Something You Should Know - SYSK Choice: How to Age Better & Successful Leadership for You and Others

Episode Date: November 23, 2019

You are wasting too much time on email. It’s estimated that you waste 30 seconds each time you stop and check it. So how can you cut down on the amount of time you waste? In this episode, you’ll discover some great techniques that can cut your time in half. http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/09/brevity-in-email/501986/ Also, if you are concerned about aging and you want to age well, there is some great news. Washington Post reporter Margaret Pressler, author of the book Cheat the Clock http://amzn.to/2k6Ctyx did an amazing amount of research – looking at all we know about the aging process. What she found is that staying young is a lot easier than you ever imagined. Listen and hear her explanation. Leadership skills - they aren’t just for CEO’s, corporate big shots or managers. We all need to lead others at times – and developing leadership skills is important for everyone. Courtney Lynch, co-author of the bestselling book Spark: How to Lead Yourself and Others to Greater Success http://amzn.to/2kV668g is here to tell her story and offer some excellent leadership advice you probably haven’t heard before. Why you should salt your cookies, cook your eggs slow and cook bacon in the oven… those are just some of the expert tips you’ll discover that will transform your cooking, whether you are a gourmet chef or can barely boil water. http://www.popsugar.com/food/Right-Way-Cook-Things-42682898#photo-42682898 This Week's Sponsors –Airbnb. To learn more about being an Airbnb host visit www.Airbnb.com/host Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know was all about. And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks. Well, you see, TED Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu.

She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future. Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily. And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Today on Something You Should Know, you waste a lot of time on email, more than you think. So I've got some ways to cut down on all that wasted time. Also, want to look younger? Scientists who study aging have a message. If people only knew how little they have to do to affect major change in the way they're going to age years and decades from now.

Also, we all have the ability to be a leader. It's not just about being the boss or having power. What makes a great leader? I'm talking about your ability as a person to do two things really well. How well do you as an individual influence outcomes and inspire others, right? That's what I'm talking about. And whether you can barely boil water or you're a gourmet cook, I've got some kitchen secrets that will transform your cooking. All this today on Something You Should Know. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show.

Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell,

the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed, critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.

Hi, and welcome to our weekend episode of Something You Should Know. And I want to start today by talking about email, because you probably spend a lot of time on email, probably waste a lot of time with email. So here's some advice, some expert advice that will help you cut down on the amount of time you spend on email. And it's from a guy named James Hamblin from TheAtlantic.com. And he claims these things helped him cut down on the time he spent on email in half. And first, eliminate the sign-off.

There's no need to write, you know, sincerely, best, cheers, or any of the other farewells. There's no need for it. And you can even skip your name in some cases because the email address makes it pretty clear who the email is from, so it's somewhat redundant to sign the email. It's really kind of a holdover from the handwritten note or the handwritten letter. Same thing with the greeting. You don't really need to say, Dear Bob, because you sent the email to Bob, and Bob's the only guy that got the email, and so you could eliminate that as well. Three sentences or fewer is his advice. The crux of any email usually doesn't need more than three sentences. If what

you're sending is more than three sentences, you should probably consider calling the person instead. Check your email only two or three times a day. I don't know if I could do that, but he says it's not that hard, and in fact, the average American worker wastes 30 seconds every time they check their inbox. So if you think about all the times you check your inbox in a day, multiply that by 30 seconds, and you'll see how many minutes a day you're really wasting. He says even if you think your job doesn't allow you to check your inbox that infrequently, give it a try or cut down at least some. But if you give it a try, he says you'll be surprised how easy it is to get used to in time. And that is something you should know. Since aging is inevitable, you'd probably like to at least do it well. But how much control do you have over how you age? Maybe you think it's

genetic, or maybe you think you have to live by some strict set of rules to slow down the aging process. Well, Margaret Pressler is a reporter for the Washington Post, and she decided to really dive into this subject. The results of her research are in her book called Cheat the Clock, and I think you'll be surprised and maybe encouraged by what she discovered about how much control we have over how we individually age. So Margaret, it's kind of interesting. Explain why you decided to investigate this in the first place. Very quickly, this actually came from a personal experience. I am married to a man who is 17 years older than me, and he looks the same age as me. He is one of these people who just doesn't age. And I am a reporter for the Washington Post, so I took that as an opportunity to go ask

