249. The Art of Self-Leadership with Heather Younger

Episode Transcript
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Mick Spiers (00:00):
Have you ever felt like your voice isn't truly
heard in the workplace and thatyour needs are not being met? Do
you sometimes wonder if yourfears about leadership or career
growth are actually real or juststories you've told yourself?
What have I told you that thekey to leading others starts
with mastering how you leadyourself. Today, we are diving

(00:24):
deep into the art of selfleadership with none other than
the amazing Heather younger.
She's the founder and CEO ofemployee fanatics. She's also
the best selling author of TheArt of active listening, the art
of caring leadership, and nowher latest book, The Art of self
leadership, Heather sharespowerful insights on emotional

(00:44):
intelligence, resilience,overcoming fear and the mindset
shifts required to become atruly influential leader. So if
you've ever questioned your ownleadership abilities or felt
stuck in your career, thisepisode is for you.
Hey everyone, and welcome backto The Leadership Project. I'm

(01:05):
greatly honored today to bejoined by Heather Younger.
Heather is the founder and CEOof an organization called
employee fanatics that focuseson employee engagement and
company culture, but she's alsothe best selling author of
multiple books, including TheArt of active listening, the art
of caring leadership, and herlatest book, which will be out

(01:28):
by the time we air this episode,which is called the art of self
leadership. When I look atHeather's body of work, I feel
like I could do 27 or even 270episodes with Heather, and we
still wouldn't be finished, butwe're going to drill down onto
her latest book today, the artof self leadership. So without

(01:49):
any further ado, Heather, I'dlove for you to introduce
yourself to the audience, give alittle flavor of your
background. But what I'm mostinterested in, why this book,
what inspired the out of selfleadership?

Heather Younger (02:02):
Well, thanks Mick again for having me. This
book came out of a journey ofdoing a lot of listening. It is
a core belief in mind thatlistening to another human being
is the biggest gift you can giveto them. And the audiences that
I speak to, and employee focusgroups that I facilitate, and
the interviews that I do on myown podcast leadership with

(02:23):
heart. I've listened to a lot ofpeople, and one of the things
that kept coming up in all thosespaces was this sense of people
waiting, this sense of peopleblaming other people for the
place that they're at in theirjourney, and really giving away
the power they have to leadthemselves more effectively than

(02:44):
they are currently. And I got alevel of frustration. Part of it
was that I saw in them some ofthe things that I actually had
going on previous to this. And Iremember having to I always say,
I've called my way up and out.
I've called my way into theplaces I'm in. And so now I'm
here to kind of tell you whatI've done and how you can

(03:06):
actually get there. And sothat's how the what the impetus
was for this book on selfleadership. I am I graduated
from law school, so I have a lawdegree. I took a long journey in
sales, customer experience,large account management,
employee experience, leadershipdevelopment, leadership
development, and just got to theplace where I realized that a
lot of people give away theirpower, and there's choices that

(03:28):
we can make to show up the waywe want to, and oftentimes we
make good choices, and sometimeswe don't, and that's what that's
the human experience. And mygoal is to try to reduce the
amount of times where we don'tshow up the way we want to
because someone else is doingsomething to us or or we at
least perceive that to be thecase.

Yes, what's ringing in my head when I listen to you,
Heather is a big element of, I'mgoing to call it victim mindset,
of people blaming kind ofconditions around them. And you
said this word giving away yourpower. I'll come back to that in
a moment, as well word waiting,and also this importance of
listening and a beautiful momentbefore we hit record. Heather is

(04:10):
when I asked you, what doessuccess look like for you today?
You spoke about two people beingpresent with each other, that
that's what is the greatest giftis, is to be there and be
present and to truly listen tosomeone. I want to start with
this giving away your power.
What? What does that mean toyou? And what do you see in the
world in relation to this givingaway your power?

An example would be, there's an example I
give in the book where there's agentleman who's get higher. He
gets hired in a role, and he'sfrustrated because his new boss
isn't giving him any direction,and he doesn't really hear from
him, and he's spending a lot ofhis time sitting around like
Lali, Lali waiting to start,waiting to be successful in his

(04:54):
new role and his the person whoshared this story with me, who
was his partner, said, why? Areyou waiting so much? Why don't
you just get on his calendar andlet him know what you need from
him in order to be thesuccessful person you want to be
and that he expects you to be,instead of waiting for him to
plot a course for you that youneed from him to be successful

(05:17):
in your journey. And that was athat was a big wake up call, was
a big aha. And I think manypeople are doing are in that
waiting pattern. It reminds meof a holding pattern.

Yeah, right. That's really interesting. So this
waiting element that's coming upagain, and now we're talking,
I'm going to say a creatormindset, which would be stop
waiting for others and stopblaming your circumstances.
Sorry, to be crass for a second,but get off your butt. Stop
waiting and go and ask for whatyou need. How does that sit with

(05:48):
you?

I mean, it sits with me well, and it's because
I've done that my whole life. Ihad to, I had to fight through a
bit of adversity as a kid. Andthen you to be honest, looking
what I look like, it's a thereare these, you know, unspoken
things that are underneath theservice and the bias front. And
I've had to kind of fight my waythrough that, you know, to
reveal a very strong, capable,intelligent and compassionate

(06:12):
and caring person, so thatclawing, it's literally the only
way I can really think of it. Itreally is that way of like, how
do you get your way out of it?
Because I feel like weoftentimes, we get stuck in this
pit, pit of just we're stuck.
We're stuck in a pit ofdespairs, a pit of helplessness.
There's so much of that thatgoes on at work, at home, with
friends, and how long we staystuck, I believe, is mostly from

(06:37):
us, our own minds, our owndesires to get out of it. And so
because I was able to do thatand continue to continue to claw
through life, continue to getout of it, I just, I want to
continue to impart to people, Ithink I've discovered that the
secret that's helped me continueto move forward and to achieve
what I do is this idea ofshortening the time I'm stuck in

(06:59):
between the pain I have or thething that's making me be in
pain, and the time I find thesolution out of that pain.

