The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Mentally Strong Leader: Build the Habits to Productively Regulate Your Emotions, Thoughts, and Behaviors by Scott Mautz

Episode Date: April 25, 2024

The Mentally Strong Leader: Build the Habits to Productively Regulate Your Emotions, Thoughts, and Behaviors by Scott Mautz https://amzn.to/3QeDkvJ Manage yourself internally so you can lead better externally Award-winning, bestselling author Scott Mautz defines mental strength as the ability to self-regulate emotions, thoughts, and behaviors to achieve exceptional outcomes, despite adversity. It’s the leadership superpower of our times. Mentally strong leaders are confident and in control of themselves and their environment; they have endurance, are disciplined, and external stressors make their decision-making sharper. They’re a safe port in a storm for their team. The Mentally Strong Leader gives readers a mental exercise plan to become such a leader. Readers will walk away with a menu of over 50 proven tools they can choose from to build a tailored set of habits in six areas that will make them mentally stronger: Fortitude Decision-making Confidence Goal-focus Boldness Messaging Inspired by Mautz’s hit LinkedIn Learning course, “10 Habits of Mentally Strong People,” his 25 years leading some of Procter & Gamble’s multi-billion-dollar businesses, and over 30 years of studying this topic, The Mentally Strong Leader relies on mental models, data and research, habit-building science, and practical tools and exercises to create enduring understandings for readers. Mautz begins with a compelling explanation of the power of mental strength, and offers a Mental Strength Self-Assessment. He finishes, as he has in his past titles, like Leading from the Middle, and Make it Matter, by providing a Mental Action Plan (MAP) to help readers create their own, tailored practice. About the author ● Scott Mautz is a popular business-inspirational keynote speaker who talks and trains internationally on leadership/self- leadership, world-class teams, employee engagement, thriving in change, peak performance, and creating meaning at work ● He’s a former Procter & Gamble senior executive who successfully ran four of the company’s largest multi-billion dollar businesses all while transforming organizational health scores along the way ● He's a multi award-winning author who's books include: Leading from the Middle, Find the Fire, and Make It Matter ● Scott is Faculty at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business for Executive Education, where he teaches others-oriented leadership and the secret to sustaining motivation ● He’s been named a “CEO Thought-leader” by The Chief Executives Guild and a "Top 50 Leadership Innovator" by Inc.com, where he was a top columnist with well over 1 million monthly readers ● Scott’s the CEO of Profound Performance™, a keynote, training, and coaching company that helps you ignite profound performance ● He’s a frequent guest across national media

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. I'm Oaks Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. There you go, ladies and gentlemen. There are ladies and gentlemen. That makes it official. Welcome to the show.

We certainly appreciate having you guys. As always, we have the most smartest, amazing people on the show. The great book authors, the Pulitzer Prize winners, the billionaires, the CEOs, and everybody's on the show. There's just one dumb guy who's on the show, and it's me with the mic. So there you go. Invite your family, friends, and relatives. Remember, you need to have five people in your downline for the Chris Voss Show. It's not an MLM.

Don't want to go to goodreads.com, 4Chess Chris Voss. YouTube.com, 4Chess Chris Voss. Chris Voss won the TikTok and all those crazy places on the internet. Today we have an amazing gentleman on the show. He's an author of the newest book coming out May 7, 2024. It's called The Mentally Strong Leader, Building the Habits to Productively Regulate Your Emotions, Thoughts, and Behaviors. Scott Mautz is on the show with us today, and we're going to talk to him about his amazing

book, his insights, and everything that goes into it. He is a former senior executive, proctor, and gamble, where he successfully ran several of the company's largest multi-billion dollar businesses. He's the author of four multi-award winning best-selling books, including his latest, and let's see, Thoughts and Behaviors, and then I think I got my commas out of place here, but his latest one is the one we just referenced,

so there you go. I think Thoughts and Behaviors, I think is the end of the line. I'm missing here on the comma. He is faculty on reserve in indiana's university kelly's school of business for executive education he is also a popular course instructor on linkedin learning where his course has been taken 1.5 million times he's been named a ceo thought leader by the ceo executive guild at inc.com, where Scott was named Top 50 Leadership Innovator.

His column grew to nearly 2 million readers a month, and he frequently appears in a variety of national media and now on The Chris Voss Show. Welcome to the show, Scott. How are you? I'm doing great. I can't wait to meet that guy you described. I'm ready to be like Chris Voss Floss. I'm going to clean out the dentrite between

your listeners' teeth and try to pack it in with, you know, wisdom and tips and insight. Is that something I could do? Am I allowed to do that? I mean, you're sure if you want. I mean, have you seen my teeth lately though? My dentist says, and he's bought a new boat. Oh yeah.

