too.
So it's just, it was a wildstory.
It was too incredible andpowerful.
I mean in my hairs.
I literally can't tell thatstory without the hairs on my
(22:37):
arms going up and it was tooimpressive a story for it not to
be shared with the world, andso we shocked the world of
swimming, and what the bookreally talks to is that the
world is not as we know it interms of the universe.
The world is you, your world,you.
We all live in our own worldand there is a way that you can
shock that world in how you goabout doing what it is you do.
(22:59):
The question is, what does thatworld look like that you want
to shock?
And now how do you want to gothrough the process of actually
shocking that world?
And that's what the book does,man, we pull from all these
different podcast episodes thatI've recorded, all these
different guests, all this sortof stuff comes in, but it is
something I'm so proud of.
It blows my mind still thatpeople like not only read my
book but then come back and tellme it's good.
You know, it's just like.
(23:21):
Oh, I got some like sixth gradeenglish teachers that have been
massively proven wrong, so I'mexcited about that.
But that's another.
That's the competitor in meright now.
Man, like he's coming, yeah,like I showed you, I showed you
sixth grade english teacher.
I got that one, so I love it.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
I totally.
I don't know if she's listening, but I have a friend, dear
friend.
I've known her since sixthgrade.
We were, we'll say, boyfriendand girlfriend going around
that's what we used to call itback then and she broke up with
me because I and she told meshe's like Jesse, I'm breaking
up with you because you're badfor my image.
We're sixth graders, right Likethat.
(23:59):
That hurt that.
She's an English teacher nowand I do a lot of speaking
within the like in the educationspace for a little bit, publish
the book, and so I'm like hey,girl, like how you like me.
Now it's the competitive.
We got to get some friends onthe board and celebrate them
(24:19):
every time we get them.
Okay, now you said somethinglike this gentleman that you
that was like under recruitedgot a gold medal.
You saw capability in him thatmost people missed now.
Well, so this question isrelated to that and I'm curious
(24:42):
have you ever seen, like, how doyou?
There's the question how do youmanage seeing potential within
somebody and maybe guiding them,introducing them to it at the
rate that they can achieveversus the rate you want them to
get?
Speaker 1 (25:00):
it.
Yeah, it's an importantquestion, man.
Again, what I love about yourquestion so far is it speaks to
your experience of as a leader,working and having these
conversations with people, andit's kind of twofold in my
response.
One is how have you gonethrough that process yourself?
So how have you actuallyacknowledged your own potential
(25:20):
and worked through it?
Because you know as well as Ido that there's all these folks
over the years that we've beenon this planet, where you have a
leader who's so adamant aboutgetting the best out of
everybody else and you want togo well, hey, hey, hey, hey,
what about you?
Because I don't see you.
You seem so adamant about me,but I want to see you adamant
about you, and so for me thepotential piece is huge on that.
(25:42):
So I look back on my life.
I had hundreds of athletes whoI saw potential in that they
couldn't see in themselves, andso for me it was always about
hey, how am I?
How am I being that example tothem?
How am I showing them listen,steve is trying to get
everything out of himself, and Ican do that in ways where I'm
not literally telling them thatI'm doing it.
They can just see it beingdisplayed.
(26:02):
So that's the first part of it,but then the second part of it,
too, is are you willing topress pause for long enough to
learn what someone's potentialmight look like?
Because if you're operatingfrom your perspective, what's
probably happening is you'reputting your thoughts into what
this person's potential is andyou might be way off just
(26:25):
because you've just not beenwilling to press pause for long
enough to dial in and say, well,actually, now that we talk
about it, now that I see, nowthat I learn, turns out there's
this potential in you that Ihadn't even considered because I
hadn't been willing to presspause for long enough to
identify it.
And that is again when I think,coming from sport, man like you
(26:48):
get used to it, especially onceyou become a coach of.
Every parent thinks they've gotthe next Michael Phelps right.
Every parent thinks their kid'sthe next Michael Phelps and at
a certain point you're like'sthe next Michael Phelps, and at
a certain point you're like I'msorry, kid's not, and that's
hard for you to hear right now.
But here's what they can be.
They can still be really,really good, but if you treat
them like Michael Phelps,they're going to quit.
