High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 143: How to Lead Authentically

Episode Date: November 19, 2017

High performers choose to make a decision to show up as themselves and be real instead of trying to be someone else or someone they are not. They consciously practice authenticity. They own their story, let go of comparison and work to “do you” no matter where they are at. High Performance Power Phrase this week: The world needs me and my gifts. I will show up as myself and let me true self be seen. I will “do me.” Dr. Cindra Kamphoff is a Certified Mental Performance Consultant, Speaker and Author. She provide mental training for the Minnesota Vikings along with many other college and high school sport teams. Cindra speaks to businesses and organizations on how to gain the high performance edge while providing practical strategies that work. Her clients range from Verizon Wireless to Mayo Clinic Health System. Cindra's first book: Beyond Grit: Ten Powerful Practices to Gain the High Performance Edge was published in August. Her Ph.D. is in sport and performance psychology and she is a Professor in Performance Psychology at Minnesota State University. To book Cindra for your next speaking event, visit: cindrakamphoff.com For more information about Cindra's book, visit: beyondgrit.com 

Welcome to High Performance Mindset with Dr. Sindra Kampoff. Do you want to reach your full potential, live a life of passion, go after your dreams? Each week we bring you strategies and interviews to help you ignite your mindset. Let's bring on Syndra. Alright, here we go. It's time for High Performance Mindset on the Country Club today with Dr. Syndra Kampoff.

What's up, Doc? What's up? Great weekend. It was a really good weekend. It was fun to be at MSU football, MSU soccer. Clint's the NSIC championship as well. The Vikings didn't lose. Yeah, there we go.

There's a lot of good stuff to look forward to here as we look down the road in our area, both statewide and locally as far as sports goes. I think West's still playing football, aren't they? Yeah, they are. They won. Exciting. That's awesome. How to lead authentically is our topic today, Sandra.

We want to get into that. Sort of, we can put this in parentheses. We were talking about it before we went on the air. How to lead authentically or be real is the one way we were putting that before we went on the air. So let's start with our quote for today. All right, this is a quote by Brene Brown. She said, let go of who you think you're supposed to be and be who you really are. Love it. Love it. That's a good message, not just for adults that are listening and thinking about

where they want to go with their career. Kids. It's children going to school today thinking, you know, I got to fit in. I got to do that. No, you don't. Got to be you. So give us a good example to start out with today. So last Thursday, I spoke at the YWCA Leadership Conference here in town. There's over 320 women. It's pretty cool that they were there for just a day and a half to reflect on their leadership. And many people came up to me and said, I listen on Monday morning. So that was really exciting. And Brenda Flannery, the dean of the business school here at Madison State. Love her. Definitely.

She did a really nice job. And she spoke on Thursday morning right before I did. And her topic was honoring your authentic leadership. And I also talked about authenticity. And so what I thought today is to talk about how our conversations overlapped and how our presentations overlapped because we all lead in some way. You might be a parent or a manager or even an employee, you lead as a friend or a spouse, you lead. And I think there's some really good messages from the conference that I thought would inspire people to be real today. Awesome. So let's define authentic for those of us that are thinking,

you know, what do you mean by authentic? It means that you're the same person no matter where you are. For me, when I think about that, it's like, sometimes I'm authentic and sometimes I'm not, you know, but it means that you are the same person no matter where you are. You live an integrated life. And so I think there's some really important things like you need to know yourself to be authentic. You need to be self-aware. So understand yourself and be reflective of what that means to be you. And one of the cool things that Brenda talked about in her definition of authentic leadership is she used these words like confident, hopeful, optimistic, resilient, transparent, moral and ethical and future oriented. And one of the things that I think is really important is that, you know, some people might say, well, you know, I'm just usually

a jerk. And, you know, I'll just be always be a jerk. Well, you know, being authentic, being authentic leader means that you're not always a jerk. Because, you know, how can you be a jerk by being confident and hopeful and optimistic and resilient? Okay. So how do we go about being an authentic person or an authentic leader? Well, the first question is, what does it mean to you to be authentic? And, you know, can you be the same person no matter where you are and no matter what location? I think what's really important is that authenticity is a practice. It's not something that we have or that we don't have. It's making a conscious choice to be yourself.

And you can choose to make a decision to be real instead of trying to be someone else or someone that you're not. All right. So it's important to be authentic. Why is it so important for us to make sure that we're trying to be as authentic as possible? One of the things that I talked about, that's a quote from my book, is in my presentation, I said, doing you is one of the bravest battles you'll fight. But when you do you, you show your gifts to the world. And I think that's really important is you show what you're good at and you're free to express yourself. And that's when you invite excitement and joy and happiness into

your life. And then you can let go of the barriers that get in your way. And it's a really important component of success, not only in sport, but business and in life, because that's how people connect with you when you're real. If you're trying to be someone else you're not, there's a barrier. Or if you're comparing yourself to others, there's a barrier. I think you can tell, too. I can tell. I can tell when somebody's not being real. Yeah, absolutely.

You can tell by their body language or maybe the way that they're talking or their facial expressions. And especially if you're in sales or you're in management, people want leaders that are real. And that they can trust, I would imagine, too. And being real would build that level of trust. So I'm assuming that there's a lot

that we could really talk about and go on and on today, but we're going to go through a few quick topics on how to be authentic. What's the first one you have for us? The first step is to really think about your history, your background, and can you reframe those experiences as learning experiences, like the difficulties? And Brenda talked about these as crucible moments, which is like a test or trial in your past. Friday, I interviewed Rob Bell, who's a sports psychologist who works with teams in Notre Dame. And he talked about this as like a hinge moment. So something in your past that really made a difference that changed how you saw something or that was a test or a trial.

