All Episodes

July 10, 2025 33 mins

What if the very thing holding you and your team back from success isn’t a lack of skills or resources—but fear itself? How could learning to face what’s uncomfortable actually unlock your best results, greater job satisfaction, and even more meaningful customer experiences?

In this episode of the Delighted Customers podcast, I dive deep with Jill Schulman, Marine Corps veteran, leadership consultant, and author of The Bravery Effect. Together, we explore how the ability to be brave—especially in business—can reshape not only what we accomplish, but who we become. If fear is quietly dictating the pace of progress and innovation at your organization, Jill’s approach to bravery will challenge your thinking and inspire you to lead differently.

You’ll want to tune in because Jill’s work spans battlefields, boardrooms, and classrooms alike. Her background in the Marine Corps, Fortune 500 consulting, and positive psychology at the University of Pennsylvania gives her a distinctive perspective on why facing discomfort is essential for growth. She breaks down practical tools and strategies you can use to build your own bravery skills and create cultures where people dare to step out of their comfort zones.

Here are three questions Jill answers on the show:

  1. What are the most common myths and misconceptions leaders have about bravery—and why do they matter?

  2. How can you set brave goals for your team without overwhelming them, and why does this drive both engagement and results?

  3. What practical, research-based steps can anyone take to build their bravery “muscle” and overcome fear in the workplace?

Ready to rethink what it means to be brave—in leadership, customer experience, and in life? Listen and subscribe now!
Apple Podcasts: Delighted Customers on Apple Podcasts
Spotify: Delighted Customers on Spotify
You’ll also find us on Amazon Music or wherever you like to get your podcasts.

Meet Jill Schulman

Jill Schulman is a United States Marine Corps veteran, leadership consultant, and author of The Bravery Effect. Her work focuses on developing leaders at all levels, drawing on her diverse experience as a Marine Corps demolition team leader and pharma sales professional, as well as her advanced study in positive psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Jill has spent over 25 years working with organizations ranging from Fortune 500s to small businesses, training leaders to move from “safe and stuck” to “bold and brave.” She is on a personal mission to help people not only embrace challenges, but run toward them, knowing that the biggest breakthroughs come from moments of discomfort. Jill delivers engaging evidence-based strategies for conquering fear, elevating engagement, and bringing out the best in ourselves and our teams.

Connect with Jill on LinkedIn: Jill Schulman on LinkedIn

Show Notes & References:

  • Jill Schulman’s website and newsletter: jillshulman.com

  • The Bravery Effect book—available everywhere books are sold

  • Research referenced: Martin Seligman (PERMA Model), Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Flow), Aaliyah Crum & Kelly McGonigal (Stress Mindset Theory), Albert Bandura (Self-Efficacy Theory), Daniel Kahneman (Behavioral Economics & Risk Aversion)

Join us for this impactful conversation! Let’s discover together how bravery—not comfort—is the path to delighting customers and transforming organizations.

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Welcome to the Delighted Customers podcast. I am so glad
you're here. We challenge conventional thinking about customer
experience because I believe that improving experiences isn't. Just good
for business. It's a powerful way to make a meaningful difference
in people's lives. Each week we feature thought provoking
conversations with industry thought leaders from a

(00:30):
variety of backgrounds, offering you unique perspectives and
actionable insights. Get ready to sharpen your
leadership and transform your approach to customer experience.
Let's dive in.
My guest today is a United States Marine Corps
veteran, a leadership consultant, and the author of the

(00:52):
Bravery Effect. And for the past 25 years, she's been
developing leaders at all levels, from the battlefield to the
boardroom. She actually started her career blowing things up. Yes, you
heard me correctly. She led a Marine Corps demolition team and
then moved into selling drugs, the legal kind. Pharma, of
course. And now she's on a mission to make people

(01:14):
uncomfortable in the best possible way because she believes
the only path to greatness runs straight through your
comfort zone. She's worked with Fortune 500 companies, studied at
University of Pennsylvania under top minds in positive psychology, and
has made her life's work to help people go from safe to
stock, to bold and to brave and. And she claims

(01:37):
running uphill is fun. So we already know she's not normal.
Jill Schulman, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me.
Thank you for having me. Not only running up hills, but my new thing is
running upstairs. Oh, my goodness. I know, I know. It's a good workout,
though. The few, the proud, the few. Like, one of the things that we
say in the Marine Corps sometimes is embrace the suck. Have you heard of that?

