The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - How You Can Reclaim Your Genius Zone with Mindshifter Anna Liebel | PPP #65

Episode Date: January 13, 2021

In this international edition of the show, I connect with Anna Liebel, Personal Motivator and Development Strategist based out of Iceland, who shares how she helps individuals, teams, and organizations reclaim their "Genius Zone."

three two one hey everybody thanks for coming back to the people process progress podcast episode 65 reclaiming your genius zone with anna liebel anna thank you so much for coming on the show my pleasure kevin i'm super excited for this conversation me as well i think it's it's again and we touched on this and i'm sure we will to me that the just the amazing reach of the Internet and podcasts in general. So it's kind of an international version, which we'll get into for sure. But let's let's introduce the audience kind of to to you and where you're from. And I'm sure we'll get into all the great conversations with a lot of the stuff we share in project management, leadership and things like that. But where did you grow up and how did you get to kind of where you are now?

So if we talk about me geographically, yes, it's a confusing story. Let's start with that one. Because when we connected with you, Kevin, I was in Germany, but my home at the moment is Iceland. Yet let's rewind a bit. I was born in Uzbekistan, which is in Asia, in the Ukrainian family. And my parents went back to Ukraine when I was one and a half years old. So I'm saying I'm Ukrainian, which was both my genealogical tree and where I grew up. And from one and a half to 21 years old, I was in Ukraine. And then I went to Sweden to study. I did my project management master's there. Lived a bit in England, in between, and studied there as well. And then I moved to Iceland two

years ago. And that's where I am at the moment. That's awesome. What took you to the different places? So we touched on before, especially your project management education and kind of the nature of, you know, Europe and kind of accessible in the countries and all that in Asia as well. And so what took you to get a degree in project management? Had you had in your upbringing kind of, you know, did you like organization and that kind of thing? You know what I mean? Like some people are drawn to project management. Is there anything in particular that influenced you to head down that road? It's actually funny because when I look back at that, Kevin, I was a natural organizer all the time. And at some point a couple of years ago, I was talking to a colleague of mine and I said something about that project management is not a profession for me.

It's a calling. Because even if I don't want to do that, I get into doing that. Anyways, but when I was choosing education, it wasn't that clear and explicit in my head. Not really. So I did my bachelor's studies in computer science. And that was because I liked math in school

and I wanted to do something applied with math. And I was like, okay, what could it be? Let's do computer science. So I did that. I did not enjoy coding, because I always felt like my code was much uglier and less efficient and effective than my buddies, study buddies. So I thought, it's not something for me. But what could I do with that? I did enjoy organizing the projects of bigger software building and those kind of things. So that's how I looked for an education in that. That did take some research for me to realize that this is actually a profession. Right.

And I found it and I looked for a program somewhere outside of Ukraine because I wanted to see how a different education system would work. And that curiosity took me to Sweden to study project management for two years. What computer languages were you programming in when you were focused on your bachelor's work? So my bachelor's is four years. So we actually covered a lot of languages. So it's been way too many. Yeah. I even did some kind of list. If you know that programming language where there are like way too many parentheses that you need to open and close all the time. But of course, all the, uh, the ones that are used now massively as well. Gotcha. Yeah, I dabbled, I'll show my age here, I'm 46. So I dabbled in HTML when you had to use that to build a website.

And then I got more into like the building computers and fixing kind of the hardware with the software support. My wife did a business computer degree and got into some programming as well. And man, it's challenging. So hats off to you for doing that education. And then seeing, of course, project management and tech go hand in hand big time. And so it sounds like from you growing up, the project management, the kind of bringing people together, shared process, and kind of heading in a direction, studio to the education, and with the computer science focus and all the languages,

when you started to look at and do research for the project management, and that is a profession, did you want to carry the computer component with the project management, or just focus on kind of project management applied to many different industries or did you even have a preference when you got into it? Honestly not really the preference I wanted to get to know more about the management part and what kind of product I would be developing or what kind of projects I would be working on I didn't have any clear preferences there what I see at the moment is that my computer science background helps me a lot. Whatever industry I get into, sooner or later, we do work with software and IT in general,

because it's just going across all the industries at the moment. So I did work with the infotainment system, for example, when I was working at Volvo Cars back in the days. Right. And there it was a lot of software. So there it was helping me to speak the same language with people whom I was having on the team. And how was that with such a big organization getting into that? Did you find you were able to be exposed because it was so big? Right. that did you find you were able to be exposed because it was so big right so there was a lot

of different kind of projects to focus on or or things to learn and and kind of a caveat to that too did you did they was there already kind of an established project management structure there oh definitely that that company is quite old right and they they have been running the development of each car as a project for a long time. So they had quite a well-established structure, processes, org charts, and so on. And just when I was leaving, they started redoing everything to be more agile because that's what the market requires at the moment. The software is such a big part of the car development, and especially the system that I worked in is very software-heavy,

and it was difficult to follow the traditional processes when you kind of fix your specs for the whole car five years before it gets on the market. You can't do the same with the software. Right. And that's the journey that they are going through at the moment, and they started just before I left. and you said each car was a project well it depended like the design of the car okay if it's a new car that you could say it's a program because there are so many things

there involved and then if you do this so-called model year so that some updates in the the design, some updates in the features and so on, that could be a project. But of course, it also depends on the scale. Gotcha. Yeah, that makes sense for, you know, folks looking at the higher level program stuff and then the project for each thing. And that's kind of the mix, right, of folks maybe listening from public safety and project management and different areas of that. That sounds like a cool, cause thinking about all the change and the adaptation and to your point going from when you see traditional kind of a waterfall, right? Do this, then that, then that verse, Hey, we're going to do something, test it, do something, test it, sign off. And you know, it is interesting to see particularly in automobiles, which also the auto

industry, I think also brought us like Six Sigma improvement stuff with them or with Motorola and Toyota and folks looking at process improvement. How did you kind of morph process improvement or change management into the project management that you did there as well? Or was that part of the focus also? Not for me in particular. i was more focusing on really delivering the project gotcha with my team yep cool so um so volvo uh for the for you know such a huge company and and then what was your next step going from you know something like you said it's been around for so long and has you you know, is being adaptable and changing like that. What was your kind of next step in your evolution in helping folks, you know, get to that genius zone that we'll touch on in a little bit?