(27:09):
They're not even going to try.
If you treat them in terms ofwhere their potential truly lies
, they're going to go on andhave a wonderfully successful,
fulfilling career in this, butyou've got to want to see it for
them and stop wanting to see itfor you.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
It's like you're reading my mind.
You can see all the garbageI've put people through.
I had one apprentice he wasamazing.
The dude was solid, like justnaturally gifted apprentice.
I was a plumber.
He was my apprentice and Idecided that I was going to
coach him through there's like anational craft championship
where it's an installation thingand it's national competition.
(27:50):
He hadn't even started hisapprenticeship program but I
decided that David was going tobe competing in that thing and I
was going to help him get thereand he was going to be a
foreman within three and a halfyears.
Like, I mapped this whole thingout for him and after maybe a
year of working with me, he quitand we worked together every
(28:12):
day.
We had lunch together and he Ihad there was no indication that
he was going to quit and hequit and he went to work for the
school district and I'm like,why would you do that?
And finally, after he left, hefeed me.
A couple of days later I becameable to get ahold of him.
He's like Jess, you just puttoo much pressure on me, like,
and you never asked me what Iwanted to do, and I was like, oh
(28:36):
and?
So there's this thing whereI've done it I know some of the
L&M family members have done itwhere we see a glimmer or
something that resemblespotential in an individual, but
we don't take account that maybewe're projecting something A, b
.
Yes, we are seeing something,but what we're seeing is the
(29:00):
resources that the individualhas and what we would do if we
had them.
And then we try to force themand push them into these nooks
and crannies that they're notdesigned for, or rather, that
the nooks and crannies aren'tdesigned to help them thrive and
wear them out, whereas what weshould be doing is help them
become resourceful so that theylearn how to access those things
(29:23):
.
And, like you said, the pauseright, what else is there?
Because there's not just onething.
So, again, like that's a master, master skill.
Did you write that skill?
Like, how did you come to termswith picking that apart and
saying, okay, I need to pause,which sounds simple, but I don't
think it's simple no, and andwhat one thing you'll learn.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
One thing I I kind of describe myself as a social
scientist like because it's.
I'm probably doing a little ofa disservice to the true meaning
of a social scientist when Isay that sometimes, but what I
mean by that is that I learnedthrough doing.
I am a graduate of the Schoolof Trial and Error, and for me
and I go back every year torenew it too so I look back to
(30:06):
when I was 24 and I startedvolunteering in the summer to
coach some swimming with thecollege team that I just
finished swimming with and I wasa backstroke swimmer and I
would look at the backstrokersand I would just be like I don't
get it, why are you not gettingwhat I'm trying to get you to
understand?
Well, I was looking at itthrough my many, many years of
swimming backstroke.
I wasn't looking at it throughany of their years of swimming
(30:28):
backstroke, and so for me, I wasable to see that quickly, and
one thing I've always been verygood at again is just that
ability to say like hold upintuitively, something's off
what you're saying and whatthey're hearing, or what you're
hearing and what they're saying,my intuition's kicking in
saying there's something up here, and for me to learn that
ability to pause at 24, 25 whenI'm working with these athletes
(30:48):
and saying, hey, help meunderstand.
Going right back to that firstanswer that I gave you here
today what is it you want?
Why is it you want?
Why is it you want it and whyare you the one that can
actually go and do it?
To have that kind ofconversation with someone and
then coach them?
It's just like, oh wow, nolonger am I holding you
accountable to something that Iwant for you.
Now I'm helping you beaccountable to what you want,
(31:13):
and it's just like let's go,baby, let's go.
This is when great things happen, because now the accountability
is shared, if not owned, by theindividual.
And then you talk aboutpotential.
You're basing potential on whatis right in front of you and
what that person wants, and thatis.
That's huge.
That's really how I've learnedthings over the years.
And again to the whole premiseof this show man, I am
(31:35):
comfortable getting that lessonby taking that misstep,
acknowledging the misstep andthen coming right back into my
own shoes and saying, okay, whatdid we learn from this and how
do we move forward and make itbetter in the future?
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Yeah, oh.
So a couple of things.
I love what you said in thatyou're not holding them
accountable, You're helpingholding them accountable.
You're helping them beaccountable.
