The pandemic has accelerated change and amplified issues within organizations. As a leader, how do you bring in positive leadership moving forward into this new revolution? Today’s guest is Executive Coach Brent Mullins of Brent Mullins Coaching. Brent has over 25 years of experience in executive leadership and organizational complexity at Fortune 200 companies and multi-cultural organizations. He joins host Stephen Jaye to discuss what qualities are required of a leader in these volatile times. Brent underscores a learning mindset as one of the key factors in the evolution of a leader. Tune in for more insights and advice on leadership.
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Brent Mullins On Positive Leadership And The Importance Of A Growth Mindset
In this episode, I want to talk to you all about leadership in organizations and leadership in our lives. Leadership tends to set the stage for an entire organization, how people within the organization interact with one another, how they interact with the customers and how the organization ends up being presented to everybody. A leadership that’s misprioritized and misguided can have an impact on the employees. It can lead to employees being disengaged, disinterested and dissatisfied with their job.
Given some of the statistics that we’ve seen about the percentage of employees that are indeed disengaged, it’s easy to feel like we’re in some multidecade-long leadership crisis at the moment. Here to help with this problem is our guest, an Executive Coach, Brent Mullins of Brent Mullins Coaching. Thank you very much for joining us on the show.
Thanks, Stephen. That was a great intro.
Every executive coach has their own niche or all coaching because coaching is a pretty broad category of people. Each particular person needs to establish a niche and we’ve covered this in some of our previous episodes about niching. To orient our readers, what is your niche in this executive coaching world?
While I do work across a number of industries, most of my work is working with executives and leaders who have executive aspirations somewhere in the life sciences field, biotech, healthcare technology, medical device, physicians or wherever they are in the life sciences space. In particular, I work one-on-one with leaders, especially those who are wanting to take on bigger strategic challenges, but they’re somehow hamstrung or kept from getting to those challenges that they’re after. That oftentimes leads into the other part of the work that I do, which is working with the leader and their teams to increase the effectiveness of the team overall.
There are a million ways that we can evolve as learners to make daily incremental gains forward. Click To TweetWith these aspiring leaders, you talked about them being hamstrung. What are the most common challenges that people experience as they’re trying to step into a leadership role or improve their leadership capabilities to create better teams?
Some of the big challenges from a strategy standpoint might have to do with going into new markets. If they’re making something, they may be re-evaluating their industrial footprint. I’ve never met a CEO that doesn’t think of more growth on their head every day, day in and day out. When you’ve got these challenges and you’re living in a world like COVID and navigating the pandemic, there are so many issues and people challenges pulling on your time. It’s quite remarkable. The question becomes, “How do I as a leader keep everything going and keep my hand on the wheel and still be able to attend to the strategic challenges that are often outside of the four walls of my business?”
When you say outside of the four walls to your business, do you mean challenges that arise from changes in markets, a new competitor emerging or consumer trends and things like that?
A new technology that has popped up, establishing brand-new markets like the Blue Ocean Strategy. You might create a premium product and there might be competitors on the low end who are coming up and eating your lunch. It’s on top of this hybrid workforce that’s going on now where organizations weren’t ready to necessarily move as dramatically, as quickly as they have to people working remotely and virtually.
Now, given everything that’s going on in the new hybrid work environment, The Great Resignation, as some people are calling it, people are struggling to find and keep their talent. Do you feel like internal or external pressures are providing a bigger stress on most executives at this point?
I’ve been getting a lot of data on this and looking at it. 7 out of 10 people are saying, “The flexibility that I have through this pandemic, I want to stay.” Paradoxically, 7 out of 10 people are saying, “I want a lot more collaboration in person after this is over.” On the one hand, I want all this great, tremendous, radical flexibility and I want all the good stuff that happens when I’m face-to-face with my colleagues.
I understand how that feels. I have to admit I feel that way as well. I want to see people in person again, but I love the flexibility. Have you encountered any leaders that you’re either in contact with coaching that has found that magic formula to getting the best of both worlds? I think about it because I’ve been in places where you get the worst of both worlds. You’re driving through the office every day from 8:00 to 5:00, but you’re still doing things all on Zoom or Teams.