So I had a couple of assignments as a consultant project management after Volvo in different industries. I was working in a consultancy, quite a big one in Scandinavia. And I thought I want to leverage on that possibility of being a consultant and actually trying different employers or different companies to work with in different industries. So I've been in life science and pharmaceutical after the automobile industry. And then we moved to Iceland with my family because of my husband's job. And that's where I decided that I actually wanted to try to work on my own and focus on that people part of the projects. That's awesome. How did you find the contrast going from, you know, such a big well-known auto industry to, you know, a big pharmaceutical as far as, you know, the knowledge and the

techniques that you applied from one to the other? Were there a lot of similarities or kind of what were, I guess, some of those similarities and differences from how you helped project teams be successful in each area? You know, Kevin, I learned with every year and every assignment that everything comes down to people. And whether it's automobile industry or automotive industry or pharmaceutical or whatever it's still people working on delivering those projects and developing the products so that is definitely something that helped me no matter where I was and it was interesting to see the differences when I wanted to move from automobile and try something else because I thought okay cars is kind of a luxury product at the moment.

It's not that much you can do there to completely improve the quality of life of the consumers. So that's why I went into pharmaceutical because I was thinking that there is, like, that is definitely something that is life-changing for people. Of course, when you get your first car ever and it enables you for a lot of things that's for one thing but usually you don't get those new volvos probably as the first car to get this life-changing experience what we're in with the medicines you can get that and what i learned there it was like i've i've worked with people who've been in the company working on some projects for 17 years, and they still didn't get any product on the market. And that blew my mind completely.

Yeah, it is amazing. And, you know, I imagine pharmaceuticals were similar in medicine, and I was in public health for a while, especially now, right today, this year, 2020, and the push for the vaccinations, and then people's push back against it, forgetting kind of all the, you know, the people that have been saved from vaccines. So not a vaccine debate, but to the point of, you know, working on the same thing for years and years, I think 2020 from rapid development of vaccine or medicine or advances in care, you know, for folks that are sick, telemedicine push. It seems like, you know, this year, the pandemic being a catalyst is something that helped push a lot of that forward, which I find interesting because I think a lot of what happened this year could have happened without the catalyst. You know, so I think, so I think a lot of, a lot of what businesses can

do is, well, is a lot, right? And so I think the timing and the push and the competition between organizations, which I would imagine that, you know, the competition between pharmaceutical companies was pretty big or is pretty big that, you know, did you see some of that when you were working with pharmaceutical companies yeah but what i what i would actually like to take as a biggest learning from the pharmaceutical experience of mine is the passion and in talking about people progress process process progress the people part people were so passionate and they had their why so when i when i asked my colleagues like don't you like get discouraged by working on yet another project and not getting anything to the market and they're like what do you mean we learn from every project

and that helps us get a safe healthy effective uh product onto the market in the end. So for them, they saw it as the progress, right? Absolutely. And that passion and that knowing your why and alignment with your values is something that I brought from the pharmaceutical company with me. And that's something I work with my clients on. That's a great perspective because traditional or even whatever style project management, you think, oh, I have to get to closing and it has to work and it has to have no hiccups. And it is the dream state of a project, right? But to your point, if folks are passionate about, well, we got incrementally better to a cure for this or a treatment for that. And so every step forward is to the point, progress. I think that's a great perspective treatment for that. And so every step forward is, is to the point, you know,

progress. I think that's a great perspective in all things. And it's, it's great to hear that from your exposure, you know, working with folks in pharmaceutical. When I saw that, again, see it in medicine, in particular public health, you know, folks that just love what they do, because they know what makes a difference is, and it's kind of infectious, you know, so on those days when folks are thinking, man, we're, we didn't get the grant funding, or we didn't quite, you know, get the result we wanted, but you did learn and you incrementally are getting better, you know, to the point of kind of even even a professional, agile development for yourself, you know, is kind of happening each time

is really neat to hear. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, for, for the, you getting into consulting on your own, um, and with other folks and focusing on that people aspect of things, um, how did you kind of, you know, carry or look at, you know, people's passion pharmaceuticals and then saying, okay, I want to, I want to help people more with that or help them get to the next step. And I know a big part of what you do now is personal development. How do you focus on people or have people focus on themselves and kind of help them get to their best selves personally and professionally in that personal development aspect? You know, Kevin, it all started with people actually watching me my friends and colleagues

and coming to me with questions so i would get questions like have you always been this optimistic and i was like i'm actually a pessimist by nature and they're like can you teach me and then people would just see that i'm doing the work on on myself i am walking my talk and people wanted to to learn from me and I started what still while still in the corporate I started coaching you can say more and more people on a weekly basis just like at the kitchen table or it was usually online because I have friends around a lot of countries so at some point one of these friends told me, like, Anna, I actually want to pay you

because I'm getting so much value out of this. And that brought me on this track, like, huh, this can actually be my full-time job. The thing that I love so much, that I see so much purpose in for myself, is something that can be my job. Right. And that was while I was still in Sweden,

and then when I moved to Iceland, it was quite clear that this is the path I be my job. Right. And that was while I was still in Sweden. And then when I moved to Iceland, it was quite clear that this is the path I want to go. That's awesome. What were some of those things that you mentioned, which I'm all about, about three and a half years ago, I was kind of lazy, out of shape, not in a good place. And just next morning got up, took a step there, you know, professionally, same kind of thing, just doing that.

