Modules
Session 1: Balanced Living in a Binge Culture w/ Dr. Tim Elmore
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Transcript
Thank you very much. Wow. So fun. You saw the lineup today, did you not? I feel lucky to be here. Do you feel lucky to be here? You need to stay to the very end because the greatest human being that I know is I'm serious. You're not You should be laughing. So this guy's gonna back clean up. Stay to the end. You're gonna love it. Alright. Well, um, I wanna jump in. Um, if we can go to my slides, that would be helpful. Um, I have a wild topic, don't I? Balance living in a binge culture. I have never done this talk before, so let's see how it goes. Uh, but when I was invited to speak, they wanted me to bring a bit of the human element. We're gonna be talking about marketing and AI and everything else, but, um, how many have noticed we're becoming different people sometimes because of the screens in our life? Not worse all the time but just different. So I'm gonna start with a game. You guys okay with the game? Yes. Yay. Four of you. Good enough for me. Um, I wanna play a game that I call predict. K? Have you all noticed when you grab your laptop and you start typing in a question on Google, Google will predict what you're about to ask based on the algorithms and the number of people asking these questions. So I'm gonna see how well you know Google and human being. Under a. So let's do a couple of these. When someone types in, who is the founder of? Do you think more people are asking, who's the founder of Samsung? Who's the founder of Microsoft? Who's the founder of Google? Or who's the founder of Netflix? Let's vote with our hands. How many would say, I think it's mostly Samsung? Not a soul in the room. Okay. Uh, how many say it's Microsoft? Okay. A few of you. How many say Google? And how many of you would say Netflix? Okay. Most of you on Netflix. Believe it or not, more people are asking, who's the founder of Microsoft? They did not know Bill Gates did this. They did know Reed Hastings. Okay. Alright, let's do another one. Um, when somebody types in what should I are more people asking, what should I read? What should I watch on Netflix? What should I eat for dinner? Or what should I do this weekend? Okay? So hands. How many would say, what should I read? We do not have any curious readers in the room. Okay? How many would say, what should I watch on Netflix? Oh my gosh. Majority. How many would say, what should I eat for dinner? And how many would say, what should I do this weekend? Okay. Believe it or not, we're foodies. It's what should I eat for dinner. Okay? So the majority of you I noticed, I just happened to notice by the show of hands, didn't get the right answer. Not all, but most. So, um, I think I've just illustrated, we live in a unpredictable world, don't we? We would think it's this, we would assume it's this, our instincts point us this way, but folks, I would say even since beginning my career, and it was like forty five years ago, so much has changed in my adult life. I'll be honest with you. I would have never predicted the iron curtain would fall back in the eighties. Remember this? Oh my gosh. I remember being in communist, the Soviet block and talking to East Germans and they go, oh, we'll never well, that'll never happen. And and then it did. I would have never guessed the Twin Towers would be toppled by a couple of jet plane. Didn't that seem like a movie that day? It was scary and yet, what the what's going on? I would have never guessed, this is just me, that marijuana would be legalized in many, many states. I remember when that was an absolute no no in the seventies. And this is not a political statement. I would have never guessed Donald Trump would have been elected president. Here's this complete outsider, never served in and also he's the leader of the free world. Would you not agree? We live in a world that's just hard to predict. Because of that, I think it's very important that we kick off the day. You're gonna hear from extraordinary people. But I wanted to kick off the day alerting you to the fact that we live in a time like no other. It's a digital time. It's not just a time of technology, but smart technology, and not just smart technology, but artificial intelligence. And the kids we're giving birth to are gonna grow up talking to robots as much as humans. You know that, don't you? And is that okay? Well, maybe, but we're gonna have to navigate our way. My daughter, Bethany, um, I love her. She's in her thirties now, but her first job she got right after graduating college was teaching in a preschool. She loves children. And, uh, one night about a semester in, she came home and said, you guys, mom and dad, you will never believe what happened today. She said, one of the little girls in my class was sitting on the floor with a book in her hand and this is what she was doing to the book. Trying to get that iPad to move. That's she said she Bethany said, had to go and say, no, sweetheart. It's a it's a book. You have to open it up and read it. It's really old fashioned. She had to say that to her, and I'm thinking, oh my gosh. What does the world come to? The analog world is fading fast, and the digital world is emerging everywhere. And by the way, now because it's a digital world, you can't lie to your kids. One grandmother posted this on TikTok. When you lie to your granddaughter, the Chuck E. Cheese is closed.
It's open.
You said what?
Chuck E. Cheese is open. How did you get
that on there?
I pressed the slow sugar right here. Is Chuck E. Cheese open? Chuck E. Cheese is open today from 11AM to 9PM. Here are the hours for the rest of the week. Justin.
I love it. Yeah. Yeah. Some of you may have had that experience. So let me unpack. I don't claim to be some extraordinary neuroscientist or sociologist, but as I just keep my ear to the ground and as we work with, um, thousands of business leaders and hundreds of companies and athletic teams and so forth, I'm seeing a pattern that I thought might just be good to kick the day off with. What's happening? I think the largest change that I have spotted may surprise you, but I think what's happening today as our world has become on demand, instant access, and repeatable. Can I say that again? As the world became on demand, you could get it whenever you want to, instant access, you don't have to wait for it, and it's repeatable. Would you not say TikTok is repeatable? Suddenly, we're in a world where we've gotta learn to moderate, and I'm not sure if we have. So I'm gonna suggest to you a simple thought. The biggest differentiator, and there's many, is our ability to binge. Now binging doesn't have to be wicked or evil, but do some of you have some of you been around the world long enough to remember, we use binge mostly decades ago when it came to eating disorders. Remember? Anorexia and so forth, people would binge eat and then they would throw up and so forth and it was just a weird thing. Well now binging has crossed into so many categories of our lives. So Stanford research psychologist Anna Lemke has done lots of great study. I'm gonna try to boil this down and put it in simple layman's term this morning. So she's done a lot of interesting studies on our brain's connection between pleasure and pain. So pleasure can be defined quite simply as our appetite for comfortable and satisfying feelings. Who doesn't like those? Not a soul in the room. K? Pain can be simply defined as the physical or mental suffering or discomfort due to illness or strain. And what I'm suggesting is, like no other generation prior to us, a hundred years ago, a hundred and fifty years ago, we don't have to put up with some of the pain. We can introduce pleasure into our lives because we can binge. We can binge on TikTok, as I mentioned. We can binge on Netflix. We can binge on vaping. We can binge on alcohol. We can binge on porn. Am I right about this? So if you've got a device in your hand and you do, you can binge on anything. So when you feel a little bit pain, you can go, I don't like this pain. I'm gonna introduce pleasure because the dopamine and the endorphins are introduced into your body, and that's how we're made. But I'm saying if we don't know how to moderate, this can put us in trouble. So it's helpful to know, and I just chose a metaphor to share this with you. It's helpful to know that our brains have an internal seesaw. In other words, when too much pain is introduced into your life, your brain automatically knows to send happy chemicals into your system. You've heard of these. Dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin. K? Those are happy chemicals that make you feel a bit better when you're when you're in pain. But vice versa is true too. There's a chemical acronym called GABA that's introduced when there's too much pleasure at once or for long periods of time. In other words, your body and your brain want to introduce balance into your life. Is that not a foreign term for us today, balance? Holy moly. So very quickly, um, read with me. Our brains have natural ways to keep us chemically balanced. Happy chemicals such as dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, and oxytocin enter our systems as the brain sees fit. When one side goes up, our brain compensates and sends the other side down and vice versa. When we decide to run for three miles, it can be an unpleasant experience. After a while, our brain recognizes this and releases a chemical to balance our discomfort. It's called a runner's high. We've all heard this and we've all said it. We got a runner's high working out in the gym or running for three to five miles. Sadly, in our day, we can hinder our brain's balancing act because we can introduce happiness to ourselves through binging on Netflix show, not Wicked, but binging on this or that or the other food junk food. We're introduced you know why we keep doing that? Because it makes us feel good. But sometimes we don't know how to moderate that feel good. And that's my concern. I'm not your priest. I'm not your chaplain. I'm not your pastor, but I'm just saying today, we're only gonna be able to handle the incredible world of artificial intelligence if we know how to moderate ourselves as human beings. Can again, amen from the choir on that one? Okay. So today, what I'm saying as I set this up, we've messed with our seesaw. K? We're not going to jail, we're not going to prison, but we've messed with our seesaw. And with our extra time for leisure that we enjoy today that we didn't have a hundred years ago, we just say bring it on. So what is our ability to bench done to us? Well, I kinda did a a meta analysis on the data on all of these items I'm about to show you. I don't mean to give you a downer, but if I am, just know those happy chemicals are flowing quick. No. I'm just kidding. I'm totally kidding. Um, our ability to binge has lowered our levels of happiness. In other words, when you're shooting pleasure from Netflix or whatever solidly for hours and hours and hours, your brain's going, uh-oh, uh-oh, and it's gonna balance out. In fact, here's a theory. I don't have any data for this. I wonder if some, not all, but some of our struggles with