(01:59):
Like, it's like, yeah, yeah. So, like, I think of that, I'm like, oh, it's
burning. This hurt, the race, the suck. This is. This is where you
forge strength. Yeah, I'm kind of weird that way. I'm excited today
to talk about this, the concept of the bravery effect. And I know you've got
a book and we're going to think about this in terms of individual bravery
and change. Leadership, courage, a high level overview

(02:21):
of the Bravery Effect. Talk a little bit about the book and why it's so
meaningful to people who are leading change in these,
these difficult times of ours and what tools we can
use to help equip them, regardless of their particular profession
or industry. So I want to start by, if you don't mind,
you said, blowing things up. Like, could you tell us a little bit more about

(02:42):
what was involved, what you did, and, and on kind of both sides of that.
Building things to help. Yeah, yeah. So my job was, I was a
combat engineer officer. And then people are like, oh, you're an engineer? I'm like, no,
no, I don't have an engineering degree. Like this is like, no, this Marine Corps
expeditionary, this is like building things temporarily and blowing things up. So
the mission of combat engineers is

(03:05):
what we call mobility and counter mobility. So whenever we're pursuing the
enemy and there's an obstacle in the way, it was the job of my
Marines to negotiate those obstacles, which sometimes
would be going through a minefield, you know, removing mine, or building
a road or a bridge if it was blown. And we needed that. So
anything to help us pursue the enemy and then counter mobility is when

(03:27):
we're in a defensive posture. Then it's really fun to think strategically about
how do I make it hard for the enemy to get to us. Then that's
where you blow up the bridge so they can't get to you. Or you
build anti tank ditches or you put in the minefields. Yeah, that's what
combat engineers do, build things and blow things up.

(03:48):
So thank you for making it simple for us, number one. But
also you mentioned the word strategically and it makes me think like there's a
method to the madness in this and there's a way to think about
how to, how to address a challenge that I assume
you were able to leverage what you learned in the Marines to
the business world. Yeah, a little more about that. Yeah. Yeah.

(04:11):
Especially if I like related to like the research on bravery. Like I'm, this is
good because I'm kind of bridging, bridging the gap between the two. But like one
thing that we do in the military is as we out, we,
we come up with our best tactical plan
to accomplish the mission. Right. But part of
great strategy is anticipating what will go

(04:33):
wrong. And this is coming from someone who's considered an expertise and
expert in happiness and well being a positive psychology practitioner.
Because some people think positive psychology, that's just happy ology.
Right. You're just Pollyanna, like positive. Actually. No,
anticipating what may go wrong is smart
strategy. And that helps make that you actually get

(04:54):
through those obstacles. So yeah, as Marines we always come up with our best
tactical plans and they're always thinking of like, okay, what if this happens? What are
the most probable things that could go wrong? And we develop contingency plans and then
same thing, like we're in a defensive posture. Like we actually put ourselves in the
enemy's shoes and we think about, like, if you were trying to get into
where we are, how would you do it? So, like, we. We try to do

(05:15):
some creative thinking from an enemy perspective, and then what's. Every single way
they could potentially come through and attack. And then
that's where I think it's the fun part of thinking, like, what could go wrong
from a defensive posture. So, yeah, thinking strategically is not just coming up
with a plan and then skimming along with, you know, butterflies and
rainbows and unicorns, like, everything's going to be fine. Like, you want to come up

(05:36):
with a plan that you're confident that will work, but, you know, you got to
think about what may happen. And from a. Because of the psychology background, that
helps you psychologically, because then when something goes wrong, you're not like, oh,
no, see, it didn't work. I'm going to quit. Instead, you're like, I knew that
this would be hard, and I knew there might be some things that go wrong,
and now I'm ready. And then you have a good. A positive