What were some of the things that you focused on, your process, where you say you there, you know, professionally, same kind of thing, just doing that. What were some of the things that you focused on your process where you say you were, you know, walking the walk and leading by example that you did to help you get to be where you are now and be successful and help other people be successful that you can share with some other folks? What were some of those examples that you would suggest other folks do? So I worked a lot on my self-esteem. So that's the belief that I'm good enough. This cliche phrase that a lot of people feel like it's overused. But it's overused but not overly practiced, let's say it that way.

Okay. And for me, there was a lot about like I am a high achiever and i was always good i i was always appreciated by my managers and the colleagues and so on at work for example but i never felt like i was satisfied with my work and that drove me to work harder work more collaborate more contribute more and so on and then one of my managers told me that and i used to have 45 years until you retire and that was quite an eye-opener for me too and that's the thing like this drive was coming from the place of lack and a place of fear and what i worked quite heavily on is to actually continue with the drive, keep having the ambitions, keep contributing, but that coming from a healthy place of willing, well, willing to contribute to the community and the development,

and feeling enough, even if it's a bad day. What were some things that you do or that you still do maybe for that? Because I've definitely been there where you're like, man, I just didn't make it today. I feel down. Or you talk to folks and kind of they have the world is hard. I'm not doing this. As opposed to, yes, it's hard, but I'm going to push through. What were some of the things that you kind of told yourself or did for yourself that helped you push push past um or that you do now

to continue that mindset so i definitely continue working and i i say that i hope that i never will stop because this is the true living to me keep keep my development journey ongoing and one of the strongest tools that i always recommend is journaling. Journal. And I do it on a daily basis before I go to bed and answer some questions, some particular questions. At the moment, it is three of them, what I did well. And it's at least three things that I need to mention there, what I'm grateful for and what I need help with. And the help can be, it's not necessarily asking help someone else. It can be that I need help myself.

For example, help me be patient with my daughter tomorrow. So it can be you're asking the universe, the God, whatever you're believing in, or you're asking the best version of yourself. But this structured journaling has helped me a lot to see my progress. If I'm asking for help with the same thing for a couple of days in a row, I know that, okay, I need to pay more attention to this, and tomorrow I need to commit to doing this, so that I actually feel better in that space. And gratitude is just scientifically proven that it really triggers a lot of processes in us, right, that help us make better decisions, feel healthier,

and so on and so forth. That's a great concept. And, you know, for project managers who, in particular, so, you know, both taking that personal development, which no doubt is connected to your professional development, you know, but strongly believe in that. And, you know, for a project manager or a consultant, but, you know, particularly the project management component of it to go to a team, which you may or may not have worked together with, right, bring everyone together, get them on a process, whether it's agile, waterfall, whatever you're doing, but keep that team together, you know, from start to finish, whatever finish looks like for that project. I think that the confidence that, you know, looking at what am I doing well, what am I grateful for and what can I use help with, even in that setting is just totally applicable, too. So that's an awesome concept, you know, and then the journaling of that to write it down, because it seems like then you're going back and looking at, okay, what's my kind of my own, like, historical data, right, for how I'm doing,

which is a great concept. And did you learn that from someone else that taught you about journaling as well? Did you kind of in like leadership or improvement, you know, education learn that? For sure. And it's a lot of people in a lot of schools on what kind of journaling you can do. I follow one of the Swedish personal development coaches. Her name is Mia Turnblom. And she's a big role model for me because she's really changing lives of people.

She's working mainly with the leadership teams of big companies and governmental and so on in Sweden. But at the same time, she's doing a third of her work as a volunteer, helping more vulnerable parts of community. And that is a big part for me, a big motivator to get bigger and more successful with my company that I can afford myself spending that much time on helping others. And she is a big proponent of the daily journaling, and she's been doing it herself for over two decades since she has become sober. Oh, wow. And she's very openly sharing her journey. And it's amazing, as as you say you have the historical data and i have it as well i have those books and i'm i was sometimes asked like how am i using am i ever reading rereading

what i've written and yes i do so when i have some tough taste for example i can open my book and just go through this did well part day after day after day after day, one year back or one month back and so on. And I see that, holy moly, I am progressing. I am doing good stuff. Even if it's a bad day, you could still find something that you've done well. And it helps to see those good things that I've done. And the same with the help part. When I opened my first journal from

2013, 2014, and things that I was asking for help then, and they are just so natural for me now, and I never get that in my help question anymore. That also shows how far I've come. And that's so inspiring to see this. That is. And that's something I, you know, in thinking about it now, I've got a few journals, right, with various amounts of things in them. That's something definitely I need to get back into because you're right, just pen to paper, getting your thoughts down, being able to look back at it and just, you know, putting it out there, that exercise and doing that is super helpful. And, and I, you know, one of my hobbies is Brazilian jujitsu, this grappling martial art, and my coach, you know, recommended journaling what you do and specifically to your point,

kind of what you mentioned as well, not just, not just kind of what was the tough things, what didn't go well, but like, what were the good things, the little things, the little incremental things that help, you know, that, that you can feel good about. So you're not always stuck in, oh, I didn't do this well or that well. It's not just a journal of negative things, right? It's a journal of improvement, which in any aspect is positive and negative stuff all together, right? And having that overall look at it. Exactly, Kevin. And just what you're saying, it shouldn't be just the negative stuff. And it actually strengthens you so much and then changes the mindset. So when I am having a bad day, I'm automatically thinking like, oh, what am I supposed to write today in my journal? So that triggers me to go and do something that I'm proud of or I'm happy about that I have something something to write into my journal so it even changes your mindset that way that's true because you you may you kind of it sounds

