Ep 2 - Don't You Want To Know?

0:02 Welcome back to another episode of the MRM podcast. I'm Chris and I'm Brandon. Join us as we discuss business, life and legacy. It's business time. All right, man. How are you doing today? Oh, I'm good. I'm so good. So good. What is that that Dave Ramsey says every single time he opens up his radio show? It's like, better than I deserve, Brandon. Better than I deserve. Better than I deserve. Stuff like that, I always go, is that fake humility or does he actually feel that? I don't know. I mean, at some point when you're like a gazillionaire... isn't it time to acknowledge that you've uh you really are some of it yeah it's like you know yeah you did some things those things worked out uh yeah you deserve a little bit of that Dave yeah a little bit of it definitely killing it you and your debt-hating self definitely killing it again that man has made me feel guiltier more times than not but he's wise he is wise I will give him that Oh, man.

1:05 Okay, dude. So I've got a topic for us today. Part of this is based on some feedback, actually, from a friend and listener. And it just struck a chord in me and it was a huge reminder, almost of one of the core reasons we... we are even doing our podcast, our show in the first place is having this kind of an effect on someone. Here's the premise. Here's the idea. There is kind of a default practice. Again, I'm speaking for myself. I'm sure everyone else out there in the listener world is much better at this than I am. But it's this idea of understanding the value of facing your weaknesses and or reviewing them, looking at them, wrestling with them long enough to where you can identify, legitimately identify what it is and find ways to become better, to become stronger, to not repeat the offense.

2:04 Because what we wanna do, and I'm actually taking some words from my friend and her feedback is that we know, we get this warning signal in the back of our mind of that's a weakness, that's something I don't like, I don't wanna look at that, that's uncomfortable, I wanna ignore that, I wanna compartmentalize that, I wanna shove it away, or I want to give myself an excuse why that behavior, that attitude, that action, that tone, whatever. Was justified. It's justified. It's okay. You feel me? You see where I'm going here? Yeah. Yeah. So I thought to myself, man, what an appropriate topic. If the idea here is that we want to continue to help people have positive impacts, make significant transitions in their businesses and their lives, leave legacy, how do we not talk about this subject probably more than once?

2:57 Because this... You and I have talked about it at different times. Dude, this could be the superpower, honestly. I think in many ways, when people become really good at standing up and really wrestling with discrepancies, with misfires, man, is it a game changer in terms of what you can do, what you can change, what you can become, right? Yeah. Yeah, the ability to, I mean, all of the people that I really hold my admiration now, the older I get are those people that are just so comfortable with themselves. Like they're very quick. They're very quick to consider, how might I be wrong about this or that perspective or my assumptions?

3:44 Mm-hmm. how might I be wrong? Or, or looking back on a situation and be like, you know, could I have handled that better? Regardless of the other people's role in that situation, could I have handled that better and created potentially a better outcome if I'd have dealt with that differently? You know, it just stirs up in me just immediately. This topic just stirs up immediately is just my own relationships at home with my kids and my wife. My wife regularly is a source of humility and reflection. I really like the way you painted that. And my children are often the primary instigator of that. Like you and I have just talked about how I tend to run hot.

4:28 My anxiety level, I think this is true of a lot of entrepreneurs, is that we're so driven, we're so apt to take risk and to start things and instigate things. And the consequences of that, of risk-taking and everything else is, right, we have this pressure, this anxiety, this drive that just keeps us amped up, right? It's like we tend to dial things up to 11%. My daughter said something and I had this really stiff reaction to it. I just totally reacted in a sarcastic way. And then my daughter reacted this certain way. And then later, apparently my daughter had talked to my wife one-on-one. She's like, why does dad always act like that towards me?

5:09 Because there's been a lot of frustration. She's 16. I am having a hard time with it. And my wife was feeding this back to me, the comments my daughter said, and I'm just like, I'm so dismissive of it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, I think my daughter is like mentally broken right now. You know, it was like, I, the things that she says, the perspective that she holds, she's so argumentative about this stuff. I've just been in this really dismissive place of just like, this is so crazy. just what we're going through with her in this stage. And my wife just stopped. So I start to come back with this dismissive, wow, she's acting crazy kind of response.