depression and anxiety might be because we can binge happiness. Do you see what I'm saying? Our brains say no, no, no, too much. And we feel down when we wanted to feel up. It has raised our levels of addiction. I think you would agree that, oh my gosh, so many of us would say, if I were honest with you, I got two or three addictions here. And again, it's not a crime, but it's an addiction. It has reduced our levels of grit. How many of you are bosses in here? You don't have to raise your hand on this. Right? How many of you are boss in here that was your team showed a little bit more resilience and grit coming back from a lost sale? It has increased our levels of depression. It has decreased our levels of discipline, and it has expanded our levels of just being about me. I bet you if I just pulled you, you'd say, yeah, I see I see all that in my organization or or even my family, my extended family. But let me give you a little history. I I'm just kind of a nerd on this, so just put up with this nerd, if you will, real quick on the platform. When I look back at life a hundred to a hundred fifty years ago, it was different. Many things were the same. Humans are humans. We all have flaws, but life was different a hundred to a hundred and fifty years ago. So centuries ago, if we had some leisure time for pleasure, we basically engaged in what what was called the arts. Right? You don't remember these days, but way back the turn of the century, um, people went to the theater. Right? The symphony, the orchestra, uh, a stage play, maybe vaudeville, but it was very limited money. You paid a quarter. Right? And you had very little bit of time because you're working the farm. You only have one hour a month maybe to do something like this. You see what I'm saying? That's centuries ago. Decades ago, as you fast forward into today, the arts were swallowed up by entertainment. When radio and television and recordings were introduced, again, not bad, but now we had shorter attention spans. We had a little bit more time for leisure. There was a screen in our house set up in the family room. Right? And we could begin to be entertained. Now we're paying a little bit more money and spending a little bit more time. But just years ago, you and I witnessed entertainment being swallowed up by distraction. Now that screen is a device in our hand, is it not? And please forgive me if I sound like your grandpa right now, please forgive me. But I'm telling you, the device in our hand and by the way, I love my device. I love my iPhone. But I'm just saying, I'm monitoring every hour I have on it now because of my research on this. We now live in a day of distraction. TikTok can distract us, can it not? Between eight and five. You can say amen or ouch, either one. It's true. Okay? So portable devices, computers, and so forth. But now that our consumption is portable and in our hands and on demand, I actually believe that distraction is being swallowed up into a day of addiction. And I believe Silicon Valley sees us this way. They know it's not good for our children. It's not even good for us as adults, but now it's a day of addiction because we have the ability to binge and I'm not sure if we brought the discipline into our life to not binge. Does this make sense? Okay. So let me let me translate this now to work. Okay? Let's say we're going back to work after we've had a great day today. We're back at work tomorrow. Okay? Here's what I've noticed at work. I believe our dilemma at work when we don't get the job done, when we don't get the sales numbers in, or we don't just achieve what we set out to achieve at the beginning of the fiscal year, I have noticed that especially today, especially today, we all want our projects to be fast. Right? I don't wanna spend a lot of time on that. I want to check this off my list. Have you not said that before? We all would like our projects to be fast. We also would all like our projects to be easy. Right? This is I don't want this to be hard. I want it to be easy. Now we don't say it out loud because, you know, we're 40 years old, but we'd like it to be easy. And we always want our products and services to be excellent. Am I right about this? Would you not wish, if you could have a perfect wish, that all the project you work on this week, they're fast, they're easy, and excellent? Come on. Let's get with me here. Okay? Now here's what I've noticed. You can't have all three. You know what I've noticed in my work? If it's fast and easy, it's not gonna be excellent. If it's easy and excellent, it's not gonna be fast. And if it's fast and excellent, it's not gonna be easy. But think about this, every one of us want our products and services to be excellent. Right? Nobody wants to release a mediocre product. And most of the time, because of the market, we gotta be fast to release it. That means, are you willing to put up with it ain't easy? Can I ask that again? Are you willing to put up with because you wanna stand out from the crowd? It ain't easy. I'm thinking about our kids saying, are you okay with it's not easy, son? Are you okay with it's not fast, son or daughter? So I'm just gonna suggest that while I love smart technology and I love what AI is helping, I just, uh, I'm gonna release a book in the fall. AI helped me do that book. We're very happy with AI. But I believe AI has affected our EQ. AI, artificial intelligence, has affected our emotional quotient. K? So how do we conquer this beast? Well, when I think about this challenge we have and by the way, maybe I'll use the word challenge, not dilemma. I think we can all beat this. I think we have the strength inside of us to get this job done and be the distant people we need to be. But, um, I wanna talk to you now as leaders in the workplace and as some of your parents raising kids at home. And we got ambushed by some of this, didn't we? We didn't know the anxiety and depression that would come to our teenagers with all of this coming on. So, um, let's talk just for a few minutes about emotional intelligence. I'm gonna end with some very practical action steps that you and your team and your kids can do. Okay? So let's start with a simple working definition. I know you've all heard the term emotional intelligence, but maybe you haven't had time to dig deeper and define it. So here's how I define it. Here's how Daniel Goleman defines it, who wrote the book on emotional intelligence exactly thirty years ago. It's the management of one's emotions. If I can translate for the theme today, it's when you wanna be happier than you are, but you you hold on and you show some grit and you keep doing the thing that doesn't make you happy. Hello? It's the ability to interact wisely and effectively due to self leadership. You're leading others super well because you're leading yourself so well. In fact, you're leading yourself so well, people would say to you, I'd follow you even if you weren't the president or even if you weren't the boss. I so respect the life you live. May I give you an illustration of this? Sure, Tim. Okay, I will. I first heard of this guy probably fifteen years ago, Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Hughes. He had fought for years and become an officer in the United States army. And when he was in Iraq, this was our second invasion in Iraq. We were at the point of the war where the allied forces were sending over to Iraq food and blankets and clothing for the displaced Iraqis who had been run out of one village by the Taliban and into another village where they're trying to just survive. You with me? So Hughes is over there with his troops and packages of blankets and food and and and clothing are being sent over. And he's thinking now, what's the best way that I could find here to distribute this? They're probably not gonna come to a US Military Officer to get some, you know, if they're an Iraqi to get some food. So he goes over to the local Muslim mosque and talks to the cleric. He figured there are Muslims here. This is probably the most safe place they can imagine to get to get help. So he asked the cleric with a translator, would you be the distribution center? And the the clerk said absolutely. Bring him over. Well, picture what happened next. Hughes with his troops are now marching down Main Street in this village with a package on one shoulder that looks a little bit like a bomb, I'm sure, and a gun on the other, and they're marching down toward the mosque. Can you imagine what they're assuming? They're thinking, we're gonna have street fight here. They're gonna blow up our mosque. So by the time Hughes and his troop gets about 200 feet away from the mosque, it is surrounded by locals. I mean, there are people with sticks and rocks, and they're shouting out in Dari and Farsi and and and Iraqi languages, and they're just absolutely ready to fight. Hughes, I'm sure, was thinking minimally this is gonna be bad press on CNN. And, maximally, there could be loss of life here because, I mean, they are they don't have guns, but they got stuff they're ready to do a street fight with. But this is where Hughes' leadership comes in really handy. Like I said, about 200 feet away, he stops his troops from marching a step forward. He tells them to set their package on the ground, so it's now not in their possession. He then tells them to point their gun toward the ground, which makes them a little more vulnerable, wouldn't you say, to people who have rocks and sticks in front of you. And then he tells his troops, men and women, to take a knee. Now they're in a most vulnerable position in front of these street fires. And then the final order he gave was, I want you to look up at these people in front of you and smile. And they just smiled. One by one, the people in front of them dropped their sticks and their rocks, some started smiling back, and this gave Hughes enough time to grab somebody that spoke the local language to come up and say, we're not here to hurt you. We're here to help you. And the disaster was resolved. Isn't that a cool story? Yeah. Let me tell you why I tell you that story. I don't think lieutenant colonel Christopher Hughes learned that on page 57 of the army manual. In all respect to the army, I think the guy was emotionally intelligent. He's reading the situation before he's leading the situation. He's able to temper his emotions when he'd like to react and say, you know what? We got guns. I mean, he could have said that. Maybe a lesser individual, you or me, might have, but he didn't. So let's break down emotional intelligence. If you've never learned this, you may wanna take a picture or take a note, but emotional intelligence is the sum total of four specific ingredients. We try to build these in our home into our children. We try to build into our team members. Number one, it starts with self awareness. I know there's a lot of bloggers writing about this today, and they're good. I believe step one begins with me becoming aware of how I come across to others. You follow me? I know exactly how they're reading my face. Um, may I say the term, we all know that resting bitch face and what it looks like when
we're and we don't know that we look very mad right now with our face. You know?
