EntreLeadership - #223: Mike Erwin—The Power of Solitude

Episode Date: September 25, 2017

An Intelligence Officer in three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mike Erwin has had to weigh in on the heaviest of all decisions—the ones that involve life and death. Of course, military intel and his years of training were invaluable in those situations, but he would argue that solitude—those quiet moments that bring clarity—was equally important. Mike, who now serves as the CEO of the Character & Leadership Center, explores how some of history’s greatest leaders (think Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King Jr.) found courage and conviction during moments alone. Tune in to find out how you can too. entreleadership.com/podcast DISC Cheat Sheet How To Achieve Work/Life Balance Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is Andre Leadership. Now, here's your host, Ken Coleman. From the Music City, this is the broadcast of leaders by leaders for leaders. Thanks for joining the conversation. Our feature conversation this episode is with Mike Irwin. He's the author of Lead Yourself First, inspiring leadership through solitude. And then John Falcons, our head coach of All Access,

We'll stop by to answer some of your specific questions. And then we're going to give you a special audio treat, a bit of our recent staff meeting. We're over 600 team members gathered together. We do this every Monday morning, and you'll hear me talking with two of our new operating board members. This is great insight about leadership and personal growth as they have moved up the ladder here at Ramsey Solutions. All right, folks, it is that time, head coach of All Access. back from vacation, looking tan, and rested and ready to go. You ready for some questions? Yeah, man, I'm ready for whatever you got. You're always ready for questions. Here we go. First one is from

Hannah. She says, what do you do daily that helps maintain your personal and business momentum for the long term? I thought I'd start with a gigantic question. Yeah, this is hard to boil down to just one thing. Although, I will say one quote comes to mind here, Ken, and I believe it comes from Will Gates, actually, and it is that people frequently overestimate what they can get done in one year and underestimate what they can get done in 10. And I think, you know, we just have got to take that longer-term view and keep in mind where we're headed and what the big goals are we're trying to accomplish and then apply the momentum theorem, right? You know that well.

That's something that Dave reminds us of frequently, and that is focused intensity over a considerable amount of time, a long time, multiplied by God, that creates momentum. So if we kind of reverse engineer that, it's about staying intense and staying focused day after day after day. And so, you know, keeping your goals in front of you, knowing what it is you're trying to accomplish, and being persistent is really how you create momentum. That's it. I remember this famous quote from Winston Churchill. He was asked one time by a reporter, why did he always have his bulldog with him? Why the bulldog. Why is that his pet? And he said, in classic Churchill brevity, he just kind of said, he doesn't have to let go to breathe. And that is the N.S. That's when you hear the phrase,

be a bulldog. Yeah. That's what, you know, he loved the smash nose. They can grab a hold of you. And because their nose is smashing its face, they don't have to let go to breathe. There's just a little anecdote, but that's the idea. Grab on. Yep. Don't let go. That's right. Good stuff. All right. Up next, Anthony says, how open should our leadership be about the business financials with the entire team? Your financials should be as open as your team is able to emotionally and mentally process that information. If you've got a bunch of people that have no clue about business, don't start talking about all of the numbers. They won't understand it. They'll see that top line number and they'll think, oh, well,

that's what he's taken home, which we all know you're not. And so you've got to walk people through this process of learning the business. And that's just a judgment call on your part. But go on that journey with them, start to tell them, hey, this is what it looks like. And a great place to start, Ken, as you know, is just talking the percentages. Just, hey, we're up 5%, we're down 3%. We're 10% over where we were last year. Use percentages. And that will help educate your team. And then as they, become more mature, and as individuals gain in responsibility, you can increase the granularity of information you give them on that to the point where they understand everything that's going on.

I just want to point out, Word of the Day, you folks have been listening for a while, know that I love words. Coach John Felkins just dropped granularity out there, so I didn't want to move on to our next question and answer without some love on that. Wow. Let me write that down, granularity. This is what happens when I go on vacation for a week. Oh, yeah.

See, you've been reading. Yeah. Oh, I love it. Very good. Little Hemingway. Yeah, nice. All right. Next, this is from Veronica.

How do I best learn about the people I work with? Love this question. Wow, this is a... I know. It's a gigantic question, right? There's a lot of different things that you can do, right? And I love the question because this immediately indicates Ken that this person, Veronica, is a student of people because she cares about learning about it. people. And that's a great place to start. And then there's so many tools that we can bring to bear.

You know, all the different personality assessments, I'd get into that, you know, whether it's the disc that we use here at Ramsey Solutions or the Enneagram or Myers-Briggs or whichever one you want to use or all of them, you should use those. And then probably the best thing that you can do to understand other people is to understand yourself. And, you know, the Harvard Business Review You posted an article one time that indicated one of the things that was a correlation for successful CEOs was self-awareness. The more self-aware we are, the more freedom we have to be aware of other people. And so those are the two things that I would do.

I would start to learn the tools to understand how personalities work, and then I would also work on my own self-awareness and what that means about how I interact with people, and you will learn a ton. Can I add one thing? Please do. All right, Veronica, here's a deal. If it's me and I want to learn about the people I work with, I'm going to do what I do every week on this podcast. You need to take them out to lunch, breakfast, coffee, or just sit around for 15 minutes every once in a while and interview them.

Just act like you're doing a podcast. Ask them questions about themselves. Deep questions. Yeah. Right? Yeah. It's your favorite movie of all time and why? If you could be any movie character in any movie, who would it be and why?

I mean, these are fun little questions. and they go past the old how your wife and kids doing. If you want to know somebody, ask a deep, pinpointed, laser-focused question. There it is. All right. See, now that's why you come to this podcast, that kind of wisdom. That is great. And I think the thing that's neat about that is, as it's true, though.

It's true. And you're a great interviewer. So that's consistent with your brand, Ken, that you would ask great questions. But what I heard you also say is that takes time. It does. Just spend time with people. That's it. Consistently. And you'll be amazed how people open up, by the way, when you ask them, not an inappropriate personal question. You know what I mean? Like, how much money do you make? That's that. Of course, that's a, you don't do that. But go deep. Like, here's what I know. Let's just do this. This is fun. Okay. I'm mad living. I'm getting a little nervous. This is exciting. John Feltkins, your favorite thing to do if you're not with family, but you've got some alone time. Okay? And you want to go do it just, it's John time. What is that favorite thing? thing to do? It varies by season. Well, then give me one season and one thing. Okay. I'm teaching these people.