5:55 And my wife said, wait, hold on. Don't you want to know how you're affecting your daughter? Ooh. I was like, well, that's a different light. Yeah. Don't you want to know what her experience of you is? What does it matter if she's right or wrong? Don't you want to know how you're affecting her? And I thought to myself, yeah, who actually cares if my daughter is going through this crazy phase and there's any validity to what she's saying? Don't I care about how she feel, like how she's experiencing me and how I'm making her feel? Right. Isn't it the end of the day? Like, don't I care most about the relationship that I'm building with my daughter and Why do I give a shit about any one argument or interaction about who's right and who's wrong?

6:45 Right. And whether her perspective is totally nutso or, or entirely valid and founded. Yeah. Like at the end of the day, isn't my relationship with her the most important thing in the world to me? Right. Like, isn't how others are experiencing us as leaders like, One of the most important things that we're doing and affecting, undoubtedly, how we're making people feel, right? Like, is right or wrong really the most important thing? I don't think so, man. It's humbling. Because when she said that... There was every bit of me. There was a big part of me, probably the bigger part of me in the moment, felt indignant, felt justified in my frustration, my irritation with my daughter.

7:34 But there was this little part of me in that moment that was like, yeah, you're totally right. And I think I want to give myself over to that part more. Like I want that to be my instinct when I'm in the moment is to have the awareness to realize, wow, I'm spinning out here and the only person that I'm really... like that's benefiting or winning is just my ego. And I don't like that. Yeah, I think you bring up a good point when you say that the only, and I actually want to rap about this a little bit. You say, the only part of me that's winning in that is my ego. And for our listeners over time, they're going to be exposed more to at least our perspective, right?

8:16 Our understanding on ego and how it affects us and what that really means by definition. But as part of that pushback, I think even if you don't dive into this heady topic of separating ego from personality, whatever, it's this idea of, are you really winning in any way by wanting to shut down that voice, the little part of you that says, man, I really should reconsider that. By compartmentalizing that, by it's uncomfortable, it's ugly, it feels like weakness. So all of us, by default, we're just like, ah, let's push that to the side. What are you actually gaining from that practice, like not even getting into this whole idea of legacy or really of any of that, but just from a physical, pragmatic perspective, are you winning?

9:00 Are you getting anything out of taking that stance? No, I'm just feeding this story about my daughter. I think I get stuck in it because it feels very practical to me. Like her behavior is out of line. Yeah. It's disrespectful. It's like, well, I have all these, I have all these stories. It's, it's nonsensical. She, she's, she's not being realistic. She's not being real. All these things I have that, but, and it all feeds a story of if I don't set her straight. Oh yeah. Where's she going to end up? Oh, sure. It's also practical in my ego. At least that's what you're telling yourself. Yeah, kind of in my ego's mind. It's all practical. That's what I'm reacting to is that if I don't set her straight, she's going to turn into this dysfunctional adult and all this stuff.

9:43 And I catch myself doing that in all other areas of my life. It's just been where my mind defaults is to take the focus off me and my role and what I can learn about myself. justifying the story in my head justifying that yeah it's really not me that's got an issue it's it's this other thing yeah that's it right it's the it's the defense mechanism it's the walls come up i'm not really going to spend any time with that it's uncomfortable i may not like what i feel what i realize in that i'm just going to argue it off or push it to the back burner yeah Dude, so I have a story.

10:28 Yeah. It was funny. Actually, when I was chatting with this friend of mine, getting some honest feedback from her, this person's name, which will remain nameless, came to my mind. I thought to myself, oh gosh. Yeah. Yeah, that is a story I think I need to revisit for myself. But so a while back, and this has been a number of years now, we had an individual on our team that, for whatever reason, our personalities were truly oil and water. It was just one of those scenarios where... for me as an individual, right, wrong, or indifferent, because it's really not the point, I just really struggled as a leader to develop a relationship with this individual in a really healthy way.

11:16 And this individual held a role on our team, part of the leadership staff, very influential role, had interactions with all of our team members, a very important role. This was not something I should have taken lightly in terms of their impact on our company. And as a leader, I just would get so frustrated with our exchanges, right? And this is the heart of us building a culture that's using the story in my head tools, the positive conflict management strategies. I mean, we are in the throes of developing a culture we can be proud of. And here I am, one of the key leaders in the organization driving this initiative, and I am struggling, right?