But it's you being very, very, very self aware. Number two, the next step is self management. So I'm not only aware, I'm able to manage myself to do what I need to do even when I don't feel like it. I'm managing my emotions to express or to moderate them as the situation calls for it with my spouse, with my children, with my colleague that I'm so frustrated with right now. Number three, social awareness. So the first two are internal. I'm aware and I can lead me really well. Now it's so Now I'm aware of how people all around me are connecting or disconnecting. And by the way, I this is not a sexist comment, but I need to make this comment. In my personal experience, women seem to be better at this than men. Men, we need to work at this. Some of you men are brilliant, but I tell you what, we walk into a room full of people, my wife can go, Nancy doesn't like Janet. I can tell right now, she does not like Janet. And I go, where's the burgers? Where's the burgers? You know? Men, am I right about this? Well, I'm looking for the food here. You know? No. I'm being silly with you, but I'm telling you, men, we've got women and men, but we've got to work at I'm aware of I'm reading body language really well right now, and I'm seeing that something's not quite right even though he didn't say it. I can just tell I need to pull him aside and say, are you alright? What's going on? Is there anything I can do to help? And then number four, the last one, relationship management. I can manage the primary relationships of my life. Not everybody you meet every day. You're not managing everybody. But isn't it true you got a circle? And And it starts with you and your family, then it goes outward to the direct reports you have or or whatever. But I'm just saying, can you imagine a workplace where everybody's doing this well? Would that not be extraordinary? Sure you want them to be skilled and talented. Of course, hire for that. But boy, if you can train for this, it just becomes incredible. Here's a conclusion I drew. Technical skills depreciate over time. Social skills appreciate it, but we don't act like it. It's true, isn't it? If you learned some at Georgia Tech ten years ago, you can put that away right now. You gotta learn something new right now post Georgia Tech. Okay? So the key today the key today is to make a transition. This is a simple simple thing I'm asking you to do or at least to understand, but it may be hard to do. To move from a binge lifestyle, which we may have succumb to from time to time, to a balanced lifestyle in every category. Not categorical discipline, but holistic discipline. I'm a disciplined man, human being. I'm a disciplined husband. I'm a disciplined father. I'm a disciplined leader at work. I'm a disciplined colleague. That doesn't mean I'm perfect. It just means people know you're leading you pretty well. I'll follow you, badge or no badge. So how do we make this jump? I think it's through boundaries. I think the key, as simple as that word sounds, is boundaries. I have boundaries in each category of my life. Let me give you a simple dumb one. I love popcorn. I just love popcorn. It's my favorite food in the world. When I go to the movies, I have to force myself to get a medium, not a bucket. Is anybody with me on this one? Yeah. If I get a bucket, I'll eat the whole cotton picking thing. I just can't stop myself. So the way I do the boundary is get a get a medium. My wife tries to get me to get a small, but that's a little bit too much right now. K? So that's that's I've set my boundaries medium. That's my boundary right there. So we've got to be intentional. Let me do real quick another chart, and I'm gonna give you some steps to take, and I I hope that we've kicked off the day well. So, um, we've gotta be intentional, and the best way I can I can I can begin to teach you this is a chart that I put together, oh my gosh, probably fifteen years ago? We we do this chart with all the professional sports teams, NBA, MLB, NFL, NCAA teams, coaches love this. And if this is helpful, steal it and use it with your team. I did this first in a restaurant on a napkin, and then I taught my children this over dinner. Um, if you're making mental notes, I'm about to give you two columns. Okay? On the left hand column, I'm gonna give you five words that our world is full of. Okay? In fact, when you see these five words, you're gonna go, yep. That describes our twenty first century twenty first century world today. On the right hand side though, I'm gonna give you the unattended consequences. What we didn't see coming as a result of these twenty first century realities. K? So, um, see if you agree. Today, the letter s and by the way, these spell the word scene. That's why I called our scene today. The letter s in scene, would you agree with this one? Our world today is full of speed, and we love speed. Do we not? I want everything faster and faster. I want nothing less at the hotel than high speed Internet access. True? Are we not a generation that's pacing in front of the microwave oven? Am I right about this? When is this muffin's taking sixty seconds to get this muffin done? Okay? Now think about it. If I'm growing up in a world of speed, think about your kids. If I'm growing up and that's all I've ever known, we can easily assume that slow is bad. I don't like slow. I'll admit at my age, I don't like slow. But would you not agree? Some things, some good things only happen slowly. The letter c and seen, our world today is full of convenience. And don't we all love the modern day conveniences we enjoy? I sure do. But if I live in this world and I've grown up in this world, I can easily assume living in this world that hard is bad. Now we all know better than this, but did you know we work a lot with schools, k 12 and college? Did you know the number one phrase that k twelve teachers say they hear from students today? You know what it is? This is too hard. They tell their teacher, this is too hard. Of course, they wanna say, we've been doing this math equation for decades, Johnny. You can do it too, but somehow we feel like we can weigh in. You know? This is I'm on level two of the video game, not level three. Um, the letter e in scene. Would you not agree with this? Our will today is full of entertainment. And while it's always been full of entertainment, we had to go home to see the now it's in our hands. Would you not admit you got five minutes to wait in line at the post office? Aren't you checking out email, ESPN, something else there, you know? Because we don't wanna be bored. And that's just it. If I grew up in a world of entertainment, I can easily assume that boring is bad. But folks, can I share something with you that I didn't know until more recently? I would admit I didn't like boring when I was a college student, But do you know what we know today that we didn't know when I was a college student? Neuroscientists tell us today our brains actually need boredom. They say it's in times of boredom that we develop creativity and empathy. Interesting, So we see someone not too empathetic and not too creative. Maybe they got noise and clutter coming at them all the time to entertain them, and they've not developed that muscle yet. Maybe. The letter n. Certainly not everybody, but middle class America and above, we live in a world of nurture. It's safety first, show empathy. Right? And think about your parenting. I'll be going back to parenting. Don't we nurture safety first? And so we risk too little, we rescue too quickly, we rave too easily, all in the name of self esteem for our children. In a world of nurture, we unwittingly may send the message to others including our family, risk is bad. When my kid hears safety first, they're like, well, don't take a risk. No. No. Some of you entrepreneurs in here. Isn't it risky? Absolutely. America was built on risk. Last time I checked, we were an experiment in 1776, and we did it with no insurance policies. You know? Okay. One last one, and this is where I admit, I will be your grandpa. Today, we live in a world of entitlement. Do we not? We feel entitled to perks and breaks and benefits, and the scholarship should include that or whatever it is. And if I grew up in a world of entertain or excuse me, entitlement, it's very easy just to assume that labor is bad. I shouldn't have to work for this. This should be mine. You know? This should come to me. Now I will admit, I can be I can succumb to this, and I was the founder of our organization, but I have to watch myself as a human because I'm still human, which means I'm flawed. Okay. So this reality has affected did everybody get the picture? Okay. Um, the reality has affected our relationships. This is just a quick before I get you to the last, um, it's lowered our desire to work at resolving conflict. Have you not had an experience or two the last couple years where you had teammates that just had a conflict and they just walked away, they didn't resolve it, and I'm going, what are you doing? You talk you talk to them, not about them. It's increased our instinct to work alone. And by the way, Gen Z is coming into the workplace, the loneliest generation on record that we've ever had. I don't think it's their fault. I think we gave them screens. And then we had a pandemic that forced them to learn alone. It's better decision to divorce instead of stay married. It's increased our willingness to take shortcuts, and finally, it's decreased our levels of emotional intelligence. And, again, I wanna set a positive stage. I'm about to give you some steps to take, and and you'll be optimistic again. But I just wanna warn you as we set off on this great day, we've got to make sure we're leading ourselves well. We have to make sure we're leading ourselves well. So in the final minutes I have, I wanna share one of our images. We teach leadership with images at Growing Leaders. We call them habitudes, which are images that form leadership habits and attitudes. And the one I've chosen for this one is very, very simple. I've already mentioned boundaries to you. We simply call this sturdy guardrails. Sturdy guardrails. I remember years ago taking a team of workers to Sri Lanka, uh, that country just outside where you used to live. And while we're in Sri Lanka, there's a lot of mountains and foliage there. We were on a road climbing this mountain circular, and there were no guardrails. We were sweating bullets because we had a very fast driver and no guardrails. You can imagine. One of our team members yelled out,
we're gonna die. That's what he yelled out.