Yeah, I know, but I mean, it's just, this is a hard question, Ken. I know it is. You know, I mean, if it's happened, do you see what's happened, folks? Right now, John, and by the way, John and I've known each other for three years, but I've never asked him this question. That's true. And here's what's happening. I've been a little hurt. He literally is, he is, his brain is grinding right now to answer a really pinpointed deep question. Now, give him, give him the answer. answer. Well, if it's nice weather, I want to do something outside. Go fly fishing. Go for a hike, something like that. If it's a cold winter day, you know, I'm reading. Okay. So let's go to the fly fishing thing, the outdoor thing. When you're out there fishing and fly fishing, what do you love most about it? One thing,

the one thing you love most about fly fishing, what is it? Believe it or not, it is that I'm so engaged in that moment, everything else gets shut off. Yeah. Gives you a respite. Yep. And you're totally into it. Yep. Yeah, I love that. It gives you, does it charge your batteries? Absolutely. All right. So there we go, folks. Just an example. Now, I could, now here's the deal. I want to teach for about 10 more seconds. I could keep going on that path right there and discover stuff about John that I do not know this very moment. I just helped you, folks. You want to stump the coworker. When you stump them, they're only stumped for a moment. And then they start to unveil who they are. Oh, it's so much fun. So that's just a fun little example of how to get to know others better. And John, I love what you said.

Don't forget, you really need to know yourself as well. And one way you can do that, we have an amazing disc tool that we have been giving away for free for a while on this podcast. Just want you to know about it. It's called our disc cheat sheet. And so this is a really efficient way for you to figure out, are you in the right seat, are the people that you're leading? Is everybody on the right seat on the bus? and this helps for profits, productivity, and so much more when you talk about a great culture.

So check that out. You can just hit the link in this episode's show notes at Entrate Leadership.com. Click on podcast. And big thanks to our head coach of All Access, John Felkin. It's always great to have you in studio, man. Thanks for having me, Ken. All right, folks. We're going to get right to Mike Irwin.

As I said, the book is Lead Yourself First, inspiring leadership through solitude. Now, I get a lot of books. I've told you this many times, that come across my desk, and I don't say yes to all of them. But when I saw this, what I'd never heard of Mike before. But inspiring leadership through solitude is a subtitle, and it really leapt off the front of the book cover. And this is something I struggle with. I've got a packed schedule at the office. Before I get to the office, life is crazy, even in the summertime.

Three kids, they've got to go somewhere. Me and my wife work. It's just nonstop. value my mornings because it's the time I get to spend with the kids, even though it is crazy and they're getting ready to do something for the day. Then I get in here, it's packed just like you. And when I go home, they've got after-school activities, sports, homework, got to connect with the wife. It's very easy to go through an entire week, an entire month, an entire year, where you spend very little time alone. I mean like no time alone, maybe on vacation. That's not solitude.

But you know what you have to do? You got to spend some time in solitude. You really do. And this conversation, I think, will really challenge you. So here it is, Mike Irwin. Well, this is fun. Lead yourself first is the book, subtitle, Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude.

And Mike, I must tell you, when I first saw this, it really piqued my interest because as somebody who's got a million things going on, as does our audience. And then I've got three kids, a wife, and a dog. You know, solitude is just, it feels like that pot at the end of the rainbow at times. And this is such a timely book. So before we dive into the book and some of the great content, I want you to start out resetting our brains. We all know what the word is and we know how to use it in a sentence.

But what does solitude really look like? Yeah, this is such a key point that we hear time and time again from people who have read the book is the pace of life today is just as fast. as ever. And because of that solitude, which is the subjective state of mind where the mind isolates itself from the inputs from other minds to be able to focus on and to work on a problem on its own, is more elusive, but arguably, therefore more powerful than ever for those who have the discipline to be able to find that time and that space. And that's really what the book is all about is making an inspiring argument for leaders throughout history, but also contemporary leaders who do find those pockets of time. And what it looks like in practice, I'm sure we'll talk

about that throughout the discussion. But there's a lot of ways that actually you can find and get yourself the solitude. But once again, it comes back to as Jim Collins writes in the foreword, having the discipline to do so. It really is about the discipline. So when you write a book about this, where were you at at the outset of this on your solitude meter? Were you doing a good job? Were you doing a great job? Did you lack? like most of us in trying to be intentional to be in solitude. Yeah, no, I would say that I was not doing that great of a job. So really the process and the journey began with my co-author and I, Ray Kethledge, started back in 2010. So it's been about seven years since we began researching and starting to

write this book. And I'd say Ray was doing a better job than I. He has a camp up in northern Michigan on one of the Great Lakes. And I at the time, much like you just described, just had a kid. our first kid had founded a nonprofit organization, was in graduate school, was still very much focused on what was going on in Afghanistan because I was still an active duty army officer and just had a lot going on. And for me, I was able to find that solitude primarily through running. And I lived on the outskirts of Ann Arbor, Michigan. And I was able to find that time and space through running out near the farm fields back

there and that gave me that space. I would say that I was doing a decent job as I was writing the book. And over the past six years, frankly, it's been a journey. And it's not like every day it's easy to practice this. In fact, there's weeks at a time when I feel that I'm not doing a good job at it. It doesn't detract from the power of getting to solitude when you need to. And so as part of my own journey along the way here, it's definitely been a process with ebbs and flows. Okay.

Now, if I ask the question, open-ended question, why is it so difficult for us human beings to get in a place of solitude on a regular basis. Everybody listening to that open-ended in question could answer it, and they'd all have a specific answer. Yet I suspect, Mike, that it would be answers that we all see great commonality in. So you mentioned research. I always love to talk to authors about the research that went into the pages that we now read. So as you were doing research, what did you find in the research that helps answer a little bit more specifically and a little bit more practically that big question. Why is it so difficult? We all get it. We all think it would be nice. Why is it so difficult to get into that routine? Yeah. So as I was working on the book with Ray, he's a federal

judge up in Ann Arbor and I was a graduate student at the university's psychology program. I was actually studying positive psychology, which is the scientific study of what makes life meaningful and gives us a sense of purpose in life. And we know that a big part of purpose, purpose in life and our level of engagement and happiness and well-being is driven by the quality of our relationships with other people. And so I think the answer to that question is that we, you know, we as humans are hardwired to do things with one another, you know, to build relationships with each other, to be on teams together, to work on projects.