Have you found anyone that has implemented a way of giving people the flexibility to live their lives according to their circadian rhythms, the weather or whatever people want to do, but also find that right amount of time where people are face-to-face, in person, collaborating with each other and getting all those benefits that make a cohesive team that is firing on all cylinders?
There are pockets of great practices. There are some organizations that have been virtual for years and have established solid virtual practices for teaming and leadership. What I think now is this remarkable transformation is going to take a few years for organizations to figure out how to make this thing hum. It is truly a learning challenge. It’s an adaptive challenge for organizations to say, “How do we move forward, experiment, learn, integrate those best practices and then learn again to keep those loops of learning happening until they figure out how to do it?”
I feel like a hybrid in this challenge which is partly in the marketplace with The Great Resignation and partly inside the organization with the frustration that employees and leaders are all experiencing. It’s a little bit like you had an Industrial Revolution and then you had a Digital Revolution. Honestly, now, you’re looking at a Hybrid Revolution as we go forward.
It’s weird because the term hybrid has been used for a lot of things. I remember when people first started introducing hybrid cars. There’s a lot of hybridization in everything. I even thought of suburbia as a hybrid before people started using that term. People are trying to find that hybrid between urban living and living out in a small town rural world, which is now over half the country is suburban. I wonder if that mentality has already been set because, a lot of times, these mentalities are brought about and introduced in a lot of different other areas of life.
When you say that, it makes me think about something that I’ve observed, which is this hybrid model is a bit of an amplifier. If things are not going well before COVID and before this whole virtual experiment, it usually amplifies the pain even worse. If you’re a leader of leaders, it’s one challenge. If you’re a leader over people who have their hands on in doing their work, it’s a different challenge. If your team wasn’t as solid before, whatever the cracks or the fissures were, it has been broken wide open for a lot of people.
The same thing can be said for the connection, which is so desperately needed in this virtual environment. There’s never been a more important time to be truly connected to the people that you’re working with instead of the opposite, which is isolation. The whole silo mentality has flourished in those virtual environments for lack of connection and know-how of how to make that connection.
You talked about the levels of leadership, which you’re talking about like what I talked to is that middle management or the leaders over the people that are doing the work. You’re talking about the executive level, which are the leaders of the leaders. Who is it most incumbent on now to implement this iterative feedback process and learn how to keep that connection with the flexibility of the hybrid environment and bring it down to the people to make the people more engaged than they are now? If the surveys are right, most people are not engaged in their jobs.
I am a leadership zealot through and through and have been my whole career. The positive way to say this is that, as leaders, we role model and set the tone for the organization at that executive level. The not-so-positive way of saying that is the fish stinks from the head down. The beauty of the challenge is that those folks in those senior roles are drawn there for a reason. They like the challenge.
My experience has been that they’re abnormally accountable right there and they’re oftentimes tenaciously focused on the interests of the organization. Those qualities can be remarkably positive in a time like this if they’re leading through this transformation to help make it okay to experiment and to not always get the right result but to keep learning and keep moving forward. The leaders who are doing that are pushing the envelope and seeing some very positive returns.
I’ve heard this elsewhere, too, the idea of overcoming the fear of failure, making it okay to experiment and try something, and different ways that people are coming up to minimize the impact, like these small experiments that are common design thinking and some other concepts. Do you think that there’s an undercurrent of fear that’s keeping people from embracing this “it’s okay to fail” model at some organizations?
There’s always an undercurrent, especially the higher up a leader moves in an organization. I was working with the CMO, Chief Marketing Officer. Things were going well, but there was a conversation about some risks and they were like, “There are not that many CMO roles out there for me to move into. I want to make this work.” The stakes get higher up and sometimes fear can accompany that.
There are so many different influences on the pressure for organizations to be successful, whether they be publicly traded or private. There’s so much talk about the supply chain now. The idea of making a mistake and finding yourself facing triple your commodity costs because maybe you weren’t on top of it, the amplification of risk, and therefore, the concern and fear has gone crazy through COVID. The whole fear meter has risen a few points.
One thing I’m wondering a little bit off the wall, have you ever encountered someone that has the aspiration to become a leader but there’s something about their attitudes or their way of being that makes you tell them either 1) You shouldn’t become a leader or 2) You’re not ready yet until you adjust this and that?