Thank God the driver didn't understand English. But, um, I realized at that at that time it sounds so funny, but I realized at that time, why we need guardrails? We all know how to drive in the lane, but there are sometimes I need a guardrail just in case. Can I say what I just said again? We all know how to stay in our lane, but just in case we have guardrails. And that's where guardrails are. Right? In fact, a guardrail can be defined as a system designed to prevent travelers from straying into dangerous or off limit territory. It can be a standard you set for yourself or a person you invite into your life. It can be a standard you set for yourself, thanks to this binge world we live in, or it could be a person. I have two people in my life right now that are holding me accountable on some decisions I make to be a better leader and husband and so forth. And some of you do as well. I'm just saying, let's not underestimate the power of a guardrail in our life. So bottom line on this one, we often don't notice guardrails until we need them. Do we? They keep us on the road during a curve or a dangerous spot. Similarly, we must place guardrails in our lives, people, or boundaries that keep us from damaging ourself with poor decisions. So let me close with a few guardrail suggestions. They're very simple, but some of you may need to re up on this one. You did it years ago, but you stopped doing it at this point in your very busy life. Or maybe some of them are new. Some of them may be for your kids. Some of them may be for your colleagues. But I got five. Let me give it to you real quick. One boundary we had on our family and then we tried to implement it at work, uh, was to match screen time and in person time. So let me talk as a dad real quick. Okay? When when I was, uh, when my kids were still in the house, they're both grown adults and gainfully employed. Thank you very much. But, um, when they were in the house, we would say, however many hours you have on a screen, you spend that many hours face to face with people, learning interpersonal skills, reading body language. You follow me on that? So if Jonathan, my son, had two hours playing video game, two hours out with Ben in the backyard, because you're gonna be good with people not just, you know, artificially. Um, number two, apply every insight you learn. Now this can be tough today because you're gonna get loads of them throughout the day. But you know what helped me to keep myself from artificial maturity? Is to not just learn something up here, but to say, I'm gonna find a way, a step to take where I immediately do that right after I learn it. You see what I'm saying? So I learned something and it really oh, this is kinda cool. I even got some dopamine going through my system right now. This is such a cool thing. I wanna go out, get off my butt, and go out and do something to implement what I just learned. I challenge you. It seems so simple, but I'm telling you, your team would be great. If you brought a team together on your drive back home or whatever, how could we do what Sangram said? How can we do what Donald Miller said? How can we do what Dan Cathy said, Horst Scholz? I'm telling you, find things and don't otherwise, they'll be up here and they'll tickle your mind and maybe send a little endorphin through or dopamine, but they won't do you any good. Number three, limit social media to two hours a day. So I'm not sure if you follow doctor Jean Twenge at San Diego State University, but she's done some curating of of data. And she says people that spend less than two hours a day or two hours or less are far less vulnerable to anxiety and depression. The moment you go above two hours on social media, you start it's like a hockey stick. It's really crazy. She and I looked at the the data together, and she said, I know it's crazy. I can't explain it. Two hours and five minutes, two hours and ten minutes. It's just like a hockey stick. So I would even say, let's just watch some of you work on screens for your work, but on social media, I don't know if you need to spend one, two hours unless that's what your job is. Number four, practice reverse mentoring. This has been a game changer for me. Now you all know what mentoring is. Right? You have a mentor, you have a mentee. Reverse mentoring is when I, an older guy, get with a younger guy like Andrew who's thirty years younger than me, or Tyler, we worked together. Where are you? There you are. Are. I loved our reverse memory. Yeah. I always learned something from you every time we sat down, and I'm hoping you learned a thing or two, but I'm telling you, it's when old and young get together, you swap stories first. You'll always find something in common when you swap stories. Even if you're 34 Cam is forty years younger than me. But then you both take turns out of your superpowers mentoring the other. I learned stuff from younger generations that I desperately need, and I've got a couple of timeless nuggets that might be helpful for them. I suggest you do that. One one last one, number five, choose grit over quit in your choices. Choose grit over quit in your choices. Now, I wanna close with a story, but we've got a few minutes, maybe two or three minutes for some questions. I'm not sure if you're prepared to throw a question out or a rock at me or whatever you wanna throw at me, but do we have a couple of mics? Yes. We do. Okay. So I want this to be very conversational. Don't feel silly, but if you just had a thought run through your mind or a question run through your mind and you'd like to ask before I close with a quick story, I'd love to to field it. Anything at all, uh, from you on today? We have somebody back in. Okay?
Hello. Good morning.
Hi.
So for those of us that work remotely and a lot of our meetings are through Zoom, and we're talking about matching that screen time and in person time, would you classify the Zoom, like, with body language as in person time? Or do you literally mean, like, after work, go to their grocery store or get out to see humans in real life?
I'm just trying to question a
way to apply that to my day to day.
To me, let me just tell you. I'm I'm far from perfect, but let me tell I I understand what you just said. I would say if you're working remotely and your people time is gonna be that, it's less than perfect, but it's still you're still looking at their face and reading body language. It's not texting or DMing or whatever. So I do think it counts for something. But, you know, what we've learned is screens are better than nothing. FaceTiming grandchildren is wonderful, but it's not the same as being with a grand. So I would say, yeah, do get as much face to face. There's something about the three-dimensional human world that we're in that can't be replaced at least yet with a screen. So I would say what you just said might be the answer is is spend some time out, go to the grocery store, make sure you've got some in person time along with that Zoom, which you're getting stuff done. So it's not like you're you're playing around. Okay. Good. Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. We have one back here. And then what do we do a third one?
Go ahead.
Oh, is that one? Okay.
Hey. Um, so I have a question. I work with, like, lawyers, and we help them with growth strategy and getting involved in growing their businesses. Most of them are game you know? And that's one of the things you didn't address is the gaming. They go work all day, play you know, go home and play whatever the games are in for, like, five or six hours.
And they go to bed
at 3AM, and they can't come to work and grow their own business. What do you do to go, like, grow the the to address the gaming issue?
Yeah. Wow. Well, I you're right. I only touched on that for a second with my own son. I would say now, please, this is me. Okay? I'm just a guy, so I can give you my answer, not the right answer all the time. But I would say, if you're working with this law firm, I would say show them some of this data and just say, hey. Listen. You're you're grown ups. You you can do what you want to, but it's less than optimal on the skills and so forth. And I would wonder if gaming is binging, it's a coping mechanism, not a coping skill. You know the difference? Coping mechanisms are I have to play video games. It's the only way I can make it through the day. Coping skills is I built some skill sets in my life where I don't need a mechanism to make it through the day. So I would share some of this data. This is not a exhaustive answer, although it may exhaust you. Okay? Um, it's I would say I would be so encouraged. So sorry. Are they courtroom attorneys where they're trying cases with real people, or is it something else?
All the above.
Okay. All the above. Yeah. I guess I would say my talk today, I would say I would encourage as much interpersonal skills being grown through face to face relationships. Even if it's just hanging out a bar or restaurant and spending time with each other, not binging on the video game, it's it's not bad, but it's artificial at best. And I believe I did a book called Artificial Maturity. I believe we have a lot of people on planet Earth that are artificially mature. Overexposed to information, underexposed in firsthand experiences, and we think we know it all. It's the difference between a guy that goes, oh, yeah. I know skydiving. I watch four YouTube videos. You know? And then a guy that goes, yeah. I've been skydiving a dozen times. Oh, I'm gonna go with that guy. So, anyway, uh, one more real quick.
Hello. Um,
wow. There
we go. Uh, a lot of your points and, uh, principles that you're showing right now, uh, and that you're speaking on seem to follow a lot of, like, stoic ideologies
Yes. And and
follow a lot of the stoicism. Is that coincidence, or is that something that you've personally taken into adopt into what you're preaching?
I would say I've looked at research and data, and it didn't come first from the stoics, but I have read some of the stoics. I thought, oh my gosh. Centuries ago, without screens, they taught this. So I wonder if this might be timeless, you know, and we just are relearning it in every generation when we have new needs. So I would say did the research first, then read some of the stoics. I thought, holy moly. It's amazing. Good. Thank you.
Thank you.
Let me close with a story real quick. By the way, I've I love being with you. Thanks for putting up with me before we get to the good good folks coming later. Um, I love to stay in touch with audiences I get in front of. So if you'd like to, I'm on LinkedIn and others. Um, that's my handle. If you'd like to stay in touch or would like an event, I would be happy to to share that with you. So, um, the story I want to close with is a story I love telling about my son and I where we had this very conversation. So when both my kids were 12 years old, I, um, took them on a daddy daughter and a daddy son trip. Many of you do the same thing, but I let my kids choose where we went. My son randomly, living here in Atlanta, chose Minneapolis, Minnesota. Yes. He did. He could have picked Paris, London, Tokyo. He picked Minneapolis. The reason he did is, you know, the Mall Of America's up there. Camp Snoopy was still around, and then there was a stage play he really liked, and then, you know, that was showing. So we went up there. First three days of our four day weekend, Friday through Monday, we just had fun. We rode the roller coaster, had pillow fights, and just had a blast. But on Monday, he knew we were gonna have some serious discussions. He was a little antsy. Dad, what are you gonna try to teach me? You know? You can tell who they grew up with. I said, Jonathan, just relax. Well, on Monday, the last day, we got in our rental car, and I drove up to one of the lakes, one of the 10,000 lakes up there in Minneapolis, and we pulled into a parking spot, and I said, now, Jonathan, I'm gonna do something a little different. I wanna trade places with you. He said, what do you mean? I said, I'm gonna get out of the car, out of behind the passenger seat. Go to the passenger seat. I want you to sit behind the wheel of this car, and I want you to drive this car. Now remember, he's 12 years old. First thing he said was, dad, that is illegal. That is illegal. That is illegal. He's a rule keeper. I said, Jonathan, we're we're not gonna leave the parking lot. We're not gonna go on the main roads. Just we're gonna be right here. And he goes, dad, mom will not like this.