(05:57):
response to obstacles and challenges. Well, thank you, Jill. That helps
connect the dots for me. And why what you're.
What you. Why you're so good at what you do now. And so I want
to talk a little bit about bravery. I did some research on my own, looked
up the definition of bravery. What did you come up with? And what I
found was courageous behavior or character, the quality

(06:18):
of having or showing mental or moral
strength to face danger. Does that make sense to you? It does. And
there's a lot of different definitions. And I get asked that question a lot. So
just general. What I would. What I'd like to emphasize in the
definition of bravery is it's not being fearless that's the
biggest or misnomer. Like. Like, I'm not scared of anything.

(06:39):
I'm so brave. Actually, the definition of bravery, and you were teasing
it out right there, Is taking steps forward in the presence
of fear. So, you know, one of the things I tell my audience as I
speak around the globe is if you sometimes feel uncertain or a little
scared or fear is causing you to kind of pause,
that's normal. Bravery is recognizing there's fear and moving

(07:03):
forward anyway. Now, the difference between courage and fear, like, I
decide I made a decision like when I wrote my book, like, I kind of
use them interchangeably. But if you look at the academic definition, if you really
want to know the difference, like, we look at courage as more of
a character virtue. It's more internal
feeling. And then bravery is the Tangible thing that you do.

(07:24):
So, you know, you've got to have courage to be brave. But you know, in
general, I think it's too confusing to be like, well, that isn't really courage, that's
bravery. Because you're whatever. They're kind of interchangeable. But. But yeah. So bravery is,
you know, being scared and doing it anyway. So what space, what
white space did you see out there to write the bravery effect? You know,
for me it kind of just, you know, like a lot of things, it's not

(07:47):
like I, I didn't even strategically plan to like, you know what, there's an open
market here and like no one's talking about bravery. Right. It actually happened
organically, you know, as I moved Marine Corps to leading in corporate
America. And then for the last 11 years I've had my own leadership
development consulting practice that does really well. A couple years ago I just,
I was getting like, I wanted to stretch myself. Like we all want to learn

(08:09):
and grow. So I went back to school and studied at Penn under some of
the brightest minds in positive psychology because I just wanted to learn from them. And
then as a part of that master's program, you, you have to do a capstone.
And so as I was learning everything about how do you elevate happiness
and well being specifically in organizations to drive results,
you know, what, what was I most interested in? And there's different

(08:31):
things that can contribute to higher levels of happiness and well being. And
there's one of them that doesn't get enough attention out there. So the five things,
it's the acronym of perma. This comes from Marty Seligman's
research, the father of positive psychology. So positive emotions important at
work. You know, we've got to generate positive emotions because it matters
at work. E is engagement, known as flow. C Sigmihalyi's

(08:53):
research on getting into the flow. R is relationships, obviously important
outside of work and at work, then M is meaning and then A
is accomplishment. So all of these are the five things that we know with
scientific certainty that elevate happiness and well being.
And if we can create them in the workplace, then then it really impacts
results, the bottom line and job satisfaction and retention, all that stuff.

(09:15):
So as I was going through all of my studies, I just realized
like sometimes the one thing that sometimes blocks people
from, I think the highest levels of success at work results
and then happiness and well being is fear. Fear holds them back.
You know, like fear, it controls people.

(09:35):
Fear takes the wheel and makes decisions for us.
And, and it really Impacts this a. In
perma. In order, like in order to accomplish what we want in life,
to develop our self Concordant goals. Many times it's fear. Like, I'm just not ready
or I just, I don't know. It'. Uncertainty. The fear of
uncertainty, the fear of failure sometimes

(09:58):
has a negative impact on our career, on our
business results. So we play safe. So I just was so
fascinated by that. And maybe it's my Marine Corps background. I'm like, I just want
to dig into, like, does fear have so much power over us
and how can we conquer that fear in order for us
to live our best life and to drive greater results? So, and

(10:19):
then no one's really talking about it. You know, if anything, Mark, you know what
everyone's talking about? Everyone's, this is what everyone's talking about. Like, oh, don't,
don't do anything that makes you uncomfortable. Don't stress.
Just if it's scary, let's just remove what's scary. And I'm,
I'm coming back and I'm, I want to be the voice that tells people, like,
if there's something that scares you, I don't want you to run away from it,

(10:40):
I want you to run toward it. Because if you can run toward it and
overcome it, like the impact on just the individual,
their self confidence, their self belief, their self
efficacy, it is something that makes a profound impact on people's
lives. So out in news or modern culture, there's too many
voices saying, do what's easy, do what's comfortable. Let's take away things.