I’ve never told anyone that. Some people have rightly self-selected out because they did not enjoy the work of leadership, which has to do with people, human systems and so many things that maybe they didn’t know before they stepped into that role. I had a great manager earlier in my career who said that any promotion that I’m ready for is the wrong promotion. What he was saying was like, “You should be stretched by any job that you move into.” Otherwise, if there’s no growth, challenge and stretch for you, what’s the point of moving into that expanded promotion?
The leaders set the stage for the people below them. The fish stinks from the head down. A poor leader can have a poor or bad impact on the people below them in the organization. I don’t love that term, but I’m using it to make sure everyone understands. What I’m wondering is how you balance the need to give these emerging leaders a challenge with the assurance that you’re not taking these people doing the task roles and ruining their lives because you’ve promoted someone that wasn’t ready for the job and it’s going to create conflict among the team. How do you find that right balance between the two?
Life is not pass-fail. It's about what outcome did you get and how do you go forward? Click To TweetIt’s a great question because, certainly, people have evolved into roles for the wrong reasons. Somebody might be a great salesperson but not a great sales leader over their sales folks. What I would hope in that scenario is that your process for selection helps find the people who are showing the potential, innate skill and innate talent for the idea of leadership. Moving them in there as someone who is not suited, qualified or capable would be a disaster. You’re finding the people who are drawn to the nature of the work of leadership and having them step into those jobs.
I don’t believe that I was saying that leaders are born, not made. I do believe through all the leaders that I have worked with, which is decades now, that learning is the great differentiator. The learning mindset is that, “As a leader, I’m going to grow and evolve over my entire career.” It’s not like I’m going to get it all answered in 1 or 2 years after being in a leadership role.
It would be fascinating. Could you imagine someone who is at the very end of their career, who had had a lifelong experience as a leader, and to be able to ask them three different points, “What do you know now that you didn’t know before that’s vital to your success?” How would that story change for that leader through 30 or 40 years?
It’s a continuous learning process. The people you’re saying that are in the wrong mindset are the people that already believe they know it all.
If you come into any challenge thinking, “I’ve got the answer,” in the day and age that we live in with the complexity, constant volatility and uncertainty that we face in our everyday work lives and lives, that would be a red flag.
I believe that there are a lot of people amongst my readers that are in this category. What I’m curious about is how many people you think are out there that have that curiosity or some aptitude or interest in the leadership of some form or another, but for some reason, because of this mindset of, “I need to know it all. I need to be prepared,” are not pursuing it? They honestly believe like, “I’m not leveled up quite yet to that opportunity.”
One of your other shows with Darren Kanthal talked about mental fitness and positive intelligence. At the core of that is looking at how we make our lives small through this thing called the inner critic or what he was referring to as saboteurs. Those saboteurs are fuel-based. Those are the limiting thoughts that we put on ourselves instead of taking the chance to say, “How might I put my toe in this water and figure out if this is right for me?”
What you’re talking about is people self-selecting back like, “I’m not even going to let myself try this because of whatever unspoken fear that I may or may not even be conscious of.” That, unfortunately, is something that every human being who walks the Earth wrestles with. The question might be like, “How many people have someone in their lives who can say, ‘I see the potential in you? I believe in you. You can take that step forward and try this out. This might be a great path for you.'”
I also love to point out to my readers that everyone is walking this path because I believe a lot of people oftentimes feel like they’re alone or that they’re the only ones. I attended Denver Startup Week at the beginning of October 2021. There was a session on imposter syndrome. The statistics anytime if you attend any session and people talk about this concept of imposter syndrome is pretty universal.
I believe they said something along the lines of 75% or 80%. If any of the panel members of that is reading right now, I apologize for probably saying the wrong statistic. A vast majority of people encounter some form of imposter syndrome. The important takeaway here is for people to look at that and realize, “I’m having this self-doubt in my head, but I’m not alone.” Everyone has self-doubt at some point and it’s what you do with it that matters.
I could not agree more. There are a lot of ways to combat that, but at its core, it comes back to being keenly, if not exquisitely, self-aware and to work on that as a skill or capability within yourself. I say that because it’s rare, even with people at the most senior levels. They have crystal-clear clarity around not only what the most important values for themselves are but what is it that differentiates them from a leadership standpoint.
