The Super Fantastic Leadership Show

In this episode I officially close out the Super Fantastic Leadership Show and make an announcement about the new podcast I will be starting in 2024.

On today’s show we are going to talk about leading remotely. Before we dive in, let’s take a beat here and recognize that this isn’t necessarily new. There are just a LOT more people doing it, of course many who may have never had to lead in this way at the moment. While many of the same rules of leadership apply, this new context will require even more skills of being present, emotionally intelligent and likely, patience. For those leaders out there who have never had to do it, here is some great news; you get to learn some new skills and even enhance some old ones. We covered this topic back in 2017. You can listen to the show here. There are a few things that hold true no matter “where” you are leading from. Those include setting expectations, establishing clear goals, making and keeping clear agreements and also, the other skills that make leading worthwhile like being a decent human being. This past weekend on CBS Sunday Morning, they also talked about what we all need from leaders, especially in a crisis. You can check out the clip right here. It is excellent!

This week we are talking about resilience and what to avoid doing if you want to be even more resilient. That’s right, even more resilient. Human beings by in large are given much resilience but, some of the things we may be choosing to do can erode this naturally occurring strength to “bounce back” in ways that we may not recognize. First of all, watch out for complaining, blaming and criticizing others and also yourself! This is numero uno for you for sure. While it may feel slights enlivening due to the hits of adrenaline that we get when we are feeling righteous about what others should or shouldn’t be doing, be aware that this ultimately doesn’t leave us feeling empowered. Mostly this doesn’t work to build our resilience because this habit isn’t actionable. We are complaining but, we aren’t owning our own agency and power to change anything. Secondly, feeling into a future based on horrible outcomes also doesn’t build our resilience. Again, we return to being able to take action on that which we can do right now is best. Those things that are within our locus of control are incredibly helpful for us to use our strengths and best virtues as well as, most likely, to help others. When times feel uncertain and we feel out of control and unable to impact our environment, finding those places where we can take mindful action is incredibly resilient building. Thirdly, not giving attention to your naturally occurring strengths and the best virtues you are bringing to every day, also isn’t helpful. If we can see our strengths and how we are using them day-to-day this can be very helpful. What parts of your better nature has really shown up during this time? And during any time in which you’ve been challenged? We’re including some great links for you too in this week’s show: If you want to assess your own mental toughness, check out this article and the questions here. And if you’d like a good laugh, you can watch my friend Jessica and her quarantine roommate with their 5 Second Phone Calls. Join us on the Super Fantastic Leadership Show app too. We would love to see you there. You can get it right on itunes/google play if you don’t have it already. There you will find all sorts of great bonus content. This week we are simply including a picture of McWilmes sheltered at home.

This week we discuss the many ways in which our lives may change due to the pandemic and also, the caution we might want to consider as we begin to get convinced that we should go back to business as usual. Today’s show was inspired by an article that Daphne read on Medium written by Julio Vincent Gambuto. In this article he warns us to be intentional about what we bring back into our lives. However, the article also points too many fingers at the world outside of ourselves for creating our lives the way they are. Daphne wrote a response article that addresses this point and we talk about it on the show today. The truth is, we are always responsible for our lives and what we bring into them or not. For sure, this pandemic may provide us with some much needed levers but, as the title of this show suggests, it is no magic bullet for “fixing” the things we had issues with all along. Marta and Daphne also talk about the levers they are pulling to learn new things. For Marta, she is learning to draw comics. For Daphne, she is focusing a lot on cooking really delicious food. You can find the recipe to the world’s best grilled cheese sandwich that she made right here. And here are her ingredients for a great green smoothie that she loves to start her day with. Let us know what new things you’re bringing into your world and how you are using this time to get leverage in your life. That’s what it is all about!

With the arising of the pandemic and the need to isolate ourselves to protect human lives, the impact on business and unemployment has reached epic proportions. While there have been many who have had the privilege of being able to work from home, there are many who may not possess that ability and thus, are finding themselves not working at all. In today’s show we want to talk about what to do if you’re unemployed right now. We talk about not only the many ways you may need to work with your emotions and manage your experience of stress but also, the specific actions that you can take until the next wave of your employment makes an appearance. This has certainly been a challenge for millions of Americans. The great news is that not all hope is lost and there are some industries that are looking for employees right now. We are including some links right here for you too! Look for a job right now 10 Awesome Places to Work Right Now Join us this week as we discuss the possibilities!