And because of that, we find ourselves very often gravitating towards the group setting or towards spending time with other people. And so that really is the key driver. my opinion is we started to talk to more and more people. What it became the research behind the book is that a lot of leaders felt compelled that their job is to lead other people. Therefore, they have got to spend a lot of time interacting with the people that they lead and looking out for them.

And between that and then the research that really drives the importance of connectivity and relationships in our life, coupled those two things together. and it makes it very difficult for a lot of leaders to explain and to justify in their own mind, why is it that they need to spend time stepping back from everybody and everything to really reflect and to think hard about the big decisions they need to make for their organization. All right. So you and your co-author suggest that there are specific leadership qualities that can come out of our disciplined solitude. So what are a few of them? And then how does this actually happen? Okay, I'm sitting here and I'm going, okay, all right, I'm going to go sit

alone in the woods and I got eight billion thoughts run through my mind. How do I become a better leader in solitude? Yeah, so let me maybe just answer the second part of the question first, because that will then feed into the research that we basically discovered by conducting a ton of qualitative research by reading books and interviewing over 100 leaders. So I think one of the big things we do argue in the book is that we're not advocating for people to become Henry David thoreau, right, and spend, you know, days and days or weeks upon a time in solitude and in isolation out in nature. If your schedule and your personality give you the capacity to do that, then that's great. But I think that really the bigger case that we're arguing for is that these moments

exist throughout the day and we can find solitude in smaller batches today. It might be five minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes. If you can get an hour of uninterrupted thought, then that's really incredible. But it's not suggesting to people, especially leaders with a million things going on, that they need to retreat to nature or go on a yoga retreat for five days in Mexico to make this happen. It's really much more about the practical application of, as we talk about when we interviewed Howard Prince, who was fighting in Vietnam at the time, it was that 20 minutes where he stepped back and it gave him the emotional balance and the emotional calm and the clarity to make the right leadership decision. So what we found was really there's four primary benefits that leaders gain from solitude. The first

is clarity. So that clarity could look like the result of thinking really hard or it could be arising from intuition, right, quieting the mind, quieting the noise and allowing some of the thoughts that you know that you've been processing all day to surface and to allow you to make the right decision with clarity. The second part, creativity. This is the idea of connecting new thoughts. that have not been thought before. And in the book we talk about General Grant and what a powerful example he had in the Battle of Vicksburg and coming up with a completely creative

outside the box solution that eventually yielded success, even though everybody thought that he was crazy. The third part was emotional balance. So leaders benefit significantly from solitude in terms of calming their emotions down. And I think this is one we can really think about practically in our lives all the time when someone might send us an email

that ruffles our feathers or might say something to us that really makes our emotions just spin up and kick into that fight or flight response. One of the worst things you can do most of the time is to immediately respond back to that email or to that comment. And to step back and to give yourself that space usually allows you to control your emotions and then to think more effectively and make better decisions. And the last one, perhaps the most important, which is the fourth part and the final part of the book, focuses on the power of solitude, fortifying.

moral courage. So leaders, as everyone who's listening knows, have to make difficult decisions. Those decisions have consequences for real people. And very often, the world will tell you, other people around you will tell you, hey, that was the right decision. I know it was difficult. And again, those outcomes could result in people dying, people losing their jobs, people facing a real hardship. This is where, for me, it was so personal, having served in the military and made recommendations to commanding officers that sometimes led soldiers to be severely injured or to be killed, you know, is having the moral courage to make those hard decisions that might be unpopular. And again, you can make those decisions when fortified by people around you, telling you that's the right

decision, but you can only come to that conclusion on your own. And that's why solitude is so important to fortify moral courage. All right. So, folks, what he just did is he laid out the four parts of the book. And I love this, Mike. I love what you guys have done. I absolutely love how you bring in historical examples in how leaders have used solitude to lead in these four areas. So let's go back.

He ran you through those major sections. I love that your military experience plays a big part in this. Let's go to Eisenhower. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ike, known affectionately by Ike, and he's this heroic World War II general, then becomes president of the United States. and I've done a little bit of reading on him, so I know a little bit about his personality, but you use Eisenhower as the example of analytical clarity. So just give us a summary of how you use Eisenhower as an example of solitude,

allowing him to get terrific clarity. Yeah, so this one is a fascinating one to me, not just because I also went to West Point and graduated about 85 years after he did, but really because like him, I'm a very big extrovert. And it was Eisenhower's ability to be a politician and to connect with people. That is why Marshall put him in charge in 1944 to become the Supreme Allied commander. So there's some of those personalities that I think are very useful because one of the questions we get a lot from people as well is just for people who are more introverted. And one of the points you make in the book is that introverts might find it more natural to gravitate towards prexicing solitude.

but the benefits are there for people of all personality types. And so the story of Eisenhower, there's just so much density in that chapter. One of the first parts was just when after Pearl Harbor, Marshall summoned him to the Pentagon and asked for his thoughts on, well, what does this strategy look like? And before responding, he basically said, can you give me a couple of hours? And so he spent a couple of hours just writing down his thoughts and gaining clarity on what he would recommend to General Marshall. and later, I believe, played a huge role in his decision to name Eisenhower, the Supreme

Allied commander. But as we profile in the chapter, there's also things that he did in Northern Africa in 1942 and in Italy in 1943, and then, of course, leading up to D-Day. Ultimately, the decision rested upon his shoulders alone. Do we attack on June 6, 1944, or do we delay it for a couple more weeks? And the reason why clarity was so difficult for him is that there was a lot of competing variables. There was the moonlight. There was the tide. There was the weather, the wind. And there was also the opinions of all the other generals from the various allied forces that he had to

contend with. And there was just so much information coming into his hemisphere. And it was that solitude that allowed him to step back and he would do so by writing his thoughts out to himself. And then, of course, as we talked about in the book, there was this moment when he got the weather report and it was very unclear on the likelihood of the weather supporting the operation. And he stepped back for about 10 minutes and just sort of looked out over the seas and gained, again, clarity in his mind about all the factors to consider. And he turned around to all the senior military leaders in the room and said, it's on. You know, we're going, even though a majority of them had recommended that they delay the operation.

