Being in the Arena

In this episode of Being in the Arena, Zach Arend concludes the four-part Saddle Your Own Horse series with an inspiring discussion on creating extraordinary results together. Zach emphasizes the importance of beginning from a place of neutrality, moving away from problem-solving towards possibility, and fostering empowering conversations. He shares practical steps to help leaders cultivate a culture where each team member takes responsibility, contributes creatively, and collaborates to achieve exceptional outcomes. This episode encapsulates key principles from Zach's TED Talk, urging listeners to engage deeply and act on their insights to transform their leadership approach.
Learn more about Zach:

• Zach’s Website

Episode resources:

• Work with Zach
• Book Zach to Speak

If you enjoyed this episode then please either:

• Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
• Follow and rate on Spotify
  
  

Connect with me on Instagram and Facebook!

TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Zach Arend: What would we love to create? What's the results we want to see here? What's the opportunity? How do we grow from this? That's moving the conversation into possibility.  Welcome back or welcome to Being in the Arena. This is a conversation about what it means to be a leader that is saddling their own horse. Being in the arena, because leadership isn't about what you do or how you do it, it's about who you're being.And it's a fundamental choice to lead in the arena. And over the last several episodes, we've been going through a four part series on this principle called Saddle Your Own Horse. I did a TED talk on this principle and I wanted to explore in more depth, some of the key ideas I introduced in the, in the TED talk.So if you haven't listened to that, go check out the TED talk. You can go to my website, www. It's on the homepage. You'll see it, but give it a listen because it's the premise for everything we've been going through over the last several episodes. Today is part four of a four part series. And so just as a really quick recap, part one, we explored the idea of, of the world and how we tend to say like eight out, I think there's a stat that says eight out of 10 of us.I don't think there is a stat out there that says eight out of 10 of us. Or burnt out eight out of 10 of us. And in my TED talk and in that episode, we really explored the, well, what if, what if we're not burnt out? What if we're bored? Because I think a lot of us are, we're not doing deep down what we know we can do.And it leads to a life of kind of boredom of just knowing that there's, there's something we're not doing that we know we can do, and that'll eat away at you. And we explored that in episode, in the first part of this discussion and how we try to supplement self care and mindfulness apps and all of these things.And at the root of it is we're just not doing what we're truly called to do. And we need to learn to listen to that whisper and step into it, step into the arena. So that's what part one was. Part two, we really look closer at, well, there's three questions actually to guide us on this journey for us to, if we say yes to these three questions, we're going to be feeling more, more engaged in our work in our life.And, and it's the relationship we have with these questions that really matters. It's how we see ourselves in position in relation to what's around us that either puts us in a position to saddle our own horse or doesn't. And so we explored that in part two. And then in part three, we really dove deep into this current culture of irresponsibility.We kind of have gone from a culture in the world, a culture of honor and dignity to somewhat of a culture of victimhood. I hesitate saying I go, I think it's true. I mean, I just, there's just kind of this lack of responsibility in the world. There's this culture of irresponsibility. It's almost become cool to, to blame others, to yell across the aisles.And we have to take a hard look at that. And we, we did in part three, I actually called you to look closer at how you're showing up. Because we have to, because that's the very nature of responsibility is looking, looking and saddling our own horse. And we just looked at how, how are we contributing to maybe some of the irresponsibility in the world.And that's an important question to look at. And so if you haven't, go back and listen to part three, cause we really look at that deeply today, I want to move us out of that and move us into creating extraordinary results together. How do we? How do we take this on and create a world where every single one of us are saddling our own horse in our organizations, on our teams, our companies, and our families?And, you know, I'm saying this from a place of, I don't have the answer. Like, it's not like I have, like, just, "here's four steps and problem solved." It's not that simple. But these are principles that, they've served me well in my life. They've served my clients well. And through lived experience, through research, I've landed on that these, these are, these are universally true and they're important.And if you do apply these, you're going to create the conditions to, have a culture where everybody saddles their own horse. Ultimately, it's going to lead you to creating a business, a family unit that's creating extraordinary results, extraordinary lives together. And that's what I'm all about.Helping teams, helping people do that because there's nothing, there's no other feeling like it in the world. To be on a winning team. Not just because we have a lot of money and we hired a talented team, but because we overcome adversity together and we came out victorious on the other end, like there's no other feeling. And that's what we're here to do today in this episode.How do we create extraordinary results together? What are the key ingredients? And I'm willing to, there's tons, there's probably hundreds of other things you could add to this list, but these are the four that I landed on that I think are pretty critical. And this is about not just you creating extraordinary results individually.This is about as a unit, as a, as a group of people in your companies, on your teams, your family's like, how do we create something extraordinary together? That's that's key. So there's four, the first thing we first practice is we have to, we have to win the inner game to win the outer game. Meaning, we've got to take responsibility for how we're showing up.To begin any type of conversation, we've, we explored this in a previous episode. As leaders, we, we want so bad to get people on board. And something I teach in my workshops is, well, we can't get people to do anything. We just can't. And as soon as we realize that and stop trying, that's when the real conversations occur.So we have to drop the getting buy in and all of that. So if we're going to create extraordinary, extraordinary results together, we have to create an environment where people are either going to choose to opt in or opt out. And the only way you can do that without manipulating them or feeling like they have no choice, is you have to get yourself to neutral, neutral, because oftentimes we, as leaders, we get in this position where it's like, "Oh my God, we have six months to figure this out, or this is going to fail," whether that means like ultimate failure, we're out of business, or this product launch is going to fail, or, you know, we're not going to hit our sales goals for the year, it's over, you know. We've got to stop coming from that place because that shuts down the creative conversations, in my opinion, checking on with yourself. Yeah. There's, there's some urgency that we get, like when you have to do something. Especially at an individual personal level, sometimes like, yeah, when I have to make money or I'm not going to be able to pay the mortgage, you better believe I am motivated to get to work, but I'm not so convinced that actually works at a like collective level.I can't like take my anxiety and push it out to the group and let them take it on. Like that's just going to create a lot of unrest in the group and that it's not going to be helpful. So we're going to have to get ourselves to neutral. And what this means is letting go of the have to's and the need to's.And again, this isn't, I don't, maybe you do have to close X amount of sales by the end of the quarter or you're going to go out of business and I'm not here to argue what's true or not. It's just like, what's most useful in this moment to take responsibility for how you're showing up to create the best results you possibly can?And I'm telling here to tell you, you can control how you show up. You don't have to let your circumstances determine how you show up. So whether. You're out of business or not in 30 days. You don't have to show up with a, with an air of panic and fear. You can show up with two feet on the ground and you can start from a place of neutral.You can detach from your fear, your worry, the self doubt of what might happen. It hasn't happened yet. And if you're a really smart person, you're going to argue with me like, well, it's going to happen. I don't care. It hasn't happened yet. So let's start from neutral and let's show up in the room from a place of, I don't have, we don't have to do anything.And what ultimately the test is here is you got to get yourself to a place of if this fails, we might go out of business, or if we don't close a hundred thousand dollars, we're going to miss our goal this year. You have to be willing to be with that idea. Be willing to be with the possibility of that occurring.Look, and I'm not saying you're promoting it and you're just like, well, what'll happen will happen. I'm not promoting this laissez faire. I'm, it's a, it's a, it's kind of a spiritual thing. It's kind of like internally, you have to be like, "you know what? If the worst happens, we'll be okay. It's fine. I'll be." Like, you just got to get yourself to a position of "it will be okay."Get yourself to position, because now you can come from a little bit more of a place of peace, which is where creativity lies. You, nobody who's living in fear is very creative. Nobody who's consumed with anxiety has a lot of creative ideas to offer. Usually they don't. So we've got to get ourselves to a position of neutral so we can let, let this thing come to life so we can bring our A game. So that's begin at neutral.The second thing is we've got to get our team to do the same thing. We've got to get them to neutral. So we've got to help them release some of the heavy energy, the heavy negative thoughts and ideas that are weighing down the room. And one of the best ways to do that is to just kind of sense and observe the emotional temperature in the room and use it.Leverage a tool that I teach in my workshops, acknowledge and validate. Acknowledge what is and then validate why it's there. You know what? It's understandable. If we're all feeling immense anxiety right now, considering we've missed our sales goal four months in a row, it's understandable that we're feeling a lot of anxiety and overwhelm, considering all the things that have been thrown at us on the economy.And on top of that, we just lost our largest customer. It's understandable that we're, we're feeling like we're, we're in it. And that's all like, there's no like, and I now have a solution for how we're going to get through that. It's like, leaders, we need to stop leading with our solutions. Stop leading with the answer.Stop putting pressure on yourself to have the answer. You, you, you have a freaking team that all have unique perspectives. Enlist them in the solution. And, and that's what we're here to do. Get yourself to neutral. Stop putting it all on you. Share the burden. Let everyone in the room feel the weight of responsibility.You're not, like, in, like, pushing it on them, but you're just letting what is be. Acknowledging and validating the discomfort, the overwhelm, the anxiety, the burnout, whatever it is. And validating why it's there. And "Hey, that just makes us normal." But then of course you don't stay there because no, no teams ever move forward if we just stay there.But if we got to start there sometimes, because it's just kind of like tells everybody in the room, like I'm human too, and I'm with you and I feel what you feel. And like, we're in this together, we're starting at neutral and now it allows us to move into step three and that is. Move our conversation toward possibility.Move our conversation toward possibility. Stop trying to solve problems. Problem solving is a trap. So we have to put possibility ahead of problem solving. If we're going to move through things. Because problem solving is such a distraction and it, it deceives us. It gives us this feeling of productivity.And yet we're really not moving forward. I, there was a time in my life where I, I'm really good at solving problems. I probably still am. I just stopped thinking, I don't focus on problems. I just, I don't pay attention to them. Wow. Pretty irresponsible. No, I just, I might notice something that's like not working for me or like, that ain't what we want.But instead of like turning it into this massive problem to be solved, I just get back to, well, what do I want to create? What is what I want? How would I create that? What would be the steps I would be taking? What would I be doing? It's a different energy. Because problem solving, you can solve a lot of problems in your business.You can get really good at solving problems and not be any further along towards your vision and what you're really trying to do. And that's how most of us live our lives, jumping from one problem to the next, which is a very reactive way of living and leading, versus, there are those who spend their time in creativity.Creating. Okay. It's kind of like, I like this metaphor of a canvas. An artist. I'm not an artist. I wish, maybe in a previous life I was. But imagine a painter. Brush stroke after brush stroke. Yeah, that's not quite right. Let's move a little, let's add a little green here. Oh, now we need a little brown. Like, you're never out of the game.You're constantly adding brushstrokes wherever you're like, yeah, that's not quite right. Let's tweak that. Let's keep moving that. They're, they aren't problem solving in a, in a piece of art. You're just like, it's like improvising. You're moving with it. You're dancing with it. That's the world of possibility.Dancing with the world of possibility instead of reacting to problems. And here's another thing about problem solving that's often so deceiving, because problem solving. Something happens in the business, in our lives, and then we make it mean something. And that is where we turn it into a problem. The meaning we give something, is what determines whether or not it's a problem or not.And then of course, when we see a problem, we work the problem. The problem with that is, is Where did the problem come from? It came from the thinking that created the problem. So oftentimes we think, see things in the business as problems, but it's really our thinking that's making it a problem.And so we create the problem. And then we try to solve the various thing that we're creating. So it's like, it creates this like perpetual loop where we create problems and then we solve, but then we're constantly creating new problems. And then we try to solve those, but we're at the source of it all.Like this is getting really spiritual here, but it's, you've got to get this. Like, this is critical, like the, your relationship to what's happening and your meaning of interpreting things as a problem instantly puts you in a position of like, okay, well then I have to solve it. But how often can things be like, what we once thought was a problem was like like we were making a, was a mountain out of a molehill.And we realized that as soon as we moved the conversation into possibility. What do we want? What would we love to create? What's the results we want to see here? What's the opportunity? How do we grow from this? That's moving the conversation into possibility. It's a creative conversation. And this is about creating extraordinary results together, not solving extraordinary problems.Like, I'm not interested in solving problems. I'm interested in creating results we want to see. Aren't you? So, so let's sit the problems down and let's shift our attention towards possibility. The what if questions. And how do we move everybody into possibility? And that leads us to the fourth thing.And that is, we have to have empowering conversations. Empowering. This is a podcast. So if we're in person, I would write the word empower on a flip chart. E M P O W E R, empower. The word means to give power. And Patty McCord, I'm with her on this topic, she wrote a book called Powerful and she said, said this on empower.She said, yeah, the word means to give power, but she asked this in your face question and I appreciate it. She's a very in your face type of person, a very honest person. And she's, she's like, "well, who took it away in the first place?" She's speaking about our organizations and our leaders. It's like, dang, yeah, she's on to something.And now I, I intentionally cross out the word empower because I'm with her. She says, we're, our job isn't to empower people, to give power. It's to recognize that these are people, they walk in the door with power and our job is to teach them to saddle their own horse, to remind them and get them to use their power.And we do that not by empowering them by giving them power, but by in-powering them. I write the word I N power, in-power. Our job as leaders to keep people in power, in their own responsibility. And look, that can be uncomfortable and that's why so few of us do it, but that's where all the magic occurs. Because we have to create an environment where every single one of us feels the weight of responsibility, where we just kind of have this expectation that we're here to saddle our own horse.That's, that's what it means to be a human being. And so there's empowering conversations. There's questions that we can ask people that keep the, the responsibility on the individuals. Our job as leaders is not to rescue people. It's to empower them, to keep them in a position to, to show up with all the ownership they can, they can bring to the table.It's it's to teach them to saddle their own horse. And we do that by a lot of ways, but one of the ways is just asking more and telling less, like asking more questions, open ended questions, questions that we don't already have answers to like curiosity based questions, but they're questions that are designed to place the responsibility on the individual questions like."What ideas do you have or what, what do you think we should do?" You know, that's a simple question, but the spirit has to be a genuine curiosity. Like, "what do you think we should do?" Not "well, what do you think we should do? I, I already know because I'm, you know, I've been doing this for 20 years, but what do you think?Let's see if you're as smart as I am." Like that's not the spirit in which you ask questions is so critical. Like you have to ask from a position of genuine curiosity, "Hey, what do you think we should do?" And then, and then be quiet and watch silence fill the room. That silence is an indication that you're, you're, the individual in the room with you is thinking. You just did your job.You created an environment where you ask them to think and work on what they're trying to create. And you got to create space for people to do that. And you do that by having in-powering conversations, moving into possibility, but then asking them and telling less. Asking, being curious.What, what do you see as the biggest opportunity here? What conversations do you think we should be having? You know, just getting the, them to contribute. Because at the end of the day, we're going to create extraordinary results together because people support what they create. And if you take this approach, you start at neutral, you let go of having to get them to do anything.And the only way you do that is you have to be willing to be with what you're afraid might happen. You've got to be willing to be with it. I'm not saying you're promoting it, but you've got to be okay with, you know what? You got to get yourself to "we're okay" no matter what. It's critical. You just have to, even if it's life or death, you have to be like, it's okay.If we, if I die, it's okay. You've got to like, get there, start at neutral. And then you've got to help them release that same energy and start, get the room to neutral by acknowledging and validating, just acknowledging and validating the emotions in the room and what's weighing people down without trying to solve it.Just, "yeah, it's understandable." And then we've got to move away from problem solving and move into possibility. Cause problem solving is, is often a trap to continue to create the same thing that we keep trying to get away from because we, we, you are the one creating the problem because you're choosing to see it as a problem.And that sounds a little meta and woo-woo-y, but if we had more time, we'd go deeper, I think you'd be like, "Oh." It's, it's, it's critical. So let's, let's set the problems aside and let's move into possibility. Like, what do we want here? What would have to be true for us to have that, to create that, to get there? And let's go to work on that.Not the problem. And we do that ultimately through empowering conversations, asking questions that allow everyone to feel the weight of responsibility and not take that responsibility away from them. So thanks for listening. Thanks for tuning into this four part series on saddling your own horse. I would love to hear from you.Like what, what resonates most with you? What are you taking away from this series? What, what have you applied? Cause I think that's really where the rubber meets the road. Far too often I'm guilty of this, where I read and I listen and like, "Oh yeah, that was interesting," or I agree with that. I'll even have insights like, "Oh, that, wow.Yeah, I need to," but I don't do anything with it. And so I'm just my, the marching orders here is what's, what do you want to do with all of you, all of what you've been learning in this episode and on the journey we've been on together? What's one thing you want to do? Because as soon as you do it, you put a whole new thing in motion and it starts to create who you're, who you become as a leader.It shapes everything. And it all starts with you acting on those insights, those ideas that you have within you. Cause that's where all the gold is. That's where leadership actually begins is acting on your creative ideas. So thanks for listening and we'll see you in the next episode. 