(11:02):
I'm, I'm here to, I'm not here to coddle anyone. I'm here to help people
learn to be brave. And so what are some of the biggest
misconceptions that people have about
bravery? Yeah, well, first of all, what it is, we already talked about
that. It's not about being fearless. If you're, if you're feeling fear or if
you're scared, you're normal. So I want to, I want people to

(11:24):
realize that you can be brave and scared. It's
deciding to take the step forward. So that is, that is one thing. The definition
number two, I think the biggest myth is that people think bravery
is reserved for United States Marines charging into battle,
first responders running into a burning building. They think that it's
reserved for heroic moments. They're thinking of a very narrow definition of

(11:45):
fear, which is just physical. Right. Fear running toward things that
might be dangerous. So I want, I really want to help people understand,
expand the definition of bravery and know it's anything that
you fear. And it could be simple things like I'm, I
have a fear of maybe sharing my ideas at work, right. Because
I'm afraid that I'll get shot down. It could be. I need to have this

(12:07):
really difficult conversation but oh gosh, it's just so uncomfortable
and I, I don't know how it's going to turn out. So I'm just gonna,
I'm not gonna have an uncomfortable conversation. I'm just gonna pretend like everything's okay or,
or I really, really, really want to go for that promotion. But oh gosh,
I'm, I'm scared. I don't, I don't know if I'm ready yet, you know. So
the definition of fear is much more expansive

(12:28):
than just those heroic moments. And so if we really understand
what bravery is, then bravery is a skill
that we all need to become better at because we all have fears.
And facing those fears and overcoming what is
holding us back from having the biggest impact is just, it's, it's for
everyone. So bravery isn't just for soldiers and first responders,

(12:51):
it's for all of us. And then the last thing I just hinted at there
is bravery is not a trait skill. And so I've got all the evidence
behind like anyone can learn to step forward in the face of a
fear and not only do we have evidence on, people can build it all the
evidence on the positive impact it has, not only on their
success and their impact and their goal achievement. I mean I, I

(13:12):
care about all that. That's why companies hire me, because that's what they care about.
But what I really care about, even at a greater level is what it does
to the psychology of the person. They move from self doubt
to pride. You know, their self
belief increases, you know, so I really love about that effect
of bravery, not just on the goal, the results, but really on what people

(13:35):
become on the journey to becoming brave. Given that those
myths about bravery, what are some ways that people,
leaders in particular misstep when they're leading their
teams relative to bravery? I think there's a couple of
tangible ways I can think in the business environment. Just a couple things that come
to mind is number one is in order,

(13:57):
in order for us to have the biggest impact, the first thing is our
goals should be brave. Like what are the goals that we're
setting? Right. Sometimes in organizations and what
leaders get wrong is we think, all right, I want to set people up for
success. You know, let's, let's maybe lower the standard.
Let's not really go for it. So just in general, like, you know, we

(14:19):
should be setting goals that are a little scary. There should be a little bit
of fear there, because those challenging goals, what we know, it actually
creates that psychological arousal. It increases engagement.
So don't set easy goals for your people.
You might be thinking, oh, I want people to be happy at work. So I
just want everything to be, like, very easy and achievable. That is a

(14:40):
misstep. You are robbing people of the opportunity to
accomplish something meaningful, to get into that flow state.
So I really teach leaders to work with their teams to
set really brave goals. Things that scare them, but scare them in that
very good way. Right. You know, make you uncomfortable and are like, if we can
achieve that, that's gonna be great, you know. So I think that's. That's one thing