So again, so much information. And this is why I think for leaders today with all the various. flows of information that we have access to today from the papers and interviews and all the data we can analyze and big data and social media and opinion polls and there's just so much for a leader to consider whether you're running a startup or a small business or a large corporation or you run a military unit we just have access to more information today than ever and achieving that clarity cannot be done just by outsourcing the analysis to your staff you have to invest that time as a leader to do that hard analytical thinking. Yeah, I want to ask you a follow-up question here.

I've never asked anybody this question. And it's so heavy and you have the historical context and you also did a lot of research on Eisenhower. Obviously, in that last answer, you just referenced D-Day. We've all seen saving Private Ryan, or at least most of us have. And, you know, that opening scene is just about the most gripping thing I've ever seen on a screen. And I think that's pretty historically accurate. So he's making the decision to storm those beaches, knowing that they're going to have heavy loss of life. And I remember watching it, Mike, the first time going, was this the only option they had watching these men get mowed down? Now, if that's not historically accurate, correct me. But based on that and Eisenhower having to make a decision

on so many different angles there, knowing that lives will be lost, but it had to be done, could you just frame that for us in the sense of the solitude and the heaviness of a decision like that that most of us will never have to make? Yeah, I mean, that to me is something that, I mean, I couldn't even fathom. And then couple that with, you know, someone especially who's a leader, you know, part of leadership is often as bearing the consequences of your decision with the men and women you lead. And in his case, he knew that, you know, as a general, he was in the back. You know, he was not going to be on the boat, you know, assaulting the beach.

And so there was a bit of, I'm sure, some sort of emotional turmoil and guilt that he experienced with that as well. And it's something that certainly that I experienced a lot as an intelligence officer in my military career of making recommendations to my commanders about operations and what we should do or shouldn't do knowing that if I persuaded my commander to launch a certain operation that it might lead to the loss of someone's life. So on a very much smaller scale, I know what that feels like. and that alone in and of itself is something still, you know, a decade later after my service in Iraq and Afghanistan, I still carry some of that with me just to give you an idea of how emotionally intense that is. And now take that and put it on a scale of, you know, 5,000 X of what I've experienced. And I just can't even fathom it. So again, the power of solitude, I think, is that it's that space that in, as we profiled with General Eisenhower, it gave him the

clarity of mine to say that, no, we can't keep these men hold up over, here for another 16 days before we launched the operation. They know what's waiting for them on the other side. We need to go. And I think that, again, that clarity that he was able to achieve through solitude gave him the peace of mind, that he was making the best decision, knowing that regardless, no matter what they decided, young men were going to lose their lives. And a lot of them at that, but the question for him boiled down to the likelihood that they would be successful in the endeavor. And he eventually made that decision with great clarity. And in history, of course, proved him to be correct.

Now, the reason I ask that, Mike, in audience, is because most of you will never make a decision to put somebody's life in danger. And in this situation, Eisenhower and all those generals, they knew that men were going to die. I mean, it's just a reality that none of us can even process. But doesn't it give us great courage that the decisions we're scared of, the decisions that we're worried about, whether losing money, or we're having to backtrack, the business decisions compared. to the decisions that generals have had to make in wars. It just pales in comparison. I guess, Mike, do you agree? I think we can take great courage because of the agonizing decisions that great generals have had to make. They just, the decisions we make on a day, day basis don't even come close to that kind of fear. Yeah, no, I mean, I think you're exactly right. And I've experienced this

even in my own life as, you know, an entrepreneur and now a social entrepreneur, having co-founded another nonprofit organization that even amid the struggles and that up and down, having had that perspective in those experiences from, you know, combat deployments where the stakes are that high, literally a matter of life and death. It definitely should, and I hope give leaders the courage to know that, you know, even if this doesn't succeed, it doesn't mean that people are going to lose their lives. Obviously, you know, people's livelihood and it's all very serious. But when you're talking life and death like that, absolutely. And this is why I think a lot of people in business and in entrepreneurship draw so much inspiration from studying history. And especially you read

military history. I've found this to be the case quite often. And I think there is that connection point, Ken, that you just hit upon that is so powerful that you can draw courage and inspiration from that. And even just a story on this that I heard was that Fred Smith, founder and CEO of FedEx, he was on the battlefield in Vietnam in 1967 on a day when one of his chaplains, father Vincent Capadano, was killed in action and presented with the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously. And he basically credited seeing what Father Capadano did on the field, the battlefield, on September 4th, 1967, is giving him the courage to launch FedEx. So I think there's that connection that you touched upon that I think is very, very riveting and emotionally powerful.

Really good. All right. So we're going to jump now to part two, if you will, of the book and also the second of the sections that Mike has laid out for us, creativity. and I'm going to jump to Chapter 5, page 68. And I love the quotes at the very first page of Chapter 5, and this is where I'm going to lead you and let you teach us on this idea of solitude and creativity. Two quotes from T.E. Lawrence, who you feature in this section, suppose we were a thing intangible.