some top experts, why does my husband look like this, and what explains that? I fully expected that they would come back and say it was genetics, and every one of them came back and said it's not genetics, it's what he does. And I've always been interested in health and nutrition, and this started a couple of years of looking at all of the science on aging, and I just found incredible information that people really could benefit from. Well, it's always kind of fascinated me, well, the first time it fascinated me,

was going to high school reunions and seeing how time is so kind to some people, seemingly, and so cruel to other people. But your point is perhaps it's not just time, it's what goes on in that time. Oh, there's no question. And one of the best ways to look at that is studies that have been done in Scandinavia. They do a great job of tracking twins. They keep

a twin registry. And there have been lots of research studies done tracking those twins, especially identical twins. Identical twins born the same, you know, with the same genetic imprint, the same household. But if they were then grew up to live very different lifestyles, food, exercise, sleep, stress, you see dramatically different outcomes in identical twins even. So it's not just luck of the draw, it's what you do and isn't it basically true though that it's kind of what everyone's heard, that if you lead a healthy life, eat right, exercise, that that's basically the prescription? Or is it more than that? You know, there's no question that the old mom's advice is good advice.

I think what's different about what I've got in the book is that what science has really discovered, because there's so much more technology going into the studying of aging now and the processes that go into and they're participating in the process of aging scientists really understand how it's happening at the cellular level they're on they really know now okay these are the things inside your body that are causing aging that that we think of outwardly as the the things that we see in aging wrinkles you know, dementia later in life or whatever it may be. And what is really now clear is how these processes start when we're very young in an invisible way inside ourselves and that even those processes, those infinitesimal processes,

are affected by even very small decisions we make day in and day out throughout our lives. So the hopeful message here is that, yeah, you know, yes, eating well, all of that stuff is good, but you don't have to do as much as people think. Oh, that's good news. Yes, it is good news. And that is straight from science. And I don't think I spoke to a single aging researcher who didn't say, with some sense of frustration, if people only knew how little they have to do to affect major change in the way they're going to age years and decades from now. So specifically what?

Okay, so for example, if you want to look at nutrition is obviously the low-hanging fruit. Nutrition is great, but it doesn't mean you need to overhaul your diet. There are certain things that you can do just on a daily basis that are easy. And I'm talking about starting by eating one more serving of fruit a day. The government says eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day. A lot of people don't even get close to that. Does that mean that you shouldn't even try? Like if you know you're not going to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables, should you not even try? No. In fact,

just eating one or two apples a day can have a huge impact on your blood pressure. There are chemicals, phytochemicals in fruits and vegetables that have a very positive effect on our cells. They help reduce oxidative stress, which we've all heard of free radicals. But if you're getting these particular chemicals in your from plants, you know, phytochemicals, I'm going to use that word because they are really healthy chemicals that as a species, we developed over the millennia eating these kinds of foods and our body adapted to use those chemicals in a beneficial way. And apples, for example, have,

apples, watermelon is another one that have very beneficial phytochemicals in them that affect the suppleness of your cardiovascular system. So in addition to diet, what else is there? Okay, so there's obviously exercise, but again, you don't need to go join the gym, and you don't need to look hot in a bikini. You can affect a big change in the way you age with just a little bit of exercise. And the magic number is 10 minutes a day. And just about anybody can do a 10-minute walk a day, don't you think?

Right. Yeah. But 10 minutes is not that long. And the difference in when they look at epidemiological studies, so long-term studies following populations, the difference between people who have just walked 10 minutes a day versus people who haven't is dramatic in terms of the strength and dementia and overall illness, death from all causes. It's dramatic. So it goes up from there. So, you know, you benefit from that point on. But really that is 10 minutes,

and there are lots of scientists who are looking at different aspects of why that is. Immune cells start flowing into your system from your marrow after just 10 minutes of walking. Your brain cells start, you start generating new brain cells if you walk a mile a day. So there are huge benefits to just small amounts of getting moving. And of course, then it builds on itself. This is what my husband has done. He started very small and has shown dramatic, dramatic effects in how healthy he feels and looks over the years, from starting very small, almost nothing, five minutes a day. Historically, the advice has been 30 minutes a day, at least three times a week, not 10 minutes a day, which, you know, 30 minutes is a reason to say no.