That's what he said. Mom will
not like this. I said, Jonathan, does mom need to know? No. She doesn't. Well, it took me at least ten minutes to talk him into it, but I finally talked him in. You know, I explained the ignition and the steering wheel and the accelerator and the brake and the gear shift. And finally, after ten minutes, he turns on the ignition. Guys in the room, remember the first time you turned on an ignition?
Oh, baby. You know?
Well, he's feeling it. Sixth grade.
Oh, this is amazing. You know?
So he said, now you can back up if you want. So he starts backing up. I would say in less than two minutes, he's imitating me. I mean, he's doing this, you know, doing everything he's seen me do. He's driving around parallel parking, diagonal parking. He's doing all kinds of things. Finally, I had had him stop after fifteen minutes of driving as a sixth grader. We pulled back in the parking spot, and I said, Jonathan, let's trade places again. And we did. And I said, this is gonna sound really cheesy, but can I ask you a question? How did you feel when you first got behind the wheel of this car? He said, dad, I panicked. I didn't think I could do it. I said, what'd you just show me? He was quiet, but he said, I guess I showed you I could do it. I said, Jonathan, that's exactly how you're gonna feel becoming a man. You're gonna feel like I don't even have all the tools. I'm not even I don't know if I'm ready, but you're gonna be ready. It's in you. You can do this. You can do this boundary thing. And then we begin to talk about the future. He was 12. How his body was gonna be changing over the next few years. How his view of girls would be changing. How his view of his parents would be changing. But it was an incredible conversation about being a driver in life rather than a passenger in life. All he'd been up to that point was a passenger. May I challenge you today? Leader on leader. Badge or no badge. Let's be drivers, not passengers. Let's put up those guardrails. Thanks, you guys. God bless.
It's open.
You said what?
Chuck E. Cheese is open. How did you get
that on there?
I pressed the slow sugar right here. Is Chuck E. Cheese open? Chuck E. Cheese is open today from 11AM to 9PM. Here are the hours for the rest of the week. Justin.
I love it. Yeah. Yeah. Some of you may have had that experience. So let me unpack. I don't claim to be some extraordinary neuroscientist or sociologist, but as I just keep my ear to the ground and as we work with, um, thousands of business leaders and hundreds of companies and athletic teams and so forth, I'm seeing a pattern that I thought might just be good to kick the day off with. What's happening? I think the largest change that I have spotted may surprise you, but I think what's happening today as our world has become on demand, instant access, and repeatable. Can I say that again? As the world became on demand, you could get it whenever you want to, instant access, you don't have to wait for it, and it's repeatable. Would you not say TikTok is repeatable? Suddenly, we're in a world where we've gotta learn to moderate, and I'm not sure if we have. So I'm gonna suggest to you a simple thought. The biggest differentiator, and there's many, is our ability to binge. Now binging doesn't have to be wicked or evil, but do some of you have some of you been around the world long enough to remember, we use binge mostly decades ago when it came to eating disorders. Remember? Anorexia and so forth, people would binge eat and then they would throw up and so forth and it was just a weird thing. Well now binging has crossed into so many categories of our lives. So Stanford research psychologist Anna Lemke has done lots of great study. I'm gonna try to boil this down and put it in simple layman's term this morning. So she's done a lot of interesting studies on our brain's connection between pleasure and pain. So pleasure can be defined quite simply as our appetite for comfortable and satisfying feelings. Who doesn't like those? Not a soul in the room. K? Pain can be simply defined as the physical or mental suffering or discomfort due to illness or strain. And what I'm suggesting is, like no other generation prior to us, a hundred years ago, a hundred and fifty years ago, we don't have to put up with some of the pain. We can introduce pleasure into our lives because we can binge. We can binge on TikTok, as I mentioned. We can binge on Netflix. We can binge on vaping. We can binge on alcohol. We can binge on porn. Am I right about this? So if you've got a device in your hand and you do, you can binge on anything. So when you feel a little bit pain, you can go, I don't like this pain. I'm gonna introduce pleasure because the dopamine and the endorphins are introduced into your body, and that's how we're made. But I'm saying if we don't know how to moderate, this can put us in trouble. So it's helpful to know, and I just chose a metaphor to share this with you. It's helpful to know that our brains have an internal seesaw. In other words, when too much pain is introduced into your life, your brain automatically knows to send happy chemicals into your system. You've heard of these. Dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin. K? Those are happy chemicals that make you feel a bit better when you're when you're in pain. But vice versa is true too. There's a chemical acronym called GABA that's introduced when there's too much pleasure at once or for long periods of time. In other words, your body and your brain want to introduce balance into your life. Is that not a foreign term for us today, balance? Holy moly. So very quickly, um, read with me. Our brains have natural ways to keep us chemically balanced. Happy chemicals such as dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, and oxytocin enter our systems as the brain sees fit. When one side goes up, our brain compensates and sends the other side down and vice versa. When we decide to run for three miles, it can be an unpleasant experience. After a while, our brain recognizes this and releases a chemical to balance our discomfort. It's called a runner's high. We've all heard this and we've all said it. We got a runner's high working out in the gym or running for three to five miles. Sadly, in our day, we can hinder our brain's balancing act because we can introduce happiness to ourselves through binging on Netflix show, not Wicked, but binging on this or that or the other food junk food. We're introduced you know why we keep doing that? Because it makes us feel good. But sometimes we don't know how to moderate that feel good. And that's my concern. I'm not your priest. I'm not your chaplain. I'm not your pastor, but I'm just saying today, we're only gonna be able to handle the incredible world of artificial intelligence if we know how to moderate ourselves as human beings. Can again, amen from the choir on that one? Okay. So today, what I'm saying as I set this up, we've messed with our seesaw. K? We're not going to jail, we're not going to prison, but we've messed with our seesaw. And with our extra time for leisure that we enjoy today that we didn't have a hundred years ago, we just say bring it on. So what is our ability to bench done to us? Well, I kinda did a a meta analysis on the data on all of these items I'm about to show you. I don't mean to give you a downer, but if I am, just know those happy chemicals are flowing quick. No. I'm just kidding. I'm totally kidding. Um, our ability to binge has lowered our levels of happiness. In other words, when you're shooting pleasure from Netflix or whatever solidly for hours and hours and hours, your brain's going, uh-oh, uh-oh, and it's gonna balance out. In fact, here's a theory. I don't have any data for this. I wonder if some, not all, but some of our struggles with depression and anxiety might be because we can binge happiness. Do you see what I'm saying? Our brains say no, no, no, too much. And we feel down when we wanted to feel up. It has raised our levels of addiction. I think you would agree that, oh my gosh, so many of us would say, if I were honest with you, I got two or three addictions here. And again, it's not a crime, but it's an addiction. It has reduced our levels of grit. How many of you are bosses in here? You don't have to raise your hand on this. Right? How many of you are boss in here that was your team showed a little bit more resilience and grit coming back from a lost sale? It has increased our levels of depression. It has decreased our levels of discipline, and it has expanded our levels of just being about me. I bet you if I just pulled you, you'd say, yeah, I see I see all that in my organization or or even my family, my extended family. But let me give you a little history. I I'm just kind of a nerd on this, so just put up with this nerd, if you will, real quick on the platform. When I look back at life a hundred to a hundred fifty years ago, it was different. Many things were the same. Humans are humans. We all have flaws, but life was different a hundred to a hundred and fifty years ago. So centuries ago, if we had some leisure time for pleasure, we basically engaged in what what was called the arts. Right? You don't remember these days, but way back the turn of the century, um, people went to the theater. Right? The symphony, the orchestra, uh, a stage play, maybe vaudeville, but it was very limited money. You paid a quarter. Right? And you had very little bit of time because you're working the farm. You only have one hour a month