EntreLeadership - #323: How Emotional IQ Impacts Your Ability to Lead

Episode Date: May 20, 2019

While some might argue that showing emotion is a sign of weakness, emotional wellness coach Miles Adcox says that doing so actually makes you stronger—and twice as effective as a leader. Not to mention, stifling your emotions kills your creativity, can have serious health consequences (think anxiety and depression for starters), and often leads to burnout. Tune in as Miles shares how to become emotionally fit to prevent all that. Also joining us is North Point Community Church lead pastor Clay Scroggins, who breaks down four simple but powerful habits to create much-needed clarity in this age of distraction.   entreleadership.com/podcast milesadcox.com Onsite workshops clayscroggins.com Clay's book: How to Lead in a World of Distraction 12 Rules for Life SmartDollar webinar   Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Influence creates abnormal life circumstances, all of which kill creativity, connection, and all the core components that may be able leader to begin with. Helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is Entree Leadership. Now, here's your host, Ken Coleman. Coming to you from the Music City, this is the broadcast of leaders, by leaders, for leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. Here's what we've got coming up for you. Miles Adcox is the owner and CEO of OnSight, one of the leading counseling centers in America.

Now, why does this matter to you leaders? Because we have this mindset in traditional business thinking that says, keep your emotions to yourself that it's not a healthy practice to share your emotions because it compounds stress and creates awkwardness in the workplace. But Miles Adcox and Clay Scroggins, both of our guests, are going to dive into this all-important issue of emotional intelligence. That leads me to our second guest, Clay Scroggins, who has been on the program before. Today, you're going to hear his conversation with Entree leadership coach Alex Judd. And you're going to love that.

But let's get first to Miles Adcocks. I told you a little bit about him. Let's get right to it. This stuff right here that you're about to hear from Miles, if you truly receive it and then begin to examine yourself and do something about it, could take your leadership to another level. Here is Miles Adcox. Well, Miles, this is fun to have you here

because we on this program talk a lot about leadership. And we talk about it from all of the facets as you could possibly imagine. But admittedly, we don't always talk about or rarely do we talk about the heart side of things, the mental approach, emotions. And so having somebody like you who have great experience here, I think this is going to be a lot of fun.

So let's dive in. Let's do it. I'm excited to be here. You're ready to go? Yeah, thanks for having. So let's talk about emotional fitness. We believe in Entree leadership is why we have you here today, that your emotional state is as important as anything else you do as a leader because you are in a position of influence. And so we all have emotions and we're emitting those emotions, whether we realize them or not.

So let's talk about emotional fitness. When I say emotional fitness, what does that mean? What do you teach that means? Well, to me, it's very similar to emotional intelligence, which a lot of people have heard of emotional intelligence. intelligence or your EQ. The reason I like it, and there were a lot of great pioneers that put some science around that and learned early on that actually EQ outpaces IQ in a predetermining factor for sustainable and effective leadership. And they did this with leaders in Fortune 100 companies and across the board. But if you go back and look at the research around EQ and emotional intelligence,

it looks like it's kind of a fixed proposition. In other words, it's important. But I wanted to move it from it's important to what do you do about it? Can you raise your EQ? And are there functional ways that you can get there? I liked fitness because it's just simple. It makes it not something that you check off the list, but something that you sustain, no different than your physical health.

And I would define it as power, understanding, strength, and empathy around your mood and your feelings towards yourself and others. So just basically self-awareness, knowing more about who you are, where you've come from, and who you're becoming, so that real-time emotional decisions don't become unconscious reactions, but become conscious decisions where you can communicate clearly. So what are some signs, okay?

You know, it's unfair to kind of have you do this blanket diagnosis, but I think you've got the experience for our listeners. What should they be asking themselves? What are some signs they need to be looking for that you would say, you know what, you're probably not where you need to be to be your best as a leader so that they can not self-diagnosed, but at least go, uh-oh, I probably should get some help. And just for a healthy reason, not crisis reason, we're assuming we're not talking about crisis, which I think everybody knows what crisis is.

What would you say to that? You know, it's interesting that in the last few years, the paradigm has shifted as it relates to the world that I live in. And now, more than ever, the corporate community, the leadership space, has become wildly interested in emotional intelligence and emotional wellness, which is kind of fun for me because I felt for years this stuff applies in education and faith and politics and leadership, but I felt like I was kind of pushing a snowball up a hill. Now it feels like it's over and starting to come down the other side. Honestly, it's just an invitation to put down the microscope, pick up the mirror,

and really all we're dealing with is compound stress. And so if you think about traditional leadership or high-level leadership, in other words, a high-level leader has a lot of influence. over the people that they work with. Influence creates this abnormal life circumstance, the busyness of it, the pace of it, the hustle of it, the stress, the pressure. That creates abnormal life circumstances that the rest of the world doesn't necessarily deal with. Abnormal life circumstances create high levels of stress. Unaddressed stress creates loneliness, anxiety, depression, addictions, broken relationships, burnout, etc. All of which kill creativity, connection and all the core components that made you the leader to begin with. So in essence,

the more success you get, you're a kryptonite, the ability to connect, see people, read people, lead people. You signed up for a career that in some ways is designed to kill it. That's the dilemma of leaders, as I know it. But the interesting thing is, is it's only a dilemma when you don't know about it. And so when I hire young leaders now, millennials, I tell them up front. the more success you get, the more pressure you're going to feel, the more stress you're going to experience. And if we don't have healthy outlets to offload stress, we'll compound it, and that's when it turns into things that become crisis-oriented. Prior to, I think we need to shift the invitation to not something that people need, but it's something that everybody deserves.

