High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 734: Everyday Mentorship: The Leadership Skill That Builds Culture and Confidence Ted Ma, Leadership Strategist & Author

Episode Date: February 26, 2026

In this episode of The High Performance Mindset, Dr. Cindra Kamphoff sits down with Ted Ma—leadership strategist, researcher, author, and keynote speaker—to explore what truly separates average leaders from exceptional ones. Earlier in his career, Ted built and led a sales organization of more than 6,000 people across North America. But through that experience, he began asking a deeper question: What actually makes leadership sustainable, impactful, and human? That curiosity led him to study mentorship, trust, confidence, and culture—and to develop the concept of Everyday Mentorship. Throughout the conversation, Ted explains why leadership isn't about titles or authority—it's about the small, daily behaviors that build trust, confidence, and performance over time. He breaks down the "DNA" of high-performing teams, why culture is a true competitive advantage, and the common misconceptions leaders have when trying to shift culture. Ted also shares research-backed insights on what drives engagement and retention, the mental barriers that limit leadership confidence, and practical ways leaders can begin building stronger cultures immediately. This episode is a powerful reminder that high performance doesn't happen by accident—it's built intentionally, one conversation and one courageous leadership decision at a time.     You'll Learn: What Everyday Mentorship really means—and why it matters now more than ever The DNA of high-performing sales teams Why culture is a competitive advantage (not just a buzzword) The biggest misconception leaders have about changing culture Research insights on trust, confidence, and engagement The mental barriers that limit leadership growth One practical framework leaders can implement immediately     Episode Resources & Links Learn more about Ted Ma: https://realtedma.com/ Download our 2025 National Confidence Study: https://confidencestudy.com/ Request a Free Mental Breakthrough Call with Dr. Cindra or her team: https://freementalbreakthroughcall.com/ Learn more about the Mentally Strong Institute: https://mentallystronginstitute.com/  

Welcome to the high performance mindset podcast. Today, I'm excited to welcome Ted Ma to the show. Ted is a leadership strategist, researcher, author, and keynote speaker who helps leaders build strong cultures by becoming what he calls the everyday mentors, the kind of leaders who don't just drive results, but truly develop people. Earlier in his career, Ted built and led a sales organization of more than 6,000 people. Wow, Ted, that's incredible, 6,000 people. And along the way, he became deeply interested in this bigger question, what actually makes leaders effective over time?

So, Ted, thank you so much for joining us on the high performance mindset. Welcome. Thank you. Great to be here. We were together at a speaker showcase last month, and I heard you speak, and I thought, yep, we got to have Ted on the podcast. You're also a CSP, which means certified speaking professional. That just means that you're a legit speaker. That's what I would describe it as.

It means we have war stories to tell. Exactly, exactly. So, Ted, just to get us started, you know, tell us how your stories shifted from building a 6,000-person sales force to becoming this leadership strategist. Like what was the, you know, pivotal point that made you realize leadership wasn't just about results? Yeah, great question, Sandra. And for me, it was in my journey well before becoming a professional speaker and well before

being on stages. And one conversation that really sticks out. is when I was doing very well early in my career, it was about two years into building a sales team. And I remember my top producer telling me that she was leaving the company. And I thought we had a good relationship. And I felt like things were going really well. At the time, our team was performing really in the top in our region.

And so things seemed to be firing on all cylinders. So, of course, out of curiosity, I said, hey, Sabrina, can you give me some feedback? Like, what is it? Are you leaving for more money? Is there a better opportunity out there for career advancement? And she said, Ted, I'm not leaving because of the money. To be honest, it's because of you. Oh, wow.

And that, as you can imagine, was first of all, a hard pill to swallow because every self-assured leader wants to think that we were doing a great job. And it also forced me to reflect and realize, like, what is it in my leadership style that was driving people away? And so I asked her some follow-up questions. And when we got to the core of the matter, she said, like, Ted, the reason that me and a lot of other people have left or are leaving the organization is because you're so focused on the results that you don't care about us. All you care about is the numbers we produce. And that was

the aha moment for me to realize, wow, I've been leading focus so much on the bottom line, so much on the number, so much on pressuring people to perform that I really wasn't developing the relationships. I wasn't developing other leaders. I was making it all about me. And some of these common mistakes that we see leaders make often unintentionally. And for me, that was the wake-up call to say, okay, I need to do something different. I found a mentor. He helped me to start to transform my thinking. And over time, not only did we retain more of our top talent that came in, but I end up in the top 1% in the company and end up speaking on stage across the country and becoming a national sales trainer for that company. Wow. What was what did that feel like

to you to get that feedback? And then what do you think that you really changed? I think the first feeling was shock and defensiveness. I think a lot of times for us as leaders, especially high performers, especially A type personalities. We're ambitious. We're go-getters. And we think highly of ourselves, which is important to have a healthy self-confidence. But sometimes it's so hard to see the outside of the bottle from inside of it and read the label from inside the bottle, so to speak. And so for me, it was shock.