And Mike, that would be ideal. Of course, it would be great if everybody would do that. But you have to think of it a little bit like your body is a little bit like a bank account. Like if you could discipline yourself to put $10 a day in your bank account, then after 10 days you've got $100. But if you can only put $1 a day after 10 days, you've still got $10. You may not have $100, but you've got 10 and it's better than nothing, right? So if you figure you use that money at the end of that 10 days to buy gas for your car, so see how far you can go. You've got a hundred dollars. You can drive what? 500 miles, maybe depending on your car. If you've got $10, you can drive, you know, 30, 40, 50 miles. That's

still farther than you could go otherwise. And your health is the same way. You nurture it bit by bit, and it is cumulative. And that is what the current science has been able to do is pinpoint why that is. And that's really what my book explains. It's sort of an empowering, a very empowering message by understanding how it works inside yourself in ways you can't see. And that's what's tough. You know, if you can't see it, then is it really working? So with these studies, they have discovered, through magnetic resonance imaging and epidemiological studies, so from looking inside the cell to looking at whole populations,

they have been able to determine how even small things make a big difference. Stress is another big one. People, especially people who, you know, don't get involved in this kind of stuff, will always point to the, you know, the 110-year-old lady who smoked a pack a day and drank a quart of whiskey. And so, see, it's all genetic, because look at her, she never lifted her finger and smoked and drank, and she lived to be 110. Yeah, I'm really glad you brought that up, because there is absolutely a genetic component to aging. What scientists now say is that, based on all of the current research, the best estimate now is

that genetics is 25 to 30 percent of aging. And there are some people, and those people you're referring to are called super-agers, and those people you're referring to are called super agers and those people do have some lucky genetic cocktail that protects them from they haven't figured out what that is they're going to be a very complicated thing to figure out if they ever can but there are certain people who can live to you know a hundred well into their 90s you know smoking or living a just a not very healthy lifestyle and be fine. That's a very, very small percentage of people. The thing is, it's so cool that you hear about them, right? You know, you hear about the great uncle, so-and-so.

But it does tend to run in families. So they know that there is a genetic component to that. The real issue is that for the vast majority of us, it's not going to help. So it's really, it's like a deck of cards and it's how you play it. So what else is there? Is there any mental aspect to this? Absolutely. I mentioned stress is another major component of aging. There've been some incredibly fascinating studies about how stress ages your cells in ways that have only just been able to be discovered. There are little caps at the ends of your chromosome called telomeres, which protect the genetic material

every time your cell divides. But every time your cell divides, the telomeres get a little bit shorter. And in people who are chronically stressed, the telomeres get shorter much faster. So what does that mean? It means that once the telomeres are so short that it would compromise your genetic material, your cell dies. That cell that has that chromosome in it dies. The more cells, and we have cells that billions of cells die in our bodies every day, but that increases with age. Cell death and sort of cells going into a resting phase increases with age and contributes to the conditions of aging. And that is a natural process, but stress hastens that. There are stress hormones that get into our cells and they mess with the way they work. Cortisol, you can feel it flowing through your body when you're

stressed out. That is very harmful on a cellular level to the way you're aging. So being exposed to chronic long-term stress, absolutely. We see it, you know, you see it in presidents, you know, after four years, they've clearly aged more than four years, right? But here's the good news. The good news is this is also something that you can do something about, even if you can't remove the source of your stress. And often you can't, you know, if you're dealing with an aging parent or a chronically sick child or a very stressful job or financial woes. The stress is, it feels insurmountable.