So if you could just honestly hear that, because most of you out there are going to tune it out when you hear there's the counselor guy talking about leadership, because I don't need him until the wheels are falling off. And again, not something we need, something we all deserve. And it's amazing right now the number of people from around the world that are coming to our spot at OnSight to do a therapeutic deep dive when things could not be better. Things are going really well. They just want to raise their EQ and become better at what they do.

Right. Well, and it's kind of like I remember going to the chiropractor for the first time years and years ago. And he would say, just because you're not experiencing pain in an area, it doesn't mean it's not jacked up. to be like pain's not always the indicator it's going to flare up maybe next week you're leaning down to put your sock on boom all of a sudden your back's gone what it wasn't hurting that kind of thing and i think that's really really good what you just said i think that's good for all of us

so what would you say to leaders they're going okay i want to do this are they trying to find a local counselor in the area or there are resources that you provide to where they can go all right let me just kind of take a health check you know because that's that's what i'm wondering because it doesn't always have to be like you said the crisis but this is just hey let me make sure that I'm healthy in every area. How do they start that process? Well, if you think about it, we take our car into the shop for a tune-up, and I think we need to treat ourselves and our leadership skills the same way. We need to be tuned up and be emotionally fit in order to be able to sustain what we're offering the people because we pour out, we pour out, we pour out, and we need an

opportunity to be poured into. What I like about our option is it fits a really busy person who's wired for success and is driven to create because we can give them four untethered days where you can do about a year's worth of counseling in a few days. And that's the kind of thing. I like that. I like intense learning and give it to me in a big dose like a fire hose so I can take it and go and go afire. That's a little bit of our model.

But to answer your question beyond our resource, there are so many options. It can be, and it doesn't always have to be counseling. Right. You know, I think we need to humanize the counseling experience. and create high-impact leaders, I believe, should sit in as many circles as they stand on stages. The stages be metaphorical. Some people speak for a living, but your stage is your influence. There needs to be a small group of people who know you beyond what you do.

And you can create that with a friend circle, with a small group. And that needs to happen. Honestly, I think it needs to happen once a week is optimal, and that's not always possible. You've got a busy family and a busy career, but at least a couple times a month, that you're finding somebody that feels safe for you to say the unsaid and speak truth too. That alone can lower your embryo stress level and go a long way. Oh, that's good. Well, I was going to ask you, besides that, what are some healthy ways that leaders can relieve stress?

Exercise is a big one. A lot of these are going to be simple that you've heard of before, but just personal time and self-care. Right, right. But I like to go beyond the surface stuff and have you take a little bit deeper dive. One of the things that I use is something called, and don't let the title scare you away, it's called an emotional body scan, which is something I do when I'm battling the nerves, the pressure, the stress of a high stress circumstance. I'm walking into a meeting. I'm speaking to a big audience, heading into my finance partners to talk about the next stage of growth, all the things that keep me up at night. then I simply need to identify, clarify, and then offload whatever emotion is coming up to me at the time.

And so what that could look like right now, if I were, you're okay about doing real time? Yeah, this is good for people because they're going to plug in their own situation. Yeah. So right now, you know, this is a big podcast. I know it's been really successful, Antreleadership, and I respect it. And I do a lot of people. If I were to check in, I've got some nerves about what I'm saying and how it's going to translate. And that's okay. Historically, I would have thought if I said that out loud on the very thing that I'm being interviewed on,

that would somehow present a weakness that would show me not as credible. And I actually feel like it makes me more into and stronger because I can be vulnerable about what I feel like is a strength, not a weakness. It's not just this, though, is I've got a live recording of my own podcast coming up in two hours. So I'm thinking about both of those things. And if I were to check in right now, my anxiety is about at a four out of ten. It usually sits right in my chest. And so you see what I did there.

I named an emotion. I ranked it between one and 10, and I actually identified where it is in my body. That's called an emotional body scan. If you can do that, if you can identify, clarify, and then offload, your stress actually goes down. That's a simple trick and technique that professional athletes use that a lot of people use to simply find out what's actually going on beneath the surface. How did you offload it? I get the identifying clarify. How did you off?

Because I shared it with you. Aha. Okay. That's great. I love it. I just was making it. That's really, really good. because if I think back to that, I go, I don't know that I've ever truly even thought about where I'm feeling it.