It was disappointment. And it was almost the knee-jerk reaction of, no, it's not me. It's you. Well, you don't understand because, well, you must not really be doing what you could be doing. or interpreting my attempts to help you in the right manner and therefore like but really shifting blame to be honest and kind of rationalizing and justifying my behavior and it took a little while of me sitting with that to say okay at some point all of us have to look in the mirror and say is there something I could do better where do I need to shift and I have to own my part in failed

relationship I have to own my part in miscommunication and so that kind of led me down the path of saying, let me pursue this journey of personal and professional development so I can up level my leadership skills, the way I communicate, how I make people feel. Do people trust me because I think I have their business interest in mind? Or did they just feel like I'm only out for self? Yeah, I appreciate that. I appreciate just your honesty and disclosure about that. And so this led you to develop this idea of everyday mentorship. Tell us how that's different from maybe traditional leadership and why really it matters today. One of the interesting things that we found in our research.

And I know in the research that you've done, it's kind of surprising sometimes how things can be hiding in plain sight. And for me, it was that I'd always understood the value of mentorship as a concept, having had great mentors still to this day and having been fortunate to be in a position to mentor others and seeing the impact. What I didn't realize until we did the floral research study, which now has thousands of people that we've been able to survey and interview. And what we found is that everyday mentorship is a concept that it's our ability to shift people's thinking and behavior in a positive direction without an official title. And what we also found, which was surprising to me, is that informal mentorship is as powerful and many times even more powerful than formal mentorship. And that's so for people to distinguish because many times people hear the word and they think, oh, I need to be part of a formal mentorship program. somebody needs to be assigned to me or I need to be assigned a mentee. There has to be all the structure in place.

We have to dedicate a whole budget to this. And the reality is, you know, the everyday mentorship mindset differs from leadership back to your question where it's less focused on just the goals, giving people solutions to their problems, operating from a position of authority and more of, okay, let me not just answer your questions or give the solution, but let me shift that mindset to challenge you. let me give you questions instead of answers so you can develop some of the critical thinking to help problem solve yourself and I can be a sounding board. Let me focus less on the goals that we want to accomplish, which are still important, but also let me think holistically about the development

of this person, what skills they need to develop, how I can influence them in that direction. And even back to that lesson I learned early in my career, let me focus on deepening the relationship and become a confidant with this person that could be a colleague, a coworker. It doesn't have to be a direct report, but this informal mentorship, we have this ability to step into that position by shifting our thinking and some simple everyday practices, which, by the way, in the show notes, I'll just drop a link for your listeners and watchers, viewers of this, to 31 days or 31 ways you can be an everyday mentor. So in a few minutes, because that's another common misconception, well, it takes so much time and I'm already busy. I have so much on my plate, which we can all

relate to. But you can fit it in small slivers of time. and be able to put into practice these everyday mentorship principles, hence the PDF I'll share with your listeners, then people can be able to apply this in their everyday work without having to feel overwhelmed or like they need a formal title or training to be that mentor and to start to implement some of these different principles between traditional leadership and being an everyday mentor.

Awesome. Thank you so much for doing that. So make sure everyone you're listening, go to the show notes, and you can see Ted's link right there for 31 ways to be an everyday mentor. Or, you know, Ted, it makes me think about our national research study of confidence that we just published a couple months ago. And a couple of things that we found is we found Gen Z years. So a Gen Z is defined as ages 18 to 29. So we found one and two consistently or frequently feel like they're not enough.

And one and two consistently or frequently compare themselves to others. We also found, so we found basically like, when you think about young leaders right now, young people, they need mentors and they need people to guide them to help them. You know, I think of confidence not just like a personal issue, but it's an organizational issue because we found that when people that you work with, like let's say you're a leader and you're leading people in your organization is they have higher confidence, they have more productivity, better workplace culture, even increase in revenue. And so why does this conversation matter today is because Gen Zers need mentors.