It's there all the time. However, what researchers have discovered is that what really matters is how you deal with that stress. Different people with the same levels of stress, the same exposure to stress, can handle it very differently. And actually, the way you handle the stress, it helps alleviate the impact on the aging of your cells inside your body. And I'll give you a couple of examples. And this, you know, it seems, you know, sort of new agey, but meditation has been conclusively shown to have make concrete changes inside the brain that help it help the brain recover from and handle and not produce as many stress hormones and recover from it faster so that's um that's one thing any kind of break you can give your brain from stressful thinking

through mindfulness just paying trying to teach yourself to pay closer attention to what you're doing at the moment, rather than worrying constantly about what's going on in the background. It is something you can train your brain to do just like a muscle. And that actually really does help. Intimacy helps alleviate stress, physical contact with other people, social engagement and exercise all help you deal with stress. Of course, when you're stressed, sometimes it's hard to make you do those things. But if you could just pick one small thing, say, okay, I'm going to sit at my desk and I'm going to visualize myself out in nature.

I'm going to do some deep breathing. It may feel kind of pointless. In fact, it's not. And this is what the science has shown. What about the issue of, but it's too late, I'm too old? that show some remarkable changes. There's an exercise physiologist, a researcher at McMaster University named Mark Tonopolsky who's done some wonderful studies. And one of the things, for example, was he took a group of individuals, an older group and a younger group, and exercised them 45 minutes a day, three times a week for five months. And the difference in the mitochondria production in their muscles had reverted back almost to, in the older group, had reverted back to youthful levels. It was almost a complete reversal of the aging process.

Another example is a group of elderly subjects who were put on a Mediterranean diet for four weeks. And after four weeks, the level of senescent cells, and those are resting cell cells that have ceased their normal active dividing life cycle, had dramatically decreased in their vascular system. And the percentage of cells that had shortening telomeres had also decreased dramatically. Just after four weeks on the Mediterranean diet, and these were people in their, I think, 70s and 80s. So absolutely 100%, it is never too late.

And the great thing is it doesn't take that much. And it also, if you engage in some of these activities with friends, you get the social benefit also, which also has been shown to have pretty dramatic anti-aging properties. One of the things I think that concerns people, and the reason that they often don't get too invested in this, is because, you know, the advice seems to change a lot. You know, what's good this week isn't good next week. No, it's true. You're absolutely right. And there's so much, you know, there's so many conflicting quote-unquote programs out there. You know, there are so many books, and here I'm adding another book to the mix,

but there are so many books, there are so many programs, there are so many celebrities and celebrity doctors all saying, do it this way, do it that way. But I think what's really great, what's different about my book, I believe, is that there's a certain fundamental approach to health that everybody sort of always knows. It's what your mother told you. It's what the government says and they eat, you know, five servings of fruits and vegetables a day that you just kind of know, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that. That's going to make me healthy. It is almost so obvious and so out there that people don't really pay much attention to it. And I think people need,

they need concrete examples of why something works, why it's going to work. And if I don't see the difference from eating an apple for a week, is it really making a difference? In fact, it is. And so you need to know why. You need to be armed with some information about what's going on inside your body

so that you feel empowered. And quite frankly, if you do something good for yourself, it makes you feel better about yourself, right? It makes you feel like you can do it. Yeah, well, I think everybody wants to look as good as they can and want to stay looking young as long as they can. And it's nice to know that maybe it's not as hard as people thought. Margaret Pressler has been my guest. She is the author of the book, Cheat the Clock. She is also a reporter

for the Washington Post. And you will find a link to her book at Amazon in the show notes. Hi, this is Rob Benedict. And I am Richard Spate. We were both on a little show you might know called Supernatural. It had a pretty good run, 15 seasons, 327 episodes. And though we have seen, of course, every episode many times, we figured, hey, now that we're wrapped, let's watch it all again. And we can't do that alone. So we're inviting the cast and crew that made the show

along for the ride. We've got writers, producers, composers, directors, and we'll of course have some actors on as well, including some certain guys that played some certain pretty iconic brothers. It was kind of a little bit of a left field choice in the best way possible. The note from Kripke was, he's great, we love him, but we're looking for like a really intelligent Duchovny type. With 15 seasons to explore, it's going to be the road trip of several lifetimes. So please join us and subscribe to Supernatural then and now.