It's such a great little line. Really makes you think. You have to get a little bit solitude in your own mind to unpack that quote. And then another one, help comes from within, not from without. T.E. Lawrence, with those two quotes leading us into this chapter, how does solitude allow us to really streamline creativity? Yeah, creativity is obviously a big buzzword. It has been innovation, creativity for quite some time now. And I think that a lot of the discussion and the thought around creativity, especially in the leadership sense over the past 10, 15 years, has been driven by this idea of

collaboration and that we have all this technology at our fingertips today that allows us to bring people together with different views and different world experiences and that through this technology and through this collaboration, we come up with the most innovative or the creative solutions. But I think when you often look at a lot of the most breakthrough ideas in business and in leadership in the military, very often what you find is that creativity is often an active a solo act, at least initially. Certainly there's a role, I think, a huge role for collaboration and other people to build on. But most entrepreneurs, when you think about coming up with ideas, it's not like,

oh, you're sitting around the table talking with a bunch of people and we all together at the same time came up with this idea. So even if you are taking all this input and taking all this feedback from other people, very often, it's in that alone time, in that time when you're allowing your mind to race, that you actually come up with some of the most innovative and creative solutions, especially when you're talking about decision-making processes as a leader. And, of course, the T.E. Lawrence chapter is fascinating for those who are military historians. You know that, like, he was really kind of came up still to this day, this modern-day concept of,

you know, counterinsurgency. And again, it was such a fascinating chapter to know that, you know, it wasn't by choice, but, you know, he got really sick, and it was in that time when he was in the tent and he was sick and he had so much time to spend on his own that he came up with some of these ideas. But I think the bigger idea of connecting creativity and solitude is that, you know, neurologically, we know what goes on in the brain when you quiet it down. You allow different connections to take place that cannot take place in the presence of other people and the presence of other stimuli.

And so much of the idea of coming up with a truly, truly creative idea, you know, is fueled by quieting your mind and sometimes just allowing. these connections to take place naturally and not in a shoehorned or a forced kind of way. And so once again, you need that time and that space to be able to get to that point to come up with something that's just so radically and fundamentally different than the way you've been doing things. And again, just to highlight that story as you dig deep folks in that chapter. It really is amazing.

Sickness causes him to get into solitude. So maybe not intentional, but I love that again. he took the sickness and didn't quit, kept going. Great, great stuff that's so transferable to us on a day-to-day basis. All right, moving forward to emotional balance. You mentioned Ulysses S. Grant at the outset of our conversation, allows us to come back to this because you highlight catharsis, Ulysses S. Grant in chapter number eight in the section on emotional balance.

Take us back there. This is a fantastic story from history. Yeah. I mean, when you think about, and again, if you've studied the best of, Battle of Vicksburg and you know about how many different attempts were made by leaders in the Union Army to try to free up the Confederate's control of the Mississippi River. Basically, all the different ideas that they had tried failed. You know, they controlled that high ground. And as we know, like lines of communication are absolutely critical in military operations.

They were especially critical back then because they didn't have all the roads. They didn't have, you know, the capacity like we do today to be able to move troops, water, ammunition. food. And so the Mississippi River was critical, as was the Hudson River, where West Point gained its luster in the Revolutionary War. The importance of being able to control the rivers was so important to be able to fight and logistically support your operations. And because of that, the Confederates controlled the high ground. And so the idea of leading an assault to push them off that high ground was nearly impossible. It had been tried several times and failed. And the only way that you were going to be able to come to that point, to come up with a plan that would allow you

to be able to surprise them and or come up with a new way of getting there would be through a radically different plan. And we talked a lot about the importance of achieving emotional balance. This is something that Grant practiced a lot. And one of my favorite lines from the book he talks about was, hey, general, what can we do to help you out? And he responded, just leave me the hell alone. He really needed that time to process and to think through coming up with the plan. And so then that's what I love about the book in many ways too, Ken, is that this is emotional balance. This is also creativity because what Grant emerged from his tents with after nights of thinking repeatedly and coming up with the solution that ran completely counter to the doctrine of basically everything that he had been taught during his time at West Point was a plan to live off the land, you know, to march his trance. troops well south to cross the Mississippi River at a safe point and then to move and to turn

north and essentially envelop. I mean, it took months and months to be able to make this happen. And of course, when he came out of the tent with this plan, everyone around him thought he was crazy. And it turned out that you needed to be that crazy enough to come up with the solution in that moment that would allow the Union Army to actually open up that line of communication and push the Confederates off the high ground of Vicksburg. Yeah, it's amazing. And it also is an example of moral courage, and that's what I love about what you've done. It really is a chord that is woven through all of these examples, clarity, creativity, emotional balance, and moral courage. We move now to my favorite chapter of the book in the section on moral courage,

and this is Chapter 11, one of my favorite figures from history, Winston Churchill. Mike, if you're okay, I'm going to tee you up by reading something from the book, and this is a famous quote, of course, from a speech that Churchill gave in the House of Commons, October 5th, 1938. And if you can channel Churchill's voice and him standing up in the House of Commons, which if you've never, by the way, little a little asterisk here, if you've never seen the House of Commons on C-SPAN, you need to do it one time and watch how they do business. It's really fascinating stuff. But he stands up and he says, I will begin, therefore, by saying the most unpopular and most unwelcome thing. I will begin by saying what everybody would like to ignore, but which must

nevertheless be stated, namely that we have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat. We are in the presence of a disaster of the first magnitude, which is befallen Great Britain in France. Do not let us blind ourselves to that. And then he dropped the proverbial mic. What a statement. That takes a lot of moral courage. I leave this chapter in the summary and what we can learn from Churchill from solitude in this historic moment. Absolutely. I mean, and Ray and I talked about this a lot. Ray is also a huge Churchill fan. I mean, as in my, but Ray has, you know, read Manchester. He's read all of the books. He was a history major at the University of Michigan before going to law school. Go blue. Yes, right. Go blue. And you can close your eyes. Like you said, because I have also seen

the House of Commons. And you can just see like that event unfolding. and Churchill, you know, standing up and having the moral courage to say something that would be so unpopular. Of course, we all know the history of coming out of World War I and the Brits more than just about anybody did not want another World War. But the fact is he stood up and said something that was wildly unpopular, but he knew that it needed to be heard, that it needed to be said. And to go through that, again, to establish that moral courage to come up with the clarity of mind to make such a bold statement that he knew would ostracize him from a lot of lot of people and cause a lot of, you know, concern. But again, it was super clear to Churchill what was going on. And once again, having the courage to do that is not something that you just sort of, in the moment, I say, oh, yeah, I think I'm going to go ahead and stand up and make such a

bold statement. Ultimately, I think when we think about making bold decisions as leaders or taking strong stances, the only way you can really get there is through some self-reflection and internalizing what it is that you're about to say, because you as the leader, at the end of the day need to own that comment, need to own that assertion or that stance. I think it's so important that no matter how many people on your staff or how many people that work for you tell you one thing or the other and say, yeah, hey boss, that's definitely what people need to hear. At the end of it, you need to have peace of mind and you need to have spent that reflection time knowing that what you're going to say is going to be unpopular and it's going to cause some people a lot of duress

and it still is what needs to be said. There is an element of personal ownership, I think, that we often in the world today especially have sort of overlooked about how important that element of personal ownership is. And once again, the only way you get there is through solitude and some deep reflection. Wow, good stuff. Yeah, I'm sitting there listening to you. I think you're right. I'm again picturing Churchill and you know he's been stewing on this stuff for a while. And it's in those moments. You said something I think is spot on. And I want to stay here for the audience. that it was long before he stood up in the House of Commons that he was feeling that.