like you force yourself not to be locked into the negative mindset but to say what what is the grateful thing that you know went well or just someone smiled at me and said you know because it can be any level of thing right like just, what positive nugget out of this tough day, which, you know, again, looking back at, you know, at 2020, I'm sure plenty of folks have nuggets that aren't positive, but, but there are, there are positives in even all the, all the stuff that's happened this year. And I will give you a couple of examples of how to turn things when you feel stuck when you don't like when you don't think that anything was good in the day mia who i've just mentioned she's given examples of like didn't punch my boss in the face even she acted as a jerk you know you can you can be a bit like especially in the year like 2020 right

when things are just going south a lot right and you have your kids and you have to take care of them and work and whatever else it it can be like good to just take a minute in the end of the day and try to use humor and look at this day back and think, hmm, what was good here? What did I manage anyways? And I, for example, had a client who sat at one of the sessions like, hey, I didn't journal on anything good this and that day. And I was like, why? She was like, it was a bad day. And we started going through the day. And she said, okay, I was in a hut with like it was a bad day and we started going through the day and she said

okay I was in a hut with my boyfriend and two of our friends and I just didn't feel well like I didn't have a good mood so I went to bed early and I was like so why why do you think there is nothing good in that day she's like well I was a bad company I was like no you actually saved your friends and your boyfriend from a lot of drama instead of sitting there and spoiling the mood for everyone and so on you just took care of of the situation and went home or like went up and and slept and also you took care of yourself instead of pushing through and thinking i should be here because we went to the cabin together you felt like you don't have the energy so you took care of getting the energy for the next day and be being a better

friend and company the next day so you always need to turn around those things and feel like when you are criticizing yourself turn it around and think is there anything positive here is there anything that I could have done worse that That's an awesome perspective because you're right that there's two things you mentioned are super practical, right? But when you lump them into just not feeling well, it's hard for folks to kind of pull that out, you know, I would imagine. But it does make a big difference. So yeah, definitely for folks listening, look at what you did today, this week, whatever. And that's the thing too of looking at, you know, make me think of if you miss a day,

someone starts journaling and you miss a day, should we just pick right back up with it? Absolutely. And just keep going? Yeah, for sure. So I, for example, sometimes I do not get to writing down before I go to bed. Now that I've done it for so many years, it comes automatically that when I hit the pillow, I actually think about those things. So I think through my answers and then I write them down in the morning. You know, life happens with a small kid and so on.

Sometimes evenings are not in my power my power or my my schedule is not in my power so that happens and then if you for example missed you forgot then just get back on track and the thing what i usually challenge my clients to do is to really make it easy for yourself to to get it as a habit so for people, I suggest put the journal on your pillow and the pen next to it. So for some people, having it on the bedside table is not enough. They will just ignore it and think, oh, I'm too tired. If it's on your pillow, you have to move it away from your pillow to go to sleep anyways.

So you might as well just open it and scribble three words at least. Right, put it in your own way so you have to deal with it yeah yeah that makes sense so from from the the three things that folks write down do you then have folks kind of take action on those or reflect on them or have you found that folks that you've helped said hey you know i journal these down i need help with this and and to your point like if i see I see that I need help with the same thing over whatever period of time, that they have then said, you know what, I'm going to take that step tomorrow. Or part of your guidance to say, okay, well, how can you get help?

Or do you understand how you can help yourself with something like that? It's a mix of all, Kevin. And I usually would discuss which question is, for example, the most difficult. Because it's different for different people. Some people are really having tough times to ask for help, even if it's for themselves. Or ask help from themselves. Sure. Because they were brought up that way, that it's a sign of weakness to ask for help or to need help.

So then we work on that and we work on shifting their mindset so that they don't feel that this weakness and they actually learn that that's part of a strength of their strength and they actually can be better leaders contribute more to the society and so on if they ask for help with those things they don't manage it be it for themselves or the others. Yeah, that makes sense. And to point it, you know, from being in the military and public safety world, that asking for help component, which I think, you know, unfortunately, through conflicted things, it's gotten a little better, you know, from PTSD and things like that. But again, even for non-public safety or military folks just this year, I think that's a great point. You know, if it is not at all weak to ask for help, it's OK not to be OK when, you know, everybody has bad days and we're not all living the perfect sunshine Instagram picture, right?

Where everything looks and at home. And, you know, that you mentioned you have your kids at home, they're doing school remember you know that was uh like viral video of um i think he was a diplomat or something right and his daughter came in the room whether he was at a video conference it was a big deal and now it's like hey say hi to your kids you know people just wave to your kids um so to me that is a grateful thing this year that i would say is the humanization of even though we're disconnected physically in a lot of instances, to realize like life is all mashed up right now between work and personal, right?

And that's fine. And it's totally fine. And I think that's also as leaders, which we all are at some level individually and for ourselves, and is to also ask others, when you see someone with just, you can tell over the camera

and certainly in person, when we get back to that world, but you can tell they need help or they're not having a good day is to also ask them, right? Don't just ask them about work. Like, Hey, is there, is there something you'd help with? Are you doing all right? You look a little tired today. And that's, that's good, right? That's our humanity reaching through this, you know, all these calls were having. Yeah, exactly. And the important thing is really pointing out, it's in the small shifts, let's say, that way. Your question, how are you doing?