People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples,

Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson, discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence

Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. There's no shortage of leadership gurus in the world, and so much of their advice tends to be business-oriented. It's for managers, bosses, corporate bigwigs, and the like. But we all have to be leaders at times in our lives. We lead our children. We lead others at work, even if we're not the CEO. So I want to talk about leadership

on a more individual scale, less corporate-y, although this certainly applies to leadership in the workplace as well. My guest is Courtney Lynch. She is a self-proclaimed leadership junkie, and she is co-author of a new best-selling book out called Spark, How to Lead Yourself and Others to Greater Success. Welcome, Courtney. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm excited to talk about leadership. So I don't usually like to start by asking people, you know, so tell me about yourself, but I think you have an interesting story here with your co-authors coming out of the military and all, so I am going to ask you to tell me about yourself. So tell me about yourself.

Sure, happy to do so. I think the most important thing to know about me is I'm a leadership geek, but I also was an accidental leader. I'm someone that learned leadership, I guess, in a pretty nontraditional way. At 21 years of age, I made this interesting career choice to join the United States Marine Corps. And to give you perspective, I think maybe gender career choice to join the United States Marine Corps. And to give you perspective, I think maybe gender makes it a little bit more interesting. Out of 180,000 Marines, only about 1,000 are female Marine Corps officers. So I had this very unique experience

that not many people get learning to lead as a Marine Corps officer. So I grew up in the Marines. I'm an attorney. I worked in software. Yet all of these different things I've done in my career, the one common thread has been the leadership lessons that I learned firsthand in the military. Yet over the past 13, 14 years, I've been consulting with our nation and our world's leading organizations, companies like Facebook and Google and Walmart and FedEx, helping them really understand how to leverage leadership skills and capabilities of their employees for greater success for the organization. So I'm a leader. That's the best way to describe me with probably a unique background, yet it's all added up to being

able to help others build their leadership skills. Well, you are quite a leadership smarty pants, aren't you? It's what I love. So the idea of the book and what your message is, is what in big broad strokes here? The idea is that all of us have this ability to lead others well. It's just not a skill set that a lot of us have spent a lot of time developing, right? I've met so many great professionals, right? Amazing technical skills, advanced degrees, very capable, very qualified, high intellects, right? Other smarty pants is out there. Yet, what we often don't do, especially here in our American culture,

is build leadership skills. Well, I think there's a sense that, you here in our American culture, is build leadership skills. Well, I think there's a sense that, you know, leaders are born, not made, and that there's certain leadership type people that are better leaders than others. But my guess is you don't agree with that. Well, you know, I think part and part of the fact I do, right, I think about, you know, there's been some really amazing studies. One of the best ones is out of the University of Minnesota, a longitudinal study of identical twins, where they really looked at that born versus made question. And that research, looking at other research, kind of comes down about 70-30. 30% of our ability to lead is inherent at birth. Things like our IQ, things like maybe we lean towards extroversion. People tend to think extroverts are better leaders.

Charisma, our ability to influence and inspire, though, comes from truly our behaviors every day, and that's the extra 70%. What type of mindset do we have? What type of behaviors are we demonstrating? So, yes, some things fixed at birth, but the born with it piece, I think falls away when you realize the majority of our ability to lead is based on the choices we make every day about how we're showing up and what behaviors we're demonstrating. But a lot of introverts, for example, might have real trouble with some of those behaviors. It's hard to, you know, be charming and extroverted when you're not naturally. See, I don't think charm and extrovert didn't actually have much to do with leadership, right? I think they're just a small piece.

I think we're actually in the era of the introvert, that great book, Quiet, that commanded a lot of attention not too long ago. And a lot of the research is moving towards with the nature of technology today. Again, the era of the introvert is upon us. And I think the type of behaviors I'm talking about are things around your ability to be accountable, your ability to have a sense of service towards

others, your ability to credibly meet and exceed standards. They transcend personality types versus extroversion or introversion. I think they're more behaviors that anyone, whether you're social and outgoing or more quiet and prefer to be on your own, can truly leverage to be effective. Well, explain those behaviors in real people terms, because they can sound a bit platitudy when you say exceed standards and all that. It sounds kind of like report card stuff. But what does it mean in day-to-day?