11:57 To develop a trusting relationship with this very key person on my team. And I remember going through moments like runs where I felt like we had traction, like whether it be probably when I review it later is maybe there was moments where I was leading better. And I wasn't so stuck on giving myself reasons or excuses to support this idea that she was wrong or that she was doing it the wrong way, that I couldn't trust her, that she didn't have the team's best interest in mind. Whatever, right? These stories, there were times where I managed those stories better And then there was too many times where I didn't.

12:38 And ultimately, kind of long story short, here I am, key leader in an organization that's professing that it wants to focus on culture, and I am struggling to develop a good relationship with one of my key leaders, that ultimately just ends in a disastrous kind of breakup and that individual did leave the team. And to this day, you weren't connected with that person, really? No. In fact, I would go as far as say, there was other folks in her sphere of influence that I respected a lot and I actually enjoyed having some form of a friendship with. And because that relationship didn't work now, I no longer even have access to that.

13:19 It was losses all around. And there's probably a lot in her that says, I'm the one that lost the most. And maybe that's true. But I spent the last few years, I have totally compartmentalized that. I've really not looked at that very many times. I've always had plenty of reasons why I was right and why that individual was wrong. And it's interesting... It's interesting how many scenarios like this, honestly, Chris, have come up in the last couple of years. And we're not going to go into it today. I think someday we're going to unpack a story together that's pretty big. But today, I think it's safe to say that in the last 18 months to two years, I have felt more draw to revisiting some of these relationships and experiences and really hanging in them long enough to...

14:05 to find what I could have done differently. And here's why. Really, at the end of the day, here's why. And you're alluding to this with the story about your daughter is, what am I gaining by shoving that shit into a closet somewhere and ignoring it because it's uncomfortable versus what profound gains do I have? What profound rewards do I potentially have that... if I were to do the hard work of remaining uncomfortable, like sitting in the dark with this thing long enough, looking at it, evaluating it, asking myself the question, what role did I have here?

14:45 What could I have done differently? How could I have responded differently? How should I have responded as the key leader? What can I learn from that? What could I do now? Like what gains do I have if I do the uncomfortable what could I do now? Like, what gains do I have if I do the uncomfortable work of being uncomfortable and hang out with this thing? And that's really what my friend said this morning when she was giving this feedback. She's like, I want to spend more time looking at these things that are weaknesses, that are behaviors or attitudes that I've had in the past that just... it wasn't a win at the end of the day. And so I want to hang out with those things long enough to see what I can learn so that I can experience and reap the rewards of doing that hard work.

15:29 And I think this person really hits on an important thing. I mean, cause that person you're talking about is a high performer, a high achieving person, like very high performer in our industry and, And I think that's one of the things that makes this hard for those of us who are high achievers, like we're go-getters, activators, whatever adjective you want to put on it. It's, again, one of those, like that paradox of success, right? We're doing well enough that... it's really easy to sort of believe our own news. Yeah, that's huge. Cause that's what you're doing. Yeah. Right.

16:09 Right. It's that I've got enough of my stuff figured out that I don't, I don't really need to do that. I mean, we don't ever say it consciously because of course if any of us were pressed, like do you have areas you need to grow and learn? Well, of course the answer is yes. But in those individual moments where we're kind of faced with maybe some, some bad behavior, or when we're faced with a negative outcome that we may have had a role in, it's so easy for our ego to kind of just pass it off as it's other people's thing because we're so good, we're so accomplished in all these other areas. I think for me, it is just that you get so caught up in the achievement and the success that sometimes it's hard to stop and be like, well, wait, could it have been better?

16:54 Yeah. For me, a lot of times it comes down to the relationships because you can be financially successful. And of course, we've experienced this in all the different roles we've had is you can have these achievements and success, but behind the scenes, there's broken relationships, there's strained relationships, there's... added stress and anxiety. I think for me, one of the patterns I've started to notice is similar to what you described with that key leader that you had that broken relationship with. I've noticed a pattern in my leadership. If I look back all the way to 20 plus years owning my state farm business, the other businesses I've owned and employees that I've is that I can think of a handful of people in particular that I'm, like with your example, I'm no longer connected to.

17:47 Yeah. And that feels like a loss to me. Yeah. Because at the time, I allowed this story about these employees to develop and to kind of spin out and get out of control. I've noticed this pattern in my own leadership where... I tend to avoid having the difficult conversations. I avoid the conflict. And the story just starts to build up. These little infractions, these little comments, these little behaviors that people do that I'm like, oh, that's not great, but I don't want to have that. corrective conversation and I just let that story build until I have this elaborate story about how this person doesn't fit in our culture, not the right character.