And isn't it true, Mike, I know you've experienced this, I have as well. When I marinate on something and I'm stewing on it, it's like it grows from your core, and it's almost physiological as well. Obviously, it's philosophical, but it grows from the bowels and moves its way up into your chest until it's just beating and it has to leap out, and then the moment presents itself and boom, there it comes out of the mouth. Do you sense that? Absolutely.

I mean, I think that this is one of the major points of the book as well is that Solitude becomes that place where you can unite the head and the heart, the soul or the spirit, you know, and the mind. And I think that once again, it's really difficult to kind of fuse together, you know, the soul and the mind amid the noise, amid the meetings, amid all that kind of stuff. And that's ultimately best done and most effectively done in solitude. and I could not agree more that there is a very often a physiological response of like I need to say this. I need to take this stance. I need to make this decision and that there isn't peace of mind. And sometimes you can't even slow your heart rate down until you have come forward with that decision. So absolutely there is definitely something to be said about the power of unifying, again, your head and your heart in moments like these that as leaders that you've got to make this certain decision or take a stance.

So beautiful. I love how you described that. That's so true. And you know what else, Mike? I mean, let's be honest here. Let's challenge the audience. If you're not having this type of moment multiple times a year, I'm not sure that you're leading or living the way that you should be living. Can I be that bold? I think that's true. Oh, yeah. I even up the ante on you a little bit and say that, you know, probably at least every month, maybe six weeks, you know, that those are the moments that ultimately, and this is what we really kind of put our crescendo on the book with is to say that leaders that have done this, right, that have done these incredible things that we admire the moment. most. We don't necessarily admire them the most just for the outcomes of the events that they have helped to influence, but it's really, it's the process that allowed them to be so bold and to make such difficult decisions in such a sustained, you know, manner. So I think that, you know,

you're exactly right that leaders should be coming to these crossroads on big decisions monthly. Sometimes, you know, even more frequently than that on, you know, when there's certain big decisions need to be made at a certain point. And again, I don't, think that you get to those crossroads and really sort of get to that like physiological response moment that you talked about unless you're engaging in those periods of solitude because it's in there that you establish that conviction that I must speak on this or I must make this decision in, you know, the certain window of time. And I think that's what's so powerful about solitude is it really sets the conditions that allows you to do that. So true. And I could tell you,

when your heart is beating fast because you're so excited. about what needs to come out because it could be and should be. See, now this is conviction. I got to tell you, I get to do it a lot because I'm on stage in front of a lot of people or behind a mic in front of a large audience. But man, there's nothing like it when you're convicted about something and it must happen and then you step into it. Really is, I believe, the energy, the unbelievable chemical reaction of doing something that matters. So good. All right, so we've got to wrap the conversation towards the end of the book, you give us some practical things. I'm just going to tee you up on those because folks you need to run and get the book. And really you challenge us

what to focus on in solitude. This is what I'm going to set you up to challenge us with. One, you say embrace hard thinking. Two, identify your first principles and stay connected with them. And three, find a higher purpose for your leadership and share it with your followers. So again, these three things, a nice final challenge in the book on what to focus on when we're in solitude. Take it away. I mean, you just obviously covered the big ones right there as we sort of bring the book to a close. And I think it is very difficult in the world today to stay connected to your first principles. I think there's just a lot of noise. There's a lot of different things pulling us, especially as leaders in a lot of different directions because we're so accessible,

because there's such a flow of information available to us today. And so staying connected to those principles to our core values is, I would argue, more difficult today than ever before. And again, Solitude really provides you that landscape and that psychological real estate to do that. You know, on top of that, I think, you know, you talked a lot about, you know, finding a higher purpose for your leadership and embracing hard thinking. I mean, the hard thinking part is, that's just the big question that we pose and we issue that challenge to people to say is, are you devoting enough time in a given week to doing the hard thinking that leadership and your organization requires.

And I think that it's very easy for us to feel like we're busy all the time. And we are, right? There's a million things we can be doing. We can be reading more. We can be, you name it. But are we actually carving out the time to do our hard thinking? Or is that something that we outsource to consultants all the time or outsource to other people all the time?

And as a leader is saying, hey, there's a role for consultants and for having your staff do a lot of work for sure. But as the person at the end of the day, who is that Eisenhower, who is, is that owner of the decision, are we as the leaders spending enough time doing that hard thinking? And then lastly, as you talked about, was finding the higher purpose for your leadership. And I alluded to this earlier as we profile people like Martin Luther King Jr. and Pope John Paul II and some of these prolific leaders from history, that's just a big question is, what is the purpose of your leadership? And I think leaders who really find that purpose of their

leadership and they make sure that it's never too far away from their psyche and from their soul, I think are going to not only make better decisions and get more effective outcomes, but they are the people that we will admire the most on a personal level, on a larger level, if you're leading a larger organization, because it is that purpose that we all seek in life. And when we find leaders who have an unwavering sense of it, it's incredible.

And we feel it and we see it in the results that they get. But more importantly, we're inspired by what they're doing every single day. And so those three challenges that we really kind of bring to an end for leaders to think about is, you know, how are we doing those things? And we just make that suggestion that solitude is a great place for you to embrace that hard thinking, stay connected to your first principles and the purpose for your leadership. Folks, solitude is very practical. It can be done. And I want to highlight something Mike said earlier.

Final challenge from me on this is I love this book and I practice this. I am not an outdoorsman. I don't have the time in life to go spend in the woods on a regular basis. And if I did, I'd have too much bug spray on anyway to be able to think. But here's the reality. I do this all the time. Moments before I'll go on a stage in front of 7,000 people or moments before I record in here, I always gather myself in some form of solitude.