Yeah, and when I can the person sitting in front
of me, I can see it come throughincredibly so, so well done on
what you've done here, I can seeyour light up. Your whole face
lights up. And you get excitedwhen you talk about this,
clawing out of the pit andmaking your own journey. It's
really quite amazing. And now Isee someone that wants to pay

(07:26):
that forward and show others howto do that as well. Let me put
an interesting perspective onthe topic. You do a lot of
employee satisfaction surveys.
You've read a lot of them, etc,so you this is going to be
interesting question for you,for sure, when I read some of
those, I see this disconnect,right? So we have, let's say,
the management and leadershiplevel, and then the employee

(07:47):
level in the organization, andeveryone shows up to work
wanting to do a good job. Now, Idon't believe that anyone wakes
up in the morning and goes,right, what can I do today to be
a real jerk, etc, etc. But weget this dichotomy of employee
ers or the the the managementlayer saying, Why won't people
step up and step in? And then wehave employees that say, No one

(08:12):
gave me the opportunity to stepup and step in. And you end up
in this situation where everyonewants the same thing, but what's
there's a missing dialog, orthere's a disconnect somewhere?

Yeah, actually, I just was on a webinar a couple
days ago with Amy Edmonds andthe kind of the person who
coined psychological safety, andI think that's one of the
missing points here. It'sprobably the main missing point
when we think about,historically, the employer
employee relationship. My veryfirst book is called The Seven
intuitive laws of employeeloyalty, where I really do kind
of delve into this concept ofthat imbalance that exists

(08:50):
between employer employee right?
You pay me so I can survive. Icome do the work that I do, the
work that you want me to do, andthe way I you want me to do it,
or I don't get paid that helpsme to survive. And when you
think about Maslow's hierarchyof need, that kind of idea of
security and food and safety andall those things are at the base
of that employers have so muchto do with giving that to
people, they don't even realizehow much power they possess.

(09:11):
They think of it verysuperficially, and don't realize
how deep it goes. So I thinksafety is the thing that's the
difference here, that peopledon't feel safe in the
environment necessarily, tospeak their truth, to be who
they are, to speak a distancingopinion. And so it just it
recreates that there's like thisunevenness that exists, this
inequity, that an imbalancethat's inside the workplace.

Yeah, so I'm wondering how and whether this
art of self leadership is goingto be some of our secrets to
bridge some of that gap. I'mgoing to go a little bit further
in the story. We talk a lotabout adaptive and situational
leadership, right? So adaptiveleadership adapting to the
person. And sometimes we talkabout, well, you're not going to

(09:55):
lead a 30 year veteran in yourindustry the same way that
you're going to lead. An intern,they have different needs, and I
still believe that's universallytrue, even though I'm about to
contradict myself. Then, when Iread some of these surveys,
these stories, regardless ofsomeone is a junior through to a
very senior one, these storieskeep on coming up, and it's

(10:16):
employees coming back andsaying, No one made it clear to
me what was expected of me, ormy manager doesn't give me
feedback. And my initialreaction to that is, oh, hang on
a second. We've misread this.
Even a 30 year veteran in theindustry still needs to have
expectation settings, stillneeds to have feedback. That's
one side of the equation. Nowlistening to you. The other side

(10:39):
of the equation is, why didn'tthat person that felt like,
well, no one makes it clear tome what's expected of me. No one
gives me feedback. Why didn'tthey ask?

There's that imbalance? It's just there. The
key is, I almost think, with anychange, I always say there's
like, three components tochange, personal change,
organizational change, and itis, we have to have an awareness
that there's a problem. We haveto have a desire to do something
about it, and then we have tohave this, like stamina, or like
staying power, to see the changethrough and for us from the self

(11:13):
awareness perspective, which Ido, I talk about lot in that
first part of the book, we haveto understand about the real
limits and the perceived limits.
So the thing that, like theguard rails that are, in fact,
there, maybe the manager has putthat on us, or somebody has set
told us we don't do this, we dothis. And then the things that
we think are the real things,like our real limits, and it's

(11:34):
in our mind. So how much of itis perceived? How much is it
have we picked up from someplace and all of a sudden made
it our own. Then, which meansthen we don't take certain
action, we don't do certainthings, or how much of it is
like it's actually real. And Ithink we need to decipher the
real and perceived limitationsat work so we can know how to

(11:54):
communicate with other people wedo then our feel more
comfortable setting our ownexpectations about what we want
from our journey. Some yearsago, I read this book. It's an
amazing book to this day. Andanybody knows Reid Hoffman? He's
the co founder of LinkedIn. Hewrote a book called The
Alliance, and it was a greatbook. What I loved about this is
it talked about the Alliancejust like it is. It's like we no

(12:18):
longer this employer, employeething. It really shouldn't work.
What we should be doing insteadis we act like we're in align to
each other, and that theemployer needs something from
the employee. The employeeexpects or wants something for
their journey. And they come tolike a meeting in the minds when
they first come in. Then theycheck in, let's say every
quarter, to see if the meetingthe mind still exists. Like, are
you still okay with a journey,am I receiving the benefit, the

(12:40):
value here? And so you justcontinue to do that now, it
feels very much more like apartnership. And it doesn't feel
as perennial like it doesn'tfeel like, Oh, I'm beholden to
you, and I don't get anythingout of this relationship. It
feels like it's even so, thatthe both people are getting what
they need out of it. And to acertain extent, it takes a
little bit out of the emotion ofit, right? It says, I have an

(13:01):
objective. You have anobjective. Are you meeting my
objective? Are you meeting myobjective? And I really loved
it, actually, because I justfelt like it's one way to put
employees, employers a littlebit more on even playing field.
So the Alliance, I definitelyhighly recommend it. He's a
billionaire, and he's doing allkinds of things around AI, but
this particular one hit me, andI don't not many books stay with

(13:23):
me, but this concept of let'seven it out, and let's see how
we're meeting each other's needsand checking in frequently with
that is a very mature way ofapproaching that relationship,
right?