And honestly, we found one of the top eight drivers of confidence is having a coach, a mentor, someone by your side who can help grow your confidence. So I connect what you're saying to building confidence, which builds the bottom line and the ROI of your business. You bring up such a great point in. Here's what makes me think of. Many people in the workplace and many of the Gen Ziers I've talked to have missed. have mistaken confidence, which you help equip people with, with having certainty or having all the answers. And the reality comes back to, at least in my experience,

and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, is when we reframe confidence as trusting ourselves, that we can figure it out, that we can access to a resource, that we can reach out to a coach or a mentor or a colleague or somebody that has either an answer for us or our best interest at heart or somewhere they can direct us to help us find the answer. But it's the resourcefulness and self-reliance and confidence that we can trust who we are, not that we have to have all the answers ourselves.

What are your thoughts on that? I think that one part of confidence is like trust and belief in ourselves, for sure. I think it's also like this feeling that comes and goes. And sometimes people like overthink that, you know, like let's say you and I get on this podcast, I'm feeling a little nervous. And then all of a sudden that we interpret that as. like we're not very confident, which actually isn't always true, right? But I think people need mentors to help build their confidence. I'm curious, Ted, what's like your 31 ways to be an

everyday mentor? What's like one or two of those that you could give us, do you think are some of the most powerful, just for us to kind of think about how can we continue to be everyday mentors? I'm going to start with the easiest one first. And this one is something that could be a simple as a text message. It's better done in person. But it could be, and this also, by the way, kind of footnote, it doesn't only apply to work. A lot of what I teach, and I'm sure of what you teach, applies to just relationships as a whole, whether that's relationships in your community, with your family, et cetera. One simple way is to find somebody or think of someone in your life that needs to hear a message of belief and encouragement from you. And we all have somebody

probably at work and at home. And if they're off the best way to communicate to them. And again, this could be a two-minute conversation that you pull them to the side. It doesn't have to be, you know, a formal performance review that we're waiting for or the next one-on-one. But it literally could be a conversation or if necessary. It could even be a text message. But again, voice-to-voice is always more powerful, even if it's over a video call. But just expressing your belief in somebody because what we've realized is there's so many people that struggle with self-doubt.

And so many people that struggle with imposter syndrome and feeling like they're not enough or they're alone or they're the only ones going through this or who am I to dot dot dot fill in the blank. And by us simply reaching out and expressing our belief in them, I can't tell you how many times in my career at down moments where somebody else in my life, that always somebody who was in a hierarchical leadership position. Sometimes it was a colleague of mine, somebody in a mastermind group or a friend or trusted advisor I had that wasn't my boss. And they just saw something in me that at the time I didn't see in myself. And because of that, and during my downtime, them expressing their belief in me,

it gave me a whole new sense of validation of esteem and that boost I needed to get to the next level. So that's one simple idea. That's great. I love it. I'm going to start one more, but I'm trying to temper it for time. I'll give one other one that I think could be helpful is be a connector. Mm-hmm.

Right? Like you and I connected because of a wonderful person named Holly who owns the Speakers Bureau, and we, she booked us both for an event, and that's how we connected. But think about who in your network could benefit from someone else that's in your network. And if you're in a leadership role, think about your direct reports or even those within your team and say, like, what skill are they looking to learn or what resource could be helpful for them?

Let me make that email introduction or let me have this person jump on as a guest on the next Zoom or Teams call. But making that connection, and again, same thing implies in our personal lives. Like, who do we know that could benefit from someone else that we know? And by being that connector, you're adding tremendous value to this other person. And it doesn't take a lot of time and effort. So again, there's 29 other ways in the document. I won't rehash all of them.

But I think my point is in this that a lot of the things that we think are overwhelming don't have to be if we can break them down to small actionable steps that only take five or 10 minutes out of our day. And I could imagine what you're going to say on this, but like, why do we want to be everyday mentors? Like, how do you think that helps us in our success or help, helps leaders build teams. Like, what's the why here?

First, why, I think selfishly for every leader is the impact that you create, right? That's something, you know, that you go beyond just creating a successful career and you start looking at the impact you have on someone's life. So that's something in terms of a feeling. It's less concrete. But let me give you something that's more concrete. The number one reason that employees report, this is over 3,000 people. And we ask, what is?