It's a general question. And actually, it was a bit of a cultural challenge for me, I think, or cultural difference when I came from Ukraine. When I'm asked a question, I'm answering that question. And what I learned in Sweden and England is that when people ask this question, they don't want to know how you're doing. It's just the version of saying hi. They get uncomfortable if you give a cool, yeah, exactly. When I would give them a full sentence of my answer, be it good or bad, they would just look at me awkwardly.

And I learned to just say, hey, yeah, I'm good. How are you? And that's it. And that's the important thing now to really reframe that. If you want to ask someone, be mindful that this question is not the question that you need to ask. Ask, how are you feeling today? Or how can I help you at the moment? And those kind of things. Get more specific. Because otherwise, you're just trying to help, but you're

not providing, like, you're not making it clear that you're actually offering help at the moment. Right. Yeah, I think that asking that question, actively listening, you know, and really responding is huge. And I mean, as you know, and really responding is huge. And I mean, as you know, too, there's so many different active listening concepts, all that kind of stuff. But yeah, to your point, you know, really ask the question and really want that person's answer because we all need that. You know, we all need to know whether you know that person well and you hang out outside of work. Not now, I guess, but, you know, before, or you just work together and you've never met, which is happening a lot, you know, over the past year. I think that, you know, the

mileage or, you know, actual physical distance between each other, we have this opportunity with the amazing technology we have that we're calling each other on video and like this, recording it and pushing it out, you know really connect through technology so you know i think that's a great thing that we can do for each other you know especially coming into this next year which which i think is interesting too right everyone's like oh 2021 like we're gonna have a reset switch and it's all gonna get better on day one yeah remember how everyone was excited about 2020 sounds so good it's a new decade and like let's sum up the last decade and and then two months later yeah here we go so as we're as we're developing ourselves and you know we're journaling we're looking at what we did well

we're grateful um what do we need help with, you know, in our in our personal development, which, again, totally tied to professional development, I believe. Right. Because with with yourself, you've got to be good, you know, and on the home front and yourself and whatever, you know, family situation you have before you can be, I think, truly helpful to others and effective in the workplace. You know, how, how do you also help, help those teams? Like when you, when you look at the individual person, you have kind of a captive audience and there's, you know, a lot that, that, you know, folks reach out to you after this and in your work that a lot more than, than journaling, I'm sure that you help them with. So how do you take kind of that individual focus with personal development and people's professional development and take that to the team setting? How do you bring those folks together? And what is your focus when you work with a whole team?

Kind of how do you get started down that route and helping teams become more efficient and more cohesive? It's a very good question. And Kevin, that's for sure. Like what we discussed and I'm working with teams, but then, you know, leadership starts with you. Sure. And that's why so much emphasis of mine is on every person's self-leadership and personal development. But then when we come to teams, I'm becoming the catalyst of the conversations, let's say it that way. More open-minded questions, open-ended or no open-ended

questions let's say in open-minded conversations so what i try to bring in is a new perspective so that people see that they actually can be curious about each other and instead of thinking he or she is different thus wrong, what can I learn from that person? What can their perspective actually give me? And it can be something good that they open up a new way of thinking to you, but maybe they just, their way of thinking, you will never agree to it, but it will make it obvious for you what you appreciate in yourself and your way of thinking. So it doesn't necessarily

mean that by you listening actively to your teammates and more openly you have to start believing in what they believe but it is as you said kevin it's about the active listening and really having the mindset of a of a learner and seeing what can this person actually, what, what they say, what can that bring to the team and make it better, more effective, more fun. Right. Yeah. I mean, the diversity of skill sets of people, of backgrounds, I think on a team makes that team so much stronger, you know, from, and I think a key, and again, relevant to this year in many different aspects of take, you know, from and I think a key and again, relevant to this year and many different aspects of take, you know, listening to other folks, I think particularly to folks you don't agree with in whatever thing you're talking about, you know,'s not factual but they you know are using it in discussion but

you know when you take away their perspective that maybe you didn't ever think about that that to me is a one of the grateful things that say hey i learned this from a person that i don't get along with at all right you know but now i have that knowledge and that's that's helping build me up but i i would imagine that's a big challenge too, depending on probably the state of the team. You know, once you kind of walk into the room, is it a team that's, you know, looking through kind of the, you know, forming and storming and norming

and all those, you know, kind of stages, you know, if they're just in full storm mode and, you know, I'm sure we've both seen those where the team is just banging heads and not getting along to get folks to listen to each other. What are some of the ways that, you know, it sounds like, you know, you facilitate that conversation as kind of a third party mediator, which always reminds me of, you know, in human

resources, kind of the escalation process. Did you talk to the person? Okay. Did you, did you, do you need a mediator for the discussion? Do you find it yourself for those teams that are really storming, that you have to kind of help them talk to each other because they're just not doing that themselves? Yeah. And what I find most effective is actually taking the one-to-one, in one-to-one conversations. So I actually take people out of that environment where they are heated, where they can't think when they're emotional because the other person is in there. And what I try to do is to really take a conversation and try to, first of all, first meet them on where they are emotionally, intellectually, and with the situation in the team and then when people are met and when they're seen and their needs are met

they open up it happens automatically you know and you can see it even in the body language how people just they breathe out and right their shoulders fall the tension gets away and those kind of things so when you can reach that level you can start talking but you need to give people some kind of soil or i don't know some some how would you describe it um something to work on on their own so when they are at that stage when they are a bit more relaxed, when they have been heard, you can start talking to them to try to bring them to willingness to hear the other person as well. So you're helping them kind of back off their high level of emotion to then kind of open themselves to rational conversation. So they're just, you know, when you're just in that argument or whatever you did discussion, you're kind of amped up to, to bring that back down. And that makes

sense of, Hey, let's just, you and I go talk about this or let's you and I talk through, you know, I can see that you're upset about this or that and really, you know, speaking to them. But it sounds like you have to get them down to a level where they're receptive to that. Exactly. Exactly. Because in the meeting, it won't make anything better. Right. If you're all together. And what you mentioned, Kevin, about the rational conversation. So when we get kind of through the emotional part, we go back to the rational conversation.