Most haven't. Because I think we move so fast, right? And it's just kind of rolling and rattling around in your head. I think it's a good exercise for me to actually go, where in my body am I feeling this? And that seems like an odd thing to explore, but actually most leaders aren't even emotionally literate. We don't even, you wouldn't even know a feeling if it hits you in the head. And so, not you, but I'm just saying in general. A lot of times weird, it's just not a language that we use.

use every day. Because the enemy of emotion is when things aren't clear, when we don't know what we're feeling. And most of us don't. If I were just to say the random person, what are you feeling? You know, if we're not used to the seven core emotions, then we're searching, and we're good at telling you what we think about what we feel, but we're accessing the wrong part of the brain. We really need to be in a part of the brain where we actually hold stress so that we can kind of move it. That's good. Okay. So while you were describing that, and I wrote it down right here on the paper. I'm going to come up with a leadership scenario. I think this is going to hit home, but you were identifying, clarifying, unloading to me on anxiety about doing an interview.

We've got leaders that are listing in, and on a daily, if not hourly basis, they're with team members, some who are obviously lower rank than them. So they're looked at as you're the leader and these people or followers, they're looking up at you, and you're in a situation where you may be uncertain about something or something. You stuck your neck out of the line. for you believed in this or this is a new product line or this is a new initiative or whatever it is and we're too early to know how it's really going to end up maybe i'm just making this up but you're uncertain the point is as the leader you're feeling some anxiety at least of uncertainty and is it healthy in this situation even with that team you're all together you're all invested

we all know the numbers it's not whatever it is is it okay for the leader to say hey i i'm i just need to tell you all, you know, or to show some vulnerability. Is that, is that misguided there? Is that something, you know, is that not the right environment to show a little bit of uncertainty sometimes? I am a firm believer that it's the right environment. However, to be fair, if you're vulnerable in front of a team of people who you've never modeled that to before. Yeah. And it's not a cultural norm, then it's going to be very uncomfortable. Because what you need to be vulnerable is something called psychological safety, which is the number one factor that builds trust.

And if leaders don't know that, then how do you actually build trust? But being honest is one of the big ones. And I dream of the day that our political leaders could say, and I don't know. Yeah. Because we all know they don't. Of course. Especially if you look at our presidential candidates when they debate and you're getting asked all these things about foreign policy and people who don't live in that world, there's no way

to have experience across the whole spectrum. But I've never seen one of this state say, you know what? I don't know. I've got a really smart team that I've hired to help me with health care. That's right. They got my vote. Who did it be great? Well, you know, we're going to have a great national security advisor.

We're going to have the best joint chief staff. We're going to just say that. Well, we've always assumed that that plants a seed of doubt in the viewer or the voter in that case. But it actually creates trust, yes? Creates trust. It's a complete 180. It's a 180. And that's what's fun is we're kind of waking up to.

that, but it can't just be an individual shift. It has to be a cultural shift to be embraced. Just as I would say, if you're going to take the time to share your struggle and your stress with another person, you need to make sure that person has the bandwidth to be able to listen and not try to fix and that they've got enough empathy and emotional intelligence on board that they're going to be a good sounding board for you. Because you can tell your truth to unsafe people. They're likely not going to respond appropriately. And if you're sharing or revealing a pretty big trauma. Let's just take it more on therapeutic side. And often the response you get can be as traumatic as the trauma itself if people aren't positioned to hear it. Now, I give you an extreme

circumstance if it was like sexual abuse or something like that. And let's say you share that with a parent and they don't believe it. That can be harder than recovering from the abuse itself 20 years later when they come see us. We're undoing that. So I would say as it relates to leaders, if you're speaking to your company the first time, you want to be careful taking those risks too soon. If you've never been vulnerable in front of your staff and you suddenly decide this is a good idea and you step up and be like, boom, here's everything you've never heard about me.

It's going to be crickets. It's going to be crickets. And it may make you revert. Right. So I think pace it appropriately and warm people up to the idea of speaking truth. Good. Okay, good. Love that.

I don't want to go any further without asking you to address the person who's going, Miles, I got some job. I mean, I got some junk, and I'm that high performer. I think pretty much doing pretty well, but I'd love to perform at my best. I'd love to be the full person, the full leader that you talked about earlier in the conversation. But they're not sure if they can actually be helped. Pain. Because I just heard you talk about one of the most painful things.

We all cringe when we hear sexual abuse, right? It's one of the most debased things when we hear about it, you know, all that stuff. We all kind of cringe and go, oh, my gosh. And you think of that kind of stuff. You think of any kind of abuse, physical abuse, whatever. is mental abuse, something that just is really created this false narrative and really damaged a person. I know what the answer is, but I still want you to share it. Do you believe that someone can get completely healthy even in the face and they've had this

terrible, terrible stuff in their past? Can they get healthy and get past it? Yeah. I mean, I've haven't been a part of upwards of 30,000 people that have walked through the process of reconciling. old pain. Not only do I believe that you can recover from that, I think you can become better because of it. Yes. There's a growing field of positive psychology, and there's something called post-traumatic growth, which is the opposite of post-traumatic stress disorder, it actually means that the adversity that we experience early in life, and you'd be, maybe you wouldn't, but most people would be surprised that you take an audience like this demographic, there's probably a lot of leaders, a lot of entrepreneurs,

that you would think, oh, that audience probably has their stuff together and doesn't have a lot of personal issues. One in three do. I know that statistically, that there's a struggle. And so you actually can, given the right support, the right circumstances, the right professional and personal environment, you can become better because of it. That's awesome. I wanted to throw that out there because, you know, we believe in this at Ramsey.