Yeah, I love it. I have not read the book, and I'm
now going to read it, by theway, but you've already got me
at the concept, the word theAlliance, that's going to
rebalance that relationship andgoing to end up in the
situation. The things that werebouncing in my head when I was
listening to you is wheneveryone can answer these kind
of questions, why am I here? Whyare you here? Why are we here?

(14:03):
What do I bring to the table?
What do you bring to the table?
And we start really deeplylistening to each other. We can
then start co creating somethingthat's much greater than any of
us individually could do. Butwe're now in an alliance. I'm
relying on you. You're relyingon me. We have this
interdependence, we can get ridof some of that messy

(14:24):
relationship stuff that theimbalance in the relationship,
and just get on with it. Howdoes that sit with you, Heather?

Yeah, I love it. That's exactly it. That's it
because I There isn't. There'sdefinitely a true imbalance. And
I think the people who pretendthat isn't, it's like, it's
like, I was this is a little bitdifferent topic, but it is
similarly aligned, which is whenwe talk about different people
having different benefits, andI'm not going political here.
I'm just saying different peopleat work or different people in
life having different benefits.
And some people say, Oh, that'snot very true. If you remove

(14:52):
this, remove this, like we'reall the same, like we all have
the same things. And I'm justlike, we must be completely
fooling ourselves, and employ.
Lawyer and an employee do nothave the same power, and certain
people do not have the samepower or benefits. They just
don't. It's a reality,irrespective of any of the
political things you can thinkof. So what we what we're
thinking of is, what are the,what are the safety points, or

(15:15):
the trip wire type, like a likea fail thing that you could make
it where you're not feeling.

I'll say, Yeah.

Fail safe.
Thank you very much, fail safe.
What is the fail safe to try toequalize that power in the
workplace. And I love, I thinkthe Alliance concept is great.
But I think at the same time, ifwe open up from the self
leadership perspective, if weopen up our minds to, you know,
do things like I talk about, youknow, finding the strength

(15:43):
within us. So what are ourstrengths? The strengths that
someone has pointed out to us,the ones we are slowly learning
about ourselves. How can usethat for our best benefit? How
can Would it hurt us to speak upto let them know that this thing
we're doing isn't serving uswell on our journey with them as
an organization with a leader,with a spouse, with a child,

(16:04):
whatever, whatever that, whoeverthat is, how does that? How does
a speaking up not serve us? Andhow does it serve us? I am the
invitation is for us to be moreintrospective about the choices
that we make and how we show up,about the things that we say we
can't do because we're givingour power to someone else to
make that decision for us, it isan invitation to be more
introspective, for sure.

Yeah, really interesting. So I want to get
into these limiting beliefs thatyou have been a threat in our
conversation so far, like so youyou're saying people it's in
their mind that they can't dothese things, and you're a case
in point of you absolutelybloody well can do these things,
just crawl out and get out thereand ask. So let's unpack some of

(16:46):
those limiting beliefs and whysomeone tells these stories in
their head that they can't Is itthe lack of psychological
safety? Is it the fear of thepower imbalance, or is it
they're mimicking the behaviorin of people before them and a
little bit of societalexpectations of people, you
know, thinking too much aboutwhat other people expect of

(17:08):
them, instead of just beingthemselves, like, what's holding
people back? Let's use theexample I used before, that the
employee is feeling like no onehelps them set expectations of
what what's expected of them.
And the second one is that noone's giving me feedback. What's
stopping them from asking, Hey,I don't know what you expect of
me this week, or you haven'tgiven me any feedback for a

(17:30):
while. Can you tell me how wheream I going right? Where am I
going wrong? What's stoppingthem from asking those
questions?

I think psycho psychological safety still is
embedded in a lot of it. But Ialso think this is why I start
the book with selfunderstanding. Because I want
you to know, like thelimitations, the fears, the
things that you have, if youdon't understand where they come
from, you can't understandwhether or not you have control
over them and or can you justthrow those down and smash them

(17:58):
and go away? You have to godeeper on who you are and where
a lot of these things come from,because I do feel like that's
what's stopping us. Anotherthing I talk about in this first
part is on our value structure.
So understanding what we value.
Will understand the value webring. We'll also understand
what it was, what it is we willnot suffer through the things we
will not put up with. It alsowill help us understand what we

(18:20):
stand for and what it is we'reexcited about. So I think
there's a lot of work we have todo inside for us to get to the
point where our brillianceshines through. My definition of
self leadership really is thisidea of an internal shine to
then bring forth an outerbrilliance. And that it all
culminates in this resilience,intentional action, self

(18:42):
awareness, we have all of this.
This that we're doing allows usto shine more brilliantly. So
it's like a multi faceted lookat things. But I do think we are
lacking the inner work to takingthat time to look at the mirror
and see what it is that'sdriving us down and bearing down
of us, whether it's like intherapy with coaches, our own

(19:02):
into inner type of likejournaling, something that we're
doing to dive deeper. One of thethings I put forth in this book
is a kind of fear mappingconcept. It's, it's not my
initial concept, but it's I wrapsome previous work around that
and put it in there, and ithelps you map out your fears.
Define if they're rational orirrational, define where they
come from. Figure out are there,is there evidence that's counter

(19:25):
to the fear that can help youkind of minimize some of the
fear, so evidence of yoursuccess in one area might
minimize a fear of your doingsomething in that area. So I
really want you to go deep. I'mnot a therapist. I am a coach
too, but I do Lean on kind oftherapy, types of being right.
It's just who I am. And I thinkthat there, we're really missing

(19:46):
doing a lot of that internalwork to get to the point where
our brilliance can shinethrough.