In this episode of Being in the Arena, Zach Arend pokes about the pitfalls of leaders always stepping in to save their teams, which can stunt growth and create a hidden culture of irresponsibility. Using a heartfelt story about his daughter’s talent show, Zach illustrates the importance of letting people figure things out on their own. This episode is part three of his series on the principles from his TED talk, Saddle Your Own Horse. Tune in to learn how giving others space to take responsibility can lead to extraordinary results.
Learn more about Zach:

• Zach’s Website

Episode resources:

• Work with Zach
• Book Zach to Speak

If you enjoyed this episode then please either:

• Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
• Follow and rate on Spotify
  
  

Connect with me on Instagram and Facebook!

TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Zach Arend: We jump in and we rescue them. We are so unwilling to see them fail that we will not give them the space to figure it out on their own. 

So therefore they never grow. 

 Welcome to being in the arena. This is a podcast for leaders, executives, sales professionals, people who are in the arena of their lives and their leadership, trying to create results for the organization while maximizing their impact and influence with those they lead. 

So today we're going to call this part three of a four-part series, where we're diving deeper into this idea of Saddle Your Own Horse. I did a TED talk on this about a month ago now. And I only had 10, 12 minutes to really deliver that message. And I've just wanted to go deeper. And this four-part series is somewhat of a masterclass on some of the concepts I introduce in the TED talk. And so if you've been following along then you know, part one we really explored how we're not burnt out, we're bored out. More of us are actually bored than we are burnt out. We know deep down, we're not doing what we know we can do, and that's true for us. And that's true for a lot of the individuals in our organizations and for those we lead. And as long as we keep reacting to what we believe is burnout, we're going in the opposite direction. 

So that's what we explored in part one and how we've got to start asking more of people, not less, that's actually what they want from us. They want us to expect more of them. And that starts ultimately with you and me expecting more of ourselves. That's part one. Part two, we looked at three questions that you have to answer yes to, to create the conditions for you to fully be your best and come to work fully engaged. And again, what's true for you is also true for those you lead. So those three questions. What's your answer to those three questions? Do you feel sense of choice in what you're doing? Do you feel effective while also challenged by it? 

And do you feel you're able to do it on your terms? Those are the three questions, but we take a unique perspective in looking at those three. In the last episode and I'm realizing that the sound quality of the last episode, isn't great. There's something going on with my mic. But once you get over, it just sounds a little different. 

You can still make it out. I might be going back and recording that at some point. But it's still worth listening to co cause it's the relationship to those three questions. Do I feel sense of choice? Do I feel effective while also challenged by what I'm doing? And do I feel like I'm able to do it on my terms? It's your relationship with those questions that really determine that really make the difference. So that's part two. 

Today is part three. And I'm calling this one Resolving the Hidden Culture of Irresponsibility. Resolving the hidden culture of irresponsibility, because it is hidden. We don't realize it's there. It's very subtle, but it is diminishing our ability to create extraordinary results together, which we're going to get to in part four like, how exactly to do that. 

But first we have to address this hidden culture of irresponsibility. And I. I was like, I wrote the word. I'm like, "ah, that's kind of harsh, irresponsible. I'm saying we have hidden cultures of irresponsibility?" And I'm like, "wow, I don't know. I, it seems a little extreme," but I looked up the word irresponsible and I'm like, no, it's, that's what I'm saying. Lack of proper sense of responsibility. 

That's the meaning of irresponsibility? A lack of proper sense of responsibility. Proper sense of responsibility. Those, those five words. Are really what I'm getting at, the sense of responsibility. We don't feel a sense of responsibility. The individuals in our organizations do not feel the weight of responsibility. 

And I believe and what I've witnessed and observed in myself and teams I've lead and my clients is it's not until we feel the weight of responsibility that we really truly thrive in and be our best. And bring our full A-game to the table and that's what we're here to do. And I believe when you're bringing your A-game to the table, you're, you're engaged with life. 

Like your life is exciting. And it has vitality and people don't leave companies that feel like where they feel like they're challenged and effective at what they're doing and able to bring their A- game and have impact and feel like they're making a contribution. Like, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't, I don't leave organizations like that. Because I feel I have a sense of purpose. 

I have necessity and we explored in a previous episode, modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary. And so to do this, we have to allow people to feel the weight of their own responsibility. And that is the very definition of necessity and feeling necessary. And we have this hidden culture of irresponsibility, meaning we don't have this sense of responsibility. And I want to, I want to share a story. My daughter, my middle daughter. 

She's she's nine. She's going to be 10 in like a month. Well, she's my musical theater child. She loves musical theater, dance, theater acting, singing all of it. And we've been auditioning a lot and working really hard on some songs and, and, and just It's been our world for the last several months. Well, it, funny story is she comes home from school and we get a little piece of paper in the folder. 

You know, I don't know about you, but my kids don't really ever tell me anything. It's just like we find out because we opened the folder. Well, there's this folder. It's like talent show, you know, it's like 30 days out talent show, third grade talent show. And I asked her, I'm like, you know, Sophie, I, are you you doing the talent show? 

She's like, "no." I am like "okay." And I just was a little shocked, cause she's usually all over that stuff, but she's like, "no." And weeks go by and now it's like a week out. And she comes home. She's like, "mom, dad, you know, I'm, I'm going to sing in the talent show" and, and then apparently her teacher talked her into it. 

Teacher found out she could sing. And so she's like, "Sophie, you need to be in the talent show and stuff." And Sophie's like, "okay." Well, we have been busy and doing all kinds of things and we're in the car the day before the town show and I'm like, Sophie, how are you feeling with your song? She's like, I'm pretty good. And I'm wondering like, well, she knows the song, but she knows like a minute of the song. 

Cause that's the section she's been practicing for additions, but it's like a three, four minute song. So I'm like, Does she know the song? So, you know, I put it on Spotify and we find a an instrumental version of piano version where there's no words. Because I'm like, let's see if she knows it. 

If she's ready for tomorrow. And so sure enough, she just starts with a bang. She knows like the first minute, minute and a half of the song. And then all of a sudden it's like, Oh, And dad, you know, me, I'm like, oh, she's not ready. And there was a part of me. That's like, oh my God, she's not ready. 

She's she's gonna bomb, you know? And. And. I wanted so bad to jump in and rescue her. I'm like, oh, we've got to practice tonight. Maybe I maybe, maybe she could tell the teacher that, you know, let's just play this two minute part. Let's not play the whole song. And I just stopped myself. I'm like, you know what? 

She signed herself up for this. She says, she's ready. Who am I to say she's not ready? Like give her some room, let her figure it out. And I did. It was hard. Well, part of letting her figure it out was it's 10 o'clock at night. And I hear her belting the song from her room and I want to walk in a room like Sophie it's time for bed, but I'm like, no, like, let her, let her practice, you know. Leave her alone. Let her, let her do it her way. And then this morning, I hear her practicing some more and I'm like, you know what? Maybe she's ready. 

I don't know. Like I haven't heard her. You know, I'm just letting her be, do her thing. Well, we get there to the performance and she's up. And she's standing in the center of the stage already, you know, hands to her side. And then I see her walk up, walk across stage to the teacher, who's about ready to push play on the music. And I hear her. 

Her whisper is fairly loud and kind of like my whisper. And she's like, "when I stop singing, just stop the music." I'm like, that's smart. I'm like, I'm so proud of you. She she's just like, you know what? I can't sing the whole song, but I know when I can, I know my limit. And I'm going to, I'm going to instruct the teacher what to do. And it was beautiful. 

It was amazing. And I'm like, you know what? You know? Yeah. She didn't sing the whole song and maybe if I stepped in, we could have practice and she could have nailed it, but you know what? It was a third grade talent show. And she did, like, the skills of like improvising and, and crafting the performance for what worked for her. And it was amazing. 

She did a great job. You know, and, it just popped to my head. Like I wasn't planning on sharing this story for this podcast episode, but like, this is what we have to do as leaders. We have to give people a horse to saddle. Get out of their way and let them take it on, like let them fail. Or let them shine, let them figure it out. And that is part of resolving this hidden culture of irresponsibility is,

we need to become aware of how we're contributing to this culture of irresponsibility because here's the thing. If I would have jumped in and rescued my daughter yesterday. She would not have learned the skills 

of what she did today. In fact, I promise you I would have taken the fun out of it. And she's probably going to be less likely to volunteer for something like that ever again. Because dad got involved. Well, that's what we do as leaders. Far too often. And we are complicit in creating this hidden culture of irresponsibility because instead of getting out of people's way and truly leading them and letting them run. 

We jump in and we rescue them. We are so unwilling to see them fail that we will not give them the space to figure it out on their own. 

So therefore they never grow. 

And 

therefore it leads to a hidden culture of irresponsibility. It just does because they start to lose the sense of responsibility for the outcomes in the business, in their lives. 

And we're doing that as leaders. We're doing that. And I, I was telling somebody my, the number one challenge in creating my TED talk, Saddle Your Own Horse, I'm like, people are going to hear this. And they're going to listen to it and they're gonna be like, "yeah, our people. Yeah. They need to saddle their own horse. 

Like, gosh, darn it. They need to take responsibility and be responsible for the results." And I'm like, I don't want that to be the outcome because the reality is. 

This is about creating a culture where everybody is saddling their own horse. Like everybody, meaning you. How are you contributing to the environment where everybody is saddling their, their own horse? Because we are actually contributing to this culture of irresponsibility. Because in the way that we rescue people and never let them fall and hit the ground and figure things out, 

we put them in a position of victimhood. 

We do. Like whenever we're helping somebody, we're communicating to these individual state, they are somebody who needs our help. And that is not cultivating the culture that we want. 

That's not cultivating the type of individuals we want to have in our organizations. It's actually contributing to a culture of irresponsibility and it's so subtle, but it's, it's literally creating the very thing we say we don't want. Because when you look at how we're addressing quote-unquote burnout, overwhelm, stress, anxiety, mental health in the workplace and wellbeing. 

 We are, we have become so focused on mental health and wellbeing in the workplace. It is the title of most, every keynote I see. There's multiple books about it. You go to any HR conference and that's what we're talking about. Mental health, wellbeing. And what do we, as leaders need to do about it? 

And we spend all this time in front of whiteboards, thinking about what, what, how can we help people with their mental health and their wellbeing? And there's, there's apps. There's there's meditation apps like Headspace, there's calm, there, there's all these benefits and things we offer employees. You know, there's there's Zen rooms. There's there's quiet, calm rooms, you know? Like I'm learning we have those in our schools and we're doing all these things. And I'm not saying they're bad. I'm not saying they're good. I'm just saying we are putting so much energy on our own back. 

Like how do we solve this mental health crisis for our people? We're helping them. We are rescue. 

We are putting ourselves in a position of "it's my job to rescue them. They're in danger." And that is the place we're coming from, and that is not creating true responsible individuals. It's creating a culture of irresponsibility. 

It's contributing to this culture of victimhood we see in the world. I, I believe that to be true and I've seen it play out and I just know human nature. Like nobody grows until they feel the weight of responsibility. 

And here's the thing about that. The weight of responsibility. How's that feel? Sometimes it feels like anxiety. Often, it feels like stress. 

And we have created a culture where there's just this intolerance to stress and anxiety. All of these programs, we bring into our organizations and all our efforts to help people with their mental health and wellbeing, we're literally communicating to them that anxiety and stress are bad. You know, we, we got to get something that we need to get rid of. And it's putting individuals in a position of irresponsibility like that stress and anxiety is the, the, the the culprit. And we are just a victim of our own anxiety and our own stress. And that we're a victim of how our organizations and how work creates that in our lives. And we fall into this victimhood mentality. And look, I'm speaking to myself too. I'm aware of poor parts of my life where I do this. And yeah, and it's not good. 

It's not. It's not helpful. It's not useful. It doesn't move anybody forward. 

And so, how do we resolve this culture of irresponsibility? Because as long as we put ourselves in a position of always trying to help and rescue people and try to solve their mental health and their issue, you know, what we perceive as the issue. We take them out of the driver's seat of their own life. 