A lot of people know I have ahangup about the word
accountability and the way weuse it or the way we think about
it, because it's almost alwayscoming from a punitive
(32:09):
perspective, in that we don'thold people accountable.
You can't.
You can't hold me accountableto any commitment I haven't made
, which speaks to what you justsaid.
If I've made a commitment, youcan help me be accountable to my
commitments.
If you want accountability, beaccountable.
It doesn't work any other way,or at least not in Jesse land.
(32:32):
So thank you for that Super,super good.
Now the other thing that comesthrough is I feel like you have
a very developed muscle forintrospection and evaluating
your motives and the impactthey're having on the experience
you're having in the moment.
(32:52):
Is that something that youbuilt?
Did you?
How did you build that?
Or is it something that justkind of man, I got lucky and I
used the hell out of it?
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Well, I have no doubt that God blessed me with it.
There's no doubt about that.
It freaks people out.
Sometimes, I'll be honest withyou, I can be having a very
surface level conversation withsomeone and we're about five
minutes in and we've only knowneach other for five minutes, and
they'll say something and myintuition will kick in right
away and I'll say something tothem and they're just like how
could you possibly sort of readthat?
Like how did you and I like toplay with people at times when
(33:21):
it comes to that, have a littlebit of fun, but as a coach, it's
a superpower, no doubt itallows me to really be in a room
with someone, pick up on bodylanguage, pick up on energy.
All this kind of stuff is askill that you must practice and
it's that willingness tosometimes maybe think that
you're being intuitive and speakto something and be comfortable
(33:42):
knowing that when you speak toit, someone's going to turn
around and say, no, that's notwhat I'm feeling at all, and
it's like okay, that's great, myintuition was wrong.
Now I know better, movingforwards, and what I now know is
that, based on our relationship, I can now be intuitive more
effectively with you.
You know again, I'm a marriedman you use too much intuition
with your wife.
(34:02):
You end up in the doghouse.
Real often it's just like hey,check in and ask the question,
don't like.
And again, there's a very fineline between intuition and
assumption.
I believe the fine line is theability to speak on it versus
act on it.
So the intuition piece youspeak on, the assumption piece
you just go and act on and thatusually ends up in trouble.
(34:24):
Again.
Going back to my education incommunication, I do believe that
degree served me, even in thesports world, because it allowed
me just to really honor thattwo people have to be involved
in communication.
Communication is notcommunication.
If it's one way, it has to betwo ways, you know.
And so again, like getting anathlete to actually say yes,
coach, and this I understand,coach, and all this kind of
(34:46):
thing, as opposed to scream andthen walk away.
So for me that is huge.
But I think that fine line,when we start to notice that
we're acting withoutcommunicating, that's when we
move away from that intuitionand we now moved into assumption
and typically, well, we knowwhat a suit is right.
It makes you an ass out of youand me.
So there you go right there.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Yes, yes, Okay.
So I perused your website and Inoticed like there was like a
four-step thing.
It was a framework, a process,I'm not sure, but it was
curiosity.
The first thing that stood outto me was curiosity.
What's the relationship betweenthis intuition and speaking on
it and curiosity in terms of howyou serve your clients?
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Yeah, again, curiosity.
It's such an underutilizedskill because I believe that
there's a point in our liveswhen we're kids and we're going
through school and everything isplay, play, play, play, play
right.
And I've got a four-year-oldboy.
He, all he does is play and hiscuriosity is off the charts.
And as we go through education,curiosity not to make this a
(35:52):
completely differentconversation, but the fact is,
curiosity is kind of slowly madesmaller and smaller, squeeze
out of us because we're toldit's this test, this is right,
this is wrong, all this kind ofstuff, and our mind goes in that
direction, understandably so.
And so the question becomes howare you working that curiosity
muscle?
It's a muscle, it's like anyother of these traits that we've
(36:14):
talked about today is what doesit mean to be curious but
actually intentionally becurious, to wonder, to ask
questions that typically youwould maybe keep quiet and not
keep to yourself because you'retoo scared about asking the
question, whatever it may be.
And so curiosity, I believe inthe coaching world.
What that does for me is itmakes it about the person, it
(36:35):
doesn't make it about me.
If I'm truly curious.