I wouldn't say that it necessarily has to be the rational conversation afterwards. It can still be based on emotions. Okay. But you're not heated by them. And you have the tools to actually talk about your emotions without becoming personal in a way. True. Yeah, true. I was going to say, yeah, because you can never really disconnect the emotion piece of that, I imagine.

Right, yeah. That makes sense. That's a good point. Yeah, so – No, go ahead. Yeah, I just wanted to say that that works with whatever, taking a person out of the physical environment. Even if you work with yourself and you're like – you got some email, for example, about a huge problem and you're starting panicking. Like, what am I supposed to do?

How am I going to like react and take a physical break from this environment go get water get for a walk around you the block and so on get yourself out of this physical environment because that will help you get to the solution that's That's huge. I know a thousand percent really isn't a thing, but a thousand percent agree, you know, from the standpoint of even if you're sitting there just working, let alone in a bad situation, you have to get up and move and do something, right?

Because your mind's just not made to sit there and kind of do that, let alone keep yourself in a high stress situation, you know, short of you're on an emergency call or something like that. But, you know, for folks that are working kind of traditional settings, that's a great, great point. And I hope more folks do that more, you know, in the coming years, for sure. Exactly. That's what you're saying, Kevin, that most of us think that things are super urgent, but in reality, they are not. So if it's not a life or death question you have those

five minutes to take a break and it's super important to remember that when i was working at volvo we had a task force project uh going on and it was super stressful some people were burning out and uh it was it was just too much for for us handle. And at some point, I remember that I received an email, and I was really staring at my screen, and I didn't know what to do. Like, I just kind of hit the wall, you know, this kind of not burning out in a global sense, but with this particular day and my energy, I just hit the wall. And what I did then, which I'm super grateful to myself for,

I had a bag with the jogging stuff and the shower stuff. I brought it with me on Monday to work. It was in my office. And then on Friday, I would take it home for the laundry and so on. And it was always there. And what I did, I would go, I would change. I would go for a short jog it would be like two kilometers or so but quite steep hills up and down and I would come back and of course it

took a break and that's that's always the problem when you think like oh I'm a manager people are working extra hours here and I'm gonna go and take 30 minutes off my work for a jog. What the hell? And when I got back, I would always bring the new energy. I would bring the solutions. I would bring the answers. And I would also show the teammates that it's okay to take breaks. You don't have to burn yourself out and hit that wall that you're away on the sick leave for month and month.

It's better to take this break now. Absolutely. I mean, I'm a huge, I'm usually a morning up early, full disclosure, I was kind of lazy today, but usually I did take a holiday day kind of today. But yeah, usually because the mental benefit to me is as much as the physical benefit, right? And for me, I like to start the day, but to your point, midday, end of the mental benefit to me is as much as the physical benefit, right? And for me, I like to start the day, but to your point, midday, end of the day, get the stress out. And as a leader, right, and even as a team member, some folks feel like I got to just keep pushing until I collapse. But not realizing, and we used to teach this, I used to teach incident management team stuff.

So the folks that go help after a tornado or missing person or something like that and public safety in particular, and even some folks in the corporate world feel like I have to push, push, push. I'll just keep drinking coffee. But at some point you have to realize you're not effective anymore. In fact, you're going to become, you're going to decrease the effectiveness of the team because you're so tired because you're going to be more emotional. You're going to be unhealthy, right? So yeah, I think self-monitoring, I need a break. I need to get that blood flow. I need whatever. And it's okay. And it's okay to show, and not just okay, but to your point, I think a great example to show, I'm going to take care of myself so I could take better care of the team and allow them.

And again, that's another hopefully catalyst of this year is, you know, sometimes in companies and organizations, it was like, wow, they have a gym and they let their people work out. And it was like this wild thing, which I hope becomes more of a standard of, you know, gym discounts or we have our own space or, you know, you get a half an hour whenever you want to take it to go walk and all that kind of stuff. And I think just that health, that physical health component is physical slash mental health, you know, whether you're counseling or not, but just that physical component. So I'm really glad to hear you say that.

And is that something, you know, with you doing that by example that you know works, is that something that you talk about with clients as well? Absolutely. If I see that they are on that track of pushing, pushing, pushing, then that's definitely something that we work on. This year, not luckily or I would say even surprisingly, I didn't have any clients who was in that space. So maybe I'm just attracting different people at the moment. Those who have already come over that threshold of I need to push through until I really collapse. So I've been working with different people who do take self-care.

But then, of course, there are other things that might be challenging and there is always a next level to go to. But absolutely, I did have clients with whom I had to train them to do that, especially as a leader. As you said, you're showing it by your example, right? And if you say that you can take a break whenever you need and then you as a leader still sitting there 16 hours per day without seeing the daylights and moving anything what do you think your employees will listen to what they see or what they hear from you that's a great great statement i always gotta gotta share that example and and you are and kind of segueing into this, you know, you're communicating through your actions what you want your team to emulate, right, or what you hope they emulate. And communications, I know, is another big part of what you help folks with and what you, you know, focus on and do that.