Oh, there you go. There you go. He, he immediately, he said, we've looked at your x-rays, Chris, and I just ordered our yacht. So, Scott, did I get your last name right? I want to make sure we hit that right. Yeah, that's right. Scott Mautz, M-A-U-T-Z. I'm just happy to be here.

You can pronounce it any way you want. You are sure happy to be here. We love it. Give us your dot coms. Where can people find you on the interwebs? Yeah, you can find me at scottmouts.com. And you can learn about my keynoting that I do there, my workshops, all that good stuff. You can learn about my book, The Mentally Strong Leader.

And I'll even tell up front, I put together a gift for your beloved audience today. Oh, a gift. You like gifts? We love gifts, yeah. Gifts are good. So if your listeners go right up front to scottmouts.com slash mentallystronggift, they're going to get a 60 page PDF that includes a mental strength self-assessment that I'm going to talk about

in a minute and prompts to get the most out of the book, The Mentally Strong Leader. So scottmouts.com slash mentallystronggift. There you go. So give us a 30,000 overview. What's in your new book? Yeah, it's about the mentally strong leader. This just in, Chris, it's about mental strength. And mental strength is the ability to regulate your emotions, your thoughts, and your behaviors for productive outcomes, even in adversity, regardless of circumstances. As I like to say, it's how we manage internally so that we can lead externally at work and in life.

And here's the thing, Chris. I think you intuitively know this, and your listeners intuitively know that if you want to succeed at work and in life, you have to be pretty darn good at regulating your emotions and your thoughts and your behaviors for productive outcomes. But here's a secret. It's really hard. It's really hard to do that. But if you know how to build the habits to increase your mental strength, it turns out that it's the secret sauce for training your brain to achievement, which I'll talk about that more. But does that make sense as an overall what this book is about? Yeah. I mean, we need habits to pull that off because you've got to develop them and

develop the new characteristics. So we're going to come back to your book. Let's talk a little bit about you. People like to meet the author as going to come back to your book. Let's talk a little bit about you. People like to meet the author as well. Tell us about your upbringing. You've written several books, I can see. And what was things that influenced you? Maybe got you into the business side of things that you were into, learning about leadership, or writing the books you did.

Yeah, I grew up in the corporate world, Chris. I'm going to imagine. You were a baby? You were taken by the corporation from childbirth? It sounds like Tarzan. Yeah, corporate wolves. They brought me out into the woods and they taught me everything that I know how to fend for myself, which if anyone has worked in the corporate world,

that's pretty much what it's like. They drop you off and you figure it out and fend for yourself. That's what I should have done with my kids when they turned three. It certainly beats changing diapers. I'm going to feed you the corporate wolves on Wall Street. I think that's how Ivan Bioski turned out. It's probably exactly what happened. So I, you know, sputtered my way through corporate life

from one assignment to the next, you know, really enjoying them all and having a good time rising the ranks. But then I really had a lot more fun, Chris, in studying along the way for really the past three decades, what makes great leaders great. And why do achievers like Chris Voss achieve so much? I mean, I didn't get a top 1% podcast. I mean, come on, man. I did that.

I paid a guy though. Yeah, you paid a guy. I paid a guy to do that. You got a guy? I got a guy that could do that. Yeah. I paid, I paid. I always get those invites on LinkedIn.

We can make you successful with your podcast. You know, I'm like, you know, mine's been around for 16 years and 2,000 episodes. I think we kind of already arrived, but yeah. You need an auto-respond that says, hey, I think I can make you successful. How about that? I do. Yeah. So, yeah, I grew up in the corporate world and just really developed a love for the study

of leadership and what makes great leaders great. And it really led me to the conclusion that mental strength is the leadership superpower of today. And I'll describe later how that is. But to your question, that's what I kind of grew up in. And I was so eager to get out of that corporate world and broaden my platform for making a difference with the written and the spoken word and to influence through the microphone eager to get out of that corporate world and broaden my platform for making a difference with the written and the spoken word and to influence through the microphone like you do

and on stage in front of folks. So maybe we're kindred souls in another life. I don't know. Maybe you're my spirit animal. I have no idea, Chris. I think we're just two people who have a really big goddamn mouth and narcissistic abilities. And why you can't wait to get in front of the world to tell people about it that's probably more the truth that i always tell people i like i like talking to people and learning about them because i'm sick of me so i don't i'm over me man i like hearing other people's stories i'm like damn i should have done that with my life that sounds great now would you when you say people are mentally strong is this reference to like emotional intelligence yeah good question