maybe to do something like this. You see what I'm saying? That's centuries ago. Decades ago, as you fast forward into today, the arts were swallowed up by entertainment. When radio and television and recordings were introduced, again, not bad, but now we had shorter attention spans. We had a little bit more time for leisure. There was a screen in our house set up in the family room. Right? And we could begin to be entertained. Now we're paying a little bit more money and spending a little bit more time. But just years ago, you and I witnessed entertainment being swallowed up by distraction. Now that screen is a device in our hand, is it not? And please forgive me if I sound like your grandpa right now, please forgive me. But I'm telling you, the device in our hand and by the way, I love my device. I love my iPhone. But I'm just saying, I'm monitoring every hour I have on it now because of my research on this. We now live in a day of distraction. TikTok can distract us, can it not? Between eight and five. You can say amen or ouch, either one. It's true. Okay? So portable devices, computers, and so forth. But now that our consumption is portable and in our hands and on demand, I actually believe that distraction is being swallowed up into a day of addiction. And I believe Silicon Valley sees us this way. They know it's not good for our children. It's not even good for us as adults, but now it's a day of addiction because we have the ability to binge and I'm not sure if we brought the discipline into our life to not binge. Does this make sense? Okay. So let me let me translate this now to work. Okay? Let's say we're going back to work after we've had a great day today. We're back at work tomorrow. Okay? Here's what I've noticed at work. I believe our dilemma at work when we don't get the job done, when we don't get the sales numbers in, or we don't just achieve what we set out to achieve at the beginning of the fiscal year, I have noticed that especially today, especially today, we all want our projects to be fast. Right? I don't wanna spend a lot of time on that. I want to check this off my list. Have you not said that before? We all would like our projects to be fast. We also would all like our projects to be easy. Right? This is I don't want this to be hard. I want it to be easy. Now we don't say it out loud because, you know, we're 40 years old, but we'd like it to be easy. And we always want our products and services to be excellent. Am I right about this? Would you not wish, if you could have a perfect wish, that all the project you work on this week, they're fast, they're easy, and excellent? Come on. Let's get with me here. Okay? Now here's what I've noticed. You can't have all three. You know what I've noticed in my work? If it's fast and easy, it's not gonna be excellent. If it's easy and excellent, it's not gonna be fast. And if it's fast and excellent, it's not gonna be easy. But think about this, every one of us want our products and services to be excellent. Right? Nobody wants to release a mediocre product. And most of the time, because of the market, we gotta be fast to release it. That means, are you willing to put up with it ain't easy? Can I ask that again? Are you willing to put up with because you wanna stand out from the crowd? It ain't easy. I'm thinking about our kids saying, are you okay with it's not easy, son? Are you okay with it's not fast, son or daughter? So I'm just gonna suggest that while I love smart technology and I love what AI is helping, I just, uh, I'm gonna release a book in the fall. AI helped me do that book. We're very happy with AI. But I believe AI has affected our EQ. AI, artificial intelligence, has affected our emotional quotient. K? So how do we conquer this beast? Well, when I think about this challenge we have and by the way, maybe I'll use the word challenge, not dilemma. I think we can all beat this. I think we have the strength inside of us to get this job done and be the distant people we need to be. But, um, I wanna talk to you now as leaders in the workplace and as some of your parents raising kids at home. And we got ambushed by some of this, didn't we? We didn't know the anxiety and depression that would come to our teenagers with all of this coming on. So, um, let's talk just for a few minutes about emotional intelligence. I'm gonna end with some very practical action steps that you and your team and your kids can do. Okay? So let's start with a simple working definition. I know you've all heard the term emotional intelligence, but maybe you haven't had time to dig deeper and define it. So here's how I define it. Here's how Daniel Goleman defines it, who wrote the book on emotional intelligence exactly thirty years ago. It's the management of one's emotions. If I can translate for the theme today, it's when you wanna be happier than you are, but you you hold on and you show some grit and you keep doing the thing that doesn't make you happy. Hello? It's the ability to interact wisely and effectively due to self leadership. You're leading others super well because you're leading yourself so well. In fact, you're leading yourself so well, people would say to you, I'd follow you even if you weren't the president or even if you weren't the boss. I so respect the life you live. May I give you an illustration of this? Sure, Tim. Okay, I will. I first heard of this guy probably fifteen years ago, Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Hughes. He had fought for years and become an officer in the United States army. And when he was in Iraq, this was our second invasion in Iraq. We were at the point of the war where the allied forces were sending over to Iraq food and blankets and clothing for the displaced Iraqis who had been run out of one village by the Taliban and into another village where they're trying to just survive. You with me? So Hughes is over there with his troops and packages of blankets and food and and and clothing are being sent over. And he's thinking now, what's the best way that I could find here to distribute this? They're probably not gonna come to a US Military Officer to get some, you know, if they're an Iraqi to get some food. So he goes over to the local Muslim mosque and talks to the cleric. He figured there are Muslims here. This is probably the most safe place they can imagine to get to get help. So he asked the cleric with a translator, would you be the distribution center? And the the clerk said absolutely. Bring him over. Well, picture what happened next. Hughes with his troops are now marching down Main Street in this village with a package on one shoulder that looks a little bit like a bomb, I'm sure, and a gun on the other, and they're marching down toward the mosque. Can you imagine what they're assuming? They're thinking, we're gonna have street fight here. They're gonna blow up our mosque. So by the time Hughes and his troop gets about 200 feet away from the mosque, it is surrounded by locals. I mean, there are people with sticks and rocks, and they're shouting out in Dari and Farsi and and and Iraqi languages, and they're just absolutely ready to fight. Hughes, I'm sure, was thinking minimally this is gonna be bad press on CNN. And, maximally, there could be loss of life here because, I mean, they are they don't have guns, but they got stuff they're ready to do a street fight with. But this is where Hughes' leadership comes in really handy. Like I said, about 200 feet away, he stops his troops from marching a step forward. He tells them to set their package on the ground, so it's now not in their possession. He then tells them to point their gun toward the ground, which makes them a little more vulnerable, wouldn't you say, to people who have rocks and sticks in front of you. And then he tells his troops, men and women, to take a knee. Now they're in a most vulnerable position in front of these street fires. And then the final order he gave was, I want you to look up at these people in front of you and smile. And they just smiled. One by one, the people in front of them dropped their sticks and their rocks, some started smiling back, and this gave Hughes enough time to grab somebody that spoke the local language to come up and say, we're not here to hurt you. We're here to help you. And the disaster was resolved. Isn't that a cool story? Yeah. Let me tell you why I tell you that story. I don't think lieutenant colonel Christopher Hughes learned that on page 57 of the army manual. In all respect to the army, I think the guy was emotionally intelligent. He's reading the situation before he's leading the situation. He's able to temper his emotions when he'd like to react and say, you know what? We got guns. I mean, he could have said that. Maybe a lesser individual, you or me, might have, but he didn't. So let's break down emotional intelligence. If you've never learned this, you may wanna take a picture or take a note, but emotional intelligence is the sum total of four specific ingredients. We try to build these in our home into our children. We try to build into our team members. Number one, it starts with self awareness. I know there's a lot of bloggers writing about this today, and they're good. I believe step one begins with me becoming aware of how I come across to others. You follow me? I know exactly how they're reading my face. Um, may I say the term, we all know that resting bitch face and what it looks like when
we're and we don't know that we look very mad right now with our face. You know?