Again, I'm not assuming I'masking questions, I want to
better understand, I want toknow, and I'm not doing it for
my own purpose, because I don'tthink that's curiosity.
Curiosity is to trulyunderstand, based on another
person, whoever it may be, oranother situation, whatever that
may be.
So I think, for me, the reasonI put it right there, square and
(36:58):
center on my website website'sabout to get a huge upgrade
through my rebrand and all thiskind of thing but curiosity is
one of these three Cs that Iutilize in my coaching.
And it's the first C, becausewithout curiosity, the other two
Cs, which are challenging andcommitments, those two don't
make sense if we don't startwith curiosity.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Which again frees us from the pitfalls of assumptions
.
To be curious means I'm notgoing to act on my assumptions,
and it's one thing that I liketo spend a lot of time is like
whenever I'm in the right space,because I don't do it all the
time, but it's OK, I'm making adecision.
I want to respond in a certainway based on this set of
(37:39):
assumptions.
I know I have assumptions.
Why do I think that?
Where is that assumption comingfrom?
Because it may not be right.
Most often, like you saidearlier, it's not, and so that
requires a huge, huge degree ofcuriosity.
Now, with your clients, thecuriosity might feel like this
(38:04):
squishy kind of Disneyland typeof notion.
And you're serving highperformers, people that have
significant responsibility,significant authority and
influence, so curiosity feelskind of squishy.
And then you also mentionedearlier a delineation between
(38:24):
balance and alignment.
Yeah, alignment.
And so how do people respond tothat when you're interacting
with your clients and you'resaying, well, no, no, no, not
balance, alignment and curiosity, what does that feel like for
you?
Speaker 1 (38:38):
I love that notice because, again, curiosity it's
not much of a skill if we don'tknow why or what we're being
curious toward.
There's still so much to bebetter framed and articulated
and created within the coachingworld.
The coaching world remains thiskind of big bag of gray right
now.
People just sort of maybe theyget an attaboy about how they
(38:59):
recently dealt with anothercolleague and they're like, hey,
you could be a coach.
And suddenly now this person'son LinkedIn saying that they're
a coach.
And sadly, that is the spacethat the coaching world is right
now, that there's not much of aprocess to actually define what
a coach is and what a coachisn't.
For me, the curiosity piece andthe alignment piece, you
couldn't have connected betterone-two punch of what I do as a
(39:20):
coach, because the first thingwe do whenever I work with
anyone is we go through what'scalled a strategic alignment and
it's like, hey, this is wherewe are.
Let's get super clear on wherewe want to get to Now.
We're not going to get again.
Like I said before, there's nostraight line.
We're not going to get focusedabout perfection, it's about
direction.
It's not about perfection, it'sabout direction.
So that's the destination, thisis the current state, and all I
(39:42):
want to know is what is thecommitment towards getting over
here at some point to thedestination?
Once we're clear on that, nowthe curiosity is towards how do
we get there?
Not just about, hey, how do Iwork on this or how do I work on
that, or something came in myemail today and I'm really
curious about what that mightmean for my life and I'm like,
well, what does that have to dowith anything that we're working
on right now?
(40:02):
It's like I'm not here just tosort of hypothesize and wonder
and generalize when you broughtme in to go from here and
achieve this specific direction.
Ideally, if we are so aligned inthat agreement on the front end
, then all the curiosity isbeing held accountable to that
(40:23):
destination.
And so, again, it's why, for me, part of my curiosity and
challenge and commitment is thatevery commitment we make, once
we go through curiosity and Ichallenge you around the
curiosity once we make acommitment, one of my sort of
absolute non-negotiables is thatthat commitment must bring us
back around to curiosity.
(40:43):
So, whatever you achieve,whatever you achieve in that
commitment by going away anddoing it in the time between
when I saw you last and when Isee you next, if we've not come
back with greater curiosity bypursuing that commitment, it's
the wrong commitment.
If it takes us just to, hey,check it off the list, okay, now
(41:04):
what, coach?
That's not serving the process.
Great thing is that, hey,sometimes you're going to make a
commitment and you're not goingto follow through with it, and
that's okay, because we can comeback and then be super curious
about well, hey, you soundedsuper excited about this
commitment last time we spokeand then you've done nothing
about it.