Yeah, this is really powerful. So starting
with this self awareness, let meshare the story that bumped into
my head when you were talking soI'm imagining now. Now let's use
a feedback conversation. Andwhether it's the employee or the
boss, let's say that they wantedto have a feedback conversation
with someone. Someone wanted toask the boss for feedback, or
give the boss some feedback, orthe boss themselves wanted to

(20:15):
give feedback to the employee,but something held them back.
And when they're on the tram onthe way home from work that day,
instead of going, what was itabout the other person that held
me back from giving thatfeedback or asking that
question? What was it about methat held me back from asking
that question? And to use atherapy term, it could be, what?

(20:39):
Well, what is this belief? Butwhere is this belief coming
from? And the therapy term is aresolving mindset. If I haven't
resolved whatever it was in mymind, my past, my history, if I
haven't resolved that, it'salways going to haunt me.

And it's going to show up in leaders. Listen,
we've got some damaged, bruisedleaders in the workplace, and it
ain't getting any easier as theyare trying to figure out what
they're needing to do to leadteams more effectively, to
continue to engage people inremote or hybrid types of
situations. And so the bruisesare there, and it's going to be
elevated. The exhaustion and theburnout amongst managers is top

(21:17):
of the line right now. It's it'shigh. And so I think the key is
for them to even do their ownwork around you know, why is
this being so hard, and why areyou having a hard time? And just
to ask yourself, why a lot?
Because I think that's how weget to the bottom of why it's
like how it's revealing itselfto the external world. So inward
shine outward brilliance. Inwardshine outward brilliance. We're

(21:41):
constantly working on.
Constantly working on the inwardshine. We have more of the
outward brilliance. But I dowant to say this that, you know,
we have become a culture, and Iknow, you know, I may have even
contributed to some of this.
We've become a culture thatbeing good is not good enough.
And what I like to say at thebase of this work, and it's a
realization that I had to haveas I would dive into my own self

(22:01):
worth issues based on my pastand into work and the inner work
I had to do to understand it. Itis the idea that we are good in
and of ourselves. We are good.
We reformed good. We are good.
And when I'm talking about inthe work I do is not that you
are bad. What I'm talking aboutis, how can the internal shine

(22:21):
that exists with you, which, bythe way, is part of your power,
become more outwardly obviousand more brilliant to people
outside. So everything that I'mtrying to teach and train is the
element of just developing moreof that external brilliance, so
getting it inside and then goingoutside. So that's what I want
people to know, is that thiswork is not about me telling you

(22:42):
you're bad and so go leadyourself better. Like it's not
that. It's how do you just do itmore effectively? How do you
shine more brilliantly? How canyour relationships be more
fruitful? How can you feelbetter about yourself and and
that's really the the gist of,to be honest, all of the work.
Because even in the caringleadership space, when I'm
training leaders or talking tomanagers and audiences, I'm

(23:03):
inviting them to show up withmore concern and care, first for
themselves, which is what selfleadership is about, then for
others to start with them to goexternally, the invitation is
there, and it's up for them toaccept it.

So inner shine, outward brilliance, and you are
saying that people are good. Iwant to, want to challenge that
a little bit now and say, How dowell, it's not challenging this.
Ask for some tips here on howdoes someone make sure that that
doesn't become their own worstcritic? And they start beating
themselves up or, or it might beimposter syndrome kicking in,

(23:41):
and they and it, and they gointo a spiral instead of
something virtuous.

Yeah, we're all human. So I'm going to say right
now, I'm a lot. I want you toallow the space to feel bad. I
want you to allow the space tonot feel like a hero in the
moment, or like you're doingyour best work, or like you are
your best person. We are human.
There has to be for each personis different. There has to be a
cut off point, like a pointwhere you say, I'm sick of

(24:07):
myself, and I'm stopping thisinsanity, and I'm going forward,
like I have to find a solution,a way out of it. I use reframing
as a lot. I talk about that alot, multiple times in the book,
I have portions in the book thatactually are committed to
showing you the steps to takefor that, but I think that's the
key. Is that you got at somepoint, you shake yourself out of
it, you smack yourself right,like this, yeah. Okay, enough.

(24:28):
Enough is enough. And your thingis to really shorten the time
between the thing that'shappening to you that makes you
feel stuck and the enlightenmentthat comes like the trigger
point that comes and so that youhave to define that for
yourself. I call it kind of aswitch in the brain, and only
you can determine when you aregoing to be the one that kind of
flips the switch that allows youto step outside of that thinking

(24:49):
that's not serving you. I justthink. But we all have our own
times when we are so sick ofourselves. We got to get out of
it. And you just have to figureout, when can I shorten that
time? When the sickness ofmyself is shortened and I can
stop being in this pity partywith myself, or this non belief
or this imposter thing. Here'sanother great just a really good
tactical exercise. And I hearpeople talking about gratitude

(25:11):
journals. I think gratitudejournals are great. I also think
accomplishment journals would begreat, you know, just writing
down where you have beensuccessful, countering that you
can, you know, you can talkabout like, when I was, when I
was at the point where I was aplace of fear or a place of I
felt like I was failing. Whatdid that look like? What was
going on now, I want you to goright next to that, like, draw a
line and right next to our put atime when you actually succeeded

(25:33):
in very similar circumstances.
What was going on there? Whatdid you do differently? Because,
again, as we were able to breakdown our actions in both
scenarios, we might see it's onelittle, tiny, little tweak, and
it's not some huge thing. You'renot looking for some, some big
thing to come to you.

Yeah, really, really powerful. So I'm
certainly hearing the selfawareness now. I'm hearing the
self compassion and an elementof, look how far I've come. Not
look at all the things that areI'm not good at this. I'm not
good at that. Look at how farI've come. Everyone's on a
journey, so make sure you'recelebrating the successes along

(26:13):
the way. Don't forget those.
Don't just be the self critical.
Also celebrate the successes.
Okay.