How do people do this? Well, how do people do credibility, right? You're talking about exceed standards. The interesting thing about credibility is it's not us that evaluates our credibility. Credibility is in the eye of the beholder, meaning other people are always racking and stacking you, right? People are always evaluating you, trying to decide, can I trust this person? Do they know what they're talking about? Are they going to be able to get the job done? That's real world happening to us all the time, anytime we're interacting with another

human being. So being credible means really understanding what does success look like in this organization? What are the standards? People that are doing well here, people that are contributing at highest levels, what are they doing? How are they understanding success? And how are they actually taking steps to meet and exceed those standards? And the interesting thing is, you know, we can have standards in our job, right? We have a boss who tells us what needs to be done. That's one opportunity to be credible, right? Meeting and exceeding what we're asked to do.

But a lot of our credibility comes from our ability to read the circumstances and take some initiative in the areas sometimes we don't necessarily agree with or we're not excited about taking action there, but those could be the things that actually help us be as credible as possible in an organization. I think a lot of people believe, though, and live the idea that if you show up and you do your job and you do it well, everything else takes care of itself. I think that that's where credibility comes from. Yet, I think there's a bit more to it, right? I think there's this dynamic of, are you someone that naturally, through how you engage with other people, has the ability to influence? And I think, again, we were talking earlier about accountability.

When problems happen, so you show up, you're doing your job, but something inevitably goes wrong. What do you do about it? Are you the person that jumps on the blame bandwagon, right? It's become so socially acceptable to kind of blame someone else or blame a system or blame a process. Are you the person that can own it, right? Seeking to take responsibility, not placing blame, and then gets to what matters most. How are we going to solve it and resolve it, right? So I think, yeah, if our worlds were super simple and we could show up every day and everything was easy, it would be just showing up and doing your job. Yet the challenges of today's world, we're probably going to find a problem before we're an hour or two into our morning.

And how do we take initiative at those points and take ownership and work to solve those challenges? I think that's the above and beyond that's valuable and adds to credibility. Because this subject is big, it's really big and kind of hard to get your head around, if someone's listening and saying, well, gee, this all sounds good, but where do you begin? How do you start showing up the way you're talking, very specifically in everyday terms? Maybe some examples would help of what would I be doing differently if I did what you're talking about that maybe I'm not doing now? You know, I think the biggest accelerant to how we develop as a leader, and again, I think it's important. I'm thinking about leadership, not about being the boss or notoriety or power or prestige. Now,

if those things are important to someone, I think that's great. Nothing wrong with being the boss or having power or maybe having notoriety or prestige in your life. Yet, I'm talking about your ability as a person to do two things really well. How well do you as an individual influence outcomes and inspire others, right? That's what I'm talking about. And every day in our lives, whether we're a parent, an employee, involved in a volunteer organization, we have to influence and inspire to get along well with others and to get things done. And so I would say to someone that, hey, how do I elevate? How do I get better? How do I find more success? Self-awareness. What are your blind spots? And when I talk about blind spots, okay, it seems, okay, they're blind. I'm blind

to them. How am I going to know what they are? But can you really critically look at yourself and look at yourself with an eye for what does everybody else know about me that I'm not quite seeing around my own behavior? Like a practical example, I think sometimes, you know, we have tempers. People get angry, right? And in a professional situation, let's bring it to the working world. What's your go-to behavior when you're angry? Some people, it's scream and yell, raise your voice. Some people, it's withdraw,

right? We all have these behaviors that maybe are less than best when we're under stress or when we're angry. And so it's really taking a step back and saying, you know, is that behavior the most productive? What could I be doing better in those circumstances? And I think that's a key. If someone wants to develop their leadership skills, they have to really be open to certainly recognizing, well, what are my positive blind spots? What are the things that maybe little things I do each day that are of value to people? But then they also have to look at those blind spots that are self-defeating and maybe holding them back a bit too. So you have to be really up for a cold hard look at what's working here and what's not working here.