And as leaders, 

we got to put people back in the driver's seat of their own life. That's our job, ultimately as leaders. It really, if you want to be a servant leader, stop trying to help people. Because people don't need help. People need to be reminded of who they are and how powerful they actually are. 

Learn how to be a coach to people and how to help them get back in touch with what they desire and the outcomes that they can contribute to and finding their own way. That's our job as leaders, and we need to get back to that. 

And that's really the whole impotence behind Saddle Your Own horse, is we got to start taking responsibility of our role as leaders in a way that allows people, everybody around us also take responsibility of their own lives and the outcomes. 

And ultimately to take responsibility for what's not working for you and, and get them to take responsibility for what's not working for them. Because, as I said in my TED talk, we can try to give people autonomy all day long and give them space to run. You know, some of the things I'm sharing. But if we're not willing to let them fall and hit the ground and struggle and experienced some anxiety and stress and feel the weight of responsibility, autonomy without that personal responsibility and feeling that it turns into entitlement. 

And that's oftentimes what I see in a lot of businesses is like this, the leaders tell me like there's "oh, there everybody's so entitled in these days." And I just want to look at them and like, well, how are you creating that entitlement in your organization? Because you get exactly what you allow or disallow, and you're always contributing and influencing the outcomes that you see in the business. 

So autonomy without personal responsibility leads to entitlement. And so we have to call people to a bigger game. We've got to ask more of them if we want to resolve this culture of irresponsibility. We got to start letting people be responsible. 

And that means. Letting them sign up for things. And if they think they're ready for it, let them take it on. Stop negotiating with them. 

"Are you sure you're ready? I don't know. I don't know if that's realistic," like just stop that. Let people learn. Because sometimes, and this is something I've learned as a facilitator, one of the number one thing, I'm part of, kind of behind the curtain. We set these objectives, like 90 day objectives within an organization. 

And I let the leaders write them like, and I don't, I try to avoid, like we don't hand the objectives to people. We, we create goals and objectives from the bottom up, not the top down. And when I see that everybody else in the room gets really uncomfortable. Like they're like somebody is like, "my goal this quarter is to implement you know, a new CRM. Like, get it, get it, get it implemented." And all of a sudden the other people like, "wow, I don't think that's realistic. 

I mean, are you sure? Like we've already, we haven't even selected one yet." And. And the other person's like "no, I think I can do it." Well, the team tries to talk them out of it. And I just say, stop, like, look, if she thinks she can do it, let her run, stop, stop negotiating with what you think is possible for her. 

If she thinks it's possible, let her run. 

And one of two things is going to happen. She's either going to come back 90 days from today. And she's going to be like, I got it. I got it done. Everybody's gonna be like, dang. You know, and she's going to feel amazing. And she's going to have all this energy to propel her into the next segment of that goal. Or she's going to come and she's going to say, you know what? 

I didn't get it done. And we can ask her, well, what'd you learn? Well, I learned the net. You know, I bit off, more than I can chew. And next time I want to be a little more realistic on what I can do in the given time. Or I'm going to be more specific on exactly what it means to implement the CRM. 'cause I, I'm realizing now that, that I, it was unclear. And these are either one are great outcomes. There, I would just like to like 99% of the time failure is like, there is no such thing failure in, or maybe there's small moments where we can really fail an organization. 

But I would argue like, no, I don't know. Like there is no failure. It's just an opportunity to learn and grow. And we got to let people find their own way. Cause if we're constantly trying to be like, well, I don't know, you might want us, you might want to write that more clear or you might want to, you know, is that really realistic? Like, I don't just let them figure it out. 

Like people, people learn so much by just being in the arena and learning what works and what doesn't work. You know, and I think about my daughter, like, I, I'm kind of patting myself on the back a little bit and like, I'm just so. I wanted to so bad jump in and help her and make sure she didn't bomb today. You know, You know what she's got. 

She'll figure it out. She signed up for it. I, you know, and I'm not gonna 

I'm not going to tell her what reality is or where she's at. But we do that as leaders. And so if we want to resolve this hidden culture of responsibility, irresponsibility, we've got to let people run. Give him a horse to saddle, 

get out of their way, and let them take it on. 

And in the next episode, part four of this, we're going to really bring this all together and talk about how we as leaders can really create an environment where everybody saddles their own horse, where we can create extraordinary results together. And what that actually looks like. And how you can begin to take some steps to create the conditions for that to be true in your organization or on your team. Today, 

I just wanted to really draw a light on how we are actually contributing to the, the culture of irresponsibility and how we need to Stop Rescuing and Start Leading. Thanks for listening and we'll see you in the next episode. 

​ 

This latest episode of Being in the Arena delves deep into the hidden loneliness epidemic with special guest Unni Turrettini. Host Zach Arend explores how loneliness affects our ability to be our best selves and bring our creative energy to everything we do. Unni shares her journey of self-discovery, from initially resisting the topic of loneliness to uncovering its profound impact on individuals and society. Through engaging conversation, they highlight the importance of connection with oneself and others, offering practical insights for navigating modern challenges. Join them as they explore the transformative power of connection and the path to a more fulfilling life. 
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TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Unni Turrettini: Just ask yourself, start like, you know, what, what do I want?

Who am I? Start building a relationship with yourself,

 Welcome back, or welcome to Being in the Arena. Today, I've invited a special guest, Unni Turrettini. Unni was in Youngstown, Ohio with me when we gave our, our TEDx talks, and she spoke on something she's calling the loneliness epidemic. And when I heard her talk and as I've gotten to know her, I just knew I had to have her come on the podcast.

And so this is a conversation between Unni and I that really explores how loneliness affects us in our abilities to be our best and to bring our, our creative energy to everything we do. If you've ever wrestled with "what do I really want?" 

"What's my vision?" 

Or "how do I tap into that creative side of me and feel a connection with myself and others?"

Then you're going to want to listen into this conversation. So without further ado, let's get right into today's conversation with Unni Turrettini.

Zach Arend: Okay. Well, let's do this.

Unni Turrettini: Let's do this.

Zach Arend: Let's do this. Yeah. So yeah. Unni, I asked you to come on just to, you know, I have a podcast called being in the arena and it's really about, it's, it's a podcast for leaders, but really not just not leadership. tips and tricks and behavior. It's really about the art of leadership, the art, the creative act that is leadership and being in the arena of your life, your business, and just playing full out in whatever it is you're doing.

And so,

You know, naturally, when I met you, I was like, "Oh, gosh, I..." we just, I don't know, we, I felt a connection right away. And the more, the more I got to learn about your message and the work you're doing around loneliness, I was like, this is so relevant to the work I do. and it was kind of, it caught me a little off guard.

Cause when I first heard loneliness, you know, I was like, well, I don't know. I mean, kind of, maybe, but then you got into like the, how it affects our ability to be our best and engage with others and bring our full creative energy to anything we're doing. That's when it just like I locked in on it.

I'm like, "okay, she's onto something." And so I was excited to have you come on here and just talk a little bit about, you know, your TEDx that you did in Youngstown. You and I both had our TEDx and I I listened to it again this morning and just took some notes. I, there's some questions I would love to ask you. I don't know where this conversation will go. Like, I, and that's how I like to play. I like to, I'm not very scripted. I love just like, okay, let's get in here and see where this thing goes.

Unni Turrettini: Yeah, because we, like, that's, what's real, what, what is here right now in the moment, and that's also for all of you, you know, listening and watching this is, you know, what's here. That's why we also want you to comment and ask us questions and tell us what's on your hearts, right? Because that's what, that's what leadership is.

That's what connection is. And, you know, there's so much talk about, you know, leadership and Corporate and government and all that, but really leadership is you and me. it's what we do. It's how we show up every single day for ourselves and for the people we love and for our communities, right.

And our colleagues, whatever it is. So it's really, and, and we know Zach, I mean, the lack of trust right now in our society, trust has never been lower it's never been, you know, I mean, I think there's like less than 20 percent of people who believe in our, who trust our governments right now. I mean, it's ridiculous.

Less than 30% trust government. leadership in companies. You know, we're just in a really, we're in a place right now where actually it's, you know, it looks pretty bad, right? But what I liked, I actually see opportunity. And I like to be optimistic about this because this is a really good place to start out.

I don't know how you feel about that, Zach, but I think this is a really, this is, this is where we get to. Every one of us, we get to decide who we're going to be, how we're going to show up, and how we're going to move forward and create something new, something more beautiful, because we actually have the opportunity to do so.

So if there's something that we don't like in our life, I like to think of it that way. If there's something I'm not happy with in my life, I like to, to, to ask myself the question, what would a more beautiful situation look like? What would a more beautiful life for me and my, my kids? What would that look like?

Zach Arend: Yeah.

Unni Turrettini: I wrote it down and then I, you know,

Zach Arend: Yeah, well, that's where I'd like to, let's, let's dig into that because I remember having a, we were, it was over dinner and we were talking about the applications to this, to, and just how you help leaders thrive without conflict. You know, that, one, the number one thing is I hear from people is "I, Oh, I, I don't like conflict. I, you know, I don't like confrontation." And I always get a little curious about when I hear that. Cause I'm like, well, what's leading you to believe that it is conflict or it is con confrontation. Cause it, it can also be just known as communication and connection, I would think, you know? And so I think that's where your work comes in to help people reframe some of that.

I would love to, I would love it if we could explore that in this conversation. And then also maybe let's start with a little bit of just your story and kind of how you landed upon this topic of loneliness, like, why is it important to you in the first place?

Unni Turrettini: Yeah. Oh God. Yeah. That's a it's it's been a while. Right. And I'm kind of like I landed on the topic, not willingly, let's put it this way. I was a reluctant, you know, like I did not want to touch the topic of loneliness. And I think it's because I felt lonely for so many years myself, and I didn't even want to admit it to myself because when, you know, I, I felt that, okay,

I'm feeling empty, dissatisfied, but I, like, I have everything, like everything looks good on paper. Like I had a, you know, I'm quite successful in my career. You know, I have law degrees from, from three countries. I worked at very prestigious firms. I got married to a really great man. We have two healthy kids.

Now we have a dog. I mean, my life looks pretty good. So if I'm feeling empty and lonely, that means that I failed at social connection. Right. And I was looking at everybody else and they all look so happy and they all look like they have it all together. And I'm like, I'm a failure and I can't even talk about it.

I can't even think about it. It like even admit it to myself. It took me so long to do that, Zach. And... But what I, what I just want to, you know, just how I really got into that. Cause I was, was, I was working in corporate and in law and finance, you know, for about a decade. And then I took a break when my kids were really little.

Cause I, you know, I really wanted to, you know, be home and spend time with them. And then we have this, this was in 2011. We have this horrific mass shooting happen in Norway in 2011, where this young man, 32 year old Anders Breivik. He he killed 77 people. He first, he, he exploded a bomb in Oslo city center.

That, you know, still a disaster area today. So many years after. Then he got away and went to this island where there was a teenage summer camp and he started shooting. And he, and he, you know, like he killed 77 people, hundreds of people, like seriously wounded, like losing a limb, losing an eye. And most of them were teenagers.

And I just had to know how that could happen. How someone who looked like me, who grew up like me, you know, we're not, you know, this is, this is Norway we're talking about. This is not a poor country. We have a welfare system. We have everything in place for people to thrive seemingly. Right. Again, everything looks good on paper.

And then, so I needed to understand. So I started studying him and then that led me to studying hundreds of similar mass killers around the world. And I wrote a book. It's actually right behind me there called the mystery of the lone wolf killer and that really talks about what are the, what are the symptoms?

How can we prevent this from happening again? And what I found when I was researching for this Zach was that all of these killers no matter where in the world they came from no matter their background and you know, they were they all struggled with belonging. They didn't feel like they fit in or belonged in our society. They were lonely. And that's when that my own loneliness really hit me And it hit me so hard that I felt that I could, you know, I had empathy with these horrific killers.

I understood where they were, where they came from, right? Why they, why it would, why that disconnection could finally lead to that horrific violence. Not that I ever can justify their choice, how, you know, what, what they did. But I understood them. And so when I, when that book was published and then I was thrown into public speaking, I had to like, and that's how, and that's how, by the way, I ended up training with Bo Eason, who we both trained with and you're, and you're still in his world.

And I, if I, you know, ever spend more time in the U S I will go back and train with him again. Cause he's so cool. You know, he's so amazing and it was right. He's really the best. Right. And he trains people to be the best because I, you know, back then I didn't know how to speak in public. I didn't think that I would have to speak in public, but you know, I, I did, you know, I had to promote my book.

So I went out and I, and I started speaking about this and I started sharing about my own loneliness. And it just hit something, you know, hit a chord with people. And that's when I discovered that I wasn't the only one. There were, you know, a lot of other people who felt the same way.

Zach Arend: You know, and I was, I was, I said, I was relistening to your TED talk again, and I've, I've heard it a lot. You know, you and I shared our TED talk before, like we were rehearsing together. And so we've, we've heard our stories a lot. And the one, I just wanted to share a few that resonated most with me along this line, because one, and you've already kind of touched on this, in your TED talk, you share a scene where you're holding, is it your daughter or a little baby?

Unni Turrettini: It's my daughter.

Zach Arend: Like kind of this realization, like I have everything that I, like, my life is great, like, wow, look around. And yet there is this emptiness inside and just this felt sense of loneliness. And, you know, some, you know, when you hear things and it just kind of gives you a little chills, like, "Ooh," like there's something there for like, you know, that moment and then there's another moment in your talk where that moment when you said, "Unni met Unni."

And that's another moment just gave me chills. It's like, "Oh," and so when you let, let's talk about that.

Unni Turrettini: Yeah.

Zach Arend: The emptiness, the loneliness and the connection,

Unni Turrettini: Yeah.

Zach Arend: Because, and the, and the last thing I want to share on that is like, you're talking about this mass killer, you know, that you in your hometown and the fact that the, your ability to have empathy for that I just want to acknowledge your... the only way you can do that is remove the judgment.

Like they're... most, most of us see something in the world and we judge it so much that we don't even see it. We don't see it. We see our own story about it. And the fact that you could see and have the curiosity to go deeper into that world just says so much about your work. And I just wanted to acknowledge that.