Today we are going to be offering a lot of tips with how to work with the experiences of anxiety, depression, overwhelm and isolation. First, we want to recognize the experience we are experiencing. So often we do attempt to rush to solutions to “get rid” of our experience or to force it to change in some way. We don’t trust the process as it is happening. We’ve also been told a lot of stories about our experiences too. The stories we’ve all been told begin with some form of “should” or “shouldn’t”. We shouldn’t be sad, we should be happy and grateful, for example. In times of uncertainty we can lose our very real need for agency. Agency is the experience we have when we feel as though we can influence or change a situation in a particular way. This gives us a sense of control, safety and security. When we feel uncertain it can be difficult for us to find the ways we are still in our power and control. This is often what begins to bring up experiences of feeling fearful, overwhelmed, and all of the variations of emotional experiences. Here are some tips that we give for these different experiences. Anxiety: feels like reaching into the future: the 3 tips-meditation practice, do one thing at a time, do some 4 x 4 breathing. Depression: feels like being in cement shoes and dull: 3 tips-gratitude practices, finding laughter (one of my favorite SNL sketches), physical activity Overwhelm: feels like not knowing where to begin: the 3 tips-follow the steps in this 10′ to presence video, watch out for all or nothing thinking, take an action. Isolated: feels like being lonely and disconnected (from ourselves): the 3 tips-ask what do I need? what might others need too, ask for what you need, take action. Here is a link to the RAIN meditation that we spoke about in the show too.

Today we are talking about the simplest of things that we can do as leaders, and beyond, that don’t take too much effort at all to demonstrate acts of kindness. In a recent Harvard Business Review article, the author proposed that great leaders know that small gestures matter. What landed for me though is that any acts of kindness really aren’t small at all. Although, we often may think we need to make some grand gesture, it is the little things that matter. And it is the series of these actions that matter over time. We share some of the acts of kindness we’ve both experienced throughout this time of sheltering in place and needing to take care of our friends and family in a different way. We’ve each had old friends reach out to us and share their spaces with us. At a time when it can feel like so many things may not be going our way, it is worthy of putting our attention on what can do and how we might be kind to others. One of the most important things that shows up as a common thread in these acts however is our ability to give our full attention to other people. It is one the greatest acts of kindness that we can take. Simply giving those moments to each other is sometimes all that it takes. I share a very sweet story on the show of an exact moment I experienced. Oh, and by the way, this includes being kind to ourselves too.

Today’s show was inspired by a blog post from Mr. Money Mustache. Actually, it was inspired by a response to a post on the blog of Mr. Money Mustache by the main Mustachian himself, Pete Adeney. Now, I’ve read his blog for several years and I wish I could remember how I came upon him. I’m sure it was when I was really trying to make sense of how money mattered in my life, or rather “how much”. Take that in two ways, how much did I make it matter and how much really mattered. Mr. Money Mustache writes about that very thing. How did we want to live our lives and how did we want money and work to show up in our lives. How much of our own life energy did we want to give to the pursuit of getting more and having more? Well, leave it to him to write one of the best blog posts I’ve read so far about our current situation with CV-19, the economy and how what we’ve been doing with sheltering in place actually stands as one of the most compassionate and surprising things a seemingly capitalist society could be doing. He pointedly points out “who would have imagined.” The blog post was inspiring. What was most attention grabbing to me though was the many, many, many responses on the blog post. Of course there were the many statistical types who wanted to point to their own level of “economic savvy”. But one post in particular and Mr. Money Mustache’s response was the best part. His response to a person who did feel very much scared and uncertain was one of the best responses anyone could ask for. We hope you safe at home and that you and your loved ones are more inspired than ever!

On today’s show we are very fortunate to have with us parenting coach and psychotherapist, Michelle Gambs. She is not only a genius in working with families and parents. She is also wickedly wise and infuses fun and play into the most difficult moments in life. Today we discuss the five needs that all children have. Guess what, they aren’t personal. Michelle also gives us some strategies to front load the many ways children to get those needs met. Importantly, she also enlightens us as to what every parent needs to avoid and why quality, not quantity is what really matters. We need to avoid the “D”. Her acronym GEM explains it all. We hope that everything we talk about helps parents and families during this tricky time of working from home while everyone is also schooling from home. You can find out more about Michelle, her online course, her blog and how to connect with her directly at Michelle Gambs. I also highly recommend watching her videos on Youtube. You can also find her on Facebook and Instagram. We hope today’s show really gives you some amazing resources to navigate these times ahead with presence, love and patience.

This show is our first show since the pandemic came into our awareness and into our lives. Never before have any of experienced a moment in time like this and I’ve been saying to everyone that “this is my first pandemic”. And so it is for all of us. We are going to be doing many shows over the course of the next several weeks and until we feel that we don’t need to do so. We also hope that we provide a lot of additional support to you during this time too. With today’s show, we are going to cover few tips to help you get grounded and to establish a few practices for you that will allow you to stay present even in the midst of times that can feel challenging for you right now. We also bring in some great poems in this show because we find that the humanities right now are more needed than ever to help remind us of our better natures and also, to inspire us to who we can become throughout this process. Here is the poem by John O’Donohue that we share on the show and also the poem by David Whyte.