Yes, please do.
Please do. And I'm and I'm, bythe way, when I say that, I when
I'm saying that, I'm saying itto myself too. I've just gotten
better at it.

Yeah, good, okay.

I've just gotten in my early 50s, and I
have just gotten better atcelebrating my successes.
Because I wouldn't say Inecessarily like spend a lot of
time in pity parties, becauseI've gotten past I've learned
how to get out of it quicker.
That's why I'm trying to teachpeople how to do it. But I think
the thing that I realized is mytied to this concept of, like, a
low self worth. I had been aperson who just marched, march,

(26:49):
march, march, I just took my ownlife by storm, march, march,
march, march, and I didn't taketime to go pause and be like, oh
my goodness, like this thing,whether it's big or small.

Yeah.

Happened. And so the other thing that I
noticed, for those who areleaders on the show, those who
manage people specifically, oreven have people that you're
leading in your homes, is thisidea that if I wasn't giving
myself permission to celebratemy small wins, then I wasn't
helping others inside of mysphere celebrate their small
wins, in most cases, so theyfelt the pressure bearing down
on their shoulders of not beingable to to ever satisfy

(27:29):
themselves or me with the winsthey had, right? So when I
started to realize, mostlythrough I have four children,
and through my children, I wouldbe like and I would I always
would notice the small wins withthem, and I'd say, Oh, this is
amazing. This amazing. This isamazing. Then I started to go,
Wait a second. I'm taking thistime for them, but I'm not doing
it for me. And how much better,much more of a like a leader in

(27:49):
my home could I be if I didpause and if they saw me
celebrating me more?

Uh, yeah. Well, then you're, you're doing it for
yourself, but then you're rolemodeling it for others as well,
if you did that. Yeah. Reallypowerful. Heather. All right. So
the other one that you weresaying there was around those
beliefs, when those beliefs popinto your head, do I know this
belief to be true? Do I is thisbelief serving me, or is it not
serving me? I think that's theother really critical thing that

(28:15):
you said there. All right. Nextquestion I got for you is about
the fear, right? So if someoneis doing the self assessment,
they're doing the work, andthey're going to step forward,
the fear equation is going tocome in. And I'll just throw it
out there, and just want to hearfrom you as an expert on this
one, people's fear of lossalways outweighs their

(28:37):
appreciation of gain. Is thatthe final hurdle before they go
and have that conversation withtheir with their boss or their
leader where they start steppinginto their power and saying what
they want or what they need inthe workplace. Is it the fear of
loss outweighing theirappreciation of what they might
gain from that conversation?

Excellent, excellent question. I don't
think anybody's ever asked methat before, and I do believe,
oftentimes, that whole carrotversus stick, or what, you know,
what the pain versus thepleasure? I do think that comes
into play a lot. And I do thinkeven, like, remember, I talked
about the three the three leggedstool on change as we think of
the awareness of a pain point ora stumbling block, a desire to

(29:20):
do something about it, and thenthe stamina to see it through. I
think often the desire is kindof what you're getting to is
like hampered by our fear ofrejection, our fear of negative
feedback, our our fear of justsomeone completely denying that
our view has any that's that'sreputable. And I think that's
the again, going back to thepsychological safety part, and

(29:42):
Amy edmondson's work was sobrilliant in that. And then we
just continue, see continued on.
It is very real thing to workagainst. I don't want to
minimize people's fears aroundwhat people might say or but I
want what I want to do, theinvitation is for you to
evaluate is the. Fear real. Sohave you seen Is there evidence
that it's real? So you've hadtalks with your boss or talks

(30:05):
with people before, and you cansee that they are very anti, you
know, saying something in adissenting opinion, or having
people challenge them, orwhatever it is. Have I paid
enough attention to the people?
Let's just say it's my boss, mymanager or an executive
leadership team member. And haveI paid enough attention to how

(30:25):
they like to be communicated? Tohave I paid attention to how
they receive dissenting opinion,whether it's one on one or if
it's an you know, you're in asmall group meeting versus a
large group meeting? Are youthis is that goes back to the
being sent being a presentperson, because if you're
present enough, you're going tobe more aware about what you and
what's happening in yourenvironment, which then allows

(30:46):
you to meet people more wherethey're at, to get more out of
the relationships that you have.
If everything's about you, you,you, you and you're so inward
focused and you're not seeingoutside of you, you're not going
to be effective in your spaceswith the people who need you to
communicate with them in the waythey need to be heard, not in
the way that you need to beheard. So let me give you an
example. Let's say you havelet's say your manager is

(31:08):
somebody who's really dataoriented. They need they in
order for them to make sense ofthe world in the environment,
and for them to find their owntruth. They need data. But you
are not a data person. Yours isabout how people feel. You sense
this, you feel this, and thatperson who receives data is a
way of understanding the worlddoesn't understand you, and

(31:28):
you're good, by the way, morelikely going to frustrate them.
So what you have to do is bepresent enough in the moment to
see that that's the thing theyneed from you, to feel heard, to
understand where you're goingfrom coming from, and then you
give it to them that way. So youfind the data points, you find
the metrics that prove the pointof the thing you're looking to

(31:49):
get done. That's selfleadership, because it's saying,
in order for me to be effectivein my relationships, I got to
find a way to get through tothese people. And these people
aren't necessarily like peoplewho think like me or respond
like me, and so because of that,I need to find a way through
that. Instead of again, themgiving you like them, telling
you or, you know what? I mean,it just much more proactive. The
intentional action is reallyembedded in that a lot.