What is the number one reason or outcome that you get from having some kind of mentoring relationship at work, formal or informal? The number one response, syndrome, was I am more loyal to my organization as of having some kind of organization. So when we think about keeping the people that we have and especially the best performers we have, well, if we want to keep them here instead of people mentally checking out and they're still physically here, but mentally they've checked out because they're on to the next. opportunity, that mentoring relationship can be the differentiator. And it also ties back to other metrics, increase morale, increased productivity, increase individual performance. So there's a lot of metrics we can tie back to it. Similar to I'm sure the study that you did, you know, when people have confidence in the workplace, what's the difference when they feel self-confident and confident in the people they work with versus the opposite when they're in an organization, they feel that

doesn't care about them and they don't feel good about themselves? I'm sure there's a dramatic difference in terms of the metrics. Yeah, absolutely. And I think one cool thing about being an everyday mentor, it also does help build culture in the workplace. And that's also something that you talk about. You talk about how culture is a competitive advantage. Tell us what you really mean by that.

And, you know, why do so many organizations struggle with culture and are intentional about building it? That's a loaded question. So I'm going to give you two answers. One answer from the leadership perspective is thinking that it's someone else's responsibility. So this is HR's responsibility. This is another leader's responsibility.

Instead of realizing at all levels, the culture starts with us. Because culture is what shapes behaviors when the leaders aren't in the room. And it determines when people, when the pressure's on and the stakes are high and there's a critical project or deadline we're trying to meet or a big goal we want to accomplish,

how people perform is based on the culture that we create and that culture is created in the individual. moments, not by a mission or vision statement on the wall or not because we've got posters up around the office and it's a buzzword. But, you know, what behaviors are we rewarding as leaders? And then in the more individual lens, also understanding that we all play a part and we all play a role. So it's not, oh, the senior leaders need to handle this for me or it's my manager's job to do this for me. It's realizing that culture starts with me and that I can shape how it feels here, even without positional authority, based on the way.

that I show up. So it kind of boils down to the responsibility that every person has within the organization to create this environment. And when collaboratively, people buy into that concept, even though it might look a little different from one person or one position to another. But if everyone buys into the fact that culture is all of our responsibility, then all of a sudden, the needle moves in terms of how people feel when they show up for work. And everybody watching or listening to this, you've been in places, just like Cinder and I have been in places where you go in and you're like, It is dead in here. I'm surprised these people are not on their way out of the door

because the energy is just dead. You can tell people are not going to be there, and they're just there temporarily. And then on the flip side, you walk into other organizations, and you have somebody who's a frontline worker who might be making minimum wage or slightly above, and they are enthusiastic and happy and vibrant,

and you can feel the teamwork and the energy and the camaraderie. But it's because, once again, you know, that second organization, that was created intentionally. It didn't happen by accident. That's true. I can definitely feel it when you walk into places and you can tell it by how people are interacting with each other, the way that they, you know, their energy, the behaviors. And so what would you say is, as people who are listening and it could be leaders who are

working to create cultures in the workplace. It could be athletic coaches who want to be really intentional about their athletic culture. Like what's the first step when we think about building culture? The first step would be recognizing that a lot of times there are. beliefs that we have, many times unconsciously, that really don't serve us and don't serve our organization and the people that we lead. Also beliefs like, if I don't do it myself, it's not going to get done right. Or hey, if people here, if they need support, they'll speak up and realizing that, no, just because people are silent doesn't mean they're all aligned and on the same

page. Or here's one that I've suffered from in my career as a leader. Hey, it's my job to stroke other people's egos, right? I'm here to make sure people perform. Or I'm not their therapist. I've heard that more times that I can count. But again, some of these self-limiting beliefs, not only hold back someone's leadership ability, but it affects the entire team around us. So I think the first step would be to raise our awareness and understand the beliefs that hold us back. And another one, I know you can talk so much about high performance. And I've got to mention this because I came from a sales environment. And many of your viewers may be, in the sales environment, one hidden belief that really I struggle with as a leader and our team

struggle with is thinking that as long as people are producing results, I don't really need to question how we got them. Yeah. Yeah. And that led to so much bad behavior getting rewarded where there were people who were toxic, good producers, great producers, but were toxic for the team and the culture and the environment, and especially with all the athletic teams you've worked with. I'm sure you've seen that as well.