18:31 They don't have the right skills or the right drive that I was looking for. And I just get so frustrated where I terminate them. Yeah. Or they self-terminate because I kind of withhold relationship. Boom. That's it. I kind of withhold relationship. Like they can tell there's some funkiness to our dynamic and I downplay it like that. They're not feeling that. Yeah. They're not aware that I'm frustrated with them, but of course they are. Our employees are always aware. when we're withholding relationship. They can tell the way we look at them or don't look at them. They can tell the fact that we don't talk to them directly as much during meetings.

19:11 There's just this disconnect that we allow to form. And then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy on those. It does. It does. And I, and I didn't even give them the respect of the clear and severe feedback that we've talked about before. And I just, when I'm really honest with myself and I look back over my career, like that's just been, it's been a trend. It's been a, it's been a recurring thing. And it makes me, it makes me sad because I, I don't ever want to burn bridges, right? I think anybody who's listening to this that wants to be a good person and they want to help others out, this is just one of those glaring kind of marks in my history that I want to be more aware of because I don't want to do it anymore.

19:56 And I've been more conscious of it over the last several years, but boy, yeah. Becoming more conscious of that desire in me to avoid conflict, to try to get other people to like me, seeing how that has sabotaged my leadership. Oh, yeah. You and I experience this all the time, even with our consulting clients and stuff, is this hiring and firing is very difficult. It's a very difficult skill to obtain and use well and wield well. And all of us have suffered the consequences of poor hires and all of us have suffered the consequences of turnover within our ranks. So I wanna be really careful here. I want people to understand where we're coming from with this perspective. We understand, I understand, this is already a hard decision to make.

20:39 And a lot of us, really, it's excruciating to make the determination if someone's going to leave or stay on your team. It's already a wrestling match. It is. But I think what we're talking about here is it's this idea that this bleeds into other decision-making. And here's the point. It's this idea that... That we are going to make decisions, we're going to act certain ways, we're going to have attitudes about things, we're going to have default decision factors and behaviors that we use on a consistent basis that we know there's some tinge in the back of our mind that tells us, that's really not the best you. This could be better.

21:21 You could do this differently. But because it's uncomfortable, we immediately shove it into a container, push it to the back of our mind, compartmentalize it, entertain ourselves through that experience and push on and move forward. And the reality of it is... This shows up in all sorts of circumstances. It doesn't have to be a big blowout between two key leaders on a team or like you're talking about these kind of momentous interactions that happen at home because of certain age frames and things like that. This is everyday stuff. Here's a baby example. you know this, I'm trying to get a grip on my personal health, right?

22:01 Across the board. But right now, a big piece for me is I'm 45 years old. I'm no spring chicken anymore. And I'm getting more nervous about the impact of that on my body. I don't want to be old and fat. It's scary to me. So the idea is, is that I am now becoming more aware... Of some of that default behaviors and attitudes I have around meals, physical exercise, blah, blah, blah. And so I am now having this opportunity where I'm seeing examples of little attitude types and behaviors, decision-making defaults that I've used in the past that I'm now looking at and saying, oh man, I don't know if those serve me anymore. I may need to make some changes there, but it's uncomfortable, right?

22:43 Some of those things I'm looking at might be drinking behaviors. Who knows? Whatever. The point is, is that we all have little examples of things big and small that we're doing that at the end of the day, if we really hung out with them long enough, we could very easily determine they're not in our benefit and we could do it differently. And if we do it differently... what rewards do we have available to us, right? But it's hard to do. Yeah, what you're hitting on, it reminds me of a saying, and I'm going to butcher it. So Isaac, if you're listening, so Isaac Tolpin is just a guy that I had some really formative interactions with. He was a senior leader for me in my early, like late teens, early 20s, when I was with Cutco Vector.

23:27 And he used to say something, something to the effect of, When we learn to be most accountable to ourselves, like when we hold ourselves to the standard of, could I have been better in that moment? Like, in as much as it within my power, did I hold myself to my own standard? Man, yeah. And I think so often we can get a little bit lazy as leaders, right? where we can settle for the standard others are holding us to. And the more success and the more power and influence, the more I think people's expectation of us in some ways slips. Man, yeah.