What kind of modalities, you know, it sounds like certainly face-to-face or via, you know, the web camera, you know, talking with people through those things. So some direct discussion face-to-face. How do you help empower folks in their communications, whether it's, you know, them individually or the teams? What are some of the things that you focus on? Because, you know, for me, communication ties any other process together, right? We have to be talking to each other in real time and not depending on, well, I sent them this and they didn't respond, you know, all those kinds of things, let alone, like we touched on earlier, really talking to the person. But what are some,

what are some tools and techniques that you help folks with and that you found that work? So often we would do some exercises about, for example, what people are irritated by or with. And then they would make a list of 10 things that they irritated, that irritate them. And then we'd go into exploration of what's triggering that, what in you is endangered, what is your part in that situation, and so on and so forth. So we explore and and those are the things from the past so that's some experience and then by going through that and answering all the questions together we create new scenarios for people they start understanding like huh here i could have done it this way i could have reacted that way i could

have answered the other way and so on and so forth. And that is rewiring their brain to get into those similar situations in the future with a different mindset, with a different position, with a different level of awareness. And that is something that helps a lot in communication with anyone. Just that kind of looking back at how someone could have done something and then, you know, kind of earlier, what I do well, what I'm grateful for and communicating in this, you know, how we're spread out today

and kind of disconnected, not in the same space. How do you guide folks to do that together as teams? Well, unfortunately, Zoom. Yeah, yeah. you guide folks to do that um together as teams well unfortunately zoom yeah yeah uh but the thing is that also i'm talking about the 3d leadership in our virtual reality that you can get you can talk about the three dimensions of leading people one to many one to one and one and that is applicable whatever modality we are talking about or whatever

reality we're talking about whether we're meeting face-to-face you always need to lead yourself to the dimension of one because you are showing by your own example what you want to see from your people you are always leading one-to-one. So every employee of yours, you need to have some individual relationship with that person. And you're still leading one-to-many, so your whole team. And the thing is really about the balance.

You need to find the ways of having enough communication in the one-to-many constellation. And having enough conversations or enough schedule in your calendar to have those, it can be a very short two-minute check-in call, but one-to-one with your employees. And then again, you can be creative about how can you, by your own example, show your employees in a virtual world that you are still taking care of yourself. It can be an out reply in one hour per day when you're saying, thank you for your email. I'm out for doing sports. Or it's family lunchtime.

I reply to you when I'm back. All those kind of things. You can show people and it's not about bragging and it's not about showing off or anything. It's about showing that you have your values and you live by them. Yeah, that's a great point, especially being virtual and meetings being back to back to back to back of purposely saying at whatever your chosen lunchtime is, like, I'm not, I'm not available and that's it. Right. So being comfortable again, because folks either think they'll miss something or if I don't go, will I be seen as not working hard enough?

You know, but, but hopefully, and I guess I'd ask, have you seen leaders that are, you know, more open to that now or just, you know, over the past few years, that's, okay, I understand, they have this commitment, you know, in their life, or just the fact that I'm going to protect my time for me, but that's more accepting these days? It's difficult to say, because now I'm working with very different kind of people than back in the corporate, so i can't talk about the dynamics in the same way because i would be comparing apples and pears sure but what i see is that there is from those people who have seen uh following these tips there would always be some

resistance there would always be people who would be triggered by that. And it's important to understand that. And remember that you can be the best speech in the world, but not everyone likes speeches. You need to identify what is important to you and who in your life is important to you. And if it's the opinion of someone outside of that circle circle and that circle should not be more than five people. Is that personal or professional? Both. Gotcha, okay. If it's outside of that,

it's not about screwing that and totally ignoring it. It's more about more thinking, what of my values might be compromised here like take their input and think okay they see that way do i see it as well if they think that i'm arrogant because i'm taking one hour off for sports you just really try to use your internal compass to see am i being arrogant maybe i am not walking my talk right by saying that i'm doing that and doing that but then maybe commenting on someone else doing the same maybe that's why i'm perceived arrogant. That you, by your example, showing that it's important to take care of yourself, but then you're dissatisfied that someone doesn't show up at the meeting because the meeting was when the person has decided to take the time off. Gotcha.

So you don't have that double standard. Exactly. It's okay for me, but not for you. Yeah. Kind of respective. Yeah. And to your point about five, five meaning so your circle is small and that's totally okay right so meaning the circle that's small are the folks that you genuinely take

feedback from that that you're aligned with kind of that is that what you mean by you know where it's no more than five people yeah the thing is that we are wired, our brains are wired to compare ourselves to everyone around ourselves, right? Right. And that comes from the evolution. We needed to do that to really know what is the threat and what is the survival for us in the savannah. Nowadays, we don't need to survive that way anymore, but we still compare ourselves to everyone and that's the power of self-development to really identify who who is my kind of this original village absolutely whom i want to compare myself to to to survive in a or we are talking now about thriving rather than surviving gotcha because our brain is still comparing comparing uh like we open instagram and we compare ourselves to

every single square that we see there on the screen right and that's billions of people and of course we will always see someone who is better at something in that square than us and it's important to to really have those people who really whose opinions matter whose comparison to whom matters to us, those are the people who will help us. Or for us, comparing ourselves to them will help us move forward. That makes sense. And it's real feedback. And for Ivy teenager, nieces and nephews, and I've done it too, especially starting a podcast, being on Facebook, all those kind of things.

You know, did someone like it? How many of this or that downloads all those? But particularly for the young folks that, you know, in the newer generation that are so hung up, I guess I'll say on that. Right. Did I get a lot of likes for this one? Did, you know, someone comment or how'd that go? And realizing if they did great, if they didn't great, you know what I mean? So, so certainly it feels good, right? There's, there's all the, there's a whole movie, you know, about the algorithms, the

likes and all those kinds of things and the dopamine hit and, and all that. But, um, I agree and honestly have done that too of, you know, make your circle smaller with quality, not quantity. Right. Because you will get way more out of it in pretty much every aspect. Right. And it's OK to disconnect from folks that maybe you did get along with for a while and now you're different. Right. You know, it's not always awesome. But but, yeah, I love that. You know, five is it seems like a great number to look at, you know, who are those five people or groups or, you know, kind of couples, family members, whatever that really not that you're not going to listen to your other family members. But your core group, right, is really kind of the focus of that.