For any facet of work that you might be in, whether it be an individual contributor, entry-level management or executive level, a few people can sharpen that point down to say, “There are three things that I am distinctly differentiated in that has enabled my success.” In the absence of that, we go back to the imposter syndrome, which is, “I doubt myself because I’m not concrete on the things that drive, fuel and bring me a lot of satisfaction and joy.”
Was that part of your program, asking people to have those three things that differentiate themselves?
Part of the work of a coach, which for me gives tremendous satisfaction, is the idea of being able to see people for who they are and putting all the facade away. Get rid of kabuki, if you will, the idea of performing in the role. I’m talking about seeing the person in their natural state about who they are, what’s important to them, being able to acknowledge that with them and finding the stories that support that. It’s the real stories, not the made-up stuff. What’s real for them is very confirming. As coaches, we typically try to do that to help people find what’s true for themselves.
What do you think disconnects people? One of the things that imposter syndrome or any phoniness stems from is people trying to be somebody else. I’ve had previous podcast guests describe it to me. When I often describe the feedback, a lot of people get to their particular ideas that they’re coming out with is, “The market is already saturated.” I’ve had previous podcasts that say, “The market is saturated if you’re trying to do something that someone else is already doing, but if you’re being you, the market is not saturated with you if you’re being true to yourself.” What keeps people trying to be somebody or something else?
You’re hitting one of the cornerstones of imposter syndrome, which is, “I discount what I do very well. What comes naturally to me might be one of my greatest strengths for some reason because it’s so easy for me. I just got it and assume that there’s no value to it.” I know a guy. In his DNA, the guy was made to be a strategist. He was the most strategic person I’ve ever worked with and was handed an assignment once.
It was strategic in nature. This person was questioning their ability on whether or not they could follow through on it. I was thinking, “If there was one person I had ever met in my career that I would want to work on that, it was this person.” It was like the fish in the water. This was so who he was that he figured, “It must not be valuable because it’s so easy.”
It’s interesting. The fact that it comes so easy to someone who has a natural talent. Having struggled through that a little bit myself, I naturally see the connection between things that don’t make sense to a lot of people with these disparate things. One example I’ve been giving to people is the connection between our extreme polarization and the rise in popularity of Marvel Comic films that are completely unrelated. To me, it’s like, “It makes sense. Everybody wants to have this idea of a clear, concrete, good versus evil story and be on the winning good side of it.” To me, that came so quickly to my head that it’s easy to discount it and be like, “Everyone else is coming out that quickly too.”
Self-awareness is foundational in any type of growth situation. If you don't know where you are now, you can't take this step forward. Click To TweetIt probably went through your head that you said, “Everybody sees that.”
I oftentimes get lost and it has caused conflicts in some conversations when I act as if this is such an easy-to-identify, elementary idea.
That is a great example. When you talk to a lot of people about the idea of imposter syndrome or saboteurs, that is a prevailing theme which is we discount the things that are natural and easy for us. On the other hand, you can recognize that as a strength and say, “Is that something that the world needs me to bring to it?”
That starts moving you in a very powerful direction. It’s not me saying, “Here’s how I want things to go.” It’s a little bit different. It’s me saying, “I’ve got these strengths, whatever they might be.” A strategist or a connector like yourself, somebody who can connect the dots for some compelling big-picture discussions. Where is the world inviting me to bring that strength to it?
That’s how you go from sabotaging yourself to believing yourself. It’s finding these strengths, recognizing how powerful they are and then finding the place where it needs to be used.
One of the greatest inventions ever was the idea of the team. It’s not always done particularly well. If you knew as a leader, let’s say you’ve got ten direct reports, whether they be leaders or individual contributors. Imagine knowing for all of them intimately what those strengths are that they have to bring to your group.
You can then say, “How do we bring all of our collective strengths to the challenges that are in front of us, what the market is asking of us and what the world is asking of us if we’re doing something with a very mission-focused organization like healthcare?” There’s huge demand there. What a beautiful alignment to say, “Here is who we are. Here is how we’re aligned with all of our strengths. Here is what is being asked of us.” How do you not be successful in that situation?