chris it's almost as if you've done this you know whole podcasting before here's the thing emotional intelligence think about it this way it is a slice under the broader umbrella of mental strength right and you know you got this thing called mental strength i'll define that further in a second underneath is emotional intelligence which is a piece of it emotional intelligence of course is the ability to regulate your emotions, to work for you versus against you, and that's clearly part of it. But mental strength is broader than that. As it turns out, mental strength is composed of six core mental muscles, which are fortitude, confidence, boldness, decision-making, goal focus,

the ability to stay focused on your goals, and the ability to message positively to your troops, to keep a positive veneer around your messages and not fall into negativity and keep a quality to your presence. But negativity is so much fun when you throw it at people. It's a lot more fun to be negative, I think, at times, but it's not as productive for us, Chris. You know, newsflash for us at life and in work as well.

So it's these four, it's these six mental muscles that work together that equate to mental strength with emotional intelligence just being a slice of the broader umbrella of mental strength. Does that make sense? It surely does. It certainly does. The judge has already told me I can't throw people out the second story window anymore. It's a callback joke on the show.

You've identified the six mental muscles that make up mental strength. How do you help leaders figure out which of these muscles they need to improve on? Yeah. In the book, The Mentally Strong Leader, which through technology, am I pointing the right way? Yes, I am to the book here. Through the book, for those that are watching at home, I'm pointing to my book cover. Through The Mentally Strong Leader, the cool thing is, Chris, is right off the bat, second chapter, you could take a mental strength self-assessment, something I've been working on for years, decades, validating and revalidating over and over again. It's a 50 question self-assessment test you take that gives you an overall mental strength score, as well as scores by each one of the mental muscles that constitute mental strength. So not only do you get your overall mental strength score and see how you stack up and what you have to work on overall, you understand where you score on fortitude, confidence, boldness, decision-making, goal focus, and messaging as well.

All applicable to both, of course, work and in life. And then the cool thing about that is, Chris, is that when you go to the gym, you don't work on all your muscles all the time, although maybe you do. I don't know. I don't. Wednesday is leg day. Thursday is back day. Friday is arm day.

The cool thing is, is with this mental strength self-assessment, you get a chance to figure out which muscles mentally you really need to work on. It allows you to create a customized mental strength training program all together that's right exactly for you. That's how leaders can tell what they need to work on. There you go. So I need to take my mental strength to the gym, as it were. That's exactly right. And take the assessment so you know where to work out, yeah. There you go. So I need to take my mental strength to the gym, as it were. That's exactly right.

And take the assessment so you know where to work out, yeah. There you go. You forgot butt day. Yeah, butt day. Yeah. Or what I like to call Beyonce or who's the other chick? I don't know. Yeah, I'm sure you have a great butt.

I have a great butt for podcasting. There you go. People accuse me of talking on my butt while podcasting. That's a nice story. It's in of talking on my but will podcast. It's in the reviews on iTunes, evidently. I understand that. There you go. Easily want to get into politics, I find.

So I've downloaded your self-assessment mental strength thing. It looks pretty cool. You can go through and it asks you, are you dumb as Chris Voss? If not, you're fine. And you know, are you resilient in the face of setbacks and different questions that are in the six things you identified as what's important? And so this is great. You can go through this and take the test. And then do they upload it?

Do you upload it to you when you're done or do you score it yourself or? Yeah, you score it yourself and then you determine what tier you fall into, you know, from the highest tier of being. You can be a beacon of mental strength. People are drawn to you as a source of mental strength, all the way down to a level that I call Chris Fogg, no, a novice, but you call it the novice level where you're just getting started on the journey. And here's the cool, other cool thing, Chris, you know, about taking the mental strength self-assessment is here's why it's worth your time.

I took an inordinate amount of time to do research on mental strength over the last several decades, including a study a couple of years ago of over 3,000 executives. And I asked those 3,000 executives one thing, thinking of the highest achieving organizations you've ever been a part of that overcame the most obstacles, what were the attributes of the key leader in that organization? And over 91%, Chris, of those 3,000 executives, all detailed the same profile, a mentally strong leader that flexed the mental muscles we're talking about, fortitude, confidence, boldness, decision-making, right? Knowing how to message positively to the troops and having goal focus. So it's what makes

me really believe that mental strength is the leadership superpower of our time and self-leadership superpower of our time. And you can figure out what you need to work on simply by taking the mental strength self-assessment in the book. Yeah, that's awesome. Nailing it down and working on the aspects that maybe you think you're weak in, maybe you think you're strong in. Now, one of the things that you say is you call leadership the superpower of our times. Do I get a cape with that? And why do you refer to it as that?