Yeah, really good.
So the power of presence, if youdo have that presence, you kind
of have the ability to reallypay attention to what's going on
around you and and how the otherpeople behave and act, etc. And
then the key word that you said,that I think is really powerful
for me, is the word evidence. Sothen this story that you've
curated in your head, thispowerful story that you've

(32:35):
created in your head about yourboss, about I could never have
that conversation with my boss,because where's the evidence?
Where's the evidence that thatis true, that fear that you've
got, that the conversation isgoing to go badly, where's the
evidence that that's true? Sotrue. And then we can have this.
Now we can get back to the thefear equation again. Now we can

(32:56):
go, well, what's the worst thatcan happen, and is it really
true? And what's the best thatcould happen? And is that true?
And I bet you the equation, onceyou write it down, it's going to
come towards you're better offstepping up and having that
conversation

Exactly, absolutely, you encapsulated
beautifully. It's definitelythat the evidence part, what it
does is it, it puts you backinto the prefrontal cortex, so
it puts you back in this, like,more objective place, because
otherwise, with the fears,there's tons of emotions, and
there's imposter syndrome, andthere's.

Oh yeah.

All this stuff that's in there that you really
it's just like, if you do that,you're going off a deep end, and
you're going nowhere, and thatconversation in your mind with
other people's not serving you,and then, most often, it's not
serving your relationship withother people either. So if you,
if you look at the idea of theevidence, it brings up this, I'm
a lawyer. I'm trained as alawyer, and so I naturally have
this thing of like, look, I'mseeking evidence. So even when

(33:50):
I'm talking about presence, whenpeople are present with me, I'm
looking for evidence. So I'mlooking at their eyes, I'm
looking at their body language.
I'm looking, if there's anyphone nearby, I'm looking. So
I'm just paying attention. Andmost people about it, most
people are they just don'treally call it that they're
looking. They're looking forevidence. And so for someone to
feel heard by you, which, by theway, is like the biggest thing
you can do in a relationship, ifyou really want to have more
solid relationships. At work,you work, you focus on being the

(34:11):
most present person you couldbe, and the person the other end
will feel that gift, and thatprofound gift will make them
want to be around you more. Wantto do more for you and champion
more of your the things you wantyour career, I believe that deep
down, true to my heart, so it isembedded in the book. Listening
is embedded in there, using yourown voices, embedded in there.
But relationships and how wemake sure we solidify them,

(34:34):
meeting people where they're atto be heard by you in the way
they need to feel heard by you.
Is a power that is something youcan control, and that, again,
allows you to have more of thatbrilliance on the outside.

So here comes the word evidence again, everything
that you've just said, it tookme a while to find it, by the
way, in my life, but once Ifound the power of presidents,
everything you. Said is whathappens. It's 100% and if you're
paying attention, you'll see itkind of multiply and
reciprocate. It takes a littletime, but then it starts for

(35:10):
reciprocating as well. Allright, we've got two powerful
things that have happened sofar, Heather, and then I want to
get to the next step. So we'redoing a lot of self awareness.
We're doing some inner work.
We're challenging ourselvesaround what is it that is
holding me back? We'rechallenging some of those
beliefs, right? We then got thisfear equation. We've got a way
of getting past the fear. Whatdoes that first conversation

(35:32):
look like? So if I'm listeningto the show right now, Heather
and I'm going, Yeah, I've alwayswanted to do this. I've always
wanted to step into my power,find my voice and be clear about
what I need in the workplace.
What does the first conversationlook like if you've never done
it before.

The first conversation with a person or
with ourselves?

Yeah you've done the inner work, you're now going
to have that conversation withyour boss. Step into your power,
find your voice and say, Hey, Ineed a few things around here.

Yes. So I think the biggest thing is, don't go
big. So I did go big, go home, Ithink, start small and go into
all your conversations withhumility and go into with
curiosity. So let's say my bossis Joe, and I've been feeling a

(36:24):
little under regarded andunappreciated, you know, and I
and unclear about my directionin the projects I'm on, maybe
even my position in theorganization or on on his team.
And so I might say, request themeeting. It's like a powwow or

(36:44):
catch up. I come into his officeand and I say, Bill. Did I say
bill? It was Bill, right? Andnot Bob.

You said, Joe, but let's go with Bill, either one.
Either one is fine.

See, that's what I mean. I'm just making up
a name, yeah, let's just sayBill. Since it's for some
reason, it popped into my head.
So Bill, I want, I wanted to gettogether with you. I just wanted
to let you know, you know, justcatch you up a little bit on how
I've been feeling. And he'sgoing to say, Okay, I've been on
your team now for about a year.
And I feel like, I don't know,tell me if you think I'm wrong.

(37:19):
I feel like I've done a lot onthe projects, like, I did XYZ,
and then this happened, and thishappened, and we did that, and I
felt successful in that. But Iam curious to know, you know,
where you see that journey,like, do you feel like my
journey has been a good one? AndI'd like to just talk through
that a little bit. Okay, so thereason why I'm doing that, I
want the questions. I want toask the questions, because I

(37:40):
want to just see where billgoes. I want to, I want, I want
to go deeper with that. I wantto have a I want to be present
and have that full understandingof where he sees my journey, and
then say, you know, and so afterhe goes through it, and maybe he
gives me, maybe he'scomplimentary, and maybe, yeah,
there was a shortfall here, butyou fixed it, and it's okay.
Well, so now my question is,because I feel a little bit

(38:01):
foggy about where my directionis, where I'm going, and where
your vision is for where my rolecould be, and even my path,
where, where can I go from here?
So I just wanted to gettogether, because based upon
what we just talked about, I wasfoggy. I'm not sure if you're
foggy or if you even thoughtabout it, because I know you've
been really busy, but I wantedto put this on your plate, and I
wanted to talk this through, andeven if we don't land on a
solution right now here in themeeting, I wanted us to at least

(38:23):
start the conversation, and Iwant to be the one to start that
with you, so I don't know, let'sget you up with talk, and we
have a little bit more timeleft. Can we talk through that a
little bit more? And then that'swhat I mean. So that's taking it
like the bull by the horns. It'snot being I'm going in my office
and I have just told you whatI'm gonna do. That's not what I
mean. It's just that we have toinitiate the discussion and go
from a really intelligent asmuch as possible, unemotional

(38:45):
place, to be objective andmature and in this discussion.