(15:01):
that comes to mind. And the other thing that I'm pretty passionate about,
I've been talking about recently in organizations is making
sure that we're. We're. We're teaching the skill of
bravery in the workplace. Like, is it relevant? And no one's really teaching
bravery. I mean, I'm talking about some of the cognitive
skills here. What we want in organizations, we want an

(15:23):
environment where everyone can speak freely, people can share their ideas, they can ask
their questions, because that's going to lead a better outcome. So we spend so
much time talking about psychological safety, right? And
I teach it. I mean, my leadership development company, we know it's important. We spend
a lot, a lot of time teaching it. So we, we focus on the leader,
just making sure everyone's comfortable to speak up. But there's two sides to the coin

(15:45):
here. And I think the missing part is. So the missing part
is we need to also teach our people how to be
brave in their communication. So courageous communication. And it's a
skill that people can build. So if someone's super shy and a little tentative and
they don't think of themselves as brave, you can create the best psychological safety
ever. And they're going to still sit there because they just don't have that. That

(16:07):
bravery. So I think that's a skill that we need to teach. In fact, I
think we need to develop an expectation that this is a, you know, a part
of your job is to find, you know, the courage to speak up
and share your ideas, because we need them. We want you to ask
questions and feel comfortable being vulnerable. I know that you're
probably scared of maybe sounding like you're not credible

(16:28):
because you have a question. So let's actually teach people how to
be brave in these ways so that we can have the true goal of
psychological safety is not everyone just to go to work and feel safe and love.
No. The goal of psychological safety is to have an environment where
everyone can openly share their ideas, ask their questions, so we can drive business
forward. So I think bravery fits there too. Yeah.

(16:51):
Struggling to connect the dots across your customer journeys? You're not
alone. For many CX professionals, journey mapping is still manual
and fragmented, especially in large organizations.
JourneyTrack changes that their platform unifies journey
mapping management and measurement in one place, giving you a real
time view of every touch point, uncover friction,

(17:12):
align teams and prove the ROI of your CX initiatives
so you can make smarter decisions and deliver smoother journeys.
Want to see how AI can help you map smarter, not harder?
Download our free whitepaper at JourneyTrack IO
podcast or click the link at the end of the show. Notes to get started
with AI powered journey mapping in minutes.

(17:39):
That's, that's some great ideas of both. How companies
misstep unknowingly. They're trying to create an environment that's
safe. But safe shouldn't be the ultimate goal. Right. Progress is
the goal. Yeah. Safe and soft isn't good.
Yeah. Yeah. Right. So that we can have the
conversations to make progress, to move forward. Yeah. Yeah. So

(18:01):
you talked earlier about fear and I want to double tap on that because
that is very true. I think people fear
starting on something, starting on a goal because they are
fearful. Could be, you know, I want to run a marathon to, I want to
lose £20 to. I want to build something I've never built
before to whatever, you know, whatever it is. So tell

(18:24):
us what you've learned about fear and why it
has the power over us and maybe how we can begin to, if there
is such a word, depower it. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
Let's take a look at this. So usually the reason why we have fear
now, fear is very individual. Right? So
what might scare you may not scare me, or vice versa. So for

(18:46):
each person, it's personal, it's individual, and sometimes
it's, it happens. It's very invisible. We don't even know when someone is scared or
not or when someone's feeling the fear, but it can, can definitely control
people's behavior. So let's try to figure out, like, what does a science say in
terms of helping us overcome the fear? Usually it's because of the
unknown, or maybe we have a past experience of Something not going well.

(19:08):
So now we have the fear. Or many times it's uncertainty. Like, I want
to build this new thing, but I don't know how. Right. And I don't know
if it's going to work. So that uncertainty is what gives us fear. So I'm
going to just cite some evidence by Albert Bandora, one of the
psychology giants that has done a lot of work in this area. He doesn't
call it fear. He calls it. He really calls his theory self efficacy. You know,

(19:29):
how do you build confidence or self efficacy? So, you know, one of the things
he did to discover this is he was seeing patients in his practice as a
psychologist, and for some reason, he had a lot of people who were afraid of
snakes. A absolute fear phobia of snakes.
So you would think of like, okay, let's just try to remove any snake
you know, from. And I don't know where he's from. I should probably look. They