24:08 Our business gets to a point where it's like, we can kind of rest on our laurels that, hey, we got the business here. We were responsible for that. And we can start to demand less of ourselves. And I think we're hitting on is like, I want to be a person that demands the best of myself. I want to look back on situations and say, okay, regardless of anybody else's input in that situation, did I bring my best to that moment? Could I have been better? Could I be better in the future handling that situation? I might've handled it well, but could I have produced a better outcome? Yeah.

24:48 Could I have preserved that relationship somehow if I'd handled that termination differently? Because to me, anytime I can preserve a relationship, it's positive. And don't get me wrong, like there are bad hires. Oh yeah. But I am plagued by this statement and I don't remember who said it. I think it might've been like Patrick Lencioni or one of these management guru guys. They said there are no bad employees, there's only bad leaders. Yes. Or something like that. You know what I'm talking about. Oh, I know exactly what you mean. And I'm plagued by that because I think there is probably more truth to that than not. Yeah. I know there's exceptions. I also recently, we had a client that had a mishire on a salesperson. And I was involved in the hiring process.

25:29 I signed off on that candidate. And I, all of us were wrong. Yeah. Yeah. 40 days later, that person was no longer with the company and however much hard cost of $5,000 or $6,000 later, it was just a misfire. It didn't work. And it was bad. I think in the end, we all concluded it was just bad timing. Yeah. Not a bad person. Yeah. Not bad character, just rough thing in their life. And we didn't pick up on that. And it was just a bad hire. And I know that happens. And I also know, there's a part of me that realizes, could we have done an even better job of interviewing to where we could have teased out some of those time of life circumstances to have avoided that bad hire?

26:10 And I think that's the place that I want to camp out more. Yes, that's it. Is conditioning myself to where every situation, I think it's easiest as just a cue when something went wrong. Yeah. When something didn't work out ideally, is to just... have the patience and I think the commitment as a person to hang there a little bit longer. Like we talked about doing an after action review. Oh, you're reading my mind. That's where, yes, exactly. And it's like, and frankly now, as I'm processing this out loud, that situation of that bad hire, I think there's probably even room for you and I to go back to that client and to circle back because now they're in the process of hiring, hunting for another candidate that's better suited.

26:55 But to even go back and say, okay, let's process through what questions do we ask? What questions do we not ask? Are there other open-ended questions that we could have asked in that process to maybe tease out where that person's head was at, time of life, other circumstances where we could have avoided that hire that will help us do a better job of teasing those things out next time? And certainly for us, because we help a lot of clients in those kinds of scenarios, we Every time I take a moment to reflect like that, it makes me a little bit better next time around when I encounter that. It's good to great, Notch, right? Man, I love where you went with that.

27:36 Here's something that I think is worth kind of ping-ponging around a little bit. So it's interesting. I will say an encouragement to you on that particular circumstance that you gave is, You actually, by default, you and I have a history long enough now that we have adopted the concept enough of the AAR that I do see us doing it more often than not by default. And you actually did walk the client through a form of an AAR. And actually... And we did some process improvement. We did. And there was some elements of you saying, hey, what could we have done differently here? But you're right. The exercise is difficult to do. You're right. I need to give myself some credit. You did. It was there. But so here's what I think is interesting about this and I think this is where I want to take this part of this conversation next is the after action review I think is a concept you and I introduce it to people all the time.

28:23 I think people have seen versions of this this idea of an after action review and they deploy it fairly consistently and it seems like when we look it's easy for us to look at a business situation an event that let's say incorporates employees. And we can look at that as a leader and be very robust and consistent about saying, okay, team, let's look at this as a, let's do an after action review. Where could we have made gains? We can do this, we can do that. That seems easier for us to adopt as individuals, as players, as leaders, than it is for us to look at our own personal behaviors, attitudes, and like default ways of thinking. And here's why, man.

29:04 This is what has really been hammering on me this last couple years is I go into those situations inevitably with a value statement attached to it. And here's what I mean. In the past, the reason looking at a interaction, a behavior, an example has been so uncomfortable is because I always have a default good or bad, should or could, that I'm attaching to it. And a practice, I don't remember who I, this was inevitably came out of a book or something. It was this idea of the practice of reviewing these types of situations and doing everything in your power to not give it a good or bad value statement. Just call it what it is.