We have a culture where we will help team members. They're going through it. This is what I love about Dave and our leadership. And it's private, but we know they will put people through counseling and probably come out to your place if I didn't know anybody is probably the truth. And so I just think that that's really cool. And I am one who my wife and I benefited from marriage counseling, pre-marital counseling. I mean, it's the jam, but I'll admit it's a scary thing for people if you've never done it because it just feels all the things you've kind of addressed. And I just want to say this quickly, folks, that you might have some anxiety.

I'm not going to tell you it's going to be easy to walk in. there and sit in the waiting room or do whatever. But I'm telling you, it's like getting surgery on a bad limb. I'm thinking of my buddy for years, Miles, he struggled with a knee injury. MCL didn't affect his ability to play golf really or walk, but it was painful. But he didn't want to get surgery on it because he didn't want to take the time off. He didn't want to go through surgery. He didn't want to do physical therapy, all the things, right?

But finally, we seen this last two weekends ago, my wife and I were with he and his wife. And I'm joking. I'm like, you finally did it. You moron, what took you so long? You know, and he said, man, I just got to the point where the pain was too much. And I just like, I got to get the surgery. He goes, man, I'm so glad I did it. You know, we're joking with him.

And he's going, I should have done it years ago. And I think that's how some of us treat counseling. And I don't want people, Miles, to wait like my buddy Jay did to the point where we couldn't sleep at night because the pain. Well, and I'm glad you said that because I think it will be uncomfortable until we see a cultural shift. And I have long thought that those of us in the helping profession that sit on this information that we know is the field of psychology is sitting on this beautiful information that other industries are using better than we are. Like the advertising community uses our information more effectively when we do, not always for good, but they can get us to purchase before we think immediately because they know how the brain experiences change. I think we need to get smarter about how we invite people into it because a lot of the, And I'm not just talking about, this is not fully about counseling.

This is about personal growth and leadership. And I think we have the ability to invite people in a different way. A lot of the stigma that exist out there around this very thing is one that we've created. And just as like, for instance, when I'm trying to introduce people who aren't familiar with faith, depending on their story, faith can have a lot of baggage. So can psychology and counseling. And until we reconcile and look at our own side of the street, we won't be effective at moving towards culture. will always be sitting back waiting on culture to come to us.

And as long as we're waiting on them to come to us and culture's telling us don't reveal, show your strength and by all means don't let anybody know that you struggle, then going into a counseling office is always going to feel like you just shared. And it does to me too, because I'm human. I do it every year. I do it intensive, every year tune up. Every year I'm not just thrilled about it. I'm moving into it thinking, oh, man, I'm going to go without my phone for a couple days and do the whole digital detox.

But every time I do it, it becomes better. better and better and better and more digestible, and I become more whole of a human. And the deficit of it, I'm thinking about myself as a leader. If I would have gotten, we've been fortunate to have experienced some success. Had I experienced the success that I have without doing my own work, I think I'd be dealing with a lot of what we're seeing out in the business community right now with abuse of power and a lack of self-awareness. And there's a lot of fallout culturally. We're getting, I'm not just getting the calls from individuals. I'm getting the calls from companies who are dealing with major PR issues because really amazing smart leaders have not paid attention to who they are and who they're becoming and made mistakes in the workplace. This is so good, man.

The work you're doing is important. And we also love the fact that you're a leader. You're not just somebody that's giving care to people, but you're also leading a team of men and women that are giving care. And when I think of the work that you and your team do, it is invaluable. You can't put a price on healthy men and women. our families or healthy children and things like that. And just, you know, we live in a beautiful world, but it's also this crazy, stark, painful world as well.

And it's nice to know that beauty still is there. It can rise from the ashes. And you certainly embody that. This is good for leaders. This is good for me. It's good for our entire audience, whoever you are. We want you to be all that you can be. And being emotionally healthy is a huge part of your potential so that you can help others.

So good stuff. Thanks for being with us. Thank you for having me. What a fun conversation. Big thanks to Miles for being with us. I must tell you all that I get the extreme privilege of talking to these guests before we start recording and after. And sometimes I wish we recorded everything. But I went to school on Miles and dropped some bombs on me as a person, as a parent, and all that to say. That not just Miles, but anybody who is in the business of helping you see yourself the way others see you

and dive deep, deep, deep, deep into the sources. of the things you deal with is extremely invaluable. Well, I'm excited. This is a fun, fun episode for me because we've got some rock stars here at Entree leadership that many of you get to know if you're involved with All Access or coaching program or maybe you come to a live event. And if you've had the opportunity to meet Alex Judd, well, you know that this young man is an absolute rock star.

He's like a comet shooting through the sky. He's got an unbelievable energy. And I'm excited because he's going to be controlled. contributing to the program to continue to bring you the content that you need. And Alex actually sat down with Clay Scroggins to talk about emotional fitness from Clay's point of view. Alex is one of our entree leadership coaches, as I told you. He's also now the host of our Entree Leadership Master Series.