(19:51):
must have had a lot of snakes in that area. But one thing is like,
let's just remove the fear so you don't have to feel like, you
know, in this fear state all the time. But what he did is, what he
found is that exposure to snakes in, like,
little steps desensitized people
to it because it became more familiar. So the first thing he did is he

(20:12):
would, you know, have people in his therapy room, and he'd show them pictures of
snakes. It would make them uncomfortable, right? But they get more comfortable with it. And
then he would bring in a snake in a cage across the room, which made
them uncomfortable that it was over there. And then he would bring the snake
closer to them, but it was still encased. And then he would take the snake
out and he would handle it across the other side of the room. So what

(20:32):
you're seeing is this is desensitization or, like,
exposure therapy. So as you get to know the snake, you're like,
okay, this isn't so bad. Eventually his patients would be
handling the state the snake, and now they overcame the fear.
So in general, as I answer this in the business world is we got to
ask, like, okay, what. What is it that you fear? And instead of

(20:54):
running away from it, we need to start taking step by
step toward it and get closer to it. And when you become more
familiar with it, then it's not so scary. Like, I was
really scared of writing a book first time. I'm like, I'm a. I'm a great
leadership development expert, and I can go and teach leaders and drive
results and do all that. I can do that all day long. Like, that's not.

(21:14):
That's easy for me. But writing a book, that is scary. What if I
feel like, you know, so. No, One of the strategies that we can do
is you can just take time to learn. Like, okay, talk to people who are
other people that I know that I can talk to that have written
books and let me learn about their path and hear their stories. When
I do that now, that's like taking the steps toward the snake, right? Like,

(21:36):
okay, I'm. I'm seeing a picture of it. I'm asking about the journey. It's becoming
more familiar to me. So basically study it.
Talk to people who've done it. Ask them, like, what mistakes did you make? Like,
what. What are the steps that you took to be able to get there? And
then as you become more familiar with it, that fear
really dissipates because the whole goal is to take steps toward it. That is great.

(21:58):
I am one that has a fear of snakes. Do you really?
I do. I have dreams of like a whole group of snakes
in a river, and somehow I'm there. Oh, my gosh. Wow.
I've got to walk around them or get past them. And I'm like, how come
there's so many snakes here? But, but I
just, you know, part of it is I don't know which ones can either bite

(22:19):
me or squeeze me to death. There you go. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And
this is the. And sometimes fear, let's say sometimes fear is rational.
Like, we are, we are. We are wired to be
motivated by our fear. So let me just make that claim too. It's the way
we're wired. Like, this is our blame, our evolutionary
roots, right? And usually fear is what kept us safe. If we see something that's

(22:42):
dangerous, we run away from it, and then our chances of survival are greater. So
Daniel Kahneman, he's an award winning psychologist, you know,
won the Nobel prize in research for his.
His finding that we are twice as motivated in terms of
our behavior by fear and by risk than reward.
So we're, we're automatically, like, wired to

(23:04):
allow fear to control our behaviors. And it was more of a survival instinct.
However, there are ways that we can overcome it. And the
reason why we had that is it was physical danger, right? So, so maybe snakes,
maybe that's a good thing. Wired. If you see a snake, like, I live in
Southern California, we have rattlesnakes. Like, I don't want to go pet a
rattlesnake. Like that fear of jumping, that's a good thing. Sometimes we

(23:26):
need to listen to fears because they are going to keep us safe. But most
of the fears for people out in business, it's social fear. It's
the fear of the unknown. It's the fear of embarrassment. It's a fear of failure.
Yeah. In the book, you talk about three dimensions. Can
you share what those are and how they work? Yeah. So if someone
wants to work on their bravery, I remember I said I think everyone should

(23:48):
because we all have fears. Yeah. There's three different dimensions of
basically actions that you can do. So tangible, like little things that you can
do that can build your bravery muscle. And bravery is like a muscle, you know,
if you want to build a muscle, you stress your muscle. You know, you. You
make it uncomfortable, you're a little sore, and then it gets stronger. So same thing
with bravery. So the three different dimensions are. One is mindset,