What does it mean? Yeah, it's because of the fact that its correlation to achievement is irrefutable. You know, it references back to that study I was just talking about with the 3,000 executives that they were pinpointed as the ones that achieved the most are the ones that have mental strength. And we all know that, but it's so difficult to put into play.

It's what makes it a leadership superpower. But here's the good news. In case if the listener is thinking, well, how am I going to develop a superpower? You know, I don't have, you know, I wasn't born on Krypton and I don't have all these powers. Here's the cool thing about the Mentally Strong Leader. It's built on, remember the subtitle, it's how you build the habits productively to regulate your emotions, your thoughts, and your behaviors. So I have baked in habit-building science, especially in three ways, Chris, and I'll hit them super quick. First of all, you learn habits by repetitions, right? Think of any habit that you've ever built for

yourself, Chris. You had to repeat it over and over again to make it a habit. It's ingrained in the definition of habit. What creates repetitions? Systems and frameworks. And in the over 50 tools that are in the book, The Mentally Strong Leader, they're all built as systems or frameworks to help you get those reps habit building science point number one point number two we often don't build habits because we don't know where to start for all the 50 habits that are in the book that help you to become mentally stronger every habit every tool includes your first small step section so you know exactly where to start as well as it includes a section

that addresses the third habit building science point built into the book, which is in moments of weakness. What do you do? We often don't build those habits we want because we break down in those moments. Think about confidence. You might be super confident most of the time. You go into a meeting with your boss and you get dressed down and you feel like an idiot or your peer said something more awesome than you did. You start to spiral down. So what do you do in those moments of weakness to grab hold and make that habit strong? And through that habit, building science in the mentally strong leader, it makes it a very, very tenable thing to do to build your mental strength.

Ah, there you go. People need these skills because you're right. Yeah, you can be as confident as all heck, but if you meet crisis and you're going to meet some crisis as people, newsflash, at least 5,000 or more, you're going to have to build that muscle. And you're right. It is a muscle. A lot of these things are, as you say, the mental muscles and being good at them.

I mean, nobody makes all the best decisions all the time or being able to make decisions in a format that can be quick and efficient. And you've got to develop that as a leader or as just a human being for that matter. Jesus. Yeah, that's right. And, you know, and the opposite of being mentally strong is not being mentally weak, Chris. It's not. We all have a baseline of mental strength that we can build from.

You just have to know how to do that, which is, you know, the reason why I put so much time and effort into this book, The Mentally Strong Leader, to help you be able to do that. And, you know, emotion is such a crippling thing when it comes to business. If you're reactive, I should say, you know, you can use emotion for empathy and different things, which I think a lot of good leaders have. But reactive emotion that's quick to anger, quick to judgment, quick to, you know, just reactive in its nature instead of, you know, using logic and rational thought is a dangerous thing to have. Because you'll usually make very poor decision making. It doesn't show a lot of fortitude. You know, I don't think a lot of people realize there's levels to emotional intelligence. I've been told by some people on this earth that there's a certain culture of our sex that is the best at emotional intelligence,

and that's certainly not true for anything I've seen. But there's levels to it. And if you can't control your emotions, you're certainly at the lower levels of that. And you're very low on emotional intelligence. And you want to be higher up on the scale when it comes to emotional intelligence. And, you know, be able to control your things. That's why I study stoicism, meditations, Mark Raelius, Epictetus, and other people like that. Because they talk about using logic

and reason to regulate your emotions. You can have emotions. They're fine. But it's whether or not you're reacting in a way that's very emotional as opposed to using logic and reason to sit there and go, I'm having an emotion. Hmm. When I think about this, why am I having this emotion? What is this causing me to want to do?

And is this the right thing to do? And, you know, thinking through that whole process as opposed to just flipping off at the handle. Yeah, that's right, Chris. And it doesn't have to be difficult. I'll give you an example, if I may, you know, of how to kind of navigate negative emotions when you're experiencing them in the moment. It's a tool I share in the fortitude section of the Mentally Strong Leader to build that muscle. But it's called the redirect rhythm. I've been teaching it for years. And it's four steps that anybody can do, Chris, and they happen laser fast in your brain once you learn all four, right?

When you feel that negative emotion overcoming you to your point, right? The first thing you do is you have to just create space, right? And we all have heard the term of, you know, take a breath. We all know that. But what science shows us, what's happening when you're taking a breath, is you're distancing yourself from the intensity of the emotion you're feeling. You're freeing yourself from the gravitational pull that's taking you someplace. You don't want that emotion to take you as a leader or even as a human being. So first, you just have to create space and take a breath that takes you instantly to the next step where you name the emotion you're feeling. So let's say we're having an exchange, Chris, and we're not agreeing. And I could feel my temperature rising and I stop and I say, okay, I've taken a breath and I say, okay, what I'm feeling, the emotion

I'm feeling is anger. I feel like Chris doesn't understand what I'm saying. He doesn't agree with me. We instantly then go into the final two steps of the redirect rhythm, which is at that point, you have to reassess and redirect. You have to reassess and ask yourself, what's really happening here? What's really happening is Chris doesn't agree with me, but not because he's a jerk, but because maybe I'm not making my case strong enough. How am I going to redirect that? What's going to happen next?