This week’s show we ask a question that is intended to lead us into greater awareness as it pertains to how we relate to the people in our lives and especially in leadership. We are going to explore the idea of unconscious bias, essentially. How do our bias’ lead us to miss the details of what is happening in our leadership? How can we bring greater awareness to these bias’ and what can we do to work with them? The good news in work is that we have several different ways that we can address these when it comes to hiring and interviewing, managing performance and doing our best to avoid making things “personal”. Which means, not being blinded by personality. So join us this week as we explore the question!

In this week’s show, we give a nod to the age old ideas of flexibility and freedom. Do you want both in your work and your life? And what does it mean to have these as we navigate our work and leadership? We discussed why the idea of a “flexible” work schedule may not mean what we really think it means in episode 210. It always helps to make some distinctions and to really understand what it means when we talk about flexibility or freedom and both. Join us in the conversation this week as we explore the possibilities.

We are taking this week’s episode to honor Clayton Christensen who passed away several weeks ago. Ironically, we just did a podcast on one of my all time favorite articles written just by him. Here is a quote from him that represents what he was really about in his life and leadership: “Don’t worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved, worry about the individuals you have helped become better people.” You can read more about him in this article from the New York Times and we encourage you to do so. We also talk about death this week too and I share a meditation from my book, Waking Up A Leader. You will be glad you listened to this episode.

In this week’s show we ask a question that you may have never considered before: what brings you peace and joy at work? THis question can shift everything for us when we realize that we want the same experience at work that we want in our overall life; to feel calm, joyful and at peace no matter what shows up. We think you’ll really love the show this week. And, if you want to know even more, we recommend Sharon Salzberg’s book Real Happiness at Work. Join us in the conversation!

This week Daphne and Marta talk about all of the things they’ve quit lately. Why does it matter? Because choosing what fits and what doesn’t really matters in our lives. Just like a closet full of old shoes we may never wear anymore, if we keep them around too long, all they start to do is stink. As importantly, when we let go of one thing, we are saying yes to something else. They also discuss high firing and how we can also “quit” the way we’ve been doing a certain relationship too. Join us this week!

This week we are talking about the real root of collaboration and the importance of having many voices in the room. When we think of bringing in the entire team to evaluate decisions and make the best choices possible, we see even more that we are creating a culture of inclusion. In the old school days of getting input, this was used as a means of getting “buy in”. For sure, anyone can see right through that. Instead, maybe we should be going after something even greater and more important that just collaboration and buy-in. Listen to us this week as we talk about practicing the art of inclusion. If you haven’t checked out Daphne’s new book, Waking Up A Leader: Five Relationships of Success, you can get it right here!

f you’ve ever had your boss tell you to accomplishing something and you’ve been given zero instructions as to the why or how, guess what? You just got dumped! And, if you’ve ever been the boss who has told someone to go ahead and roll out a project with zero instructions as to the why or how, guess what? You’re the dumper! So, let’s not be the dumper. Listen in to Daphne and Marta as they discuss the fine art of delegation and how to avoid being the “dumper.” If you haven’t checked out Daphne’s new book, Waking Up A Leader: Five Relationships of Success, you can get it right here!

Ever felt like you’ve had too much to do and you never can seem to feel motivated enough to get it all done? And have you ever found yourself telling people how you wish you didn’t have to do this thing and that? Daphne and Marta know exactly how you feel. This week we are discussing what it means to be living from obligation versus commitment in our leadership and our lives. Daphne talks about how this experience also drives us to constantly feeling like we never have enough time too. Join the conversation this week. Also, if you haven’t checked out Daphne’s new book,Waking Up A Leader-The Five Relationships of Success, you can get it right here!

This week Daphne and Marta explore the world of complaining. For sure, it seems that much of our day at work can be taken up with listening to others, and ourselves, complain. If you’ve found yourself on either side of the table, here is a little something you want to know about complaints. Complaints are simply the surface of an unmet need. That’s right. When we find ourselves complaining, somehow we aren’t letting ourselves have our deeper needs met. Listen in this week as we give you a very powerful tool to use with you and your team to resolve all of those complaints.

Almost every leader I’ve ever worked with has recognized at some point in their career that they need to be better at listening. It is probably true for us all! Well this week we ask you to do a strong self-assessment of your own listening skills and also, how to improve them. You probably didn’t know that there are some real core reasons that we don’t seem to listen to others as well as we would often like too. And you likely didn’t know that you truly can train your listening skills and become better every day. It is a practice for sure! So, join us this week and see how well you listen.