Because most of, my experience, most people would just run from that topic and write it off. And just to want to acknowledge you for that. So let's get into this emptiness, loneliness, and then what does it mean for Unni to meet Unni and that connection with self, I would love to explore that a little bit

Unni Turrettini: Yeah. Oh, thank you. Thank you for all of that, Zach. So when I, when I first started out with this whole, you know, loneliness, human connection topic, you know, I thought of the sort of the definition of loneliness that we have and that's in the dictionary is that loneliness is social isolation. It's when you either, you don't have enough people around you or the quality of your relationships are not satisfactory.

So there's the, there's a need for social connection that you're not getting. So that's, and we think about like, you know, older people, you know, all their friends have died and they're kind of find themselves like living alone and, you know, they don't have their spouse anymore. And so we think of, you know, older people or people just living really remotely that, you know, that social isolation, but loneliness today.

And by the way, I call loneliness a pandemic. It's our current pandemic because let's look at the numbers just for a moment. One in four people around the world is dealing with loneliness right now. One in four. And in the United States, it's one in two. So half the population. I mean, that is just shocking, right?

It's shocking. And so when we look at all those people dealing with loneliness, they're not, they're not isolated. They live in cities. They have people around them. They have families, they have spouses, often they have kids, they have colleagues, they have friends, and yet they feel lonely. Meaning they feel unfulfilled, like their need for connection isn't met.

Zach Arend: Why, why, why the, why do you think us Americans are so lonely compared to the rest of the world? I mean, one in four, one in two, that's a significant difference.

Unni Turrettini: Yeah, but you know, I, I think actually the I think perhaps you're not more lonely. I think just the measurements, because you have, there's, there's, I think you just come further when it comes to how you measure it in the United States. The research that we have around loneliness is more developed and more sophisticated in the United States than it is over here in Europe, for example.

So I think. Maybe that when you're not more lonely, I think probably the numbers over here are, they should be higher, you know, exactly for the reason why I didn't want to talk about my loneliness because I felt shame, right? I didn't want to admit it. And because how could I, like, I have people around me.

There's no reason for me to feel lonely. I'm okay. Like, everyone's like, I'm okay. You know, I'm good. So that's, you know, I think the numbers are higher. In the rest of the world and and also depending on where we are, we know that people in the Western world are lonelier than in the developing world.

And I think that is because in a lot of countries, when you look at, you know, places in Africa, in South America, where people really, their sense of community is a lot stronger. Right. They depend on each other to take care of their parents and their grandparents and everybody's kind of like living together.

You still have that village feeling right?

Zach Arend: What you're just sharing there, that, that community we have, and there's all kinds of research, right? Like the diminishment of community in America, in the world with social media and all. Yeah. We have these kind of false communities that doesn't really create the connection.

Unni Turrettini: Yeah, absolutely.

Zach Arend: and when I wrote my TED talk, one of the quotes I came across was from Sebastian Younger's book, Tribe.

And he's speak, he's talking about this topic too. And one of the quotes, I just absolutely love modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary.

Unni Turrettini: Yes.

Zach Arend: And that's, that's where I think you and I started really connecting. Cause I want to, like, I'm all about asking more of people, raising that bar of necessity, because when you do that every morning, I wake up, I know what I'm here to do.

I know who needs me. I, and I, there's purpose and meaning. And then, and so let's keep going. But I just wanted to share that because I don't know. I've just, this is resonating.

Unni Turrettini: Absolutely. And that's something, you know, by the way, I want to talk, I want to get to that Zach actually, if we can after or later, because that's so important when it comes to feeling connected is to be demanded of, because think of it like, and you know this, but I just want to share this to, to, for everyone else is that when.

And we think today that like, Oh, like life is so stressful, work is stressful. Especially here in Europe. We have this like attitude, like to, we, we think, you know, we're, we're we shouldn't be asking too much of people like our employees, our, our, our teams. We, Oh, you know, you need to like, yeah, you need to take a break and rest.

And you know, you're so stressed and overworked. No, we're not stressed and overworked. We are bored. Like you said, in your talk, and I want, I want you to get into that too, because that's really important. You know, super important when it comes to feeling lonely or connected. Is, and so we want to, 

when someone is asking you to step up and do something, they are asking you because they believe you can do it.

So they believe in you and that brings something out in you and in all of us when someone is demanding of us. That "I better step up. Can I do that?" Like, "yeah, well, if he thinks I can do it," you know, or "she thinks I can do it, that must mean I can do it." Right. And then we become better version of ourselves.

We contribute more and contribution is one of our basic human needs and one of the elements of connection that, that we need in order to feel connected. But just back to like, before we get more into it, cause I want to hear about like, because your, your talk is so important. And so I want, I want you to share, like, if you, if you, if you can, I want you to share a little bit about like more about that, but I just want to get back to why we're so lonely, right?

Even if we have people around us. And that is because we are disconnected from our own self. And that's, that

Zach Arend: so glad you went here. This is where I was hoping you'd go. Yes.

Unni Turrettini: Yeah, that was missing for me.

Zach Arend: Well and and let's just tie it all together because you know this idea like we're not burnout We're bored. This, like, we're having the same conversation. We're just using different words and I wanted to say this and then let's go to this because it's funny i'm always like I don't know if I could ever write a book because i'm constantly like changing how I see things. For example, the more I've been saying we're bored, I'm like, well, no, actually some of us need to feel bored.

We've never felt bored because we're so distracted, we don't ever feel the actual feeling of boredom. And what if boredom is kind of the doorway to some spaciousness to kind of connect with now. And, and so this is bringing kind of opening the doorway to connection with self. So as a possibility, maybe we have to be bored for a while to allow something new to come in.

Unni Turrettini: Well, you know, I actually think you should write this book because right, the right, right here, there is something that haven't been really explored yet that I've seen anyway. And that is that what you're saying is like, we're not, we're not overworked. We're not like, it's just, it's, we're bored and it's so true.

And what, and when we are bored, what do we do? When we are, when we don't feel connected to our worth, when we don't feel connected to the people around us, when we don't feel that, like we have a mission that is bigger than ourselves, which is purpose. We, we, what we do is that we distract ourselves with all kinds of addictions.

We all do it. Binging Netflix. Drinking a little, you know, too often, you know, wine, whatever you know, shopping. That's, you know, it's been a big one for me. And like, you know, all these things, eating, drinking, all these things that we do to distract us and to numb the discomfort of being with ourselves.

Right? So, and that is the disconnection to self. And that is something that I say to my clients is that try to become aware of when you are feeling discomfort and what you do with that discomfort. Are you able to sit with it and just like feel it for a few minutes, or do you automatically grab that piece of chocolate or you go online and you shop, or you like, you're like on your phone, scrolling on TikTok and Instagram, right?

Like when do we do that? And so...

Zach Arend: Can I share an example of that? I've been doing, you know, I'm always playing around with things and I took social media, I took Instagram, I took my email, I removed it all from my phone. So my phone is becoming, as Cal Newport would say, less and less interesting right now. I'm making it less interesting, so I don't spend so much time on it.

Well, now I'm becoming aware of all the times I grab my phone. Like, it's just like this impulsive, impulsivity to check. Or, or, or what I'm learning is to escape. It usually shows up when I'm writing. Or when I'm reading something that's kind of challenging, like I, all of a sudden I'm like, looking for reaching for my phone and then I grab it, I'm like, "there's nothing on here for me. I took it off." And so when you said that, that escapism, that distraction, like that unwillingness to be with discomfort or the uncomfortable emotions,

Unni Turrettini: Yeah.

Zach Arend: But that's where the gold is. Isn't it?

Unni Turrettini: That's where the gold is. And that's what I, you know, I would encourage you to write this book because first of all, you have a, you have a vision of all of this that is, that I think is really refreshing and then people need to hear. And for everybody, like, please follow Zach, like of my people, please follow him on Instagram, on LinkedIn.

And, and, you know, learn and watch his TED talk because it is really important and yeah, so, so back to the boredom. So I don't think we need to be, to sit and be bored. We need to sit and be with ourselves and that is not the same as being bored.

Zach Arend: Yeah.

Unni Turrettini: Right? So 

we need to have that space and time to actually connect with our own self. And whatever is coming up, we need to let that come up and sit with it and feel it.

I like to write it down just to like organize my, my brain a little bit, like "what's going on here? What am I feeling?" Without judging. And back to like what you said about judging, right? Without judging it because we all have it.

 We all have anger. We all have dissatisfaction. We have envy. We have jealousy.

We have all these like really uncomfortable quote unquote negative things that, you know, we feel. And, and so, so that is not boredom. Now, another thing when it comes to connection that I'm just came up to me now about boredom is that I think a lot of us have gotten into like old, just old habits. Like, we're hanging out with the same people, and I'm not saying that you should, you know, clean out in your friendships and just remove everybody and start over, but I, but I think that taking stock of the people and the connections that you have around you every so often, and you don't have to cut or burn any bridges, but I like to think of it as circles, social circles.

And so we have, like, I have my inner circle, which is my husband and my kids like in like the really just like the closest ones. And then I have like several circles and you can move people in and out of those circles, right? You don't have to like, cause you don't have to call people, like most of us don't call everyone like every day anyway.

So I'm, you know, it's just really about "who are the people around me that I feel energized when I've had a conversation with them, like the connection that when you talk about that, we had a connection, that's exactly it. That's, that's what I call relational energy. We want to have relationships that create relational energy.

And that is just the energy that is created in our social interactions. If you feel depleted, drained, tired, like all negative after you spend time with a group of people or, or, or even just one, one person, then maybe move that person to an, to a circle that is further away for a while, right?

Zach Arend: And that right there though, that requires some spaciousness to notice the noticing of like, "Oh, isn't that interesting?" Curiosity like, "Oh, isn't that interesting how I'm feeling?" And not making it something wrong with you, but just getting curious. We're like, what's, 'cause again, most of us stay so distracted we don't notice how our energy ebbs and flows around certain people or certain... it's people, it's the things that we do, our work. You know, one of the things I help leaders with is like, what are you, what are you doing that maybe you're good at, but you don't love it. It doesn't energize you. And. And we get over obligated with all this stuff. And this, it's funny, I just went here. Like, this is why I share in my talk that we're not over, we're actually not over obligated. We're not doing deep down what we know we can do. We're not listening to that desire in our heart, that passion, that calling. And that what you're saying, it just is so great because paying attention to your energy, paying attention.

And that starts with a connection with self being with emotions. And I want to, I want to talk about now, like, as we start to connect, let's do this. I want to make sure we leave with some practical takeaways, but let's do that at the end. 

Unni Turrettini: Yeah.

Zach Arend: You're making, I'm, I was reading this book this morning. I came across this thought leader from like the 1930s. You know, I like people, like people, nobody's heard of the guy is a, he's an architect. He's a sculptor. He's a physicist. He's like a modern day. Well, maybe not modern day, but he's. The next best thing to Da Vinci I've found. Well, he's, he's giving these talks to IBM back when IBM was the apple of the world.

And one of the lines this morning I read, and I love it. He's talking about creative expression. And he said, "all creative expression starts with an inward implosion resulting in an outward explosion." I'm like, "yes." So connection with self. We need, that's what's like stokes the fire. Like this, how I'm imagining it. And that only happens with being with the emotions and listening and paying attention to what's alive in you. And now let's talk about the external. Now, now it's because it's, let's just as it let's, let's just say, it's not just about, you know, sitting in a, in a mountain, you know, lodge, just meditating for 24/7, some of us might be like, "yeah, I'd like to try that," but.

There's also, I believe like, yes, that, but then we need to put it into action and make a contribution onto the world. Put some creative act, some expression out there. So let's now talk about the outward expression. As you start to become more connected, how does, what does that look like now in our workplaces in business and entrepreneurship and as, as an artist, as a writer, whatever's coming, whatever resonates with you, but I'd love to

Unni Turrettini: Yeah, no.

Zach Arend: Expression.

Unni Turrettini: Absolutely. And just before we get to that part, though, I just want to, because, because a lot of people ask me, well, how do I, how do I connect with myself? Like how, like, what, what are you even talking about? Like connect with myself? Like I am connected with myself or like, I think I am or whatever, you know, it's like, but here's the thing.

Most of us are actually disconnected from ourselves. And that is because we are, most of us are in survival mode 70 percent of the time. At least, at the very least, so survival mode is what our brain puts us in that state when it feels that we are threatened. And so when we feel like we do not belong, when we feel that we don't really fit in, when we feel empty, dissatisfied, not really part of, we go to work or, or wherever, and we're not like, we're not like, we do not get what we need out of all those social interactions in the workplace is that we automatically, without, this happens on a subconscious level, we go into survival mode. And what then what happens is that and most people know this is that the these chemicals, the brain triggers the release of a bunch of chemicals that puts us in puts us in high stress.

And that shuts off everything, every function of the body that is not necessary for your survival, including the frontal lobe part of the brain. And this is like 40 percent of the brain that is then shut off. And this part is the CEO of our lives. This is the thinking part. This is where we make, you know, and other press where we make connections to other people.

This is where we can make long term decisions. Take a step back, see the perspective and figuring out what is the best solution here in this particular situation. We lose those those capacities, which is why so many people are dealing with brain fog and feeling, first of all, these chemicals exhaust you because they're there over time and we're not meant to run away from, from tigers every minute of the day.

So they really, they, they start tearing us down. So we're exhausted and we can't think straight and connection seems impossible. Like all these things are just so hard for us because we are in survival mode. So we need to learn with simple tools and we need to practice deactivating our survival mode on a daily basis so that we can actually reconnect with ourselves so that we can have connection with other people.

And I think a really important point here when it comes to that sort of creative expression and connection with other people is that in survival mode, we, our only focus is on our immediate environment, our body, you know, physically to be safe and and you know, we're observing around us. We become suspicious of other people.

We look for danger. We look for enemies. We stop trusting people. And we only, our reality is only what we can see and feel and hear those like, and, but we know, and this is something that Einstein said that we are as, as human, even though like you and I were looking at each other and we are dense physical bodies entities, right?

But actually our body is 99. 999 percent energy, empty space. That we know. That is just physics. That's just how, so knowing that we are all energy and energetic beings, we impact each other's lives. So how, how you are today, how you're feeling Zach, if you're feeling lonely and depressed and down, and you know, maybe you have some addictions, you know, what happens and we know this from research is that your state of being impacts at least 10 people around you. So one person's disconnection, loneliness, depression is impacting so much more. And the other way around too, right? When we are feeling amazing, feeling great, feeling connected, feeling like we, we like we're, we're, we're, we have so much life, you know, like in love with life that also impacts our environment, right?