Yeah, really good.
All right, so humility andcuriosity. I love it, and to
play it out a little bit if youdo go in aggressive, Bill's most
likely option is to getdefensive, and you're not going
to you're not going to find outthe truth from that. Now I'm
hearing a bit of testing.
There's a few things that you'retesting, by the way, you also
don't know what's going on inBill's life, like he's a human

(39:13):
being as well. So having a bitof empathy and compassion there,
then you're going to test, Well,where am I? I think my
performance is here, but, butdoes Bill think it's here, or
does he hit? Does he think it'shere? So said, now I'm testing a
little bit of my own evaluationof does my perception of my
performance match the boss'sperception? And the third one

(39:34):
that's ringing for me, Heatheris bill may have no idea that
you're feeling this way, thatyou don't feel seen, heard,
valued, or you don't know whereyou are, etc, and he cannot fix
what he doesn't know about soyou you're by asking these
questions, you're showing himthat there's a gap and he can do
something about it. How doesthat sit with you?

It sits beautifully with me. And
interesting. Thing is, I don'tknow if I would have had this
perspective if I also hadmanaged people for 25 years. So
if you haven't been even, to behonest, before I got I at one
point my career, before I end upexiting, like working for
someone else, I was in anexecutive leadership position.

(40:17):
But up until that, I was inmiddle management. I was a
director level, basically themajority of my time. And so
until I got to that place whereI was in executive leadership,
then until I after I left there,I started coaching executive
leaders, primarily in financialservices. And I got there and I
said, oh, so all the people whoI thought were idiots, well, a
lot of them were like idiots,meaning they just had no clue

(40:39):
about the human the humanexperience and how you need to
respond and sit in it and helppeople through things. But as I
started to coach executiveleaders, because I'd only been
an Executive leader for maybe ayear, and the rest of time I was
middle management, I started tosee their humanity, and I
started to see the strugglesthat they had. And I think if I
hadn't already been through thatjourney, I would be sitting back

(41:00):
looking at them really highly,judging that experience, judging
them a lot more. And I thinkthat the journey that I had been
on helps me see through thewindow a little bit more. And
that's why, like my writing, myspeaking, has changed a lot.
Where I I talk, I talk a lotmore about every single person
in their seat, in the audience,having choices and making
different choices and leadingthemselves, irrespective of

(41:22):
their title. And I think that isbecause I had gone through the
journey of managing teams for along time. So being the person
who I'd get surveys and mypeople, it like more times than
not, that was my strongest part.
I always had very strong scoreson 360s from my people who
reported to me. You can probablyguess why. I was very present. I
listened. I responded rightoftentimes, though maybe my boss
or colleague would be on the oddside looking and wondering, why

(41:44):
is she spending so much timecaring for people and like
uplifting people and trying torecognize other people, and what
they didn't understand is that Iunderstood, which is what I
talked about earlier, is that ifI can meet people where they're
at, and I speak to them theirlanguage, and I meet their
needs, they are 95% more likelyto meet my need inside of any

(42:04):
situation I have. I'm not doingit for that reason. However, it
just pans out that way. So sincethe evidence is there that when
you prove yourself out up frontwith those behaviors, people
prove themselves out front or,you know, on the back end. For
you, it made. Knows it madeperfect sense for me to codify
it in all the books, to speakabout it from stages, because I
knew it worked. So I wanted toteach other people that, by the

(42:27):
way, this stuff works, soevidence is so if we could just
create objective measurements toour behaviors, and then when we
go to people, not an emo and I'man emotional being, humans are,
but I am way more. And I'm avery emotional being. Having
said that, I also know mostpeople are not. They don't, they
don't, they don't like walkaround with emotions in their
sleeves like I do. So because Iknow that about most people, I'm

(42:49):
going to come to them in a nonemotional state, but I'm a very
emotional being, and most peoplereceive interactions in an
emotional place, right? We'rewe're not. Most of us aren't
operating in our prefrontal mostof time, that place where we can
be more objective, more factfocused, we're going to be
looking. We're going to be inthat place of like fight or
flight, or like the emotionalplace where we're looking for
different, different types offeelings, I guess from an

(43:11):
interaction we're having withpeople, particularly with our
managers. Again, when you thinkabout the employer employee
relationship, you think aboutthat power dynamic, and you even
think about the kind of parentchild, it's a very weird thing
that it's evolving over time,but there's still this
underlying thing that existsinside the workplace. For that
regard, they're satisfying myneed for housing, shelter, food,
right? So you are giving thisthing to me and I'm giving you

(43:33):
something back to get it. It isa very complicated mix, and we
can try to make it seem likeit's this or that, and oh, well,
it's a job and you get paid. Butno matter what, there's an
emotional bond, emotional pull,an emotional pain that exists in
that place. And we can make it apositive one or a negative one
by the choices we make and how

Yeah, very good.
This is a great one for all thewe show up.
leaders listening to the showand the evidence use that word
again stacks up every time thatthis absolutely works. By the
way, it's the right thing to doregardless. But we succeed
through our people. And if youtake the time to give your
people what they need, they'llgive you what you need, and what

(44:16):
they need is to be seen, heardand valued, and the greatest
gift you can give them is yourpresence. It works every time.
100% it totally does.

I know it's like, if I had to give
everything up, they'd be like,that would be that from a
management perspective, if youcan manage to do that, which is
why I wrote a book on activelistening, which is, right? I
have a certification on activelit, because I really, truly
believe that if I could justteach you this one thing from a
management perspective, right?
You will, you will have the thebenefits from it. So funny.