He hosted the Super Bowl event for Entree Leadership. Just a few weeks ago, Entree Leadership Summit. And I've had the opportunity to get to know Alex very well, working with him as he is taking my place as host of a guest. these all important events. And I couldn't be prouder of who he is and how he takes on each new challenge. He's a great young man. And he joins me in studio. Alex Judd, welcome to the Entree Leadership Podcast. And I'm so grateful to be here and quite frankly stoked to be here. Really excited about this. Well, this is fun for me because I know the backstory. And real quick,

I want you to share the podcast and its role in your life because I didn't know this until recently. And this is not a pat me on the back. This is about me. But the podcast itself. You come to this organization in large part because of the podcast. What did it mean to you? How did you discover it? And how did you partake? Honestly, it wasn't in part because the podcast. It was because of the podcast. I lived in Texas and someone recommended it to me and I clicked with it almost immediately. And I would listen to every single episode of the Entree Leadership podcast like so much of this audience does every single Monday on my run. And quite frankly, whenever I moved here to Nashville, I felt like Kent Coleman was my best friend.

You are a celebrity to me because I listen to you every Monday. How disappointing is it now to actually meet me? It had to be a tremendous letdown. Yeah, right. Folks, Ken is the real deal. He's the guy that you hear in every single interview. So it's been cool to get to know you, to get to be mentored by you. And quite frankly, it's a little bit surreal to get to do this on the program today.

Well, let's talk about what you're going to do. Yeah. So this is fun. I can't think of a better guy to kind of launch into how you're going to contribute with us here on the program than Clay Scroggins, who is the lead pastor of North Point Community Church, wildly influential church in the Atlanta, Georgia area. He's been a guest on this program before. And you sat down to talk with him. What did you guys talk about? Yeah, Clay really is focused right now on how do you get to the emotional heart of leadership and really make sure you've got your thumb on the pulse of the things, the motives, the attitudes,

the behaviors that are driving your leadership every single day. He is so brilliant on this topic because it's a topic that he walks through. He leads 110 people. So it's not like he's completely figured it out. He's in the middle of the trenches trying to work through the ins and outs of the emotionally stressful job of leadership. Yeah, he's a tremendous communicator. I think he has great insight and discernment. You're going to love this. He's going to read your mail.

Here's Alex with Clay Scroggis. There's so many people in the leadership space, in the business space, talking right now about the age of distraction, the age of anxiety. But it seems like so often the why behind it is we just need to be more. efficient or we just need to cut those distractions because they're making us less effective. The why is so much bigger than that. So dive into why this is something you are deeply passionate about. The why behind it for me is how important personal growth is for every other area of my life. You're right. I think a lot of times we talk about emotional health or trying to rid ourselves of anxiety or trying to focus and eliminate distractions so that we can be more

productive or efficient. But the truth is, if I could get better at being more present, my wife would appreciate it probably as much as my boss would. And so that's what I mean by it is that, yeah, I think it's going to help me be a better leader at work and it's going to help me get more done. But it's also going to help every relationship of my life, that my own growth is not just for me, that my growth is so tethered to every other relationship that I have in my life, that it transcends just productivity at work. I think it really does leak its way into every area of our life. I mean, the metaphor that white noise masking everything else that's going on,

that is a deeply spiritual principle. It's a human principle. Absolutely affects our leadership. It's a leadership principle, right, because what I've learned is that everybody has their fingers on the knob of some white noise in your life. And so what I have identified for myself, I try to really look in the mirror and try to figure, okay, what, you know, how does this apply to me? What are my struggles?

The white noise I use, you know, certainly social media, Netflix, Amazon shopping. I mean, it's whatever you go to when you don't want to think about your life. Sometimes it's overworking. Sometimes it's exercise. I mean, there's obviously healthy ones. And then obviously there's some really unhealthy ones like, you know, alcohol, prescription pills. You know, there are things that we certainly use that are unhealthy. But for me, there's some unique ones to leadership, some unique things that we turn up to

mask those things that we don't actually want to pay attention to. So the three that I have identified in my own life that I think are unique to leadership. Number one, the appearance of success. I want so badly for people to think that I'm successful. Honestly, I want people to be jealous of my success. Maybe even more than actually being successful, you want the image of success. And that's the problem. I think that what you just said is really insightful that we don't just, I would rather people think I'm successful than actually be it. And I think that's a good example of white noise. And so, you know, McElmore's got this line where he says, you know, I went and bought

this new hat to match with my outfit, which matches with my shoes. And then I put it on Instagram just to let you know that I got it first. And that's the way everybody's living their life. You know, it's like, hey, I don't actually care about having the ability to afford that. I want to get to Instagram quicker so that I can show you that I have the ability to afford it. It's an image game. It is an image game. And so I think that appearance of success, it's a knob that we turn out if we're not careful.