Some of the best leaders I’ve encountered in my life are the people that can take their direct reports and quickly rattle off like, “This is what motivates this person. This is what puts this person off. This is what demotivates them.” One of the things I’m wondering is, if we look at leadership in this whole leadership crisis as I started to describe it with a lot of this fish stinks from the head down stuff, what do you think is the biggest problem? Do you think there are a lot of leaders out there now who are focusing on the wrong things like they need to be more focused on the people they’re leading, more interested in who they are and how they motivate them?
I might be a bit of a broken record, but I feel like I come back to this idea of learning. The challenge isn’t so much that there are a lot of flawed folks out there because all of us are flawed. We all have our challenges. We all have these beautiful, wonderful strengths that are a part of who we are. The idea that we don’t have to learn continually throughout our career, it’s a commitment to evolve not only from learning of self but also in your example of how we show up to bring the best out of the people that we work with.
That’s a tough challenge because so often, we’ve had the idea of, “You have to go and be trained.” It’s not. There are a lot of daily experimentations that can happen that don’t require you to go off to a class somewhere. It doesn’t mean you have to go even read a book. Find a peer group who are people like you who you can talk to and learn their best practices. Build a cohort that can share support for, when you fall on your face, get some advice. There are a million ways that we can evolve as learners to make daily incremental gains forward.
Is learning a mindset? For example, I feel like there are a lot of people that can go out into the world and have the same exact experience, but one person can learn a lot from and another cannot get any lessons at all.
I haven’t run into that yet. If you asked me that again, it brought up so much imagery in my head. I’m not sure where to go with it.
I have the image of someone that goes into a discussion, whether it’s an impromptu discussion or one that is formalized. There’s one person who will actively listen to everything everyone says. Even if they disagree with something said, they’ll learn something about, “You have this perspective because of this experience, personality type or something.” A different person will go into that same discussion and be like, “I already know the answer. Done.”
There’s a great thought leader in the leadership role, Ron Heifetz. I love his work and he framed it as, “You can have an adaptive challenge as a leader or you can try to bring a technical solution right out of the gate.” This idea that we’re supposed to have the answers when framed with that challenge is a great fallacy. The real challenge of leadership in so many ways is asking the right question and continuing to frame the questions in the contexts that you’re facing.
No leader anymore is probably going to have a greater knowledge of whatever work they do. If they’re engineers and you’re a VP of Engineering, there are 100 people in your organization who know more about engineering than you do anymore. The idea of leading knowledge workers means that people are going to grow their subject-matter expertise deeper and further than people who are in the leadership ranks because of the nature of the job. They have to be externally focused. They have to look at the organization. They have to be focused on the big levers of the organization to be successful. They’re not worried about what’s the next best coding language.
People talk about the different generations but also how the rate of change is a lot different than it was back in the day. There was a time when you did a job and the hammer was the hammer. The coding language has changed every 12, 18 or 24 months. You need some form of retraining on that. It’s hard to maintain that full knowledge base. In your time as an Executive Coach, what do you see are the trends in how people are looking at leadership now versus 10 or 20 years ago?
You hit a big one which is this idea of perpetual whitewater. There’s a great acronym, VUCA, Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. It’s the idea that there’s an acceleration there that we’re all facing. There’s a huge amount of money spent in the whole development arena and that whole space, but I also see greater skepticism about sending people off somewhere to learn something because the knowledge does not transfer very well.
I don’t have any data behind us, but I see a lot of people more interested in working with what is the talent that is now. They want to say, “I have a square hole and I need a square peg to fit in that hole,” instead of the idea of looking and saying, “Learning growth and cultivating these leaders from within could be a differentiator for us.” Even though there’s so much money spent there, there’s less belief that there can be growth that leads to effective leadership, as crazy as that sounds.
It’s not just what is when you see a person, market or neighborhood. That’s another important aspect of people who invest or people who even identify opportunities. One of the things I’ve been thinking about quite a bit and I wish I was young when I had this idea, is years ago, they were offering cheap properties in Detroit. It’s a city that people like to trash on all the time, but if you think about it, pretty strategic position with the great lakes and everything and the freshwater source, it’s bound to make a comeback in those opportunities. It’s a matter of seeing what can be as opposed to seeing what is.
You’re nailing this idea of having a vision for the organization or community, like what you’re talking about in Detroit. There’s remarkable work that has been happening there. That’s another thing that I find people discount, which is if they have that innate ability to see the future or cultivate a vision that is motivating and empowering to an organization, they often discount it. There’s a lot of work to go around to renew that.