Let's talk about that.
Yeah, are we aligned?
Are we off or whatever it mightbe?
And so again, the curiosity inthe alignment piece.
(41:26):
Man, you couldn't have hit itbetter, like in terms of those
two truly working using thatword in alignment, but they're
collaborating with one anotherthroughout the process, because
where we're aligned in terms ofthe strategy and the vision,
we're going to constantly becurious towards that vision man,
it's a beautiful reinforcingloop and if it's not having that
(41:47):
cycle, that reciprocal effect,then that's a signal.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Well, maybe we need to go a different direction,
maybe we pick the wrongdirection.
Oh my goodness, thank you forthat, because that excites me.
There's questions that I runthrough my head, especially when
I'm stuck.
I'm wondering, so I'd like acheck from you.
Does this kind of land in thecuriosity bucket?
One of the questions I askmyself is what is also true,
(42:16):
what could I do to address theissue and what's the worst thing
that can happen?
Speaker 1 (42:26):
I'm writing these down, man, we're doing a little
impromptu coaching session now.
So what I would say about thatis that there is no doubt that
that is moving towards curiosity, and there's almost an
opportunity to see it to add onemore thing to that of just like
always running it through thefilter of the other, and again,
I'm sure you're doing that to anextent but to say, like what is
(42:48):
also true, what could I dodifferently or better?
And then what's the worst thingthat could happen?
And I think, with thatcuriosity, when we make it only
about ourselves and typicallypeople like yourself and those
working in high performance,there is some sort of collateral
damage to every decision that'smade, right, yes, so again,
that is such an important partof this piece is that?
(43:08):
And it's what I love about thework that I do, as opposed to
just working with one member ofan executive team, I work with
the entire executive team, andso when one member of the
executive team is speaking tosomething in a group environment
, we then get to get into thereally powerful good stuff,
because we're now talking aboutit.
Okay, I hear what you're saying.
Hey, other four, what are youhearing when you hear that?
(43:30):
And it's just like well, Idon't think you're hearing it
from the perspective of ourdepartment or from this section
of the company.
Okay, let's talk to that.
Let's get curious about thatpiece of this.
How can we see it from everysingle angle?
And so like that for me is, ifwe can do that and I know you're
working with people wherethere's always going to be that
knock-on effect to the work thatyou're doing, and I have no
doubt that you're alreadyconsidering that but to be
(43:51):
really intentional about thatpiece of just hey, what is that
knock-on effect of anything thatwe're talking about, that
commitment that you're going togo away and do?
Awesome, really excited aboutit.
Let's just check in before wego.
Is there a potential knock-oneffect that we're not
considering?
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Yeah, yeah, thank you for that, because full
transparency I don't do that asoften as I should and I end up
like, oh, I created problems,this is my fault, I did it again
.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
And I want to be and just to be clear.
I love that vulnerability onyour part to even share that
with your listeners, and Ialways try to make this clear in
any of these kind of interviews.
This is not me speaking from aposition of perfection.
I cannot be any more clearabout that.
Just because I'm speaking tothis and the service and the
impact and the value that Ibring as a coach, as a speaker,
however you want to look at itdoesn't mean that I'm crushing
(44:41):
it.
When it comes to all of this,all of this, all of this I said
it before it's a muscle andthere's so many elements of what
we've talked about here todaythat involves the training, the
testing and the trust of themuscle.
How do you train the muscle?
How do you test the muscle andthen build trust in the muscle
so that the majority of the timeit's going to serve you well
(45:01):
and that's what I've been ableto do the majority of the time
it serves me very well.
Do I still make missteps 100%?
And am I going to keep makingthem Absolutely?
And I think that's.
I just want to give thatencouragement to everybody.
It's like all of this stuffthat I'm saying.
This is not plug and play andyou've got it figured out.
No, no, no, no, no.
This is a consistent trainingprocess so that over time you
(45:24):
can keep developing that trustaround all of this kind of stuff
.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Yeah, man, got to get the reps in.
Keep at it, keep on keeping onand learn from the missteps,
learn from the bumps and thescrapes.
So, before we get into theclosing question, steve, where
can people find me?
I'm sure people are fired upright now, like Jesse.