When you say inspire others, is that just doing you better, or is that a deliberate act of, hey, you, come here, I'm going to inspire you? Not in those words, but deliberately go out and attempt to inspire. I don't think it is. I'm kind of a charismatic, give a great speech, I'm going to rah-rah you to inspiration. I think it's more a subtle way. Do I, because of who I am, have an impact on you that's positive? And sometimes, you know, at work, that's about people getting work done. And sometimes in life, that's about, hey, look at

that person, look at their track record of success, look at their character, look at their actions in this moment. There's always an opportunity to inspire and there's always an opportunity to influence. My guest is Courtney Lynch. She is co-author of the best-selling book, Spark, How to Lead Yourself and Others to Greater Success. And we're talking about leadership skills and developing your leadership skills. Do you love Disney?

Then you are going to love our hit podcast disney countdown i'm megan the magical millennial and i'm the dapper danielle on every episode of our fun and family-friendly show we count down our top 10 lists of all things disney there is nothing we don't cover we are famous for rabbit holes disney themed games and fun facts you didn't know you needed but you definitely need in your life so if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? Each week we deliver four fun-filled shows. In Don't Blame Me, we tackle our listeners' dilemmas with hilariously honest advice then we have but am i wrong which is

for the listeners that didn't take our advice plus we share our hot takes on current events then tune in to see you next tuesday for our listener poll results from but am i wrong and finally wrap up your week with fisting friday where we catch up and talk all things pop culture listen to don't blame me but am i Am I Wrong on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. So Courtney, these other behaviors that you talk about, like act with intent and be of service and confidence, and I think confidence is probably one that people struggle with because if you're not naturally self-confident, it's hard to fake it. You can't fake it, right?

I think that's a really popular adage out there, right? Fake it till you make it. And I wholeheartedly disagree with it. Confidence comes from within. You can't fake it, but you can build it. And I think that all my work with leaders through the years, I've been very focused on, well, the ones that were confident, what was it? And digging into the research and then working with folks to develop confidence, it's internal. So much of what you project outwardly is because of where you are internally.

And so in the book and Spark, we talk about really several categories, right? Taking time to recognize your success, even if it's making it through a difficult Tuesday, right? We all have those pretty terrible days. And so being proud, again, internally, not telling everybody how great you are for making it through your difficult Tuesday. Confidence can be borderline arrogance, but really the sincere understanding of your own beliefs and capabilities, positive self-talk, right? I mean, that was one that I found a little trivial when I first heard about it, right? But really understanding what we're telling ourselves internally has a big difference on how we show up to others in the world.

And then simple things. I mean, confidence is an emotion, right? Confidence isn't a skill. Yet you still can practice bringing that emotion to the forefront when you need it the most. And some of that is understanding things that, you know, in Superman terms are kryptonite to your confidence. Things like fear, worry, insecurity, very commonly felt human emotions. Yet, how often are you allowing them to get into your thinking and disperse and get rid of your confidence, right?

When the moment you start to feel afraid, the moment you're paralyzed by worry, or the moment that you start to evaluate yourself against others and you don't quite feel like you're stacking up, those are the moments that kill your confidence. And so really just by understanding the internal dynamics of confidence, it can translate to that stronger confidence projected outward. Well, that sense of, I think it's been called the imposter syndrome of, you know, I really feel like I don't deserve this. I don't know how I got here, but sooner or later,

everybody's going to find me out for the fraud that I am. I think everybody feels that, and that's pretty tough to deal with. I think everybody feels that, and I love it, Mike, that you're calling that out, right? That's kind of the secret behind the curtain, and that's the unique thing about my work, right, is the privilege of it is I get to spend time with such amazing, talented leaders, right? I've had clients literally that were on the cover of Time magazine when I'm traveling to their client sites, yet I know them as people, and I see that they're dealing with these very same issues. People are people.