All right, really good. Heather, I feel like we're
only scratching the surface ofeverything that's going to be in
the book. So, so I'm going togive you a platform in a second
to maybe give us a few otherthings, but some really powerful
things I'm hearing about doingthe inner work first and and
the. Self Awareness, aboutovercoming some of those fears,
to have some of thoseconversations. But then the

(45:05):
powerful techniques that yougave us, when you start having
those conversations aroundhumility and curiosity, and
don't start with an assertion,start with a question, I think
these are really powerful thingsin the limited time that we've
got left, what else would youlike people to know about what
they would get from the art ofself leadership if they pick it

(45:25):
up when it when it comes on saleshortly?

What I attempted to do was to give
people a framework. I'm a hugeframework person. I also at each
and in each chapter, there wereexercises I really am trying
hard, hard, hard, to move awayfrom the philosophical side of
leadership to the actualapplicability and practical, you
know, levels of what how do wedo this? How do I go deeper? How

(45:50):
do I do the deep work? So I'mgiving you exercises that I hope
that you'll get the book andyou'll actually do the
exercises. So it feels here andthere like a little bit like a
workbook, even though it's not.
But there are some spaces whereyou, I am saying, like, write
some notes down, do that hard ina work. Because I do believe
you're not going to buy the bookbecause you just want to read a
book. I think you actually wantto achieve a thing. I think you
are called to be stronger selfleaders when you go get that

(46:12):
book. I think when you'restruggling at work, you're
struggling at home, you'restruggling in a relationship
where there's, there's somedissension or conflict, and you
and you're like, oh, how could Ihandle that differently? Why am
I feeling this way? I think youwant to get to the bottom of
that. And that's what the art ofself leadership does for you. It
helps you get to the bottom ofthat thing that's inside of you
that's just craving to come out,and you just don't know how to

(46:36):
really make it flourish and comeout the way you want to.

Yeah. Nice Heather.
I love the actionable nature ofthat. And it's, it's not
learning that changes yourworld. It's, it's applied
learning. So you got to applythe learning. Really powerful,
all right, Heather, so I'm goingto take us now to our Rapid
Round. These are the same fourquestions we ask all of our
guests. So what's the one thingyou know now, Heather, younger
that you wish you knew when youwere 20?

I wish I knew that I was worthy enough.

Yeah, you are we and everyone listening to the
show, you are enough? Yeah,really powerful. What's your
favorite book? You're a fourtime best selling author. What's
your favorite book?

I would have to say there's, well, I want to say
two, one of us Who Moved MyCheese, that one's like a 35
page read or something. It's aparable, and it's amazing. And
the other one is discover theleader within and that's John
Maxwell.

Yeah, okay. Oh, he's his library is also quite
amazing. Yeah, really good.
What's your favorite quote?

My favorite quote? Oh, I don't have it like
memorized, but it is the one byMarianne Williamson. It's a long
one. That's why it's like apoem. The long, the long and the
short of it is, is, don'tminimize your light for the
benefit of someone else's tomake them feel good. You let
your light shine, and you'llgive other people permission to
show their light.

Yeah. Well, it's sits beautifully with your inner
shine outward brilliance. Sowonderful. Heather. And finally,
how do people find you? Like,obviously, the book coming out.
So, you know, people buy thebook, but if they want to get in
contact with you and know moreabout you and your work, how do
they find you?

Heather You (48:13):
heatheryounger.com, it's probably the easiest way to
know more about our work. I havea caring leadershiplearning.com
too, where you can see, likemaster classes and things
related to all the caringleadership ecosystem I've
created. But yeah, you get thebook anywhere. I mean, Amazon,
but it's everywhere, so it'savailable now for for pre order,
and then then, of course,February 11 is the date so.

Yeah, brilliant.
And congratulations. And can'twait to get a hold of the new
book. Thank you for all that youdo. Thank you for sharing your
time and your wisdom with ustoday. I feel richer for this
conversation like literally, I'msitting here going, how do I
apply this in my life? And Iknow that the audience are going
to feel the same. So thank youso much, Heather.

Thank you Mick.
I appreciate you.

Wow. What an incredible conversation with
Heather Younger. She's soinspirational. If there's one
thing I hope you take away fromthis episode, it's that
Leadership isn't just about howwe influence others. It starts
with how we lead ourselves. Selfleadership is about presence,
emotional intelligence andhaving the courage to challenge

(49:19):
your own limiting beliefs, andas Heather reminds us, the
greatest gift you can giveothers is your presence. If this
conversation resonated with you,I'd love to hear your thoughts.
What was your biggest takeaway?
What's one action you're goingto take to strengthen your own
self leadership? Send me amessage on LinkedIn, or drop me
a comment on YouTube. Igenuinely want to hear from you,

(49:42):
and if this topic of selfleadership has sparked something
in you, then make sure you tunein to the next episode where I'm
going solo, reflecting on thisconversation with Heather and
sharing my own additionalinsights on self. Leadership,
I'll be diving deeper into howyou can develop the mindset, the

(50:03):
habits and present of trulyimpactful leaders. If you're
getting great value from ourcontent, don't forget to
subscribe to the leadershipproject, YouTube channel, where
we bring you weekly curatedvideos, the video podcast, and
we're about to restart our livestream show all designed to help
you become the leader that youwish you always had.

(50:31):
Thank you for listening to TheLeadership Project
mickspiers.com a huge call outto Faris Sedek for his video
editing of all of our videocontent and to all of the team
at TLP. Joan Gozon, GeraldCalibo and my amazing wife Sei
Spiers, I could not do this showwithout you. Don't forget to
subscribe to The LeadershipProject YouTube channel, where

(50:52):
we bring you interesting videoseach and every week, and you can
follow us on social,particularly on LinkedIn,
Facebook and Instagram. Now inthe meantime, please do, take
care, look out for each otherand join us on this journey as
we learn together and leadtogether.

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