But it's you being very, very, very self aware. Number two, the next step is self management. So I'm not only aware, I'm able to manage myself to do what I need to do even when I don't feel like it. I'm managing my emotions to express or to moderate them as the situation calls for it with my spouse, with my children, with my colleague that I'm so frustrated with right now. Number three, social awareness. So the first two are internal. I'm aware and I can lead me really well. Now it's so Now I'm aware of how people all around me are connecting or disconnecting. And by the way, I this is not a sexist comment, but I need to make this comment. In my personal experience, women seem to be better at this than men. Men, we need to work at this. Some of you men are brilliant, but I tell you what, we walk into a room full of people, my wife can go, Nancy doesn't like Janet. I can tell right now, she does not like Janet. And I go, where's the burgers? Where's the burgers? You know? Men, am I right about this? Well, I'm looking for the food here. You know? No. I'm being silly with you, but I'm telling you, men, we've got women and men, but we've got to work at I'm aware of I'm reading body language really well right now, and I'm seeing that something's not quite right even though he didn't say it. I can just tell I need to pull him aside and say, are you alright? What's going on? Is there anything I can do to help? And then number four, the last one, relationship management. I can manage the primary relationships of my life. Not everybody you meet every day. You're not managing everybody. But isn't it true you got a circle? And And it starts with you and your family, then it goes outward to the direct reports you have or or whatever. But I'm just saying, can you imagine a workplace where everybody's doing this well? Would that not be extraordinary? Sure you want them to be skilled and talented. Of course, hire for that. But boy, if you can train for this, it just becomes incredible. Here's a conclusion I drew. Technical skills depreciate over time. Social skills appreciate it, but we don't act like it. It's true, isn't it? If you learned some at Georgia Tech ten years ago, you can put that away right now. You gotta learn something new right now post Georgia Tech. Okay? So the key today the key today is to make a transition. This is a simple simple thing I'm asking you to do or at least to understand, but it may be hard to do. To move from a binge lifestyle, which we may have succumb to from time to time, to a balanced lifestyle in every category. Not categorical discipline, but holistic discipline. I'm a disciplined man, human being. I'm a disciplined husband. I'm a disciplined father. I'm a disciplined leader at work. I'm a disciplined colleague. That doesn't mean I'm perfect. It just means people know you're leading you pretty well. I'll follow you, badge or no badge. So how do we make this jump? I think it's through boundaries. I think the key, as simple as that word sounds, is boundaries. I have boundaries in each category of my life. Let me give you a simple dumb one. I love popcorn. I just love popcorn. It's my favorite food in the world. When I go to the movies, I have to force myself to get a medium, not a bucket. Is anybody with me on this one? Yeah. If I get a bucket, I'll eat the whole cotton picking thing. I just can't stop myself. So the way I do the boundary is get a get a medium. My wife tries to get me to get a small, but that's a little bit too much right now. K? So that's that's I've set my boundaries medium. That's my boundary right there. So we've got to be intentional. Let me do real quick another chart, and I'm gonna give you some steps to take, and I I hope that we've kicked off the day well. So, um, we've gotta be intentional, and the best way I can I can I can begin to teach you this is a chart that I put together, oh my gosh, probably fifteen years ago? We we do this chart with all the professional sports teams, NBA, MLB, NFL, NCAA teams, coaches love this. And if this is helpful, steal it and use it with your team. I did this first in a restaurant on a napkin, and then I taught my children this over dinner. Um, if you're making mental notes, I'm about to give you two columns. Okay? On the left hand column, I'm gonna give you five words that our world is full of. Okay? In fact, when you see these five words, you're gonna go, yep. That describes our twenty first century twenty first century world today. On the right hand side though, I'm gonna give you the unattended consequences. What we didn't see coming as a result of these twenty first century realities. K? So, um, see if you agree. Today, the letter s and by the way, these spell the word scene. That's why I called our scene today. The letter s in scene, would you agree with this one? Our world today is full of speed, and we love speed. Do we not? I want everything faster and faster. I want nothing less at the hotel than high speed Internet access. True? Are we not a generation that's pacing in front of the microwave oven? Am I right about this? When is this muffin's taking sixty seconds to get this muffin done? Okay? Now think about it. If I'm growing up in a world of speed, think about your kids. If I'm growing up and that's all I've ever known, we can easily assume that slow is bad. I don't like slow. I'll admit at my age, I don't like slow. But would you not agree? Some things, some good things only happen slowly. The letter c and seen, our world today is full of convenience. And don't we all love the modern day conveniences we enjoy? I sure do. But if I live in this world and I've grown up in this world, I can easily assume living in this world that hard is bad. Now we all know better than this, but did you know we work a lot with schools, k 12 and college? Did you know the number one phrase that k twelve teachers say they hear from students today? You know what it is? This is too hard. They tell their teacher, this is too hard. Of course, they wanna say, we've been doing this math equation for decades, Johnny. You can do it too, but somehow we feel like we can weigh in. You know? This is I'm on level two of the video game, not level three. Um, the letter e in scene. Would you not agree with this? Our will today is full of entertainment. And while it's always been full of entertainment, we had to go home to see the now it's in our hands. Would you not admit you got five minutes to wait in line at the post office? Aren't you checking out email, ESPN, something else there, you know? Because we don't wanna be bored. And that's just it. If I grew up in a world of entertainment, I can easily assume that boring is bad. But folks, can I share something with you that I didn't know until more recently? I would admit I didn't like boring when I was a college student, But do you know what we know today that we didn't know when I was a college student? Neuroscientists tell us today our brains actually need boredom. They say it's in times of boredom that we develop creativity and empathy. Interesting, So we see someone not too empathetic and not too creative. Maybe they got noise and clutter coming at them all the time to entertain them, and they've not developed that muscle yet. Maybe. The letter n. Certainly not everybody, but middle class America and above, we live in a world of nurture. It's safety first, show empathy. Right? And think about your parenting. I'll be going back to parenting. Don't we nurture safety first? And so we risk too little, we rescue too quickly, we rave too easily, all in the name of self esteem for our children. In a world of nurture, we unwittingly may send the message to others including our family, risk is bad. When my kid hears safety first, they're like, well, don't take a risk. No. No. Some of you entrepreneurs in here. Isn't it risky? Absolutely. America was built on risk. Last time I checked, we were an experiment in 1776, and we did it with no insurance policies. You know? Okay. One last one, and this is where I admit, I will be your grandpa. Today, we live in a world of entitlement. Do we not? We feel entitled to perks and breaks and benefits, and the scholarship should include that or whatever it is. And if I grew up in a world of entertain or excuse me, entitlement, it's very easy just to assume that labor is bad. I shouldn't have to work for this. This should be mine. You know? This should come to me. Now I will admit, I can be I can succumb to this, and I was the founder of our organization, but I have to watch myself as a human because I'm still human, which means I'm flawed. Okay. So this reality has affected did everybody get the picture? Okay. Um, the reality has affected our relationships. This is just a quick before I get you to the last, um, it's lowered our desire to work at resolving conflict. Have you not had an experience or two the last couple years where you had teammates that just had a conflict and they just walked away, they didn't resolve it, and I'm going, what are you doing? You talk you talk to them, not about them. It's increased our instinct to work alone. And by the way, Gen Z is coming into the workplace, the loneliest generation on record that we've ever had. I don't think it's their fault. I think we gave them screens. And then we had a pandemic that forced them to learn alone. It's better decision to divorce instead of stay married. It's increased our willingness to take shortcuts, and finally, it's decreased our levels of emotional intelligence. And, again, I wanna set a positive stage. I'm about to give you some steps to take, and and you'll be optimistic again. But I just wanna warn you as we set off on this great day, we've got to make sure we're leading ourselves well. We have to make sure we're leading ourselves well. So in the final minutes I have, I wanna share one of our images. We teach leadership with images at Growing Leaders. We call them habitudes, which are images that form leadership habits and attitudes. And the one I've chosen for this one is very, very simple. I've already mentioned boundaries to you. We simply call this sturdy guardrails. Sturdy guardrails. I remember years ago taking a team of workers to Sri Lanka, uh, that country just outside where you used to live. And while we're in Sri Lanka, there's a lot of mountains and foliage there. We were on a road climbing this mountain circular, and there were no guardrails. We were sweating bullets because we had a very fast driver and no guardrails. You can imagine. One of our team members yelled out,
we're gonna die. That's what he yelled out.
Thank God the driver didn't understand English. But, um, I realized at that at that time it sounds so funny, but I realized at that time, why we need guardrails? We all know how to drive in the lane, but there are sometimes I need a guardrail just in case. Can I say what I just said again? We all know how to stay in our lane, but just in case we have guardrails. And that's where guardrails are. Right? In fact, a guardrail can be defined as a system designed to prevent travelers from straying into dangerous or off limit territory. It can be a standard you set for yourself or a person you invite into your life. It can be a standard you set for yourself, thanks to this binge world we live in, or it could be a person. I have two people in my life right now that are holding me accountable on some decisions I make to be a better leader and husband and so forth. And some of you do as well. I'm just saying, let's not underestimate the power of a guardrail in our life. So bottom line on this one, we often don't notice guardrails until we need them. Do we? They keep us on the road during a curve or a dangerous spot. Similarly, we must place guardrails in our lives, people, or boundaries that keep us from damaging ourself with poor decisions. So let me close with a few guardrail suggestions. They're very simple, but some of you may need to re up on this one. You did it years ago, but you stopped doing it at this point in your very busy life. Or maybe some of them are new. Some of them may be for your kids. Some of them may be for your colleagues. But I got five. Let me give it to you real quick. One boundary we had on our family and then we tried to implement it at work, uh, was to match screen time and in person time. So let me talk as a dad real quick. Okay? When when I was, uh, when my kids were still in the house, they're both grown adults and gainfully employed. Thank you very much. But, um, when they were in the house, we would say, however many hours you have on a screen, you spend that many hours face to face with people, learning interpersonal skills, reading body language. You follow me on that? So if Jonathan, my son, had two hours playing video game, two hours out with Ben in the backyard, because you're gonna be good with people not just, you know, artificially. Um, number two, apply every insight you learn. Now this can be tough today because you're gonna get loads of them throughout the day. But you know what helped me to keep myself from artificial maturity? Is to not just learn something up here, but to say, I'm gonna find a way, a step to take where I immediately do that right after I learn it. You see what I'm saying? So I learned something and it really oh, this is kinda cool. I even got some dopamine going through my system right now. This is such a cool thing. I wanna go out, get off my butt, and go out and do something to implement what I just learned. I challenge you. It seems so simple, but I'm telling you, your team would be great. If you brought a team together on your drive back home or whatever, how could we do what Sangram said? How can we do what Donald Miller said? How can we do what Dan Cathy said, Horst Scholz? I'm telling you, find things and don't otherwise, they'll be up here and they'll tickle your mind and maybe send a little endorphin through or dopamine, but they won't do you any good. Number three, limit social media to two hours a day. So I'm not sure if you follow doctor Jean Twenge at San Diego State University, but she's done some curating of of data. And she says people that spend less than two hours a day or two hours or less are far less vulnerable to anxiety and depression. The moment you go above two hours on social media, you start it's like a hockey stick. It's really crazy. She and I looked at the the data together, and she said, I know it's crazy. I can't explain it. Two hours and five minutes, two hours and ten minutes. It's just like a hockey stick. So I would even say, let's just watch some of you work on screens for your work, but on social media, I don't know if you need to spend one, two hours unless that's what your job is. Number four, practice reverse mentoring. This has been a game changer for me. Now you all know what mentoring is. Right? You have a mentor, you have a mentee. Reverse mentoring is when I, an older guy, get with a younger guy like Andrew who's thirty years younger than me, or Tyler, we worked together. Where are you? There you are. Are. I loved our reverse memory. Yeah. I always learned something from you every time we sat down, and I'm hoping you learned a thing or two, but I'm telling you, it's when old and young get together, you swap stories first. You'll always find something in common when you swap stories. Even if you're 34 Cam is forty years younger than me. But then you both take turns out of your superpowers mentoring the other. I learned stuff from younger generations that I desperately need, and I've got a couple of timeless nuggets that might be helpful for them. I suggest you do that. One one last one, number five, choose grit over quit in your choices. Choose grit over quit in your choices. Now, I wanna close with a story, but we've got a few minutes, maybe two or three minutes for some questions. I'm not sure if you're prepared to throw a question out or a rock at me or whatever you wanna throw at me, but do we have a couple of mics? Yes. We do. Okay. So I want this to be very conversational. Don't feel silly, but if you just had a thought run through your mind or a question run through your mind and you'd like to ask before I close with a quick story, I'd love to to field it. Anything at all, uh, from you on today? We have somebody back in. Okay?