Very briefly, sometimes 10 minutes, completely quiet, thinking and envisioning what I have to do in those moments coming up. and it gives unbelievable clarity when you have to perform. So this is something that I do on a regular basis. It really does work. This is a great book. He is Mike Irwin, co-author of the book. Lead yourself first, inspiring leadership through solitude. Run and go get it.

It is a fantastic read, an enjoyable read, and a practical read. Mike, thanks so much for being with us. We're better for it. I appreciate it. Really great to speak with you, Ken, and hopefully to have inspired some listeners to not just engage deeply on this, but also to reap the benefits of that solitude in a world that's, again, more challenging than ever to find it.

So if you can have that discipline to carve out that time, it will really be beneficial. So thanks so much. Absolutely, man. Great stuff from Mike Irwin there. If you're not challenged by that, you need to go back and listen to it and then get real with yourself. So a little challenge here I'm going to throw in.

Where and when can you find solitude? in the next seven days, the next week, where, think of a place, when, think of a time, and let me add one more question in there. Think of a why. Where can I get solitude? When can I get solitude? And why do I need the solitude? Meaning, what can you best use that solitude for? Where do you need it most? That's a good exercise. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to do that. I want you to email us. I want you to email us and tell us what came out of that. Solitude.

Let's encourage each other. Podcast at entreleadership.com. Podcast at entreleadership.com. Oh, folks, I'm really excited. Our friends at Infusionsoft have got a brand new free resource for you. Now let's just go back to what we just heard from Mike. 70% of small business owners report sacrificing family or vacation time for work. That's a form of solitude. Balance. So in this new resource from InfusionSoft,

they're going to showcase how small business owners achieve harmony with their work and personal lives. Here's the great news. It can be done. They've done the research, and they're going to show you the practical ways that you can actually have balance on some level. Is it perfect balance? No. But I love the word harmony that Infusionsoft gives us. I like, harmony. Oh man, who doesn't want to live a life of harmony? That's a word we don't use very often. Look that one up. Say, where can I get some harmony in my life? I just like saying harmony. I think I've said it about five times in the last 30 seconds. But here's what's going to be in the tool. You're going to get some case studies from three real entrepreneurs and their tips,

their best practices for balance and harmony. You're going to get some actionable tools. You're going to get some actionable apps and techniques from other experts on how to work smart. Oh my gosh. I had an epiphany about 10 years ago where I figured out how to work smart, not so hard. I'm still working hard, but you never see me sweat. And how do you have an unplug vacation? How to make the most of your time? When you are allocating specific time for specific things,

how do you make the most of that time? Oh my gosh. This is, oh boy, I might get in trouble with them. This might be, in my opinion, the most valuable free resource they've given you folks. So there you go. Here's how you get it. Infusionsoft.com slash worklife balance. Infusionsoft.com slash worklife balance.

Or, of course, Eric, the producer's got the link in the show notes under the podcast tab at entreleadership.com. Well, every once in a while, we will give you snippets of what happens every week when over 600 people come together sometimes for 90 minutes. Now, our leader, Dave Ramsey, tells us all the time. This is money well spent. Because think about it. Think about productivity.

What's your productivity costs when everybody in the company stops doing what they're doing for 90 minutes every week? Some of you right now are reaching for your tums and you're popping them in your mouth because the very idea that gave you indigestion. But wait a second. Why do we do this? because we're communicating to the entire company on very important things. That's what it is.

And so we're going to give you a little bit of some communication in the form of me sitting on our stage with two of our new Ramsey operating board members. Now, a very quick snapshot of our leadership structure, Dave is the CEO, and we have four or five executive VP level folks. And then those folks and some other leaders sit on an operating board. And so they are not like a board of a nonprofit, but they are making decisions together with Dave. And so we interviewed Brian Williams, who was our chief experience officer, that means all things creative in some form or fashion are underneath Brian. And then Herb Jenkins, our executive vice president of everything we do from a money standpoint.

He's helping Dave lead every initiative on money. So what we've done here is just pull the last question from my conversation. It's about a 20-minute conversation allowing our team. to get to know these two guys. But this last question is about how they were able to move up the ladder at Ramsey Solutions and then how others who are sitting in the audience who want to move up, how they can move up in the right way. Check it out.

One of the things that I admired most on the outside before I got here three years ago is how many people were in leadership positions that started out and worked their way up. And I think that intentionality to train leaders is so awesome. You see that with our operating board. And now you two. So for those out there who are saying, hey, I want to keep moving up the ladder here, I'm in. I'm all in. You guys just moved from leadership positions to a bigger leadership position.

What have you learned in the process that has allowed that transition to go smoothly for you that they can take away as they continue to want to grow in their roles and maybe one day outgrow their role? if you said, I want to grow beyond where I'm at right now, and sky's the limit. Like, let me just see how far this thing can go. I do think there's a way that it can be done. I mean, I do think there is a, it's not like a lockstep kind of process, but it goes something like, well, you got to know what your current KRA is and do that with excellence, and that's kind of like your baseline. Like, start there and make sure that's really, really short up and really, really good.

And then, you know how there's like, well, the, people that really kind of rise above or float to the top, however you want to say that, they just get noticed and they end up just getting plugged into other things. That's kind of the outcome. But what they're doing to get that kind of outcome is, well, they're doing their KRA with excellence. But then there's this, like, think about, it's like this persistent restlessness to keep this mission that we have here moving forward. However you can do it. You know, it's one of those things that's like, if you've got margin or if you've got extra time, because you know, you're killing it and you are able to knock your stuff out more quickly.