Another one is the allure of progress, the feeling that I'm making progress. You know, it's one of the reasons why I've been needing to go to a counselor for the last three months probably. My wife's told me, when your wife tells you need to go to a counselor, you probably need to go to a counselor. Yeah, there you go. So I've been dealing with some really hard personnel situations at work that have been unusually stretching. Whenever you're in a season like that, it's a really important time to go talk to. someone because you're dealing with some you know it's like you've been carrying something heavy you you need to pay attention to your own emotional health well the reason why i haven't is because i want progress

so bad and going to a counselor does not feel like progress it actually feels like i'm regressing regression right it feels like you're going backwards which is what counseling does you're going back into your life to uncover some stuff that's making you feel the way you're feeling right now but it's the need for progress that will cause you to avoid or evade that which is so counterintuitive because it might be the most progressive thing I could do. It might be the thing that I could do that would actually release more progress in my life, but the desire for progress, the allure of progress is actually keeping me from that. Okay, so I want to park here for just a second because there's so many stats today that say that the millennial generation and lots of the people that listen to this

podcast fit into that generation. It says that the number one thing they're looking for in organization is a growth path, a ladder to climb, something to move forward. And I want it now. And they're looking for progress. And even if I can't be at the summit today, I better be one step higher than I was yesterday. But what you're saying is that can almost be, that can be, that can be a mask. That can be white noise. It can be a mask. It can be a knob that we use to turn up to mask what we actually need to be paying attention to. So to your point, Alex, I'm not saying that's bad. I mean, I think the desire for progress, I think it's something that leaders have. Leaders want progress. I mean, if you're, you're listening to this podcast because you want to grow. You're listening

this podcast because you want your business to be bigger than it is tomorrow that it is today. So I love that you use the illustration of knob because how do we moderate? What is the healthy version of I want any progress and what is the unhealthy this gets way off track version? I think the only way to figure that out is to turn it down and you've got to turn it down routinely because the truth is no one would ever know if it was unhealthy but you. And you can't even really know until you turn down the noise and pay attention to it. So I think that's the tricky part is, you know, if I were to judge someone else and look at what they're doing to try to find progress, I might say, well, that's unhealthy. And it might not be. It might be exactly what they're trying

to do and they might be paying attention to every other area of their life. But it's so hard for me to judge someone on that. But when it comes to myself, I'm really the only one that can go, okay, is this desire for progress detrimental to anything in the future? Am I missing anything now that I need to be paying attention to because I'm so focused on getting to that next place? Only I can really know that. One of the places we learn this the most is sitting on an airplane. This is a practice I've been trying to do lately, but if I can learn in that moment to go, I am really grateful for this moment right now. And I'm not, yes, I'm looking forward to land. and wherever it is I'm landing.

But that's a healthy place to learn this discipline of going, okay, I'm going to pause, I'm going to turn down that knob of progress and go, do I have the ability to be grateful for what's happening right now? These peanuts are making me thirsty and they're awesome. Do I have the ability to be grateful for them in that moment? That's an opportunity to try it. And be present. And be present, yeah.

And that's one of those, yeah, will that make you a better leader, absolutely, but it will make you a better dad. It'll make you a better friend. It'll make you a better person, I think, even more than that. Yeah, so dive in and that's something, because you said sometimes you turn down the noise intentionally, sometimes the noise gets turned down for you. Talk about that a little bit. I think identifying what your go-to noise is is important. And so I would say for leaders, we've got to identify. And it might be success. It might be progress. You know, there's a lot of pastors that their knob is certainty. But I would imagine in the business world

is probably not as common. But I don't know what your noise is. But the point is, you got to figure it out. It does you no good to not know. You're only better if you know. So you may as well know. So if your go-to is, I got to have a drink every night, then you've got to pay attention that.

If your go-to is I'm trying to make it look like I'm successful, I'm trying to avoid failure. That's also a very common form of noise. The idea is that you would at least identify, And then experiment with it. You know, would you be willing to turn it down for a little bit? You know, try it. Obviously, the phone is the easiest example.

Yeah. You know, do you have moments in your day where you're not nose deep in your phone? We lose so much critical thought to that, so much ability to think about what we're actually doing, what we're working on. And you've got to have times of your day like that. And what I've just found is you can either choose to turn it down or there will come times in life where it gets turned down for you. And those are usually, I mean, you know, that's what I specialize in as a pastor. I usually intercept people's lives when the noise has been turned down. They lost someone, they lost a job, they went bankrupt, some kind of financial situation.

And it's just in those moments that we find a lot of clarity, which is healthy. But what I'm learning is you don't have to wait till those moments. Great leaders actually turn it down, enough and long enough on a routine basis, on a regular basis, habitually to become ruthlessly curious of what they're actually feeling. And it'll help you be a better leader. It will help you grow, but it will also help you be a better person, too, which may be better than being a better leader. And which your whole team inevitably needs. You said turn it down low enough and long enough to be ruthlessly curious. Dive into that. Curiosity, I think, is such a powerful opportunity that we have. I have learned in life great leaders are curious people. You hear anyone talk about a really