It's like the star player and their talent on the field is unbelievable. But if they are toxic to the organization, the long-term cost outweighs the value that they bring on the field. And it's the same thing in the sales environment where we've had, unfortunately, people who were top producers that ended up driving our culture really downhill because nobody checked their behavior thinking, well, they're hitting or exceeding their numbers. So I really don't need to ask a lot of questions. Yeah. That is so true. and people don't always think about what impact they are making well in the culture. What advice would you give to leaders who are listening and they're thinking, yeah, we have that

where I work, where maybe people are high performers from a result standpoint, but don't have great positive energy and don't build people up, aren't everyday mentors like you're talking about? The answer that people probably know intuitively that you may not want to hear is that you've got to have the tough conversation. And for the benefit of everyone else. And the challenging thing, I think, for all of us as leaders, is somebody's not only doing their job, but excelling in their job, but the impact they're having on all the people

around and the rest of the team is detrimental. You know, are we willing to address that? That's the first thing that requires us to take courage as leaders to have that courageous conversation. And then second of all, it's, you know, how can we tactfully sit down with them and let them know, like, all the things that they're doing right should be celebrated and appreciated. but we cannot accept or tolerate some of these other behaviors, not to attack them as a person,

but as we know, it's giving feedback, right? We want to address the problem and not make the person feel like we're attacking them as a human being. So we don't, it's not that we don't value them as a human being or as a part of the organization,

but we don't value those behaviors. And quite frankly, we can't accept those behaviors. And so progressively figuring out, okay, what benchmarks can we set together? So now I'm telling you this is what you need to do. I've tried that approach. Doesn't normally come across too well.

Some people might comply, but again, compliance is not the same as commitment. And if we want people to grow, we want them to commit. So we can't just focus on compliance. We want to build as leaders a culture of commitment. So how do we do that? We create some shared objectives, some shared benchmarks that we explain maybe the impact that they didn't realize they were having by their behavior. And so now we can say, okay, let's check back in 30 days, 90 days, and our next one-on-one,

and see, like, here's some measurable benchmarks you want to hit. And here's some things to look out for along the way. But again, it's this collaborative process of let's address this together. How can we work this out for the better of everybody on the team and our organization? Not you're messing this up. I need you to change this. If you don't change this, there's going to be a problem. Like, it's such an approach.

Yeah, that's so true. Well, I appreciate you just really saying, like, you need to address it. Because when you think about what people really fear, many times people fear conflict and they don't say anything, even though they really need to. Hi, this is Cinder Campoff and thanks for listening to the high performance mindset. Did you know that the ideas we share in the show are things we actually specialize in implementing? If you want to become mentally stronger, lead your team more effectively and get to your goals quicker. Visit free mental breakthrough call.com to sign up for your free mental breakthrough call with one of our certified coaches. Again, that's free mental breakthrough call.com to sign up for your free call.

Talk to you soon. Is there, you know, I just think about how many leaders talk about culture, but actually can a few really build it intentionally. Do you have a practical framework or exercise you'd recommend, you know, for leadership teams to start improving culture right now? I'm going to share the four concepts that we share in my culture program and to kind of plant some seeds. And obviously people can follow them and figure out the best way to apply them in their lives.

But I call these the culture builders. So to answer your question, yes. That's your builders. Cool. Yep. And so there's four of them that we share. The first one is to show up when it counts. And it's as simple as it sounds.

But as individual contributors and as leaders, are we showing up when it counts? And what that really kind of boils down to is, are we somebody that is reliable? Like if we think about it, it's hard to judge from the inside looking out. But are we seen as somebody that people can count on? and are we known for being reliable? That's an important question to ask ourselves and sometimes ask someone we trust, maybe in a private conversation around us.