(24:09):
which I draw from cognitive psychology. So the second
dimension comes from behavioral psychology, which is taking
bold action in the presence of fear. So one is how we think. The second
one is taking that action. And the third dimension
is what I call your brave tribe or your
environment. And that I draw that from social psychology. So if you think

(24:31):
about these three things, each one of them independently can help you become
braver. But if, if you take a habit from each
of these three, they have a compound effect. And that's. And so
let's say we work on mindset and someone believes
that stress and challenges are bad and they want
to avoid any type of challenges because challenges and stress are what create

(24:54):
a, you know, unhappiness. If that's what they believe, that's their mindset. Then
when stress happens, they're going to be unhappy and they're probably going to
make it stop in their tracks. So, like, one strategy I share with my clients
is I share the research on stress mindset. The stress is enhancing
mindset. So leading researchers Aaliyah Crum
and others, Kelly McGonigal, what they have found is people's

(25:17):
beliefs about stress and adversity are a
predictor of how they handle it. A really important study
that they did in the business world, because I'm always. I work in the business
world. I take this stuff to the business world. So sometimes when I hear psychology,
I'm like, all right, I want a business example. So here's a business example. So
they went into a company, I believe it was UBS high stress environment.

(25:37):
And they basically just spent three minutes to
show a video to a large group of managers. Now
there's always whenever you do empirical research, there's got to be like the control and
then the placebo, right? So everyone got a three minute video. Some of the people
got a three minute video saying stress is
horrible, it will kill you. You want to eliminate stress. Right.

(25:58):
The other half had the video
that said stress is enhancing. Stress is what
helps you grow and develop. It can build your self confidence.
In fact, stress is when you feel stress. It's your body
preparing you to perform at your best. That's why your heart is beating, to get
more blood going and to breathe. So stress helps you

(26:20):
perform at your best and then you have that big impact and then that.
So both are three minute videos. I mean that literally the only intervention
is a three minute video. What was the result? Put them in a high stress
environment. The people that believe that stress is good for them, they
outperformed the other group and it was statistically significant. However, they
measure that at ups, they had higher levels of job satisfaction

(26:42):
and they even looked at health outcomes and they looked at
DHEA levels, which is, you know, something that we link to,
like resilience. And they also looked at blood pressure. So like literally
just, you know, doing a little cognitive work and helping change people's
mindsets. Stress is not bad for you unless you think it's bad for you and
then it will be bad for you. So there, that's a little kind of practical

(27:04):
tip. Checking your email, doing everything that's easy. Most people get to
work and they ease into their day. I teach people attack
your day. It's the Marine in me. But I have to like make things
fun too. Like what are the most important things that are help you drive your
result and you do that first. We have the most
cognitive resources in the morning. So you do the hardest thing

(27:26):
first. You attack the day and then you get a dopamine hit and then you
have progress and then you praise the progress. So just sometimes how
we organize, you know, our workflow, we're not thinking
of our psychology when we get to work and how to organize it. So
teach that. And then social psychology, the last dimension, which is if
you want to be brave, we do a lot of internal work, the cognitive side,

(27:48):
the behavioral side, so that we're most motivated to take steps toward what we fear.
But it also helps if you surround yourself with a brave tribe,
which is other people who are stepping toward what they fear.
When everyone's doing it, there's that conformity. So you want to surround yourself
with other people who are being courageous. You want to
Curate a brave tribe. Who are the people that will

(28:11):
encourage you? The word encourage means put
courage in. So don't surround yourself with the people that are like, why are you
stressing yourself out? No, that's good enough. You know, like, let's just.
Just go. Let's just go to lunch and not work. Let's just
take the day off. You got to surround yourself with people who will
call forth your best and help you be brave. So you

(28:33):
surround yourself with that brave tribe. Makes a big difference. I love what
you're saying about surrounding yourself with people who also
value bravery and take risks and take chances. And
I guess it just makes logical sense that you'd be more
inclined to want to take risks and more be more open to
doing brave things if you're hanging around people, seeing them do it and seeing