What I'm going to do is take a breath and re-explain myself. So you get these four steps right in a row. You take a breath, you name the emotion, you reassess, you redirect, and you could start to control your emotions better. And like you said, nobody said, check your emotions at the door. That doesn't work ever, ever. But if you do things like this, you can build the habits to become mentally stronger in that way. Yeah. It's, it's, it's really important to manage those different things. Now, when you talk about, one of the things you talked about was confidence. There's a lot of people that have imposter syndrome. Yeah. Tell us about that and how people can combat that. Yeah. Imposter syndrome, you know, for those of you that are not certain what it is, it's when

you're, you're not accepting where you are, your station in life, what you've accomplished, right? And you just believe, look, I'm an imposter. I don't know how I got here. I don't deserve how I got here. I don't know how that all worked out. Imposter syndrome, I talk about it in the Mentally Strong Leader. I'm going to just highlight three of the core steps that you could take. There's more than this, but to imposter syndrome.

The first thing you have to do is exactly what you would expect, Chris. First and foremost, you have to own your accomplishments. You have to ask yourself, what am I underestimating or underappreciating myself for? What am I assigning credit for to somebody else that doesn't deserve it? How do I, you know, if I had to be a defense attorney defending my station in life, how I got here, what argument would I make saying, no, own your accomplishments. You got there. Step one.

Now, the problem with that is, Chris, you can't just stop there because that could still produce the yeah, but effect, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know I'm Chris Foss. I know I've got a number of top 1% podcasts in the world, but I still feel like an imposter because, and that's natural. That's what takes you to the next step where you have to be open to imposter discomfort, but closed to imposter thoughts. In other words, it's okay to park in the background. I have this doubt about where my station in life is. I have this doubt that I can lead the team, but I'm not going to focus on whether or not I can lead the team. I'm going to focus on how I can lead the team, but I'm not going to focus on whether or not

I can lead the team. I'm going to focus on how I can lead the team, for example. So it's okay to have that discomfort. You can't fall victim though to the thought of, therefore I don't belong running this team. You have to think about it as a thought bubble almost outside of your head. That thought is not there to help you. So let it dissipate into the ether. And that brings us to the third step, which is where you really have to think of your values, not just your valuation, your value and your values. And here's what I mean by that. To break past imposter syndrome, the third step is you don't just think about how other people are placing a valuation on you.

Do you deserve to be where you are? Is that the right place in your life? Did you get there, you know, through fairly and through with integrity? You don't think about that. You think about the unique value, you know, you bring to the world and your values. What are your values? And are you living true to them every day? If you are, whatever everyone else thinks shouldn't matter. You're being true to yourself by definition. You can't be an imposter. And when you do that last step, Chris, the beauty of it is, see, the imposter syndrome, it likes to boo you from the cheap seats. But when your values like to sit in the front row and cheer you on, and that's the power of what you can do with that third step. Does that make sense? You feel like less of an imposter now, Chris?

I don't know. It depends on which personality I'm running? You feel like less of an imposter now, Chris? I don't know. It depends on which personality I'm running on. I think there's an imposter somewhere in one of the six personalities that I have. But my therapist is working through it. And the doc says I can't use the kill, kill, kill one anymore. Oh, I understand. If your doctor is who he says he is,

he might be an imposter. That's true. And the judge says it as well. I get one of the six ankle bracelets off next week i'm really happy about it um yeah there you go i've got one for each personality just add it on to that callback joke each personality needs to work on a different mental muscle is that what you tell me yeah basically i've got i've got a court appointed what do they call them bracelets Bracelets for each personality.

So they're all in trouble at this point, really. I'd like to meet all of those, Chris Foster. No, you wouldn't actually. My therapist has, and usually they put me in a cage before they interview me. For a cage match, got it. Just for the therapist's safety. So there you go. It sounds like, and I think most of my ex-wives agreed to that.