Like, do people see me as somebody that always follows Sue on their commitments, that people can count on that that is there when people need them? And if the answers no, then obviously it's up to us to take some steps to change that. So that's the first one is that we show up when it counts. The second one is that we make people feel seen. And you alluded to this earlier,

but recognition and appreciation is such a core fund of our topic that for decades has been taught, but still when we look at the workplace engagement metrics, it's still not happening. How many people were recognized at work for doing something positive over the last week or 30 days? The percentage is small in the audiences that I talk to, and I'm sure the audiences you speak to as well. So make people feel seen fine ways to recognize them, even if it's just something small, in a way that's meaningful to them, not in a way that you want to receive recognition because it's

different for everybody. So that's number two. Number three is build relationships before results. This is where I fell short early in my career. And this comes back to connection, right? Creating connection and community where relationships are the most important things because that's what drives results. Instead of doing what I did early in my career, focusing so much on results

that we neglect the relationships and then we get the results short term. And here's the hard thing for all of us. It's hard when we're getting temporary wins to realize that what we're doing is driving ourselves into a hole instead of saying, no, let me build the foundation that everything else will be built on, which is the relationship, and then the results will come from that. So that's the third. And then the fourth culture builder is be the reason it works. And when I say be the reason it works, what I really mean is owning the outcome, all of us taking personal responsibility for wherever we are in the organization to own the results that we create. Yes,

we can't control things outside of our own personal sphere of influence, but we can control not only the results that we produce, but the way that we approach work, the way we interact and communicate with people so that personal ownership or responsibility. So those are the four culture builders that I'd encourage everybody to start with and look at different ways they can implement that in their day-to-day work. Those are awesome. I love those, Ted. I think that's really direct and gives people thinking about themselves. So you said, show up when it counts, make people feel seen, build relationships over results, and be the reason it works. And, you know, I recently read some research that teams thrive when they have a

a five to one ratio, like five positive interactions, compliments to everyone, disempowering or negative interaction. And I think that's really crazy, you know, when you think about five to one. And that even is consistent within marriages, that marriages thrive when there's five positive interactions to one negative, you know. So that's actually Lustado's work. That's his last name. So you can check that out if you'd like to. But just shows you the power of what you're talking about that that does lead to high performance. Is there anything specific? Can I pick you back on that quickly? Because I love that concept. Because you're making me think, right? I need to check in with myself, with my wife, and get some feedback from her. But when we think about these important

relationships, our spouse or partner, our kids, our direct reports, our boss, like we don't have to do this with 100 people. But maybe everybody who's listening or watching this, here's your action item from what Sandra just shared, write down five of the most important people in your life, work or failing. Write them in it. And what do you think personally? If you just were to assess, even though it's subjective, like, what do you think that ratio is, that positive or negative? Are we checking the box and saying, yeah, it's probably at least five positive to one negative? Or are there some? I even think with having young kids at home, how much am I saying, no, don't do that. Stop. If you don't do this, then there's going to be this consequence. Like, some of that we have to do as parents. But am I also

balancing that out with 5x the amount of positive interactions of encouragement and praise and recognition and time that I'm spending with them. So in every important five most important relationships in our lives, let's take stock. And I'm glad you showed that concept with me because I personally need to do that so that I can get better and make sure that I'm following that five to one ratio. And to be honest, whenever I say it out loud, Ted, I think to myself, I got to do better with my spouse, you know, so I'm like checking myself every time. I say it as well. You know, one of the other things you talk about is like building the DNA of high performing teams. And I just think given this is the high performance mindset, people are really interested in how do we build

high performing teams? And specifically you talk about this in sales, right? Because that is your background. Tell us like what is the DNA of high performing teams. And if you want to give us some examples in sales, I think we can relate it to our lives, even if we're not in sales. Yeah. Conceptually, I'll only plan a couple of seats for those that are sales professionals. Number one, what expectations are we sitting both of ourselves and others like those that are on our team? Meaning what are people's roles and are they identifying with the role that they have more so than whatever the task or responsibility that they personally have? So that starts with the expectations, what are the standards that we are personally modeling and those that we are

expecting of the team that we lead for those in a leadership role. And then coming back to this concept of the way that we make people feel, which is so important at work, sales or otherwise, but especially in the sales arena because we're driven by quarterly or annual goals. We have quotas that we have to meet. So there is some inherent pressure in the sales arena to reach this target by this date. And so that's already baked into the industry. But the question is for the leaders that have a team that reports to them, do your teams perform based on the pressure or do they perform because you create a culture that makes them want to get the best out of themselves to go beyond their quota, to not wait until the last hour of the last day to hit that sales target that you've