So

Zach Arend: I have a question about that.

Unni Turrettini: Yeah, yeah.

Zach Arend: Like the, I I've, I believe you, right. Like we've, I think a lot of, like, I like to check in with my gut, my instincts. Like, "is that true? Yeah, that's true." That's true. And what I'm thinking about though, is like, yeah, our energy affects people, you know, and the people around us will affect our energy. Can, if we're all affecting each other. Am I, am I a victim to other people's energy or am I a creator of other people's energy? The dance between the two. And I'm, I don't know if I'm making, if that's a clear question.

Unni Turrettini: Yeah.

Zach Arend: Like, how do we, how can you, is it possible to be the creator of that energy without being too affected, you know, being at the effect of other people's, maybe lower energy?

Unni Turrettini: Yeah. And that is a really good question because we are affected. Right. But I think that brings us to something that you talk about so well. And that is that personal, you know, that radical personal responsibility. Like, like you say in your talk, saddle your own horse, right? Like you said, like you guys, if you haven't watched Zach's talk, you know, we have, you have to watch it.

It's so good. So freaking good. And it's about that. It's about saddling your own horse, which to me, I take that like we can, because we can take that in all sorts of ways. Like how, what does responsibility look for you? But in, in, for me, when it comes to connection, it means you are aware. Like I'm aware.

Yeah. Other people are affecting me, but I get to choose. I get to take responsibility for how I'm feeling and I'm actually deciding, I'm setting myself up for success. Every single morning I decide who do I want to be today and I actually physically write it down in my journal. Who do I want to be today?

I have like a daily practice where I center myself, where I ground myself and I decide, I set myself up and I like, I decide how am I going to do it. How am I going to feel and how am I going to behave? And I, and I take that, like, I decided that not from Unni who I am today or yesterday, I decide I've decided who I'm going to be in the future when I've obtained all the things that I want to obtain, when I like, when I've reached my, the goals that I have today, right?

Like I want to be... I'm a world renowned, you know, thought leader in, in the, on the topic of human connection when I'm there when I'm giving talks to thousands of people, and I'm invited to, to all these like places to speak and to and to, to have, you know, to connect with people. And my next book that I'm writing actually right now on human connection when that had, you know, that, that book has sold millions of copies.

How like who, that, that Unni,

Zach Arend: Yeah, that I want to talk about this because I want to slow down a little bit on this topic because you're actually hitting on one of my, I'm writing a lot right now and I'm, one of the first practice I teach in my keynotes that I share. It's something I call Eyes on the Bronc. And when I was riding rodeo, like there's all kinds of distraction, noise, like commotion, all the people and the grandstands, the music, but when you got in the back of one of those broncs, everything came down to, there was this spot where the horse's neck connected with the shoulder. And if I just kept all my attention there, everything else just dissolved. And it was like, I was just able to be in flow with the horse. And it was like a dance. And this is a metaphor for what you're saying is where are you putting your focus and attention? And so many of us, this moment, we start thinking about a bigger vision for our lives or our businesses or who we're being we ask ourselves the question, "well, how?" Well, how?

Unni Turrettini: Yeah.

Zach Arend: And the immediate, I believe when we ask ourselves the question of how all we're doing is looking in our past or looking somewhere outside of us to try to figure out where we can, like, get that answer, that answer.

And all we're looking for is certainty. And the only way through certainty is faith. But what you're talking about is coming from your future. I think like coming and I, I kind of like making your vision, not a place to get to, but a place to come from.

Unni Turrettini: Yes.

Zach Arend: And I want to talk more about that because that is, I think that's the first thing.

Like if we're going to start to change who we're being and start to change the results in our lives, it, it starts, well, it first starts with that connection to self, we'll say. You know, we're kind of making this up as we go, you know, like this conversation is a co-creative process. But then it's like, okay, now that we're starting to have a awareness of who we be and where we are

Unni Turrettini: Yeah.

Zach Arend: Now, I think we're shifting into the, "okay, how do we now bring that into the world, making a vision and making that a place to come from?"

Unni Turrettini: Yeah. 

Zach Arend: Who would I be being as that person, doing the thing that I would love to do or create? So let's talk more about that. Yeah, just jump in. Like how, how do we do that effectively? Because a, it's counterintuitive. It doesn't, it's not something we naturally gravitate

Unni Turrettini: This is like, like, so few talk about this. Because we all like, and this is something I, you know, and I, and I'm a big follower of Joe Dispenza. I do his meditations. He talks about this, like, who do you want to be like, create that future you and feel like it and practice feeling like it. Because what we, where we put our energy is where we, where we put our focus and that's what we get more up.

Right. And then I'm also actually right now, I'm, in a, in a program with like a challenge with Benjamin Hardy, the who is an organizational psychologist. And for those who don't know him, he has written a really good book called "10 X is easier," I believe it's called "than 2 X" about that 10 X mentality, which is what, what Bo Eason is all about, which is what, what Joe Dispenza is all about, even though they're using different words. Right. But this is what we're talking about right here. And that's what you're talking about too, by the way, in your, like in your talk, it's just that you're using different words and Benjamin Hardy said something on a call recently.

He said, the future is where I wrote it down. But the future is the source of your resources. And that takes commitment, right? It takes commitment, actually letting go of your past and using your past as a tool for, you know, learning, wisdom, and all of that, but not being defined by your past, but actually making a commitment.

" This is where I'm going. This is my big goal. This is my big vision for myself, for creating a more beautiful environment for myself, for my kids, for my family," or whatever that is for you. Right. And then making a commitment, meaning you take a big step, like a leap of faith in that into that unknown.

Unni Turrettini: And that's, you know, you said that, right? Like the uncertainty. Our world is filled with uncertainty. We have to actually get comfortable with uncertainty. Meaning, that we just take some leaps into it and trusting that it's going to work out and knowing that there will be doors opening. There are resources available to us that we don't know about right now because we haven't lived it yet.

It's not in the past. It's in the future, right? And living in the future like that, living according to your future self, that also means that we have to let go of a lot. All the things, all the

Zach Arend: I have a question.

Unni Turrettini: people. Yeah.

Zach Arend: Yeah, because this topic, I, you know, I do workshops and we'll do some trainings and what I often hear is, because it's exactly right. The vision is what starts to demand something of you. And it, it, it tells you who to be. It informs how you show up and the vision, having that vision, Eyes on the Bronc, right.

But what I hear often is "I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want." And the truth is the bigger the vision, the simpler life gets and the easier, and the more you have some, like, it just, the more this stuff works. 

Unni Turrettini: Because you have to get rid of distractions when you know what you want.

Zach Arend: Yeah, but most of us don't know, like, it's like we can't, it's like, there's this block that just, I don't know what I want.

And so can we address that? Right. Not that I don't know if we can address

Unni Turrettini: No, let's talk about that.

Zach Arend: but how do, how do we take some steps to start to see a bigger vision because that's not easy. It's not natural. I

Unni Turrettini: It's not natural because, well, actually it is very natural to know what we want. It's just that we have, it's a cultural programming that tells us, like, all the things that we need to do, get a degree, you know, education, get that job, you know, get the two kids, get the dog, like we were programmed to what, how we're supposed to live and what we're supposed to do in order to feel fulfilled.

That's like the conditioning, the programming, right? That has disconnected us from ourselves because instead of focusing on "who am I?" and "what, do I want? How can I express myself in the full, in the best and fullest way and follow my dreams?" Your dreams were shut were shut down when you were little and so you changed yourself, you just let that, let that go, you forgot about those dreams and who you were and what you wanted to do with your life and how you wanted to express yourself and instead focus on fitting in right?

That's what we all do. So it takes a little bit of time of de-programming and to just, and it really starts with something as simple as, for me, part of my daily practice again, you know, and it's taken me years, but it doesn't have to take people years to start to ask yourself the question. 

Just ask yourself, start like, you know, what, what do I want?

Who am I? Start building a relationship with yourself,

 because unless we have, actually have a good relationship with ourselves, we cannot have a good relationship with anyone else.

Zach Arend: Yeah, that, that right there. And I just want to share something that I remember when I was a I was a vice president of sales and my goal, well, you know, I remember sitting down with my coach like six, seven years ago, and he's like, "what are your goals, Zach?" And 'cause I was starting to work with an executive coach and I'm like, "I wanted to work on my executive presence and grow my network."

And it was just very, like, it was what I was supposed to say, you know, like I see that now. But the more we started coaching and we started peeling away that stuff, like "really?" And the question he always asked me, he's like, well, how does that serve you? He's like, "we need to stop focusing on serving others for a moment and get back to serving yourself because you're the one that is going to be of service.

So we got to take care of you. And it's all, what started happening as I started getting rid of stuff is I started writing. I started a blog on Medium.com. Like nobody, I didn't share it. I just started writing. And oh my God, something just started to come open for me and that writing or whatever creative act, I think there's something about getting out of the logical side of the brain and using some creativity.

Unni Turrettini: Yeah.

Zach Arend: And something I've been sharing with clients, right. You know, I'm, are you aware of who Julia Cameron is and Morning Pages?

Unni Turrettini: Oh my goodness! I have the book right here.

Zach Arend: The Artist's Way. Yes. So I was, I was sitting down over coffee with somebody just this week. She had reached out and it was this topic of "I don't know what I want." And this is where I pointed her that Artist's Way book. That book. Because it is full of exercises and just ways to kind of spend some time with yourself, but not in like a self care way.

Like I'm going to get a mani, you know, it's not like getting a deep massage. It's like, no, like really be with your thoughts and just like, tap into that part of you, that's just like, like, I love Morning Pages 'cause it's like, just write. Stream of consciousness, just write. And I think that's the part of us we've got to learn to connect with because it's where all the information is.

Unni Turrettini: That's connecting with us. And then, and the 99. 9999 percent that Einstein talks about, that's when we connect to that part of us, which again is what Ben Hardy calls the source of resources, lies in that part, like the unknown, right, that we don't know about yet. And the insights, I don't know about you, Zach, but the insights I'm getting in writing and just like free writing and it can, you know, it starts with like, "I don't know what to write.

This really sucks. I feel really bored." I about. And, you know, like. It starts there and then it just like grows into something else. And I just like, allow like the pen to just like move almost, and the goal that comes out of that is just insane. So I, yeah, I highly recommend it. It's transformative.

Zach Arend: So there's two, I'm hearing two, there's probably more, but two connecting with the breath. We've, I think we've touched on that and you really go deep into that in your TED talk. So, connecting with the breath, writing, just like stream of consciousness, just, just writing. Just writing for nobody other than like, just writing.

Unni Turrettini: And connecting with you, like asking yourself,

Zach Arend: Connecting with you.

Unni Turrettini: "Who am I? What do I, what do I really, what makes me happy? Not my mom, not my spouse, not my kids. What makes me happy?"

Zach Arend: Yeah. Oh yeah. And when you can articulate it and it happened this week, I was sitting down with coffee and someone was referred to me and we were just talking through some, her career goals. And of course the career goals aren't really the goals, you know, everything she was saying, this is what I'm trying to do and I need to do this.

And that's like, " Well, what I really want is to be able to travel, have time with my children, my daughter, and make a contribution to some, a company that I, I value." It, it was so simple. And it's like, "great, make that a place to come from." Like, who would you be being? And now let that inform, because otherwise we're chasing after checking boxes.

It's like, "oh, well I first need to probably get an MBA cause I'm going to need to have that. And I need to find a company that's going to have great benefits. And then I need to..." and it's like, well, no wonder we're exhausted and don't look forward to our day because we're full of all this stuff the world's telling us we need. My experience is we don't need any of it. Like we have so much of it within us. And if we could just get rid of that BS and

Unni Turrettini: Yeah,

Zach Arend: have that, that outward explosion of who we are. People fall in love with like, people follow courage. People follow courage.

Unni Turrettini: Exactly. And they, they want to be, you know, if you can be someone that inspire people, and how do you inspire people? By exactly that. And this is, you know, Joe Dispenza talks about this. You have to overcome your circumstances, everything that's wrong with your life today. That, you know, you want to get out of lack, you know, debt, whatever, you know, whatever your circumstances are.

But if you can feel like you would feel if you had all the wealth in the world and you had accomplished, like, you know, all the things that you want to accomplish, if you can feel like that, practice feeling like that. And whenever you forget, cause we forget all the time, come back to it. You know every like catch ourselves come back to it, feel like that, think like that, act like that. And that doesn't take anything.

We can all do it. We can do that. Like how do you like? How do you feel? Well, you know for me I feel free. I feel abundant. I feel like I have so much love in my heart. I have so much empathy. I have so much compassion. I'm not judging. When I come from that place, I meet people, someone cuts me off in traffic, I'm like, I'm good.

I'm good with me, good with everyone else. You know, and back to the question, when you said to me, what does it look like to be connected? It's that. When you can come at life, imagine you come into the office, you're feeling so good. Like you're like loving on all your colleagues, you know, you smile and say, hello, you look people in the eyes.

When you talk to someone, you give them your full undivided attention because you're present. Like you're right here, you're present. And that is such a gift in this day and age of distractions and phones and all sorts of things, right? If you can be present with people, what happens often with such a gift being present because when you're present with someone, you're attractive.

There is a charisma. People think you're charismatic, they think you're attractive because it feels really good to be in the room with someone who's present. And what happens? And this is so beautiful, is that often it has the power of bringing them out of survival mode and into the present moment as well.

Zach Arend: Yeah. Back to the energy and our energy effects. 

Unni Turrettini: And when you show up like that and you are like that during your day, I guarantee you, doors will open, people will be friendlier with you, they will give you opportunities. You are like, you walk in that like you're confident, know what you're doing. You're just like so willing to give. Right?

And that is, I mean, what a gift, right? What a gift to the world to show up like that. And that's, I think that goes back to what you were saying, like what you were saying, talking about taking, like, Saddle Your Own Horse.

Zach Arend: Well, that, what you're saying there is everything you're talking about this who you be and feeling it and taking it on, like, if you were to double click and go even deeper into my messages of Saddle Your Own Horse, that's really where I'm leading people, is, when we hear the word responsibility, I think a lot of it incites blame.

Like "who's responsible for this?" You know? "Oh, you are?" no, it's like I heard somebody once say this responsible as in response able, you are able to respond. You are the source of your, you are the creator of your life or okay, co-creator of your life. But it's, it all starts here and you get to choose all of that.