Also, as well, another key muscle you talk about is fortitude. Yeah. What's a way to become more resilient that you don't normally hear of? You know, one of the things about fortitude, Chris, is that it's almost inherent in the definition of it. You got to be really good at solving problems, right? Because fortitude by definition isn't easy. It's about adapting and overcoming, you know, challenges and getting past problems. And one thing that people don't normally talk of, you know, and of course,

in the Mentally Strong Leader, I have a ton of tools and habits in there you can build that are right down Broadway that you might expect, but they're presented in an insightful way to be really powerful. One thing you might not expect as much is what I call the static trap. And it gets in the way of problem solving. The static trap is simply this is, you know, when it comes to, we're not good at problem solving because of this trap, which is, first of all, we can be static. We deny a problem exists. No, no, no, no, no. What are you talking about? That's not a problem at all. We deny it and we deny it and we doubt it until the problem can no longer be ignored. Then we switch from being static to creating static around the problem. We try to divert attention for, yeah, but we make excuses for, yeah, okay, yeah, maybe it's a little bit of an issue, but I didn't cause that.

The problem doesn't really exist. It's going to go away. Here's why. And we create distortion around the problem, not letting it bring into clarity, which brings us to the third portion of the static trap. Even after we've admitted the problem exists and we're creating static about it, we continue to remain static, doing nothing about the problem. And this wears down your fortitude over time because you're not getting into action mode quick enough. And you avoid the static trap simply by recognizing, of course, the signs of problem denial and embracing when the problem exists and getting after it. Stop being static, stop creating static, stop remaining static, get after it and solve that

problem. And I lay out a plan for exactly how to do that in the Melody Strong Leader. There you go. That's good to have. I mean, fortitude, I don't think a lot of people really focus on fortitude. Do you need fortitude to have a difficult conversation with someone

on Twitter? Yeah, conversations in Twitter land or Twitter or X are totally different than conversations you might actually have in life. We can all hide behind that. But yeah, a form of fortitude that people don't normally think of, Chris, for sure, is how to bravely conduct a difficult conversation. If you think about it, why don't we? Because we think about all the bad things that could happen with that difficult conversation. And the truth is, as I talk about in the Mentally Strong Leader, you have to be able to prepare for a difficult conversation and then actually know how to conduct one.

And the key insight about preparing for a difficult conversation, whatever that might be, whether you got to deliver somebody bad news, or you got to fess up to a mistake you made, or you want to give hard feedback, whatever the nature of it is. The key to preparing for it is to remember that the source of tension impacts how you prepare for that conversation. And I'll give you an example. A source of tension often around a difficult conversation is the difference in the power structure of that discussion. You are either going to enter that discussion having, and let's talk about in the framework of work for a minute,

having more power than the person you're having the tough discussion with, less power or equal power. If you have more power, you might worry that you're going to crush that person's spirit with a difficult conversation. If you have less power, you might worry that that's my boss or my boss's boss. I'm going to break down. I'm not going to really say what's on my mind. I'm going to kind of wuss out at the end and not say what really needs to be said. If you have equal power, it might be a peer. You got to have a tough discussion and you're thinking, oh, that's probably not going to go well because they don't have to listen to me. They're my peer. The key to all of those and how you prepare for that in that case is you just have to commit to changing your own patterns.

You can't change that your boss has more power than you. But you can change your pattern of how you show up in those tough discussions with that boss, committing that you're not going to break down, that you're going to really stick to the points you want to make and tell he or she what they really need to hear. That's just one of the sources of tensions that I talk about in the Mentally Strong Leader and how to prepare for that difficult conversation. Does that make sense? Does that seem intuitively what you would do anyways if you were going to have a tough discussion with someone, Chris? I'm an asshole, so I just do it.

So you just cut to it. I actually kind of like being an asshole. Own it, man. Own your accomplishments. We talked about this earlier. Own it. I just, I just realized that tough love seems to be the only way sometimes to get through to people. Yeah.

I, I, you know, I've tried doing the whole thing. You know, I, I mean, there is, there is a bit of what's the word I'm looking for. There is a bit of political sort of, I, you know, you do try to not be a complete asshole, but you know, there is a way of sometimes being direct and being honest and not being abusive, but then other times it's fun to do the abusive part. Yeah. The good thing is, Chris, for those that don't want to be on the abusive side of the equation

here, let me, let me, I offer this to you as a gift, Chris. I offer this to you. Here's a tactful way to conduct a difficult conversation. I wrote this down here. You know, start, You could literally start with this opener, regardless of the difficult conversation you're going to have. It's kind of a fill in the blank sentence, and I share this in The Mentally Strong Leader. I need to have a difficult conversation with you, Chris, about

blank. I want to acknowledge that I've contributed to this situation by blank. And I want you to know that having this discussion doesn't come easy to me because blank. So I've owned my part in the mess. And I honor you by saying that I know this can't be easy for you to hear, but I'm part of why we got to this position to begin with as well. And I want you to know it doesn't come easy to me because I actually care about you and I want to get to a better place. So you can, of course you can be an asshole if you want to be, and you know, you might feel good about that. I would suggest tact instead and maybe using that kind of opening template to ease your way into any difficult conversation. Can I use that with my wife or girlfriend? You most certainly can.