29:46 Here's an example. I can go back to my story, right, with this individual on our leadership team. And I, by default, when I start right? With this individual on our leadership team. And I, by default, when I start to think about that, my mind immediately goes to, this was bad. You did wrong here. Okay. As soon as I hear that, as soon as that starts to pop into my mind, I'm like, oh, I don't want to think about that any longer. I don't want to touch that. I don't like that. I don't like that. However, and again, this is getting a little heady, but hang in here with us guys. If you can get better, and this takes practice, this is like weightlifting. It takes time to build the muscle. It's working a new muscle. But it's this idea of, can I go back to more situations like that?

30:29 And when I feel myself starting to attach the good or bad value to it, I just go, stop. This is, this was the situation. This is not my identity. This is just how it played out. And then asking yourself the question, Was there something differently I could have done there that would have been more beneficial for myself and for the team? Yeah. So again, we're not going back at it and saying, man, you should have done it this way. You're a bad person. It's good. It's bad. It's not. No. did it serve me well yeah was there an opportunity to do something differently here and if I had yeah could we have gained something yeah could we have gained a new skill kept a relate whatever and I know this is kind of hard to understand in theory I think somebody listening to this cuz cuz you and I've engaged I mean we engage in this conversation a lot because it's been it's it's it's proven to be so profitable for you and I in from the standpoint of of personal growth and our leadership capacity, all that stuff.

31:28 Huge. It's like every minute we spend in this kind of reflection, we see a return on it. Yes. But I think it's more a, it's tuning ourselves in to just recognizing our default behaviors. Yeah. It's awareness. We were talking about this as we were walking back from coffee, like it's awareness is the muscle that you're stimulating. Because I think a lot of times we do have these default behaviors and they come from wherever. They come from, I have some default, I catch myself saying certain things that are just like my dad said things. And if I, and sometimes it makes me crazy because of course we all do this, right? We all have certain things.

32:08 And my dad I know has certain things that he'll notice himself doing that maybe remind him of his father. And we all have these things that annoy us about some of these default behaviors we have. Yeah. But because they're default behaviors, we don't notice them. Yeah, exactly. So it's like, it's a blind spot, right? It's a blind spot is the art of noticing, right? And I think what you're describing is what we've taught a lot of clients, which is with the after action review, one of the important things is to objectify the thing. Take the personalities out of it. Yep. Do our best to remove the egos. Yeah. But I think part of it is just recognizing that our egos are in the room to begin with. Yes. That, hey, part of me is feeling really defensive.

32:50 Yeah. It's okay. Like, we don't have to pretend that this is not uncomfortable. Yeah. Like, you're right, man. It is just uncomfortable. Yeah. Because our egos don't like it. Our egos don't like to accept any responsibility. Right. You know, it's like our egos just want to win. Our egos just want to be liked. We want to be affirmed. We want to be recognized. We just want to hang in that successful place that we've earned. Yeah. You know, I'm a business owner. My company's successful. I'm making money. We just want to hang in that zone. Yeah. But yet all of the profit, all the profit and really all the joy, the legacy is in that space of where do I go from here?

33:31 Like, how do I, where can I go from here? How could I act and say, okay, so I've gotten here, it's successful, but where are all the places that I could have been better? Where can I, what's my next horizon? Like, what's the next mountaintop? Yep. is this really as good as it gets? Yeah. Because I don't think it is. Well, and here's the challenge with that too. And I can almost, like I'm feeling this even in the conversation, and I'm sure folks that are listening can hear this too, is you do kind of reach a point though where you don't want to be in a constant state of, I should be doing more. I could have done better, right? Like there is this balancing act that we're talking about here where we're open to reviewing things What we're doing and how we're acting, how we're behaving, how we're making decisions, because ultimately there's an opportunity to continue to notch it up, to go from 10 to 11, go good to great, right?

34:28 But is there a mindset, kind of a frame of mind that we can go into so that it doesn't become this... freaking another something else that we're guilting ourselves with because dude god knows we got enough of that yeah what was the word you used yesterday it was melancholy yeah here's what oh i know what i was going to say where i was going with that is as we've been talking with people sometimes i think people can put this in the category of navel gazing Yeah, yes. Just sort of pondering the lint in our navel. You know, just like we get to this like over philosophical, where we're always kind of overthinking, rethinking things that that's what this is about.