Unni Turrettini: I have like a a method, if you will, that I help people with. And the short of it is like to wrap it up is that I call them the three Cs. So connection consists of, of Connection, Confidence, and Contribution. And connection is two parts. So it's the connection to your own self, and then connecting with other people, but you have to connect with your own first with your own self first, you know, deactivate survival mode and then create relational energy with people like being present, looking people in the eyes, showing you care. And you can do that in a few seconds. It doesn't have to take long, right?

It doesn't take any, any effort, hardly any effort. And then there's the confidence part because when someone says they're lonely, what they're really saying is I don't believe I'm worthy of love and connection. So what that means is that really in reality, we don't have a loneliness pandemic, we have an unworthiness pandemic.

And I don't like, I've spoken to so many leaders, Zach, like, like who you wouldn't believe. You, you, you'd think that they are the most confident people on the planet. We all have, you know, issues with confidence and we can all be more confident. I'm not talking about bragging or being like brash and all of those things, like arrogance, I'm talking about the real confident, like knowing who you are and what you're bringing to the table and what you're bringing to the world and, you know, taking that personal responsibility, that kind of confidence.

Right. And then the third is contribution. Which is, we've spoken about that already, right? Like, what are you bringing? What are you actually bringing to the table? Do you have a vision, a mission, a goal that is bigger than your, than yourself? Like, how can you bring more? How can you contribute more?

And my favorite way, like the easiest way in the world to do that when people ask me, like, "well, how do I, like, where do I even start?" and this is so easy anyone can do it. And I call it HOPE; Help One Person Everyday. Just little thing. Do you want to share this? Like, do you want to, do you want to watch Zach's talk and you share it with 10 of your friends?

You know, to help them as well. Then you've helped Zach and you've helped the other, you know, 10 people, you know, just little things like that. Pick up the phone, call someone that just tell them like, listen, I know we haven't spoken in a while, but I really care about you. Help one person everyday. It takes so little and it does so much.

Zach Arend: That's who you are to me. Like I've, you like, you really embody your message. 'Cause you've helped me and supported me and my journey. And I know what it brings out in me. It's like, I want to show up for you. Like I just, I think that's the beginnings of community, you know, like boom, now we've created a necessity for one another and the connection, I want to share this. Like connection's something I've struggled with, like, 'cause I'm a driver and achiever and I'll run through people, walls, whatever. When I started to slow down, something really simple is I, in the grocery store, at the checkout counter, I look her or him in the eye and I, I smile and I say, "thank you."

And then I pause and I just notice what I see and, oh my God, it's not just like a reciprocate. It's like true human connection where you see them smile and light up. Like, Oh my God. Almost as if like, damn, I think I might be just the first person to have done that today for that person.

Cause you see it, you just see it in their eyes. You know what I mean?

Unni Turrettini: You make someone's day, really, by something so seemingly insignificant, right?

Zach Arend: Well, let's, let's, let's complete, where do we send people? Like, 'cause if anybody can help you with connection, confidence, or contribution, it's Unni. And I, and I'm speaking from my own experience. So where, where can we go and learn more about your work, Unni?

Unni Turrettini: So, follow me on social media. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Instagram. Instagram is my favorite platform. So, you know, please follow me there as well. 'Cause that, that's where I kind of like nurture and share a lot. I'm also on TikTok and you can just Google my name. I'm the only person in the world with my name.

I know I have a long and complicated name. So just Google my name and you find me and you find my social media and my website and just please connect, please follow and connect with me. I'd love, I'd love to have conversations on social media and I do respond to everyone. So, yeah.

Zach Arend: Thanks, Unni. We'll have to do this again sometime.

Unni Turrettini: Yes, we have to do it again.

Absolutely. And for everyone, for anyone who's not following Zach, please follow Zach and where can we find you Zach?

Zach Arend: Well, my website, it's probably the best spot. www.zacharend.com. Z A C H A R E N D. com.

Unni Turrettini: Amazing. Amazing. And please follow Zach on Instagram and LinkedIn as well. And yeah, let's do this again, Zach. This has been amazing. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. 

​ 

In this episode of Being in the Arena, Zach Arend digs deep into what it takes to lead and live authentically. Drawing from his TED Talk, Zach explores the vital elements of choice, effectiveness, and autonomy in our daily pursuits. He gets real about the things we're good at but secretly dread, urging us to confront three meaningful questions regarding our choices and who we’re being. It's a candid conversation that challenges us to embrace discomfort as a catalyst for growth and fulfillment. So, if you're ready to shake things up and step into your power, this episode is a must-listen.
Learn more about Zach:

• Zach’s Website

Episode resources:

• Work with Zach
• Book Zach to Speak

If you enjoyed this episode then please either:

• Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
• Follow and rate on Spotify
• Connect with me on Instagram and Facebook!

TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
Zach Arend: What are you good at that you don't like doing? That right there is where most of us go and we stagnate. 

 Welcome back or welcome to being in the arena. This is a podcast really about what it means to live and lead in the arena of your own life. My goal for these conversations is maybe sometimes to give you a little nudge, a little kick in the butt, push you back into the arena, because I fundamentally believe life always happens in the arena. this is part two of a four part series on a deep dive into a modern leadership solution that I'm calling Saddle Your Own Horse. I did a TED Talk on this. 

 Many of you that have followed along, have already seen it. It came out just several weeks ago. If you haven't, go watch it. 'Cause it, everything we're going to explore in this episode and several to come is a deep dive on a lot of the concepts I introduced in the TED Talk.

So this is part two. And part one, we dove into really what the problem is. As I see it, we live in a world that says we're burnout. And we, we're spending all this money on self care and but at the end of the day, more of us are bored. We're not burnout. We're bored. And we explored the importance, the critical nature of getting yourself and pushing your team into bigger and bigger arenas. Because that's where, that's where mental health actually comes from. Doing the thing that you're feeling called to do. You're not over obligated. You're just not doing deep down what you know you can do. And we've got to start listening to what we're being called towards.

To being our best and giving it everything we got to being in the arena. And we explored that in our last episode, in part one of this, this four part series. So if you haven't heard that one, go back to it after this episode and listen to it and get, get familiar with what's truly going on in your life.

I believe that episode will, will help you see. And get a sense of who you truly are so that you can come back to this episode in the future episodes to come and start to really change things for yourself and for your team. Well, today I want to talk about three powerful questions that our relationship with these questions are the very thing that correlate to us being our best and fully engaged in whatever we do.

The opposite of boredom. It's the opposite of burnout. It's in flow. It's. It's just that sweet spot, that zone of genius. And in my talk, I, I talk about and we start to segue into, okay, so we need to start asking more of people we are in a world today that has perfected the art of making us not feel necessary.

And we need to start asking more of ourselves, not less, asking more of our team, not less right now, the world's saying "maybe ease off a little bit, maybe take it easy, take a break." No, no, because there's a lot of research that's gone into this. These three questions are a mixture of, of some things that I've pulled from self determination theory.

And if you're a nerd like me, go check that out. There's a book, 

 Ryan and Deci wrote a book. 

 I think it's all about human motivation and drive and go check that book out if you want to dive into this. But I, I also, I take the research, like I was sharing in the last episode. And I also kind of check in with what, what's been true for me and a lot of my clients.

I work executives and leaders and leadership teams, like I just kind of bring it down to the ground to experience because sometimes too much research just feels too nebulous and generalized. I've got to bring it down to my life and maybe your life, but I encourage you to check in. But there's really three things that, and we know this, we know, you do, check in. Intuitively, instinctively, we know this is what we need to feel fully engaged and at our best. There's three things and the first one, I'm going to share all three of them with you. The first one is, do you feel a sense of choice in what you're doing? That's number one. Do you feel a sense of choice in what you're doing? Number two, do you feel effective at it while also challenged by it?

That's number two, feeling effective in what you're doing. While also challenged by it. And number three, are you doing it on your terms? Do you feel like, or, or better said, are you doing it on your terms? So do you feel like you have a sense of choice in what you're doing? Do you feel you're effective at it while also challenged by it?

And do you feel like you're doing it on your terms? Those three things, if you can answer yes to all three of those, then I'm pretty sure you're, you're enjoying what you're doing. You're enjoying life. You're engaged at your work and in your profession. You are. It's, it comes down to those three questions.

Do you feel a sense of choice? I want to explore each one of these a little bit because it's subtle, because I believe when I ask these questions, a lot of us are listening in a way, that's. where we're looking at the externals. Okay. Do you feel a sense of choice in what you're doing?

"Where I work and what I do day to day, do I feel like I have a sense of choice in what I'm doing?" And right away, if you're not a yes, it's a no. And oftentimes there's some sort of external obstacle in your way. He doesn't listen to me. I just don't have that level of freedom. I just can't, I can't afford it.

You know, I don't have the money. I just need this job. I need the, I need the benefits. We go into story mode about how, you know, all these stories tell us how, "no, we don't really have choice." We don't have choice on what you're doing. You, you just have to do it. And this is where, and we blame, we blame our organizations.

We blame our leaders. No, I don't feel like I have a choice what I'm doing. Nobody cares what I think or whatever. We, we look outward, we look out into the world and we find something to blame for why we don't feel a sense of choice. And this is where Saddle Your Own Horse really comes to play. And you know, in a TED Talk, it's like 10 minutes.

I don't have a lot of time to go deep into this stuff. And this is one of the nuances where I'm like, gosh, I'm pretty sure people are going to hear this, and it's going to create this defensiveness. Like, " no, I don't actually, I actually hate my job.  I don't, I don't feel like I have choice. I don't," you know, and we go down and we spiral down into this victim mode, this victim mentality where we feel hopeless and powerless and stuck in a situation that we don't want. Absence of choice, and it makes sense that we go there. It's a story. It's a clearly well constructed story and it's very convenient and how it can keep you right where you're at. And there's a lot of nuances here, but what I wanted to really capture, and I don't know if I captured it, I'm going to capture it now.

The key thing is, do you feel a sense of choice? I'm not asking it as if it's a fact or not. Like, because here's the thing. This is all about your relationship with the question in your external circumstances. Do you feel a sense of choice in what you're doing? That's a, that's a choice. That's a choice.

 That alone, to, to see the choice in what you're doing is a choice. That's interesting, right? That's what I'm trying to capture. I don't know if you're hearing me, but do you feel the sense of choice? Do you actually recognize that you are at choice in everything you do? So the powerful thing about this is not an externally.

"Well, do I? I don't know. Do I?" It's a, the answer is always yes. It's just whether or not you choose to take hold of that. Do you feel sense of choice in what you're doing?

 Because oftentimes I'm working with leadership teams and they're going to be telling me a story of how they're stuck in their organizations with a team member or if it's relationship, and you know, at home and I'm, I'm just, and, they're telling me all about the other person and how, I don't know, I don't have a choice, like, they're just not listening.

 You know, I don't have a choice. And inevitably, bringing that Saddle Your Own Horse mentality to the game, like, it's like, well, what choice are you making in all of this? Inevitably, like they may not say it. I might have to say it for them. Well, one choice you're making is you're choosing to tolerate the thing that's not working for you.

You're choosing that. "What do you mean?" Well, I, you know, throw some extreme. Well, you could quit.  You could fire them. You could, you have a lot of choices. You are making a choice right now in this moment to do nothing about it. You're making a choice to just complain about it instead of turning around and facing it. We could go on and on and on like, so the answer to the question number one is always, yes, always, do you feel a sense of choice in what you're doing? You better. "You better" not like that's a dare, like you better, it's, it's going to serve you if you connect to that sense of choice.

And the truth is,  you're always at choice. So that's the first one, like, do you feel a sense of choice in what you're doing? And my ultimate encouragement on this one is, can you change your relationship with that question? This isn't about checking a box externally and, well, no, does he let me make my own choices or does he not?

Well, regardless. You're, you're at choice. You're choosing one or the other. And I, I just like this. I like this responsibility that these questions, this question especially brings. This idea of saddling your own horse, because, look, nothing changes until you take hold of the sense of choice that you have.

That is yours. It's, it's your right. You have a choice, always. But far too often we forget that and we kind of move into this powerless victim position. And the thing about that is we can't move forward. So do you feel a sense of choice in what you're doing? Number two, do you feel effective at it while also challenged by it?

This again requires a lot of self reflection. Do you feel effective at what you're doing while also challenged by it? And I think, and to be honest, I had written my talk and I'd rehearsed it. And I, something wasn't right about, I originally was like, do you feel effective at it? Do you feel a sense of choice?

And do you feel effective at it? Like there's something about, yeah, I feel effective at it, but it doesn't really light me up. So I'm like, okay, yeah, it's, it's effective while also challenged by it. This is true for me. I don't know if it's true for you, but it's, that's the sweet spot, the intersection of there's a level of I'm effective at it.

Maybe I haven't mastered it by all means, but God, there's just this level of competency that I do have that I am connected with, but ooh, it's also brings a level of discomfort and it does challenge me. And those are the things when I'm doing those things. On a consistent basis, those are the things that at the end of the day, when I lay my hand on the pillow, I'm like, oh, It was a good day. I gave it all I got. I was in that zone of genius where I was effective, growing, learning and challenged by what I was doing. 

 And this one is is an interesting one because I  work with a lot of leaders and managers and their organizations are growing and even their team is telling them like, "Hey, you gotta... who's coming behind you because wow, we're  really growing and like, who's going to take this when you're not here?"

And, and I always kind of hear this, "Oh no, I'm good. You know, I got it. I got it. It'll be okay." And it's like, well, the whole room is saying, "I don't think you got it. I think, I think you got to start letting go of some things." And there's this exercise I do with leadership teams. And one of the things we do is we start looking at the things that we're good at, but we don't really like doing. Maybe at one time in our careers or our professions, we enjoyed it, but gosh, we've been doing it for a decade now. And frankly, it bores us. We're good at it. Well, yeah, we've gotten really good, but it's, it's disinteresting. It's boring. What are you good at that you don't like doing? That right there is where most of us go and we stagnate. 

We over obligate ourselves and tell ourselves that, "well, we're good at it and we need to do it." And one of the number one things this question does is you have to elevate yourself to what you feel like you're effective at, but also challenged by, like, we've got to find a way to bring the love back into what we're doing.

And for me, for me to love something, it has to stretch me. Like one of my core values is growth. Probably is one of your core values too, if you're listening, because it's just, you know, we kind of tend to attract people into our worlds that are similar to us, shared values. I have to have a sense of growth, so effectiveness and just being good at something isn't enough.