And, you know, some of those, their feedback, you you know should be heavy because it's the people you really value their opinion of but a lot of the folks whether it's on the internet or at work or something you know i would say i guess consider it right but but also don't lock it in your head as if it's going to eat away because it bothers you from their opinion yeah exactly and that that's important part to know that the this kind of feedback, the critique or so from those people, five people, when it comes, it comes from a place of love and willing will. And not a place of, I want to feel better about myself when I talk crap about you. Right. Yeah, that's a good point. That's the important part of qualifying people to get on that list.

Yeah, absolutely. And again, I'll use this, you know, my first few episodes of a podcast where I focused on public safety stuff and it was called Between the Slides. And, you know, my friends and family were the people. So it's like, hey, give me real feedback, this or that. And then you hear it from others. But yeah, the value of hearing, hearing you know feedback from folks that'll give it to you plus it's it's i would imagine more unfiltered right from when it's from people that

are closest to you um which can be good and bad i guess at times but but it's real real talk i guess we'll say um it's pretty neat and so it sounds like that's you know in one of the other areas and again um you know analegal.com right is a the website where folks can reach out. I know we'll share some of that too. But that self-leadership, one of the aspects that you have on there is, you know, it sounds like a self-leadership activity and really practice to be able to focus on yourself and who really is my core group, my village, right, as my wife likes to use and like you mentioned there. So it sounds like that's a self-leadership practice as well. Is that something when you help folks in kind of getting back to the personal development or professional that you actually encourage folks to take steps towards, towards kind of whittling down their social or professional

circles or just more the perspective of what they think of those circles? It's the perspective. We talk really about, and it's not about that you start interacting only with those people, right? Five people and the rest just don't see you anymore. It's not about that. It's really about whose feedback matters in what way uh how do you perceive that feedback and and it and it's again about the doing the work on your side because

the worst comments from someone else can only be the worst if i allow it to be and i'm getting that negative feedback. I'm doing imperfect action in my business and I'm doing live in ours and so on. And then I always ask for, like every registrant, I'm asking them about their opinion and I do get negative feedback.

And I don't take it personally anymore because those people, I've never met them. They're not on my five list. So just that realization takes the drama away in the moment, takes the emotion away. And then I can directly be curious, like, hmm, what did he mean when he said the content was, I don't know, not perfect? Right. And I actually ask those questions.

And I'm asking them with curiosity instead of saying, oh, you know, like it wasn't perfect because blah, blah, blah. I'm not going there. I'm not trying to protect myself. I'm grateful to this person for being so honest because I can learn from them. Yeah, that's a hard thing is getting feedback, right, from or can be and be objective and kind of giving it. And a big, again, another thing I think probably a lot of those lessons learned and after action kind of discussions to your point, whether it's a course or a meeting of saying, like, tell me, you know, what were some strengths, what were some areas for improvement, and then genuinely accepting that and incorporating it to help evolve, whether it's the work you do or yourself. It's great to hear that perspective from you as well as far as looking at it, and then it sounds like really digging into that person's feedback too, not just kind of glossing over it.

Exactly. not just kind of glossing over it exactly and the thing is that when you've done your work as a leader on your personal development on the self-leadership it's easy to focus on the constructive parts of that because you don't take it personally you've done your own work you know where you stand you know where you're going and this is just information you take out the information the emotion of this and you really get the information. And that is something that can continuously help you improve, get better at being a leader, at doing some particular task of yours, and so on and so forth. So speaking of information, this is a great segue. What information do you have for folks that can reach you and get much more of your knowledge and experience? Because I think it's great, you know, just what you've shared today,

let alone all the other information that you can share. But how can folks, what information can you share with them as far as being able to get in touch with you or ways that they can, you know, book time with you or hear more about you? So you already mentioned, Kevin, AnnaLibel.com. It's Anna with double A-N and then L-I-E-B-E-L.com. There you can find more information about me and that there is also a blog where I am posting weekly. And I'm also just starting my own podcast, Genius Leadership Overcoming Everything podcast.

So just reach out and listen to that. You'll get more conversations like ours with Kevin. And also I'm hanging out mostly on LinkedIn. So that's the platform where you can connect with me. I'll be happy to chat and help you on your development journey. That is another great platform. I think LinkedIn this year between, I know earlier this year as folks were surge planning, connecting with folks and sharing things, we connected there. It is an awesome platform in the way it works. And again, the global reach, because there's so many folks on there. And you mentioned it, and I apologize, I meant to ask about this earlier, so related to the title of Reclaiming Your Genius Zone. And so what is the genius zone that folks can know about and then learn more about when they connect with you? So genius zone for me is the place where you can do your work in a playful and a fun way. Because leadership is quite often seen as the tough duty. And I know and I believe

that it doesn't have to be that way. And with the right training, with the right mindset and with the right community, people can change that in their life and really get into their zone of genius and leading others and themselves from that space.

I like it. That's a very, very cool concept. All the things we've talked about, I think hopefully have been really helpful. I know I've enjoyed learning a lot more and look forward to hearing you on the podcast. And what's the name of the podcast again? Genius Leadership Overcoming Everything.

And when will that be out? It's actually out on 13th of January. So the same week as this podcast is live. Yep. Awesome. That's very cool. Anna, it's great to connect with you. I really appreciate your time again. Awesome to have, you know, global connections and, you know, look forward to hearing more about your success and, you know, the Genius Leadership Podcast. Thank you so much, Kevin, for your time as well. Awesome. Take care.