Hello. Good morning.
Hi.
So for those of us that work remotely and a lot of our meetings are through Zoom, and we're talking about matching that screen time and in person time, would you classify the Zoom, like, with body language as in person time? Or do you literally mean, like, after work, go to their grocery store or get out to see humans in real life?
I'm just trying to question a
way to apply that to my day to day.
To me, let me just tell you. I'm I'm far from perfect, but let me tell I I understand what you just said. I would say if you're working remotely and your people time is gonna be that, it's less than perfect, but it's still you're still looking at their face and reading body language. It's not texting or DMing or whatever. So I do think it counts for something. But, you know, what we've learned is screens are better than nothing. FaceTiming grandchildren is wonderful, but it's not the same as being with a grand. So I would say, yeah, do get as much face to face. There's something about the three-dimensional human world that we're in that can't be replaced at least yet with a screen. So I would say what you just said might be the answer is is spend some time out, go to the grocery store, make sure you've got some in person time along with that Zoom, which you're getting stuff done. So it's not like you're you're playing around. Okay. Good. Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. We have one back here. And then what do we do a third one?
Go ahead.
Oh, is that one? Okay.
Hey. Um, so I have a question. I work with, like, lawyers, and we help them with growth strategy and getting involved in growing their businesses. Most of them are game you know? And that's one of the things you didn't address is the gaming. They go work all day, play you know, go home and play whatever the games are in for, like, five or six hours.
And they go to bed
at 3AM, and they can't come to work and grow their own business. What do you do to go, like, grow the the to address the gaming issue?
Yeah. Wow. Well, I you're right. I only touched on that for a second with my own son. I would say now, please, this is me. Okay? I'm just a guy, so I can give you my answer, not the right answer all the time. But I would say, if you're working with this law firm, I would say show them some of this data and just say, hey. Listen. You're you're grown ups. You you can do what you want to, but it's less than optimal on the skills and so forth. And I would wonder if gaming is binging, it's a coping mechanism, not a coping skill. You know the difference? Coping mechanisms are I have to play video games. It's the only way I can make it through the day. Coping skills is I built some skill sets in my life where I don't need a mechanism to make it through the day. So I would share some of this data. This is not a exhaustive answer, although it may exhaust you. Okay? Um, it's I would say I would be so encouraged. So sorry. Are they courtroom attorneys where they're trying cases with real people, or is it something else?
All the above.
Okay. All the above. Yeah. I guess I would say my talk today, I would say I would encourage as much interpersonal skills being grown through face to face relationships. Even if it's just hanging out a bar or restaurant and spending time with each other, not binging on the video game, it's it's not bad, but it's artificial at best. And I believe I did a book called Artificial Maturity. I believe we have a lot of people on planet Earth that are artificially mature. Overexposed to information, underexposed in firsthand experiences, and we think we know it all. It's the difference between a guy that goes, oh, yeah. I know skydiving. I watch four YouTube videos. You know? And then a guy that goes, yeah. I've been skydiving a dozen times. Oh, I'm gonna go with that guy. So, anyway, uh, one more real quick.
Hello. Um,
wow. There
we go. Uh, a lot of your points and, uh, principles that you're showing right now, uh, and that you're speaking on seem to follow a lot of, like, stoic ideologies
Yes. And and
follow a lot of the stoicism. Is that coincidence, or is that something that you've personally taken into adopt into what you're preaching?
I would say I've looked at research and data, and it didn't come first from the stoics, but I have read some of the stoics. I thought, oh my gosh. Centuries ago, without screens, they taught this. So I wonder if this might be timeless, you know, and we just are relearning it in every generation when we have new needs. So I would say did the research first, then read some of the stoics. I thought, holy moly. It's amazing. Good. Thank you.
Thank you.
Let me close with a story real quick. By the way, I've I love being with you. Thanks for putting up with me before we get to the good good folks coming later. Um, I love to stay in touch with audiences I get in front of. So if you'd like to, I'm on LinkedIn and others. Um, that's my handle. If you'd like to stay in touch or would like an event, I would be happy to to share that with you. So, um, the story I want to close with is a story I love telling about my son and I where we had this very conversation. So when both my kids were 12 years old, I, um, took them on a daddy daughter and a daddy son trip. Many of you do the same thing, but I let my kids choose where we went. My son randomly, living here in Atlanta, chose Minneapolis, Minnesota. Yes. He did. He could have picked Paris, London, Tokyo. He picked Minneapolis. The reason he did is, you know, the Mall Of America's up there. Camp Snoopy was still around, and then there was a stage play he really liked, and then, you know, that was showing. So we went up there. First three days of our four day weekend, Friday through Monday, we just had fun. We rode the roller coaster, had pillow fights, and just had a blast. But on Monday, he knew we were gonna have some serious discussions. He was a little antsy. Dad, what are you gonna try to teach me? You know? You can tell who they grew up with. I said, Jonathan, just relax. Well, on Monday, the last day, we got in our rental car, and I drove up to one of the lakes, one of the 10,000 lakes up there in Minneapolis, and we pulled into a parking spot, and I said, now, Jonathan, I'm gonna do something a little different. I wanna trade places with you. He said, what do you mean? I said, I'm gonna get out of the car, out of behind the passenger seat. Go to the passenger seat. I want you to sit behind the wheel of this car, and I want you to drive this car. Now remember, he's 12 years old. First thing he said was, dad, that is illegal. That is illegal. That is illegal. He's a rule keeper. I said, Jonathan, we're we're not gonna leave the parking lot. We're not gonna go on the main roads. Just we're gonna be right here. And he goes, dad, mom will not like this.
That's what he said. Mom will
not like this. I said, Jonathan, does mom need to know? No. She doesn't. Well, it took me at least ten minutes to talk him into it, but I finally talked him in. You know, I explained the ignition and the steering wheel and the accelerator and the brake and the gear shift. And finally, after ten minutes, he turns on the ignition. Guys in the room, remember the first time you turned on an ignition?
Oh, baby. You know?
Well, he's feeling it. Sixth grade.
Oh, this is amazing. You know?
So he said, now you can back up if you want. So he starts backing up. I would say in less than two minutes, he's imitating me. I mean, he's doing this, you know, doing everything he's seen me do. He's driving around parallel parking, diagonal parking. He's doing all kinds of things. Finally, I had had him stop after fifteen minutes of driving as a sixth grader. We pulled back in the parking spot, and I said, Jonathan, let's trade places again. And we did. And I said, this is gonna sound really cheesy, but can I ask you a question? How did you feel when you first got behind the wheel of this car? He said, dad, I panicked. I didn't think I could do it. I said, what'd you just show me? He was quiet, but he said, I guess I showed you I could do it. I said, Jonathan, that's exactly how you're gonna feel becoming a man. You're gonna feel like I don't even have all the tools. I'm not even I don't know if I'm ready, but you're gonna be ready. It's in you. You can do this. You can do this boundary thing. And then we begin to talk about the future. He was 12. How his body was gonna be changing over the next few years. How his view of girls would be changing. How his view of his parents would be changing. But it was an incredible conversation about being a driver in life rather than a passenger in life. All he'd been up to that point was a passenger. May I challenge you today? Leader on leader. Badge or no badge. Let's be drivers, not passengers. Let's put up those guardrails. Thanks, you guys. God bless.