I have to stretch myself. And so you want to increase your vitality for life and your engagement, start asking yourself, "do I feel effective while also challenged by what I'm doing in my business, in my, in my leadership and my management?" Because a lot of us are going to say, "well, no, I, all I do is send emails and attend meetings.

And it's frankly, I don't feel challenged by it at all." Well, then do you feel a sense of choice in what you're doing? You better find it because nobody's coming here. You got to Saddle Your Own Horse. You got to take this one on and, and this is where it requires you to take some bold steps to raise your hand, to say, "I, you know what, this isn't working for me.

And I think there's some changes that we can make in this organization that would better serve our goals. And I also believe I can make a greater impact," like that's called putting your butt on the line and most of us are unwilling to do that, but you know what, one of the thing when you start to do that and you loosen your grip on the need to, for certainty and safety and comfort, which is actually the root cause we explored in the last episode, part one, the root cause of a lot of our burnout and boredom were so clinging to these things that aren't allowing us to experience ourselves for who we truly are.

The only way you do that is through courage and stepping into new challenging arenas. So do you feel effective at what you're doing while also challenged by it? That's your choice. You have to lean into that. You have to lean into that. You have to create it. You have to create the thing that you're effective at and challenged by.

Like that's one of the things I do when I'm working with individuals is we look at that. "Where is your greatest contribution to the organization? What, what would you love it to be? What do you think it could be? What would you like it to be? And how might that challenge you? And how might you bring some of your current strengths and abilities into becoming great at that?

It's like this constant growth. Like a lot of us get into our forties, we get our, we, we stop growing. No wonder we're bored or burnout, whatever you want to call it. I call it bored out. Or yeah, bored. So do you feel effective at what you're doing but also challenged by it? Move into the, move into the resistance, go find some challenge.

If you don't have it, go create it. It's, it's a choice you choose. Number three. So the first one is, do you feel a sense of choice? Number two, do you feel effective at a while also challenged? Number three, do you feel you're able to do it on your terms? On your terms. Do you feel you're able to do it or are you doing it on your terms? Meaning, is this an inside out job or is it an outside in job? So that's probably a little confusing, let me explain. 

 For you to do something on your terms Ralph Waldo Emerson shared a, he said this, he said that, to be yourself in a world that's trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. To be yourself in a world trying to make you someone else is the greatest accomplishment. That's what I'm really talking about. Are you doing and being it in a way that you believe others expect you to do it?

Or are you doing it in a, from a creative space? That's the distinction. Do you feel you're doing it on your terms? Doing it on your terms mean it's a creative act. You are the artist of your own life, of your business, of the results that you're trying to create in your organization. This isn't an act.

We're not trying to, you know, take something on, but do it in a way that we think our peers are going to approve of us. 

 Like, I'm not suggesting we just blatantly go be rebels out there, but what I am, I'm just encouraging you to check in, like get out of everybody else's head because most of us aren't who we truly are.

We're being who we think others think we are, or we're being who we think others expect us to be. And we never truly tap into that gift that we have in our, our own creative insights. So to do something on your terms. I don't know. For me, it was like magic when I started to get a sense of my own creativity and as a young professional, I wasn't in touch with it.

I wasn't. I was reading every leadership book out there telling me what I should be doing as a leader. And I was trying like heck to be that type of leader. I was looking at the leaders I admired and I was trying like heck to be like them. And the person I was least connected with was myself and my own values and what was important to me and what I thought.

Like I was like disconnected from what I thought. Like I was running everything through the filter of "what do the leadership books say?" And "what would he say about it? What does he think I should do about this? What would he do? What does he think I should do here?" And I would try to like use that as my operating system almost.

And it wasn't until I started, frankly, it was when I started writing, I, I kind of secretly started a blog and I was writing on medium.com and I was just like... It was a safe space for me just to write my ideas and they were terrible, it was terrible, but it was authentically me and it was me working through my own ideas.

And every time after one of those sessions, I left like feeling a little bit more alive. Like, "Oh, I have something to say." It's maybe not worked out perfectly yet. And it's maybe confusing, it's still hard to articulate, but it started connecting me with something, a message, and I don't think it has to be words.

I think there's just something about this creative act, doing something on your terms, making it a creative act, going back to number one. Do you feel a sense of choice? Are you choosing to make it a creative act? Are you doing it in a way that stretches you? You're effective while also challenged by it on your terms.

Like, I want you to really check in with these three questions. In your business, leadership, at home, like, part of playing a bigger game and getting yourself into a bigger arena is constantly reflecting on these three questions. Like remembering, "oh yeah, yeah, yeah, choice. Yep, I'm choo so, how am I choosing this?

In what ways might I be contributing to the thing I say I don't want? Cause there's some choices I'm making here." Number two, like, "oh, yeah, I used to feel challenged by this, but I honestly, I'm starting to feel a little bit of boredom creeping." Oh. Okay, well then how can you up the stakes?

Yeah. How can you step back out, get to the bottom of a new mountain? Because that's kind of my mentor taught me several years ago. He's like, "zach, there's no graduation." I had just achieved something great. And we were celebrating. And then he reminded me, he's like, "yeah, but Zach, there's no graduation."

Like tomorrow is going to come. Today, tonight, you're going to go back home, you know? And it's back, it's back to, it's back to work. And there's some freshness that comes to that. Some energy. When you just stay in the pocket of challenging yourself, that's growth. And are you seeing everything you're doing as a creative act?

And if you want to go deeper for sure, DM me, like, I love talking to people about this very subject. The, like being the artist of your own life, that creative act. And leadership and companies where often it's not talked about, I think it's. I think it's an untapped resource within all of us. If we could learn to see what we're doing more as a creative act, right?

And so please reach out. I would love to talk to you about it. Over a cup of coffee, virtual or in person, if you're local. Another resource, if you, if you're someone who doesn't like to reach out there's a book that, well, there's several books, but one, The Artist's Journey. By Julia Cameron, The Artist's Journey.

That's a great place to start. If you want to just have some quiet time and start kind of going down this creative path and getting in touch with your own creative power, that book's powerful, it's, it's not only a book, it's a journal, it's filled with exercises. It's something to spend 30, 45 minutes, an hour with every morning for like 30 days.

I think it's actually a 12 week program. It's powerful. It will turn some stuff on for you and you'll, you'll like it. Trust me. So that's, that's another resource for you. I hope you enjoyed this episode. So this was part two of a four part series. So when we're together again for part three, we're going to start looking at the number one thing you can do to get people on board.

So these first two episodes really had a lot to do with you. Right. Like, okay, what are the, where are we not playing a big enough game? Where are we not stepping into the arena? Where are we not making the choices that are serving us where we're challenging and growing and seeing our life as a creative act where that's all been about you now, part three is like, okay, now that we start to get, start to lead ourself, now let's start looking at, "okay, now, how do I get, how do I lead others? How do I teach others to saddle their own horse? 

 How do I get them on board? How do we do this together?" So we're going to really explore the other side of leadership, which is getting people with you on your journey and getting them engaged as much as you are and excited about the, the, the journey ahead and the vision that you will be creating together.

So if that's interesting to you, which it probably is, this is a leadership podcast, stay tuned for part three. Thanks for listening and we'll see you in the next episode. 

​ 

In this heartfelt episode of Being in the Arena, Zach Arend sits down with special guest Deanna Simonson, a mom of 10 who brings a unique perspective on parenting and mental health. Their conversation dives deep into the challenges of raising kids in today's world, touching on everything from setting boundaries to nurturing meaningful connections. Through personal stories and practical advice, Zach and Deanna explore how parenting isn't just about rules—it's about listening, validating feelings, and showing love. Their candid exchange offers not only insights into parenting but also valuable lessons in leadership and relationships. Tune in for a dose of real talk and genuine wisdom that speaks to the heart of what it means to raise resilient, happy kids.
Learn more about Zach:

• Zach’s Website

Episode resources:

• Work with Zach
• Book Zach to Speak
• Deanna’s Website

If you enjoyed this episode then please either:

• Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
• Follow and rate on Spotify
  
  

Connect with me on Instagram and Facebook!

TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

So we have to be really careful, even with our kids, how we're making them feel heard. Like, are we hearing them and letting that be okay?

Zach Arend: Welcome to Being in the Arena. Today's episode, I'm doing something I haven't done for a while. I'm bringing a guest on, Deanna Simonson. She was a fellow TEDx speaker at Youngstown, and I got to know her and her husband the months leading up to the event, and in fact, I've known them for about a year now, and Deanna is a very special individual, and she's a mom of 10 kids.

She has a powerful perspective on parents and our roles in cultivating mental health within our kids. And today I didn't see, I told her that it was going to be somewhat of a selfish conversation because I'm a dad of three daughters and I had some questions for her and it kind of turned into a little mini coaching session where I got pretty vulnerable with some real challenges I'm, you know, having and how I'm working through it and how she's helped me work through it.

And. I think you're going to enjoy this episode. I really do. Stay in it, listen to it because it really picks up towards the middle. We get into some pretty real world situations and yeah, I think you're going to find it helpful. And you know, whether you're a parent or not, like I realized this isn't a pairing parenting podcast, but in many ways, parenting is leadership. Now, I think when we're working with adults, I don't think we need to be a parent anymore. We can be more and more of a leader and less and less of a parent. But we really talk about what people really need from us as leaders, as parents. So, let's get into the episode.

All right. I'm sitting here with Deanna Simonson and she's a fellow TEDxer with me. We both gave our TEDx talks in Youngstown, Ohio just several weeks ago. And I especially invited her on the show because her talk resonated with me so much. I have, I'm a dad of three daughters and Deanna's message is one of "how do we impact and prevent this growing statistic of teen suicide?"

More specifically, "what role do we play as parents in, in protecting our kids? And how do we do that effectively?" And I wanted to bring her onto the show because like this, I'm interested in this topic and I want to pick her brain selfishly, I just want to learn from her. And also what I'm seeing in the world today is, how we show up as parents is directly reflected to how we show up as leaders in our organizations. There's this correlation and it's really interesting, like where we're getting it wrong in our companies, and a lot of what I teach, is the same areas we're getting it wrong at home. And so I want you to listen to it through that lens.

Like, how might this apply to, I don't care if you have kids or not, like, how does this apply to my interactions with people? How am I treating them? How am I showing up for them? And is it what they really truly need? So, all right, Deanna. I would love... welcome to the show, by the way. Thanks for coming on. Yeah, let's start. Can you just share a little of your story and kind of help us know where you're coming from on this topic? 

Deanna Simonson: Absolutely. So, I'm a mom to 10 kids. There's Kaden, Austin, Vaughn, Bretta, Korra, Spencer, Asher, Sawyer, Grace, and Vance. We actually have number 11 coming in July.

 So, when Vaughn, my 12 year old, was, had his friend named Alex, and they were best friends, they hung out all the time together, and one day, I noticed he hadn't asked to do anything with him for a while.

Deanna Simonson: When I asked him, he said, "I don't know what happened. I tried calling him and he just says he can't do anything." And then he finds out, I think it was like a week or two later that he actually went to his other friend's house instead. And it just crushed me because I could see how it made him feel. And I'm, but I'm thinking, I'm like, he was ghosted by his best friend.

And then a few weeks later, I was in the kitchen making dinner and his older brother comes in. He's like, "mom, you better go downstairs. Like Vaughn's not doing well." So I head downstairs, Vaughn's sitting there with his head in his hands. He's like, "mom, it hurts so bad. I just want to die." And it's just like killed me inside, but I knew what he needed for me was for me to step up and be his mom.

I knew he wasn't going to try to kill himself. I knew he wasn't suicidal. He just needed that support and for me to help reframe that situation so he could see it wasn't the end of his world. And that's what's happening in our world is a lot of parents aren't seeing it as it is, they're seeing it worse than it is.

They think something's wrong with their child that, "Oh, I better bring them to the doctor and put them on medication." Like, I don't want, and obviously that was the first time I had heard that from him. There are situations where parents, you know, kids are out. I worked with those kids in the hospital. You know, I worked with the parents and suicidal kids in the hospital.

I know what that is like. I have two life coaching certificates. I love learning and applying this, you know, to my life and others. But these kids, one point I just want to really emphasize is that for you and me and our kids, like, they just want to feel seen, heard and loved. They don't want to be brought to the doctor. They don't want to be put on a medication to think that something's wrong with them. They just want to be heard. And so many times they don't know how to express these big feelings that they're having.

And they want you to listen and not make them feel like something's wrong with them. Like I remember being a teenager and I'd go to my mom and dad with something and they'd freak out or they'd ground me. And I remember like it hurt so bad because I just wanted them to listen to me and to like help me validate my feelings that nothing's wrong with me, but then help me see that there's more to life.

And it's constantly, even with other kids that we have, you see them working through friendships. And 

if we don't matter as parents more than their peers, then that's when we run into situations because their peers matter more and the peers are the ones that are coming at them or deserting them and they have no adult to go to.

That's when this, these anxieties and these feelings of unworthiness come up for these kids. 

And that's when they're wanting take their own life.

Zach Arend: For me, when I heard your message and I hear it again, it just... like I was telling you before we push record, when I hear that story, I thought of my daughter and we moved recently and with her old friends back and forth. And of course, mom and I, we pay attention because she's young, you know, and we were reading and, you know, come to find out Claire's been kind of in a bad mood and, you know, just not herself.

And we noticed that there was a birthday party happening and she never got an invitation from what she thought was her best friend, you know, and there's just so many emotions right now. And it's normal for my wife and I had to be really concerned, like, is something... What's wrong? Like I, we've had, we're sitting in the kitchen.

It's like, "what's wrong?" You know, "what do we need to do?" And what do we need to do? Yeah. Not like what, like that, like if we're in that situation, cause I think. It's almost every week there's something, it's like, "Oh, it's, how serious is this?" Gosh, I don't, you know, it's just, there's so much complexities going on and things that you hear about and all happening really fast. For us, anyway. What, do we do with all that as a parent? Yeah.

Deanna Simonson: I think the first thing is to listen to them. Right? And let them verbalize their emotions. How it's, it stinks, it sucks. Whatever, you know, verbiage or, you know, whatever they need to do to get that feeling out. Let that be okay. Like, don't try to downgrade their feelings. And I think that so many times we as parents, when our kids come, we're like, "Oh, come on, it's not that bad."