There’s another piece around the mindset that you have brought up a few times here. I love reading interviews with people who are in their 90s or whatever it might be age-wise, like old people. There are two prevailing themes that come out of these interviews, whether it be written or on-screen. One is this idea of regret, which is, “I’m looking back at my life and I didn’t pursue the people I should have pursued to have in my life. I didn’t take that opportunity that came along when I should have.” It’s heartbreaking to see these people looking back with so much disappointment.
There’s this other story where there’s this little guy or woman and they’re like, “I may not have been the smartest person, but I run everything out of my opportunities. I took every risk that I could take. It didn’t always work out, but I seem to land on my feet somewhere along the way.” That mindset can be so powerful from a leadership perspective. If you’re going to look back from now and say, “If I’m going to make the most out of my experience in the people that I lead, what risks do I need to take? What is it that I need to have in our daily experience that’s going to leave me looking back, saying, ‘I made the most out of this?'”
That’s quite powerful and something I’ve heard a lot from people in the coaching world about designing your legacy, thinking back at the end of your life, “What do you want it to be that you led? What are you going to be happy you did? What are you going to regret?” I’m emotional thinking about it because it’s powerful and it’s an important thing for people to realize. With the regret side of things, do you feel like oftentimes, the risks that people don’t take are because fears are overblown? Is there another dynamic when a person says, “I’m feeling called to this, but it’s too risky? I can’t do it.” Whatever makes people shy away.
It’s a dramatic simplification. You’ve got love on one side and fear on the other. As we pay attention and observe ourselves about like, “What experience are we having at this moment? Are we frustrated or bored?” All these different expressions of low-grade fear that’s something that is in so many of us. It’s less about the abject terror of a situation and a lot more about that quiet voice within us that’s saying, “Don’t do that. Don’t take that chance because it will go bad.” That’s there so much.
Adopting this other mindset, though, where you get away from this idea of pass-fail, that’s at the heart of the emotional intelligence construct, which is, “Life is not pass-fail. It’s about, how come did you get in? How do you go forward? What do I learn from this?” Even if I did not get the outcome that I’m after, there’s something in this for me. It might be tomorrow. It might be 6 or 12 months from now. When I look back at my entire life, I feel like all my experiences and my DNA has brought me to exactly where I need to be, which is doing the work that I’m doing.
What I’m wondering is, then, does it become a thought process of, “The worst outcome you can have is not having the experience?” Is stagnation or being stuck as opposed to having tried something and failed and maybe you lost some money, amount of your time, effort and energy that you put into the endeavor?
If you are crystal clear on the things that are most important to you... the things that you've got to have to say, 'this is a life well lived'...If I know that, and I know the things that I bring to the world that are unique to me. It gets a lot… Click To TweetI’ll go even further and say that those fears are in a vacuum. If you are crystal clear on the things that are most important to you in your life, your values, the things that you’ve got to have to say, “This is a life well-lived, whether I’m in a leadership role or away from work or wherever.” If I know the things that I bring to the world that are unique to me that the world needs for me, it gets a lot harder to succumb to that fear because it’s no longer in a vacuum. It’s like, “I know what’s important. I know what I have to offer. I see an opportunity to give what I have to offer to the world. I feel a little bit nervous about it, but I don’t have the same grip of fear, knowing that as if I’m bouncing along, not knowing what’s important to me.”
You’re saying the process of moving from this fear to love is this awareness of self, “This is what I’m good at. This is why I’m valuable. This is what I value. This is what I think is important. This is what I was meant to do.”
That’s a good summation. I hate to beat on that drum, but self-awareness is foundational in any type of growth situation. If you don’t know where you are now, you can’t take this step forward. You can’t objectively integrate new information or feedback.
It sounds like self-awareness is a big part of your coaching program. Would you be able to tell anyone in the audience out there or anyone that’s interested, first of all, how to contact you and then also a little bit about how the program Brent Mullins Coaching works?
I’m a very open and eager networker. If anyone reaches out to me on LinkedIn, which is probably the easiest way to contact me, my handle is Brent Mullins, Executive Coach. There’s the website, too, which has a form for reaching out or making a phone call. Those are the easy ways. I appreciate that offer for putting that contact information out there.