So, yes, it's not dismissing those feelings that are so common. It's working through them. And that's, I think, where a little bit of my Marine training comes into play, because they didn't teach us. I mean, think about courage, right? I mean, can courage really be taught? They didn't teach us. I mean, think about courage, right? I mean, can courage really be taught? They didn't teach us to dismiss our fears. What they taught us to do was to face our fears and to move forward in spite of them, right? Acknowledging our own fallible nature as humans,

right? We all get scared. We all make mistakes, right? These are common experiences for all of us as people. Yet, what do you do to rise above when you're in those circumstances and lives depend on it? Now in the private sector, maybe it's not always life or death. But I think for professionals today, we take our careers so seriously and we're proud of them. we can work through challenges within ourselves or work to lead and serve and add value to other people more effectively. That's the essence of leadership development. So how do you, in some nuts and bolts, do that? Because I think when people hear things like work through your feelings and all this, their eyes glaze over. I don't know what that means. It's recognize them, right? Sometimes it's name your fears if we're talking about confidence.

If we're talking about accountability, it's recognizing. I am stuck in this storyline. I'm blaming everybody else, right? I mean, again, we blame credit card companies for getting us into debt. We blame fast food restaurants for making us fat. We blame our child's teacher for what our kid's not doing, right? I think practical nuts and bolts terms is we have to take ownership of what's going well in our lives and celebrate that, and that contributes

to confidence, or what's not going well. Take ownership of that and figure out what are some steps to betterment. Yeah, well, and that's that hard look in the mirror you talked about that some people aren't willing to take. Yeah, and I think everyone has the potential to be a better leader, yet will and commitment have to be present to that process. How, I don't know, not how easy is this, but I mean, is this like a lifelong journey, or is this something you can work on for six months and really see the difference? I think you can work on it for six days or six minutes and see the difference as long as you're open to developing. Yet, none of us will ever be the perfect leader.

We can always be better, again, as much as we commit to being better. So it can be. And I think for most folks who are achieving the success that matters to them, they've made it a commitment to continuously develop. They're in a very much a growth mindset perspective. And then I think some people, and that doesn't mean they're bad or wrong, but are in more of a fixed mindset. And that's where they're staying. And if that works for them, I think that's great. I think people are drawn to leadership development, though, at times when they get feedback from someone else that they need to develop their leadership skills, right? And like you've suggested, sometimes that can be a bit vague. Yet, if something's not going according to plan or

something doesn't feel like it's working well, turning to developing yourself and developing your leadership skills can often be a very efficient and effective path to betterment. Well, that's a really interesting take on leadership. And as I said, as we started this discussion, that it's different than the usual corporate business boss manager leadership skills. This is more about how people look inward to become better leaders. So thanks. Courtney Lynch has been my guest. She's author of the book, Spark, How to Lead Yourself and Others to Greater Success. And you'll find a link to the book on Amazon on the show notes page for this episode of the podcast. And all of our episodes are located at our website,

somethingyoushouldknow.net. Thanks, Courtney. Hey, thank you. I appreciate your time, and thanks for having us be a part of the show. Whether or not you're a great cook, or maybe you just boil water and make some pasta every once in a while, no matter what, I've got some expert tips for you that will make your cooking much better. They come from the website popsugar.com. First of all, protein, including eggs, protein hates heat. So if you've always ended up with overcooked and rubbery scrambled eggs, it's because you probably cooked them too quickly at too high a heat. Low and slow is the only way to get soft, custardy scrambled eggs. Next, almost every time

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cookie is better with salt on it. When you take the cookies out of the oven, sprinkle them with just a little good quality flake salt, preferably, you know, big flake salt like kosher salt, and it completely transforms the flavor of the chocolate chip cookies. And that is something you should know. And that is our podcast today. You can subscribe to this podcast for free, and that way the episodes get delivered right to whatever device you listen on. Just click the subscribe button on whatever platform you're listening on.

I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. Thank you. And someone is watching Ruth. Chinook. Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. Lessons with every quest, sword fight, and dragon ride. Positive and uplifting stories remind us all about the importance of kindness, friendship, honesty, and positivity. Join me and an all-star cast of actors, including Liam Neeson, Emily Blunt, Kristen Bell, Chris Hemsworth, among many others,

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