I hereby grant you the process to be able to do that, take it and run with it. Yeah. You'll show up as mentally stronger and just mentally stable maybe too. And then we'll see how they react. Yeah. So what could go wrong? These are really interesting points and great for people to focus on because, you know, you break it down to where there's aspects that, you know, like I never really sit around

and think about fortitude until now. I'm never really like, how fortitude am I? I'm taking your test here as we go. And it turns out I have some pretty good fortitude, but maybe there's some things I need to work on. In the book, you talk about the importance of boldness and building mental strength. How can one foster a spirit of risk-taking with their team organization and be more bold? Yeah, I'll give you a tip that I share in the Mentally Strong Leader.

I'll start with a quick question and a very, very brief story. Let me ask you this, Chris. Something tells me you're going to say yes. Have you ever been to a casino? Yeah, I live in Vegas. I assumed as much. I'm not talking about the workday when you're

supposed to be on the job. I'm talking about leisurely. I'm at one now. Yeah, yeah. I'm not talking about the workday when you're supposed to be on the job. I'm talking about leisurely. I'm at one now. Yeah, yeah. We're in a corner. That's exactly right. I did a leadership presentation, a keynote and a workshop for, let's just say, a casino group. I don't want to share the company name.

And we were out to dinner the night before the keynote that I was giving in the workshop. And they shared a very interesting story with me, which was they were having a throughput problem on the casino floor with one game in particular. And by throughput I mean the ratio of people that were standing and watching the game, not putting their money up and playing it, to the ratio to the number of people that were actually putting their money

on the table and playing the game, was out of whack and it was creating an unproductive throughput on the casino floor. Would you want to take a guess as to what game that would be? Take a wild guess. Poker? I mean, I don't know. Blackjack? I don't know. Begins with C. Is that correct? C?

Is almost a swear word in a way. How about craps? Craps? Oh, okay. I never play craps. That's okay. For those of you at home that don't know what a craps table looks like, Google it. Google craps table. And what you'll see is an incredibly intimidating piece of felt staring back at you. Craps is a game. You play at a table. You roll the dice. It's a game of chance. And the table outlines all the different bets you can make. And here's this to do this, do this.

It's a squares all over. It's really intimidating. And what the casino owners were learning was that people didn't understand the rules of the game. So they weren't stepping up and rolling the all over it. It's really intimidating. And what the casino owners were learning was that people didn't understand the rules of the game. So they weren't stepping up and rolling the dice and spending their money. Meanwhile, back at the office, Chris, the same thing happens. When people don't understand the rules of risk-taking, they are not going to be as bold. They're not going to step up and take risks. So imagine if you as a leader or you as an employee were to ask your boss, what are the rules of risk-taking? Spell them out for your organization. What does a good risk look like?

What does a bad one look like? I guarantee you, your organization probably doesn't really know or understand your definition of that. What happens if I succeed with a risk? What happens if I fail with a risk? Who needs to approve what level of risk and so on? When you define the rules of risk-taking at work, and frankly in life, the organization and the group you're working with is going to be far more likely to be bold and take those risks.

Does that make sense? Make sense? Totally. Totally. Yeah. It's kind of interesting. Yeah. I never played craps, so that's why I didn't.

It's not a fun game. I don't gamble a lot. Usually I play blackjack when I play, and I haven't played in a million years. It used to be that with blackjack, when there was one deck, you could have a chance. But now they have like 50 decks or something. Yeah, I get it. I mean, you gamble by letting guests like me on your show. But other than that, in Vegas, I get it.

You don't go into the casino. I understand. You're in there to gamble. But I gamble in business. You know, starting companies, running companies, innovating, doing all that. To me, that's my gambling. And I like it because I can kind of control the odds a little bit. Yeah, I like that.

Yeah. It's much better than Vegas. Let's put it that way. I've had gambling addict friends and we walk into those buildings and they just start drooling on the side of the mouth and their eyes glaze over and i'm like and meanwhile i'm looking at the architecture and the lighting and i'm just seeing the money that is spent to build that palace and i'm thinking i think i know who wins most of the games yeah yes so much money but they can't afford to put clocks in them you ever notice that or windows yeah and i'm just like i'm just like yeah i think i'll keep my money in my pocket because i think i know how this game works same reason i'm single are you saying you're a crap a crap

shooting life chris no no no man no man i don't have born to lose tattoos okay that's good single i'm single because i got tired i never got tired of being happy but also i look at marriages and i go i think i'll keep my money in my pocket. I understand. There you go. There you go. It's a rough life. Laying around with a bunch of money and trying to figure out what to spend it on. Goofy toys and stuff. And yet somehow you move forward. Somehow.