I do get inquiries frequently from a life coaching perspective. That’s not something that I do, but I know a lot of coaches. I’m also willing to network and help people get connected to the resources that they’re after. For people who are in leadership roles who are looking for a coach or want to explore the idea, then I’m glad to give people time to help them figure out like, “What is the opportunity in front of them through conversation and dialogue?”
That makes sense because sometimes people end up in bad places because they haven’t figured out what they wanted yet essentially.
They’re talented. They’ve got so much to offer and therefore, they can navigate forward, but it’s not speaking to their heart and getting them lit up. It’s not having them feel like every day they want to get up and get something going because they know which direction they’re heading in.
I have one more question I want to ask you. You talked about having a community. People talk about, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time around.” It’s a little bit of an oversimplification, but if you’re around the right people, you’re going to get the right messages. For people who don’t have a community, is getting a coach, whether what you need is an executive coach, career coach, life coach, business coach or all the different coaching, is that a good place to start?
Do you think that in this process of getting that transformation from negative to positive, you also need to find other people to immerse yourself around on a regular basis? It’s the kind of people that are not going to say, “The market is saturated. It’s too risky,” or the people that are going to say, “This is a good idea. I like the fact that you’re doing it.”
Stephen, you and I are working together. What we’re doing together is an incredible examination of your experience, which is rare to stop and have people come together as a conspiracy of good for you. That’s a way to get unstuck if you feel a little bit stuck. I would encourage people to start even like two people. Your community doesn’t have to be twenty people tomorrow. Starting a connection with people who can have your best interest and you have their best interest at heart is a beautiful way to get going on that. You add over time.
Let’s say someone is new to a new city or someone, for some reason, doesn’t have that many people in their lives. It happened to a lot of people, especially during COVID. Even in general, in this whole we’re doing everything online era, people can still start with a couple of people. Even if you don’t know anyone that well, you can reach out and look at your network and be like, “This person seems like a positive influence in my life. This person is going places and maybe have some ideas and would be a good input into how we all naturally influence each other in attitudes and life.”
Why can’t you start small and have coffee once a month? Bring up like, “I would like some perspective. I would like whoever is in my little coffee group to share their perspective on the challenges that they’re facing. Here’s what I’m facing at work in a leadership role or in life,” whatever it might be.
Brent, thank you so much for joining us on the show. Once again, that’s Brent Mullins Coaching. Everyone, be aware of yourself, be curious, be constantly willing to learn something new and be open to new perspectives. People often talk about the first wave as internal. You change yourself and then the surroundings that reflect that change from the outside. I know I’m butchering this and so many people have written this in way better form than what I’m seeing right now, but it’s true.
If we work on ourselves, we come aware and connected with who we are in every aspect of it, the good, bad, ugly and all the terrible things we may have done in the past, coming to grips with it. Find a way to move forward and find out what we want. My hope is that everybody reading, everybody in Brent’s coaching and anyone else I’ve had on his coaching as well are on the path to finding a better place because, in that better place, more people doing what they want to do will lead to a better overall result for humanity as a whole.
Stephen, thank you so much. That was a joy to talk to you.
Thank you to those readers out there. Please tune into more episodes of the show where we’ll have more interesting discussions that hopefully give you some inspiration as well as some information and some ideas about how to go further along your path to getting the life that you want and deserve.
Important Links:
- Brent Mullins Coaching
- Finding Business Success In The Right Customer And Niche With John Gies – Previous episode
- Darren Kanthal – Previous episode
- Denver Startup Week
- LinkedIn – Brent P. Mullins
About Brent Mullins
Brent has over 25 years of experience in executive leadership and organizational complexity at Fortune 200 companies and multi-cultural organizations. He has designed award-winning leadership development programs and has worked in multiple disciplines including HR, sales, client services, operations, and business process improvement. Brent’s favorite part of that journey is helping people get what they want.
He loves coaching leaders and building successful teams. Coaching has always been Brent’s default management style and he finds it deeply rewarding. In 2019, to better align his personal and professional values, Brent made coaching his life’s work. As a devoted family guy, you’ll otherwise find him in a Nerf gun battle with his daughters, drinking craft beer, or gasping for air as he hikes the Rocky Mountains.