35:09 That it can sound like that. Yeah. Especially, especially to an industry, to an audience of people like us that are like the get shit done kind of people. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's a real, I would just say in my experience, that's been a real myth. That's, that's like a false, it's a false perspective is that, that what we're talking about is navel gazing. We're not, it's not about just constantly lamenting your mistakes and, or being stuck in this rear view, hyper analyzing what happened and why and shoulda, coulda, wouldas. That's not what we're talking about. It's, it's staying in that awkwardness long enough to catch those nuggets of wisdom that are there.

35:55 Like in every situation, there's something to be learned. It's just that. It's just maintaining this posture of lifelong learning. Right, right on. Where's the opportunity in this for me to level up. Right. Not good person, bad person. No! Not, I'm worthless. Yeah, what's the intelligence in this moment? What's the takeaway? Yeah. What's the intel? What's the data? Yeah. Right? Yeah. No, I think you're right on the money. Because that is the point. Like, when we're talking about stuff like this, I think it's easy for folks to just slip into the space of, it starts to contribute to the, I'm not good enough. I'll never succeed in this. whatever.

36:36 And for some of you, that's harder of an issue than others. There's others that they need to understand there's merit in reviewing the possibilities of making some changes because they have more than enough self-confidence, but they really need to evaluate some of their best practices. But no, I love what you're saying there, that this is not a heady foo-foo thing. This is a practical way to make gains in your business. your life, your sphere of influence. Oh, and certainly your legacy. Certainly being able to look back and say, wow, that was a more profound impact. I made gains there and that was valuable to me. Yeah, it's not mental gymnastics.

37:16 It's not being a negative Nancy. Right. This is a skill, I think, of leadership. And you and I are just starting to tap into it. It's like, we're just in our 40s. I feel like I don't even know, like the more I start to kind of lean into this, what it'll produce in me as a leader. See, and I love that attitude. Yeah. Right? I like what you're saying with that. And I think that's part of the slip here is that people need to remember, we have to look at this and say, what can I gain from this? It's not, don't get too choked up on the, it's uncomfortable because it is. You have to be more uncomfortable or be more comfortable being uncomfortable, right? but it's more than that.

37:57 It's what can I gain? What do I have yet to experience if I try this practice? If I get better at this becoming more of a default behavior is what can my group, my sphere, me as an individual gain because I'm willing to do this kind of work. That's what we're talking about here. All right, dude. Now you're going to have to exercise your summary superpowers. The summary. You have to wrap this thing up for us. And this is big. This is We were talking about this idea of this willingness to almost conduct more of an internal AAR, right? This practice of wrestling with the weaknesses, with the default behaviors, the default attitudes, some of those ways that we just respond to a moment, being willing to go back later, look at that and say...

38:49 Could I have tweaked that a little bit? Yeah. Could I have refined it? Could I have done something a little differently? Could I choose to respond differently next time? Man, guys, listen to that. Could I choose to respond differently? There's more power in that phrase than we're going to unpack today. Can I choose to respond differently next time? Could I produce or affect... a more positive, a more constructive outcome next time? If so, how could I? How? What will I do? What will I change? That's the match. Don't get caught up in the hanging with your shadow or looking at yourself in the mirror.

39:32 That is powerful. This is not being a victim is what this is. Will I be willing to look at situations, conduct an internal AAR to ensure that I have more choices? Next time. I love that. I love that piece. So that's where we were hanging. Here's what we need to think through in that. One is try to approach those situations with less judgment. We're not making good, bad statements. We're literally just coming back to the table. We're taking our personal personality out of it and saying, hey... Can we review this? Can we take a look at this? Can we select ways to make changes or modify our behavior, our decision-making next time?

40:13 Make a different choice. I love that, right? And then I think what we have here is that we come at it with the right mindset. And that mindset is the more often that you and I as individuals... can do an after-action review that we can hang out with some of those things that are uncomfortable, but come at it with this mindset of, what do I have the opportunity to gain? How can my team get stronger? How can my company become stronger? How can my family be stronger? If I make these choices, if I do it a little bit differently next time and man, dude, if you think about it from that perspective, who wouldn't want to do this?

40:53 Right. I think we just get it twisted. We hang out in the wrong spot of this. So man, I love that. Okay. All right, man. Thanks. We'll see you next time. All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of the MRM Podcast. And if you got something out of it, share it with a friend, hit subscribe, hit follow, leave us a five-star review. Thanks a lot.