given them? So meaning that when we create this environment of pressure, like I, didn't get being transparent early in my career when I struggled I was leading from a pressure standpoint and what I got from that pressure was compliance and people who are willing to do what I told them to do but when I shifted that as my leadership style shifted and I said okay how can I build this remarkable culture where people feel that they have high performance which is extremely important but they also have a high sense of well-being and that's what I was missing right I was having high performance, but it was kind of a low environment of well-being. And so I created this toxic hustle culture where everybody was just grinding and they go, no, sleep is for losers. We're going to get

it done whatever it takes and just, you know, sandbagging the good leads until the end of the month. And all these toxic behaviors long term that gave us temporary wins, but long term didn't lead to the growth that I want. It wasn't sustainable. But it's because I had high performance based on the pressure I was putting on people, but not the high well-being. But when we can balance both of those out and say, okay, performance and well-being, how do I create in the environment that has both? Now people buy in. Now we get this commitment, not just the compliance. So I would say that's a really good place for people to start. And then one last thing I'll assure as well is that when we're providing accountability, it's mandatory for the work that we do as leaders and especially sales leaders.

And can we create an environment of accountability without creating an environment of fear where people or, you know, they talk to you because they have to, not because they want to. And, you know, people are, you know, they do only the bare minimum they're required to with communicating with you or with whatever metrics you're measuring for them, but they don't go beyond because they're fearful of that. So that goes back to something you mentioned earlier, Cindra, which is how are we continuing to build trust individually with the people we work with and then amongst the team. So a few ideas to start us off with the DNA of high-powering sales teams being obviously a 60-minute keynote. I can't really condense that into short of the. two or three minutes, but hopefully plant some seeds for people to think about like, huh, either what am I doing that's maybe not as effective as I would like it to be?

Or, hey, what could I do to really accelerate? I'm doing the right things, but how can I accelerate this so that now it's not just me doing it, but other people are duplicating the behaviors that I'm modeling? I would love to ask you a question about accountability, not fear. And it kind of goes back to what we were saying earlier about how people fear conflict. And so then they don't hold people accountable. And I also think about like this idea of psychological safety. And, you know, the study I can think of is a study that was done by Google that they,

I don't know if you know about this TED, but you can just Google Project Aristotle and everyone was listening can Google it. But they Google looked at, Google, they can Google it, right? But Google looked at like what was the highest, what's the highest traits of their, what are the traits of their highest performing teams? like what made their highest performing team stand out? And one of the top traits was something called psychological safety, which meant that you weren't going to be, like, ridiculed or shamed if you made a mistake. And mistakes were actually openly talked about.

I think what I heard you to say that about accountability, not fear. How do you, what advice would you give to people so that, you know, they are holding people accountable, but not creating fear? because I think accountability equal psychological safety, feeling in the fear does not equal psychological safety. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Excellent point. And I'm curious, I'll be Googling that from Google.

I have to reach up off here. As you're talking, it kind of brings me back to something we found in our research on qualities and traits of great mentors. Okay, cool. Great mentors hold people accountable, too. leadership, mentorship. Yeah. Accountability's part of it. Accountability is the number one motivator in life, right?

Most people would rather move to avoid pain than just to gain pleasure. That's human nature. And what's interesting for your listeners quickly, the top six traits that we found of brave mentors are being a great role model, number one, being an active listener, number two, having empathy, number three, being trustworthy, number four, being a lifelong learner, number five, and having patience, number six. So those are the top six traits.

Of those six, and here's what's interesting, that kind of like ranking them sequentially in terms of the responses we got, being the role model was number one. So meaning that when it comes to accountability, are we modeling what we're teaching? Because sometimes the uncomfortable conversation also cannot go as well

because the person that we're holding accountable doesn't believe that we're living the values we're teaching and that we are an actual, example of what we're demanding of them. And every great leader I've worked with across industries always said, like, I go first and our, and then our team follows along, right? So I'm willing to do this and I'm not asking of others that, which I'm not willing to do myself. So that's kind of in mind. But going back to the other traits number two and three, being an active listener and having empathy, these, I think, all come into this conversation

when we're holding people accountable. Are we doing it in a way that is helping them to grow, that's constructed that gives them space to fail forward because failure is a part of the success process as we know and not a license to constantly miss goals and never hit targets and your quota doesn't matter. That's not what I mean because then you're not giving them accountability. But providing accountability but doing it as you alluded to in a safe environment where they feel willing and safe to be able to express their challenges, their setbacks, their failures, where they messed up. And then building upon that because that's what great coaches, great leaders, great mentors, that's what they do.

they coach people when they fall short to become a better version of themselves. They don't just demand people do it on their own. No, it's like, let's go do this. Not like you didn't do this this time. I need you to do this next time. So I think it really starts with our mindset. Are we modeling the example? Are we actively listening, giving people a space to be themselves and to fail forward?