Would you just ask them how wecan get a hold of them, because
I'm tired of listening to you.
(45:47):
So where should people go tofind you, interact with you, and
so forth?
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Yeah, I don't know when this is going out, but I
will say this I'm about to do ahuge rebrand Everything that you
heard in the introduction.
Growth Ready is coming.
Growth Ready is not what mycompany was about a month or two
ago.
I've changed the name.
It was Career Competitor as mycompany's grown and my clients
have grown.
Growth Ready speaks a lot moreto what the work I'm doing now,
(46:15):
and so the podcast was the firstthing that changed.
So the Growth Ready podcast is agreat place to start.
You're going to find incredibleguests like Jesse on there
where you can go check out andlisten.
Got to give you the shout out,but then, from that point on,
LinkedIn is my favorite.
Got to give you the shout out,but then from that point on,
link Mala on next.
I love hearing from people howanything that I said maybe be of
impact.
If you've got any curiosityabout you know just what I can
do, how I do it, all that kindof stuff.
Steve at growthreadycom Supersimple, Reach out to me there,
(46:39):
Otherwise all my handles atcoach Steve Mala you can find me
on pretty much anywhere elsethat way too.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
So Awesome, oh, thank you for that.
And, folks, I'm going to haveall the links.
We'll have them down in the inthe thing so that you can click
and connect with Steve.
And so now here's the closingquestion.
You ready, bring it.
You've had an amazing life,steve and and I.
What I really really appreciateis you've taken those
experiences, those lessons, andyou're pouring them into other
(47:08):
people, I mean even me.
When you and I had the firstconversation on the podcast on
your podcast I felt like a champbecause of the honor and care
and attention that you gave me,and so, having had those effects
and the impact andcontributions you've made to so
many lives thus far, I imagineyour answer is going to be
(47:31):
amazing.
And so here's the question whatis the promise?
You are intended to be?
Speaker 1 (47:38):
What is the promise that I'm intended to be.
You know I'm going to answerthat.
I'm going to answer that withreally what has brought me to
this point.
Okay, so firstly, just thankyou for everything that you just
said, because, believe it ornot, that experience that I
provide, I see it as anexperience when people come on
(47:58):
my podcast and just to throw itright back at you.
This has been nothing but anincredible experience for me too
.
But I have this term that Icoined when I finished some
coaching and I started mybusiness and I started to get
creative around words andterminology and things like that
.
I had this thing called theoptimal self, and for me and I
mentioned it in the book tooit's like too often in life, we
(48:21):
are given the five reasons notto and it takes our attention
away from the one reason that weshould, and that is why I wake
up every day, literally.
I got kids.
Now I got a wife, and I know inthe four walls of my house, I
(48:42):
can help them see the one reasonto do something, as opposed to
focus too much on the four orfive reasons not to.
So that's how I get to do itclose to home.
And then I'm a spiritual guytoo.
I get to do that through mychurch too.
I get to help people, encouragepeople through that too, and
then any client that I work withit's the same.
So any listener that's listeningto this right now, it's all I
want to tell you is that youwill always have way more
reasons not to than you will todo something, and in order to
(49:06):
pursue your optimal self, youhave to focus on the one reason
why and find a reason to pushaway the four or five reasons
not to.
And that is my promise toanyone and everyone that I
interact with through my life isthat if you give me one reason
to buy into you and believe inyou and to support you, you are
going to get all of Steve andnothing else.
But if you just want to focuson the four or five reasons not
(49:30):
to, chances are I'm going to tryto bring your attention to the
one reason.
But that is my promise, brother.
I love the question because forme, my promise to anyone and
everyone is that if you want tobe in my world, because I want
to be in yours, let's focus andtalk about what it means to
pursue your optimal self,because that is a life worth
living right there.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
Amen, and that's going to help people share their
gifts and talents with the restof the world.
So again that reciprocal,exponential, beautiful
amazingness, Steve.
Thank you, man, Did you have agood time?
Speaker 1 (50:03):
Brother, I had an incredible time.
I had an incredible time mainlybecause you, my friend, are
incredible.
Your energy is phenomenal, yourintentions are real and the
people in your world I have nodoubt see that and appreciate
that all the time.
So I just appreciate your timeas much as the opportunity to be
here.
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