great, powerful, influential person, and they're usually a curious person. Wanting to learn more. Tell me more about that. The problem with arrogant people, I would say, and I find myself like this too often, arrogant people don't ask questions. Because they know everything. Why would they need to ask questions? They already know it all, right? Why would I need to ask you? How does that work? I already think I know. You don't know, but you think you do. And so you don't ask questions. So, yeah, I think learning to be curious of ourselves, you know, Jordan Peterson and the 12 Rules, I mean, that chapter he has about treating yourself as a person that needs help, that needs to be cared for is such a powerful, powerful principle that we, you know, we're more likely to take our dog

to the doctor, pick up the medicine for our dog, administer the medicine to our dog, then we are to do that to ourselves, that is scary that we oftentimes are more curious about others than we are about our own selves. And so learning to be curious to go, hey, why am I feeling that way? Where's that coming from? Particularly, you've been passed over for a job. You didn't get a deal. You got embarrassed in front of, I mean, those are high level emotion. I mean, on the chart of important emotions, those are up there. That has an emotional impact. It absolutely does. And you have to spend the time to dive into that and to be curious and go, What's making me feel that way? What's underneath that?

I love the way you approach it too because I think so often I hear the phrase, just think about your emotions and talk about your emotions. And I think, oh, let's just put on a turtleneck and sip espresso and talk about our emotion. But you use the words ruthless. You talk about like waging war. You talk about interrogating. So explain, I mean, it's a pretty militant way of kind of viewing at this and coming out this, confront. Talk about that a little bit. I totally relate to what you're saying because it feels so squishy and.

It doesn't feel like progress. It doesn't feel back to what we were talking about earlier. You know, if you're a person, usually it's the high-powered, task-oriented, get-crap-done kind of people that could really benefit most from doing this. And it's that thing in you that wants to advance or have progress or make more money or grow your business. I've never thought about the fact that I'm choosing language that is. It probably is a reaction to that. It feels so soft. It feels squishy.

and I do think there is a choosing offense over defense. I love that. I mean, that's simple illustration of, am I going to be passive and respond to what's happening in life, or am I going to take the bull by the horns and actually choose to confront these emotions? I do like the simple visual of a matri di at a restaurant. I mean, this is the way most of us,

most of us treat our brains or our hearts, wherever that thing inside of you, that immaterial. part of you that contains your emotions. We treat that part of us like a restaurant, you know, where the matri says, hey, how many of you are there? I see a little jealousy here. There's a little resentment, a little anger. Would you all like to come in and sit down? We weren't expecting you, but we'll make a table for you. That's the way most of us treat it instead of treating it like Jack Bauer or, you know, waterboarding our emotions. Yeah, let's get after it. Yeah. Or Liam

Nieson from Taken, you know, going, hey, I am going to hunt you down and I'm going to kill you. if you're not here for my best. And the truth is, your emotions are not necessarily for you or against you. They are messengers trying to tell you something. And so I think seeing them as that also, it allows me to be more vigilant with them, that I'm not just going to, I just know that the resentment that I sometimes feel toward my boss because I'm not getting what I think I deserve doesn't help me. And to take the bait on that negative emotion will eventually.

eventually limit my leadership potential. And so I've just got a choice to make in that moment. I can either go, okay, why do I feel this way? What's really underneath this? And deal with it. Or it will eventually deal with me. If someone's sitting here and they're like, okay, I'm hearing this and I don't have that level of awareness. In fact, I would say I'm not in the driver's seat.

My emotions are currently in the driver's seat. And I don't even know what they are. Where does that person even begin? Most of us probably need to talk to someone. I mean, most of them sit down with a, a professional list, you know, I'm such an amateur. I'm a practitioner. I mean, I'm in this grind every day with those who are listening. Yeah, because I've got a team of 110 people at the place where I work that I am the limit to their growth, that if I'm not growing, we're not growing.

And so I've got to figure this out for myself. I don't have any high level degree in psychology. I don't like counseling. I am not a counselor. I'm a pastor who doesn't enjoy counseling. but I just know I've got to figure it out so that I can grow and get better as a leader so that I'm not the one that's the bottleneck, so that I'm not the one limiting our growth. So I would say for a lot of us, we need to go sit down and talk to someone. But I would say the second place to start is to put some simple habits in your life. It is amazing how, you know, the four habits that I'm really trying to prescribe for myself that I would encourage anybody listening to try are the habit of solitaire. I mean, I hate solitude. I'm a flaming seven on the enneagram who loves activity, action, the next best thing. I stack up every fun thing I can think about. I'm already thinking about

where am I going to have lunch? You know, I'm here in Brentwood Franklin area. Like, is there any hot spot to go to? What's the rave about this, the hot chicken? Yes, hot chicken. I'm like, if I don't get to the bottom of this, but at the end of the day, like, I'm not going to enjoy my life. So solitude is not your game, is what you're saying. Nothing in me wants solitude, but to learn how to do that well, um, simplicity, you know, to really find the why, the real simple why. I mean, this is what Marie Kondo has revolutionized the world with, you know, picking up a piece of a blouse going, does this spark joy? That is a brilliant concept because she's gotten to the bottom line of why most people are alive. Does this bring you joy? And she's simplified all of life to that one question,