It's brave of you. It's tough. Your boldness. The suffrage. The suffrage. Yeah. I don't have to hear any complaining or anything. You know, my Amazon card is whatever I decide to buy.

And I still have have i'm 56 i still own half my shit uh both halves of my shit let's put it that way that's so yeah it's pretty nice i'm like 56 i'm like a unicorn i'm like the only person who hasn't been crushed and divorced and is emotionally crippled from it and financially for that matter so yeah it's kind of fun i just sit around and go yeah i don't. I'll get around to that one of these days. I'll probably be like Marlon Brando. I'll marry my bedmate, my bed hospice care worker like a week before I die. I think that's what he did or something.

Yeah, then don't leave them anything for all their effort. Leave it to whoever, some foundation. I don't know. Yeah, I think that's what he did. Final thoughts as we go out on people to pick up your book, what they can also may want to plug in some of the services you offer at your website, any coaching or speaking, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, sure.

Once again, you can find me at scottmeltz.com and I offer up, I do a lot of keynotes. You know, look, people tell me that at least I'm not the worst person in the world who's done keynoting. I hear the word riveting a lot. So I'd make you look really good if you hired me for a keynote of your organization. I do workshops. Obviously, I write books, The Mentally Strong Leader. You can find it there at scottmouts.com. And now that you know what I'm talking about with that mental strength self-assessment that, Chris, you've had a chance to take a look at, if you guys want that, you can go to scottmouts.com slash mentallystronggift

to download that 60-page PDF and get the free assessment and the prompt questions that help you get the most out of the Mentally Strong Leader. It's a great assessment, folks. I've been reading through it. It's pretty cool. You're also the author of Find Your Fire, Ignite Your Inspiration, and Make Work Exciting Again. I need that for my first marriage. Make it matter how managers can motivate by creating meaning, leading from the middle, a playbook for managers to influence up, down,

and across the organization. That's really important. You know, a lot of people don't realize that you don't have to be ordained a leader. You don't have to sit around going, I'm not CEO yet, so I can't lead. Anybody's a leader. Parents are leaders. Whether you like it or not, you're leading as a parent because you're going to have the massive influence on your child. You may as well have some intentionality about it so yeah do that folks and anybody can be a leader you know i walk into a room and just about any place i go i end up being a loudmouth leader it's i know it's hard to imagine folks but like i'll i'll walk into my testosterone replacement theory the treatment clinic and i'll announce to the the the gal in the room while people are sitting

in the waiting room, I'm like, I'm here to make my testosterone deposit for everyone. And believe me, the whole room sits up and goes, what the fuck? And they just say, well, and you know what the truth is, Chris, right? When you think about it, we're all middle managers, really, as I say in leading from the middle, you know, we're all middle managers because if you have a boss and are a boss or aspire to be one someday, and you have to lead in all directions to do your job well, boom, you're a middle manager. And if you're a CEO, guess what? You report to the board. So that's why I wrote that book to help folks lead better from the middle. That's pretty true too. I was just calling myself the CEO and janitor at my office.

Hey, you know, who's going to question that? And when you're sick and tired of your ass, you know, you can fire yourself. That's fine. Find someone else. I walk around my office picking stuff up and I'm like, don't I pay people to do this? And like, how come no one else does this?

Like the CEO is just running around picking up garbage. Yeah, that's, that's right. Yeah, that's exactly right. You have to talk to the CEO about that. And the chief human resource officer, which I also assume you are as well. Which is me, yeah. Which creates problems of its own kind.

I get that. Yeah, we fight a lot and argue, and then we write ourselves up and fire each other every day. We still keep showing up to work. So there you go. It's been wonderful to have you on the show. Thank you for coming on, Scott. We really appreciate it. Thanks a lot, Chris.

Thanks for what you do, my man. Appreciate it. Thank you. And thanks, And thanks for tuning in. Order the book where refined books are sold. The Mentally Strong Leader. Build the Habits to Productively Regulate Your Emotions, Thoughts, and Behaviors. It's out May 7th, 2024. So pre-order it now. And so many people that are emotionally reactive really need this book, really need to work on your emotional intelligence. There you go. Thanks for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com 4Chats Chris Voss. LinkedIn.com

4Chats Chris Voss. Chris Voss won the TikTok and yellow is crazy place on the internet. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe and we'll see you next time.