And I think when you look back at that, and you kind of connect with that in a deeper way, you're proud of what you overcame. And you know a little bit more about who you are, and how you show up now. And so I think sometimes what we want to do is like bring it about those times that we struggled. But when we connect with them, I think you get more energy and kind of own it. And when you own it, I think other people, you know, you can help others connect with kind of their story as well. So I'd ask you just to think about today, like, what's a crucible moment, you know, and what did you gain from it? And how did it shape you today? So what's another way we can be authentic? You know, one of the things I said, there's barriers that get in your way. And one barrier

that gets in your way is when we compare ourselves to others. I think that's a, yeah. Thief of joy, right? Yeah, there you go. Nice. It happens all the time. It's so hard to, I mean, it's definitely a mindset. Thief of joy, right? Yeah, there you go. It's so big, though. I mean, it happens all the time. It's so hard to, I mean, it's definitely a mindset. You've got to train yourself on this one. Yeah, you do. And, you know, it's easy to get caught up in what someone else is doing instead of just being yourself.

But when we compare, we're always thinking about how we're not enough, right? And we might be comparing one part of us to, part of another person instead of the whole part of us. So it's a trap. We might be comparing that one part of us to the other part of another person that's not authentic. Absolutely. Isn't that so true? Look at you over there. Whoa.

Confucius. Wow. Dropping value bombs this morning. That's good stuff. So comparison impacts our ability to do you. So I would just have you fill in the blank that, you know, this, this statement, I believe I'm not blank enough when I compare myself to blank and then get, you know, get, get back focused on you. And the third way we can be authentic. Yeah. So to kind of finish it up today, I would just say like, consider what does it mean

for you to be authentic? And when are you really doing you? And what does it look like? And when are you not? You know, and I think the important message today is that we all have unique gifts and strengths. But when we hide those, we can't make the impact that we are designed to make. And we hide those strengths. So we live and perform in a shadow. So let your true self be seen today. All right. Now let's summarize this whole thing, because this is a great topic, a good one for anyone kind of getting into a Monday morning routine here today. How do we summarize this topic for today? So high performers, those people who are working to reach their greater potential,

they choose to make a decision to show up as themselves, and they be real instead of trying to be someone else or someone that they're not. And they own their story. They let go of comparison, and they work to do them no matter where they're at. And our power phrase for this week? So the world needs me and my gifts. I will show up as myself and let my true self be seen. I will do me.

Awesome. I have had a couple of different people ask, either via text or email or Twitter or anything like that along the last couple of weeks, saying, you know, I listen to these messages on the way to work or I'm a teacher on the way to school and I like to kind of convey these messages to my students when I'm there. That was one of the messages. And they said, but I'm not always able to gather all that info and bring it to the classroom.

So they wanted to know, you know, where can I hear this interview again? Where can I find this information you guys talked about? And I think the two simple answers are the podcast and the book. A lot of times, sometimes what we talked about today was just a life experience you had last week while you were at the Women's Leadership Conference. So if we want to get in touch with you and we want to learn more and we are using this information to help in our classrooms or something along those lines or at work with our employees. What is the best way for us to maybe go back and listen to this interview again someday or find this information that we talked about today? Absolutely. So you can head over to drcinder.com and this interview on Mondays is posted by Wednesday on the podcast. So you can find a link to the podcast there, or you can just

go to iTunes and search High Performance Mindset. And then, you know, today, some of this information actually comes from a few chapters in my book, Beyond Grit. So if you wanted to read more about authenticity and letting go of comparison, I have a chapter on each of my books. So you can head over to beyondgrit.com. Excellent. Thanks for asking. Yeah. Well, and like I said, I actually have had two or three different people get in contact saying, love this. Want to take it to Excellent. Thanks for asking. Those should just be things you're also listening to, as well as this portion on Mondays here on Minnesota 93. Thank you so much. Yeah. Did you watch the marathon yesterday?

I did. I was so impressed. That's something we could have talked about today, right? I know. Shalane Fanigan won the New York City Marathon. It was so inspiring. I was like crying for her at the finish line just watching because I watched her in the trials melt down in the heat, then go to Rio and struggle because it was hot, it was a Shalane Flanagan kind of day

yesterday in New York City. And she won by over a minute. And the first U.S. woman to win in 40 years. That was amazing. It was fun to watch Meb wrap up his career as well, which also, tears. That guy's amazing.

I just hope he stays in the sport because he brings such a level of positivity to everything that he does. It's awesome. He's an authentic leader for sure. And I think he should eat a full-size candy bar this time instead of the fun-sized candy bar. That's all he gives himself. I read a story about that. Like once a week or something.

Yeah, he's like, I have a fun-sized Snickers bar. I'm like, dude, do they have a career-sized Snickers bar? Because come on, go to town. Get a knife and fork if you want to because you've earned it. Dr. Sindra Kampoff with us today for High Performance Mindset. Good to see you. Thanks for having me. We'll see you again next week.

Yes. Thank you for listening to High Performance Mindset. If you liked today's podcast, make a comment, share it with a friend, and join the conversation on Twitter at Mentally Underscore Strong. For more inspiration and to receive Sindra's free weekly videos, check out drsindra.com.