Like, what are you jumping into? What are you challenging yourself on? What are you pushing yourself on in order to say, hey, you guys need help over there because I've got a little bit of time and this is something that I care about. You know, like if it's, if you are persistent about helping the organization at large achieve the outcomes that we're looking for, helping people growing top line and bottom line, I mean, inside and outside, then the inevitable end result. of that will be that you do get noticed and that you will get plugged into other things and you will grow as long as you keep at it. Like it's just one of those, like you've just got to be willing and able to do it every single day. I find the most common trait, you know, around the organization there is not like how smart you are or whatever. It's not one specific skill set other than just an

unrelentless determination to keep helping us get to where we're trying to go as an organization. So that could be anything from a campaign to a big strategy to whatever. It's all different levels, all different types of things. But you do that enough. And people just say, like, hey, you want to be, like we're starting this new thing. Would you mind joining that? And then it's enough of those. And then next thing you know, you're kind of doing that next role that you thought,

hey, wouldn't it be nice one day if I could get to there? You kind of already doing it. And people then just say, hey, we're not just going to call you that title for the things that you're already doing. I mean, I've seen it so many times. It's just it's not about positioning. It's not about how good I'm out there so that. It's just come in and kill it every single day on top of your KRA. And the rest takes care of itself.

You had to kind of follow up on what Herb would say. Like, moving up into a leadership role should never be this ta-da moment. Like, it's 99.9% of the time in this organization, it's a, well, yeah, they've been doing this for so long. They've been killing it. They've been adding influence. But to dial back to like the point of origin of that is that old Wayne Gretzky quote of like skate to where the puck is going. Like identify the need. All you need is two points to draw a straight line to go, this is where I'm at.

This is where I want ahead. And it's going to take me to that point. So what do I need to do to get to that second point? Like what do I need to read? What do I need to learn? What do I need to do? You've got to push yourself to grow. If you're doing everything within the time box of this organization, you're 730 to 430, 830 to 530.

and you're calling it a day and you're going home, you're going to keep doing what you're doing. You've got to invest time and yourself and money and resources to grow. And it's on you and it's on your time. You can't wait for somebody to walk by and put a book on your desk and say, read this. You can't wait for somebody to have that starlit aha moment of like, you know, she got discovered in a coffee shop. That's crap. Like, legitimately, like you've got to put the effort in. Now, to get to where you want to go tomorrow.

And it's on you to push yourself to grow. If you don't know where to go, that's what leadership is for. Go ask. Don't worry about who gets the kudos for the idea. If you've got this nagging sense that something needs to happen, take it to someone that can move it and help to lead up. Like John Maxwell's 360-degree leader is a great book to start with because it talks about leading up. supporting your leadership team of, hey, here's an idea. Hey, here's something that needs to happen. Hey, and then guess what? They're going to start to pull you into those conversations.

Invest in yourself. Push yourself to grow. Know where you want to go. But just listen to those Holy Spirit moments where you're like, oh, that's got to, and then just jump in with both feet. Well, when Jim Collins wrote the phrase level five leader, if you haven't read that, you need to go look it up. but the extreme humility, but the absolute relentless dedication to the organization. And the mission of the organization is what defines these two gentlemen. I can tell you that. They are level five leaders. They are Herb Jenkins, Brian Williams.

Will you show them some love, please? Guys, well done. Well done. So I don't want you to miss something that's happening here. If you want to add up the payroll in this place and divide it out by the hour, what it costs us to sit here for an hour, it might blow your freaking mind. It does mine, I'll tell you that.

But that's how much we believe in communicating and how much we believe in spreading values and how much we believe in everyone in this place being on the same page. And so I don't know of organizations this size that just spend 30 minutes getting to know their operating board at that level. It doesn't happen very much. But organizations of this size typically don't succeed at this level.

And so it's one of the things that causes us to do that. So don't miss this stuff. Some have you been here a while, and you're kind of getting the rhythm of this, and you're going, yeah, well, that was pretty cool. That's pretty cool. I'm just sitting there kind of doing the math. I'm going, okay, was that worth that? Yeah, it was.

It was. It was worth that. It was worth writing that check this morning to do that. Because when you guys can see and feel the spirit and get the sense of the character of the people that are running the organization, it makes a difference. It makes a big difference. So we'll continue to do things like that around here. We intend to be weird because normal sucks. That's our full-time job. Some people say I've got weird down to a science, but it's okay. I think it's an art. But anyway, we'll go with either one. Doesn't matter. We don't want to be normal. I've worked at those other places. It's been a long time, but isn't it funny how fresh your memory is? it's a long time ago corporate america looked at me and said stupid stuff and i'm like

and um man i'm young but that's that's that's dumber than crud you know and it's been a long time since that happened and you know it it may have been 10 minutes for some of you it may have been 10 years for some of you since somebody you've been in a situation where it was just completely illogical and all the politics you know when they talk about how to move up an organization you didn't hear anything about politics you didn't hear anything about climb over the bodies and you didn't hear anything about that because it won't work in this organization. And it only works short term in those other places. So, because it's not the real way to live your life properly.

All right, folks, that is a snapshot of what a culture should look and feel and sound like if you want to promote from within. And that's what we've done. And let me tell you something. It's a lot better for you as a leader to promote from within that it is to be constantly looking on the outside to bring talent in. Now, I'm not against bringing talent in from the outside. That's silly. But the point is, is if you have a culture of reproducing leaders, you're going to be 10 times more effective in growing leaders. All right, folks, really excited next week. We have a return guest. We only pick people that we really, really like that we know you really, really loved to come back on a regular

basis and Brian Bafini's got a brand new book out. Now, I believe it was over a year ago that we had him on the broadcast and it was great and he's got a new book out that immediately debuted on the New York Times best selling list. And boy, we live in a time where immigration is like a dirty word and it's in the news every day, but he's a real immigrant. And you need to look up the difference between immigration with an I, immigrant and immigrant with an E. Just look it up. That'll be a little tease. You you just go have some fun with that because it's in the title of his book. It's great content. And we're really excited because as I sign off today,

this is the last time we will do the Entree Leadership broadcast in this studio. We have a brand new studio. The team has been working on this. And I can't even tell you what we're going to be doing in there. But let's just say that this broadcast is now going to come to you in different formats. Can I say that? Will, the engineer has a buzzer. he's attached it to my

neck and it's the it's the shut it down button you know what I mean and so if I say too much it's just going to come across and then I start drooling and it's ugly and they drag me out of the studio so I can't say anymore but I'm telling you stay tuned because this new

studio is really really awesome so we can't wait for that and that's all I can say so what I love to say at the end of every broadcast is on behalf of Eric the producer our engineer Will Rutter and the entire Entree leadership team. Thanks for listening.

We'll talk with you again very soon.