(28:55):
them take the risk, even if they're not always successful. Exactly. Now, I
want to be smart, though. I don't want to just, like,
go 100% at something I've never done before without any knowledge.
Like, I want to talk to people who have done it and go, like, what
mistakes did you make? What's the best path? I mean, let's be smart about it.
You're gonna stumble and fall, and you want to surround yourself with other people that

(29:16):
have that mindset. So I love that mindset. Taking bold action,
environment, cognitive, behavioral, and social
psychology all built into that. Tell us. Let
me ask you one more question, but I do want to hit on one of
the things you mentioned earlier, which is don't set easy goals.
And also the other thing that's going to stick with me from this conversation is

(29:39):
attack the day. Try to move some of those big rocks
first, and then it'll give you a dopamine hit to keep you. Keep you
encouraged to keep going. Jill, this has been a great conversation.
Before we sign off, I've got one more question for you, and then I'd like
you to share with people how they might be able to reach out to you,
finding more information. And that is what delights you as a

(30:01):
customer. You know what? It's when I feel
surprise and delight, when I'm surprised because
someone does something that exceeds my expectations. I fly all the time.
I fly all over the world to speak. Right. So I'm always flying. And just
the other day, I was on a flight coming home, and there was this
flight attendant, and she was greeting me with such

(30:23):
positive energy and happiness that it seemed genuine. That's all she did,
but I noticed it. And then when she came around the genuine smile. So
like, I don't need that much. But it's the genuine nature. It's
not just like, can you, can you ring me out as fast as possible? Can
you bring me a drink? It's for me, it's not necessarily the what,
it's the how so. And that's what sets it apart. I mean, in

(30:45):
restaurants and hotels, like, it's the emotion goes back to the
emotional state in a way. Right. So instead
of just complaining, you know, when things don't go well, like I stopped and I
told her, I'm like, you really made my day. And out of all the flights
I've been on the last couple months, you just really stood out as someone. That
was great. And I told her that. Love that story. Jill. I should have done

(31:07):
this at the top, but thank you for your service to our country. Yes.
Well, thank you for saying that, choosing to serve in
the Marine Corps. I'm happy that I chose to serve
our country, but that experience served me because it built
my bravery and my confidence and I've taken that with me moving forward
into corporate America. So I just feel so lucky to have been able

(31:29):
to experience that and call myself and to have earned the title of United
States Marine. But thank you for saying that and. Tell us how
people might be able to get a hold of your. You and or
your book. Yeah. So the easiest way is just my website. It's
jillshulman.com I recommend people
either sign up for my newsletter because in my newsletter there's no

(31:51):
fluff. It's always an evidence based tip that you can apply right
away to elevate your bravery and to elevate your results. So
you know, and then you can find my book there and, and also if you
follow me on any social media, I don't sell anything on my social media
stuff. I simply try to bring value and give you little tips.

(32:11):
So go to my website, follow me on any like social media. You can buy
the book the Bravery effect Starting August, August 26, the launch date,
anywhere they sell books. Excellent. The book is called the
Bravery Effect. Jill Schulman is my guest. Thanks so much for being on the show.
Thanks for having me.
I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Delighted Customers

(32:33):
podcast. It would mean so much if you would take a moment to subscribe.
You can go to Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you
listen to podcasts. Click on the plus sign or follow button button and that
will ensure that you don't miss an episode and it helps get the word out
to others. While you're there, I'd love it if you leave a five star
review. I look forward to seeing you back here next Thursday.
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know
Law & Order: Criminal Justice System - Season 1 & Season 2

Law & Order: Criminal Justice System - Season 1 & Season 2

Season Two Out Now! Law & Order: Criminal Justice System tells the real stories behind the landmark cases that have shaped how the most dangerous and influential criminals in America are prosecuted. In its second season, the series tackles the threat of terrorism in the United States. From the rise of extremist political groups in the 60s to domestic lone wolves in the modern day, we explore how organizations like the FBI and Joint Terrorism Take Force have evolved to fight back against a multitude of terrorist threats.

Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.