which is brilliant. And that's a leadership tactic. It really is a leadership tactic that you've got to, if you can figure out why are you here, what are you doing, all of the clutter that's around you, it will help you provide clarity in the middle of a lot of confusion. The discipline of Sabbath, I mean, Sabbath is a religious principle, a religious practice, but it's such a brilliant idea to go, hey, once a week, I'm going to stop working to show myself a few things. The world does not depend on me. The world keeps on moving. My job does not depend on on me. All of those things are so helpful and they're so, they create this emotional stability in us that if we fail to pay attention to, will eventually rob us of our future. So solitude,

simplicity, Sabbath, and then self-talk. I mean, the ability to regulate your own emotions and speak to yourself. I mean, it's, you know, the most important conversation you'll have all day is the one you have with yourself. Yeah. So my challenge in life right now is margin. I say yes to too many things. I can't say, I'm terrible at saying no to things. And learning to talk to myself in those moments to go, why am I saying yes to this opportunity? Because I hope they'll like me more is not a great answer. It's not. It's unhealthy.

What if I say no or are they not going to, or so a lot of times I feel like I owe this person. Yeah. Which that's unhealthy. I mean, I don't owe this person probably. Ultimately, if you say yes to the thing just because you feel like you owe them something, that's probably not going to be a very good thing anyway. That's exactly right. that they're not going to get anything out of it anyway because I'm not going to be at my best.

So that kind of self-talk, learning to self-regulate, learning to lead myself better, that has been super helpful for me. So that's where I would start is I would try to implement some of those behaviors. They're simple behaviors. But it's amazing how powerful those simple behaviors can be if we practice them over time. Yeah. So I love that you win to the fact that you lead 110-person team because so many of the people that listen to this every day, they lead people.

They have people that are depending on them, and that's an incredible responsibility. I think probably more than any time before, there's kind of this expectation that we're always on, right? We're always available by phone. If not, you can reach us by email, if not text, if not Slack, right? And so, like, these are the expectations. And if you're the lid of the growth, then you better be that and then some. How do you deal with that? That, I mean, that is what I think a Sabbath really helps teach me.

learning to turn it off, I see it now as such a healthy thing, even though the temptation for me I mean, I've laughed at what you said because you frame that so well. There are so many forms of communication now. Yeah, I just think learning to turn it off, seeing that as a healthy practice, it will create more long-term sustainable success for you, that you will do no one any good if you burn out at age 30. If you want to have a long-term, influential life that goes well beyond the season that you're currently in, you've got to learn to do that. I've got to learn to do that.

Yeah. Well, Clay, we're incredibly grateful for your time today. Thanks so much for being a friend of our organization, for being here today. We're better for it. Thanks, Alex. Well, very nice job, my friend. Very nice job. Had to be fun for you to sit and learn.

I want your perspective. What's it like to sit and do an interview with somebody like a Clay Scrogg? So you're asking questions on behalf of these folks that are listening, but then you yourself are obviously getting tremendous value as well. What was it like for you? Oh, I've heard you use the phrase, I get to learn on behalf of the audience, and that's what it was. Like, I would pay to have coffee with Clay, and the fact that I get to do it in an interview context was almost too much to handle. But there's a couple things that we want to make sure our audience knows. He's got a new book coming out, that new book, and he kind of dove into a little bit of this in the interview, is how to leave.

in a world of distraction for simple habits for turning down the noise. If folks want to pre-order that book, and I would recommend that they do because it's going to be amazing, you can click the link in the show notes to pre-order. Well, Alex, it's been so fun. I love having you in studio, excited about how you're going to continue to contribute. Did a great job, by the way. Really, really enjoyed it. So thanks again.

Thanks so much, Ken. All right. Now, you heard Miles and Clay talk about why emotional well-being is important. Next month is actually Employee Well-Bean Month. Now, it's not a secret that money problems are one of the leading causes of stress and anxiety. So no matter how much your employees may try to hide it, their money problems are going to follow them from the house into your office. And that's not good for you or them or the culture. Smart Dollar is an employer paid benefit that you can give your team.

It's a plan, it's tools, and motivation to take control of their finances and take control of their money once and for all. Dollar wants to help your team reduce their money stress so that your team can come to work fully focused and ready to hit the ground running. To get more information about Smart Dollar and access to an in-depth webinar hosted by our very own Chris Hogan titled What You Need to Know about Financial Wellness, text the phrase, Smart Dollar, No Space, all one smashed together phrase. Smart Dollar, text that to 33444. That's 33444.

or click the link in the episode's show notes. Hey, I want to say a big thanks to Miles Adcox, Clay Scroggins, and Alex Judd for contributing to this program on behalf of the entire Entree leadership team. Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon. Hey, folks, I want to make you aware that we have other great podcasts from Ramsey Solutions.

Here's a sample of Christy Wright's Business Boutique podcast. Hey, I'm Christy Wright, and I help women all over the country take their ideas and passions and hobbies and turn them into profitable businesses. If you have an idea in your head or a dream in your heart and you've ever wondered if you could make money doing it, I'm here to help. Join us on the Business Boutique podcast where we are equipping women to make money doing what they love. If you'd like to hear full episodes, just search Business Boutique in iTunes or go to businessboutique.com.