Are we doing our best to empathize without just giving them a license to have free reign and not perform? But are we creating that environment where they feel like Cinderia, It's, she's holding me account about it's uncomfortable. I didn't do what I thought I was going to do or I said I was going to do. I didn't hit my target. But you know what? She made me feel like I could.

She gave me some tools I can apply to her word. She gave me confidence that by the next one-on-one or the next quarterly check-in, I'll be able to because she shared A, B, and C, versus just berating somebody and telling them what they did wrong. So to summarize all of that, Sandra, I know I was a bit of a tangent. That's wonderful. It's more on the solution than on the problem because so many leaders take constructive feedback and they spend 80, 90% of the time focusing on the problem, what went wrong, what didn't go according to plan, and such a small percentage of the time on the solution versus flipping that ratio and saying,

okay, let's acknowledge and discuss the problem, but let's get that 10, 20% out of the way. Let's spend the rest of, let's spend 50 of the 60 minutes talking about how we collectively can problem solve to get better for the future. Awesome. I love it. All right, I'm going to ask you a few closing questions, and then you can add whatever you'd like. When you think about working with leadership and leaders and just all the research, research you've done on leadership, what's one thing that leader should stop doing? Stop leading with pressure by default. Cool. What does that mean? Tio, at least.

Yeah. Much like I mentioned it in my initial answer to your first question, and kudos to your viewers and listeners who've made it this far, by the way, because you're doing something right to both to tune in and to continue to listen to something that can help you become better. But most leaders in organization, sales or otherwise, default to, I'm going to drive people with the pressure I create, whether it's either with deadlines, the fear of feedback, the negative consequence, the write up. And so there's so much negativity surrounding that. So let's stop leading with pressure and start leading. So the kind of the flip hand side of that is start leading with some of these key culture builders that we discuss so

that we're now driving, encouraging, and almost coaxing in a positive way, and influencing people to move towards commitment and away from just being compliant. I love it. Ted, you know what my favorite part of our today's conversation was, was these four culture builders. I'm going to repeat them for people. Show up when it counts. Make people feel seen, build relationships over results, and be the reason it works. I also loved your list of like what great mentor. do, right? They're role models. They actively listen. They're trustworthy. They have empathy. Their lifelong learners and patient. Do I got that right? And everything I also appreciated about what you talked about, like why culture really matters and why, you know, mentorship really matters.

Don't forget to download the 31 ways to be an everyday mentor and show notes. Ted, how can people find more about your speaking, about any of the resources that you want to provide today? Real Ted Maugh is the easiest way to find me. Realtedmaud.com or on social. I'm most active on LinkedIn and Instagram. Love to connect with folks there. Awesome. Do you have any final advice for people?

My final advice would be keep tuning in. Here we are in 2026. And by the time this episode airs, they'll probably just be coming out of your mentally strong conference. So make sure you register for Dr. Campa's next mentally strong conference. But just keep tuning in. Because the more you make these micro investments of learning, whether you're driving, cooking, or doing something otherwise, just the fact that you're feeding your mind ideas

that can help you to make those 1% shifts. You're on the right track. It's just continuing the discipline and the habit, much like working out that you've already started by tuning in today. I love it. I had a meeting planner say to me the day, I wrote it down here on my sheet of paper. She said, like, this is the work of a lifetime. And it made me just kind of like it hit me in my heart here that all the things we're

talking about Ted, like showing up intentionally as a leader, being an everyday mentor, you know, building high performing teams, being a high performer is just the work of a lifetime. And meaning it's like something that, you know, we have to keep practicing because we have a negativity bias. We can fall into default mode instead of really being intentional. So Ted, thank you so much for joining us with your wisdom today. I appreciate you. And thank you so much for really helping us think about leadership and mentorship today. Thanks for having me. Way to go for finishing another episode of the high performance mindset.

I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe. And you can head over to Dr. Sindra for show notes and enjoy my exclusive community for high performers, where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can add over to Dr. Sindra. That's d-R-C-C-I-N-D-R-A.com.

See you next week.