Or, you know, like those whole feelings thing is one thing I noticed that parents get really stuck on because we didn't have, or we haven't had the same experience as a kid, or maybe we did, but we dealt with it differently because like, I know in my family, if you were crying, it was, I'll give you something to cry about if you don't stop.

You know what I mean? So we have to be really careful, even with our kids, how we're making them feel heard. Like, are we hearing them and letting that be okay? Or are we hearing them and making it not 

Zach Arend: Yeah. And I guess I've been really digging into this topic. The more like, you know, growing up, it would be " Knock it off" or "you're fine" or "it'll be fine." You know, it was just " rub some dirt on it," you know, and not to sound old fashioned. Cause I, I know that, and I'm not saying like, "well, that's how you handle it." So like, that's maybe one extreme, like just this cold, like "stop crying. Clean yourself up," you know? And then the other side though is this like, " let's explore how you're feeling and why you're feeling that." And it's just like, and then it turns into like a therapy session. Like, it's like, and it's, I don't know I am sensing my gut, my instinct's telling me there's something in the middle that we need find.

And I think we've actually. Swung the other direction too much and we've lost our authority as parents in our kids' lives because we want them to like us. I'm speaking for myself. So I want you to I want to hear your thoughts on that because I've...

Deanna Simonson: Yeah. No, I, yeah. The second part of that, I guess, would be is, first, let them verbalize it, right? And like we always say, like, "nothing's wrong with feelings until you stay there too long." And so it's good to verbalize. It's good to get it out, but let's not wallow in that, right? 

Then the next step is what can we do to help them see that it was more about the other person than it was about them? Like "were you being a good friend? Were you reaching out?" Maybe she didn't know. Like I like to say in our family, give the other person grace. You know what I mean? Cause we don't know.

Maybe she didn't like, it's been so long they haven't communicated, she just forgot. Maybe she wasn't trying to be rude and mean and hurtful. Because I always say, if we can give somebody grace, find that grace, it's easier to forgive them and move on and not take it so personally. But then the flip side of the coin, if that person is really turned into this awful person and they don't want a relationship like with Vaughn.

Like I told him, you know, it's more about them than it is about you, but he still needed to process those feelings. Right? And so like when he had those feelings come up, even though we had that conversation a few weeks earlier, I still didn't make it not okay. Like we had said, you know, cause we read books and we talk about, okay, let's connect with the friends that you do have.

Right? Or that are still, you know, wanting to be friends with you and like, let's nurture those relationships because friendships come and go like, and I share often about when I was growing up and even as an adult, right? Like people I was friends with 20 years ago. I'm maybe not so anymore. Maybe like my, I have friends that come and go, but it's not about necessarily always us being a bad person

or the other person being a bad person, but 

we grow in different ways. So it's all of these conversations, right? And opening it up and providing it as a teaching opportunity, 

you know, and for each of my kids. But I do like to talk first about like giving the other person grace and what we can do better. So how can we be a better friend so that maybe she wouldn't have forgotten about me or not invited me, right? Because not always about the other person...

Zach Arend: Yeah that right there in our modern world, that would be like, well, that's sensitive. Like, I wouldn't want to blame them, like telling them that it's their fault because that's how we hear it. And that's not how you and I hear but there's a, it's subtle, it's subtle. It's just like, well, what part, what role did you play?

Like, as soon as we leave responsibility, we put ourselves a victim position. We just do. And that's where all the health crisis we're not in touch. And so that's what I'm hearing you say, is like getting back to like my talk, saddle your own horse. Like it's just about like, well, nobody's coming.

You get to choose your relationship with whatever's occurring in the world with this person, knowing that it's a two way street always. And yeah. And the,

Track 1: Absolutely. 

Zach Arend: I'm going to be honest. One of the hardest things I've done as parent. And I, some of you that have been long and you're probably listening here like, "Oh, just wait a sec.

It's going to get worse." Or "that's it?!" You know, but it was a big deal. We had to take away well, Roblox and YouTube. So during the pandemic, yep, we got the screens going and you know what, we established some bad habits where the kids would be on their screens for way too long, YouTube, Roblox, and it was becoming an issue.

And one of my daughters, you know, just kind of got a little... started spending some money on Roblox that we didn't know about. And it wasn't cool with us. It wasn't a good thing. And it was well, it wasn't about punishing her this, it was like, it was a wake up call for my wife and I like, "Whoa, we've been tolerating some behaviors in our own home." But every time we see it, there's that, like, in our guts, like, "I don't like, I don't know. I don't think that's probably what we should be allowing our kids spend so much time and energy on," but we do it because it's convenient, we're busy. And well, this was a big enough wake up call. That it was like, "something's got to change."

And I feel like I've been a parent for 11 years, but I became a parent, like just three months ago, like I actually felt like because I took something away from one of my daughters that it was her favorite thing to do. She had friends there and it was like her little virtual community and I removed it from our like, we removed it.

I like Mr. Dad removed it. Like we collectively, my wife and I were like, we're removing it. Like, it's, this isn't, you're not grounded. It's that it's no more. It's not going to be in this house. We'll use iPads for travel, like in the car or airplanes. Otherwise they stay in the closet. And it was something that my wife and I were like, "okay, well, if we say that we've got to be willing to back it up because it's going to be very inconvenient for us."

Being a parent is very inconvenient, like I'm... like, a great parent means inconvenience. But, my daughter, like, I know she doesn't hate me, but like, I also knew it would just ruin, like she would not, and she didn't speak to me for like three weeks. Like still to this day, only good nights will she say "good night" back to me. And she will not say "I love you" back. She just won't. Just like, whatever. You know, there's just a little bit of an attitude that I just allow because I'm, but so I'm talking a lot, but I just... the number one thing that I struggled with was like, I want so bad for my daughter to love and like me.

And I want to be there, you know, and right now she doesn't. And, but I also have enough instinct to know, well, deeper down she does. And I'm finally starting to see, "Oh my God, I'm starting to earn respect from my daughter because of what I did three months ago." But I couldn't see it. And I didn't see it for like a month.

It was like, and so I just wanted to share that because I want you to give me your perspective there because this has been hard for us. And I'm learning... I'm just going to be quiet. I have so much more I could say, cause this has been so front of mind for us and our family. I want to be a great dad to my daughter, but

Deanna Simonson: Yeah.

Zach Arend: I'm realizing I can't do that and have like me at the same time. Yeah.

Deanna Simonson: Yeah. You know what? That's what, it's so amazing. I actually got the chills when you said that, Zach, because that is where the respect comes from for our kids and that relationship is built, is when we do the hard things. Like 

being a parent is so inconvenient because we have to stop. We have to miss out on things.

Like over the years, to teach our kids that we won't tolerate certain behaviors or we don't tolerate things in our home, mitchell and I, we've had to stay home with a kid. We've had to, you know, let them learn hard lessons. But it's when we love them and show them that we love them, alongside with setting those firm boundaries and limits and sticking to them, that's where the relationship is formed.

And that's where the respect is earned. Like just the other night we were having, we were talking with our teenagers on the couch. We're up late, too late past my bedtime. So get ready for that. Teenagers when they want to talk, right? It's never at an early convenient time. But one thing always makes me laugh is we asked them, like when they're talking about some of their friends and the challenges they're having, like, "what do you think the problem is?"

And my second oldest was like, "Oh, their parents are way too strict." And it makes me laugh because I'm like, that's what kids say when they don't have a relationship with their parents, is that their parents are strict. But I can set the same boundaries and limits and I have a relationship with my child , and they don't look at it as a strict, like I have, we have boundaries, we have limits, we have rules, family rules.

But when you have that relationship with your child, they don't feel that, they feel that love and respect.

Zach Arend: They do. Love. It's like this. I don't know. I did either. I'm thinking of this moment where you said earlier about like, don't let them stay in the feelings too long. Well, this conversation with one of my daughters, like we were just like wallowing and like how terrible life is and how I took away her dream, her favorite thing in the world.

And how could you do that? And I'm just like, there is nothing I can say to that other than "it's understandable," you have, yeah, it makes sense that you're mad because yeah, because I,

Deanna Simonson: Yeah.

Zach Arend: it just continued and there was a moment in the conversation. Well, I'll just be honest. Like I, I think I even cussed to my little girl.

But I'm like, I think I said, like, here's the thing. But it was the most, like, I was speaking to her in a way that I see her and love her, like, "that's not true. And you know," it, you, and I just like. And you can choose like you're so much better than this in just I don't know what I said.

It was such in the moment and just came out of me and it was very intense and she got really quiet. She didn't have that look of like intimidation like I was just bowling over her. I saw this like tinge of like, it was almost like her eyes sparkled a little bit. Oh, look who just showed up. Like dad, just dad's home, like dad just showed up and I've seen those moments more and more.

And I've been so afraid to go there because I think I don't want to. That's right. I don't want to hurt

Deanna Simonson: them. The feelings. No, that's what they want. Like, you know what you are showing your girls, what kind of man they want to be with when they get older. One that's fighting them. That won't let them like, that's a female energy. They're always trying to push on the masculine to be like, "Hey, step up and be my man."

It's the same thing with like a husband wife relationship, you know, like that's how it makes them feel loved. And especially girls, they use big feelings. They use, you know, like these whiny or they're going to not going to talk to you or, you know, all those things. And that's what I tell my husband. I said, this is completely normal.

It's how you're responding is what's going to get them to know that you love and cherish and respect them. And it's that strength, but that's the strength of love,

 right, is what they, especially the girls need. The boys need it too. They need a masculine man to, you know, teach them how to be a man. But so much of this is how we're treating our girls and our boys, even as a mother to my sons is what we will tolerate, but when it, that, that strength can come with love. But it's all comes back to the relationship.

If you don't have a relationship with your child,

Zach Arend: That's probably the hardest, that's hard to have in a relationship because now we have this situation where "I'm not really talking to 

Track 1: Yeah. 

Zach Arend: dad" and "I'm not a fan of dad." And there's moments though. It's like, we forget that. It's like a moment like, "oh, I forgot I'm mad at dad," you know, it's normal. But

Deanna Simonson: Yeah.

Zach Arend: We're in a period where it's like, I'm looking.

So one of my daughters is so easy to engage with. Like we're doing musical theater and it's just so easy to like come alongside her and join her and support her. And it's just like, you know, relationship happens as a result. My other daughter, it's a little like harder because maybe in the past, more into video games and we're reading, just reading books.

And so we'll go to Barnes and Noble and read together, or we went to the library this weekend. And so there's. I'm starting to see it. I want to ask, I want to move into something else, actually. Does parents have a role in pushing their kids?

Deanna Simonson: Sure.

Zach Arend: So for example, I see my daughter, she loves to swim, and our neighborhood has a swim team.

And she's also telling me, "dad, I don't have any friends." I don't know. You know, I'm, "I miss my friends back home, my old school." And I know as dad, I'm like, swim team on the other side of all that will be, my gut's telling me good things will be and you'll think, you know, you don't have to thank me later, but I think it's what you need.

But it's like I'm really having push her like really it's, and then it's like creating a whole new, like, "Oh God, now dad's making me do swim team. I hate dad. And now I'm mad at dad again." And it's like, how do I, what do you, have you had any experience there? Like, like, where's that balance of pushing and just kind of letting kids find their own way?

Cause I, I have a hard time with that one.

Deanna Simonson: Sure.

So, I would say, I always say when you're pushing so hard it's affecting your relationship, then you're pushing too hard. Right? So, affecting the relationship meaning like, it's always "dad's the mean guy, dad's the mean guy," right? So, like, right away thought of like, with how old is she?

Zach Arend: Yeah.

Deanna Simonson: So you're dealing with all sorts of fun emotions and all those things, too. But, like, when did it not become fun anymore? When did Dad become the bad guy in the situation? Was it right after she started? Was it, you know, a few weeks after? What is correlate, you know, what is correlation with it? But absolutely, like, I always give, but I tell my kids, I said, "Okay, I want you to tell me what you want to do, otherwise I'm going to tell you what you want to do."

And it's like, I've seen, like, my oldest, right? He's like, He's always been in business and different things like that. But like pushing him, "okay, I want you to go talk to five people this week, right? You get to choose the people, but you got to go talk to five people." My second, he was into mechanics and like, he loved, he was ripping everything apart from the time he was young.

Right. And he hated it at times. Like, he said, "I'm not going to work. I'm just going to blow the dumb, You know, four wheeler up. I'm not gonna, you know, go to fix it." And I was like, "okay, it's either that or you can read books," which he hated books. Right. So like it pushed him in that direction. Cause I could see that, but it wasn't like, like I wanted him to see.

And then we'd have conversations like, where's the resistance coming from? Cause I would say a lot of times, like with your daughter, if there's something else going on and you're not seeing that or hearing that from her, like that she's trying to tell you something else and you're not hearing that you're so focused on nope you're a great swimmer you're a great swimmer because she could be a great swimmer and absolutely love it, but right now it sounds like she's focused on something about you being the bad guy not the actual swimming itself and I think that's what you need to figure out, you know. They always say the surface problem and then there's the real problem underneath and so we can't sometimes we as parents that would be get too like focused in like overbearing about one thing.

They're going to lose their love for something they could have absolutely loved and fallen in love with, you know, and then having that conversation and find like, okay, what is it? What is it? Why is this resistance here? And sometimes the kids you'll ask them, they're like, "I don't know. I just," you and so we just sit there and explore the conversation.

Like what can I do better as a, what can I do better as a mom or a dad to help you with this rather than making it not fun? Cause it's not fun for me right now. It's not fun for you right now. Like what can we do differently? And sometimes that honestly, like with my girls, like just by saying that I want to be a better parent and tell them that I'm sorry if I've been too harsh or whatever, it like totally melts it.

And then they can just go on and have fun with it. But right now you're the bad guy. So taking away any fun she can be having.

Zach Arend: Yeah. And my gut's telling me and everything I've, when I do ask her, it's going back the whole Roblox you took away. And I, you know, and yeah, that what I'm taking away from this conversation, again, I said it was going to be selfish, I was going to ask you selfish questions, is just the quality time, the time with her and just. And that's been this weekend. My wife went out of town doing a business trip. And so I just had the girls and my daughter, the one we've been talking about, asking me if we could go shopping and I'm like, yeah. And we had, we went shopping. They each had a changing room and like, and it was just, it was the funnest thing.

And, my big takeaway is I got to create more of those moments. Cause in a way it's like, that's earning me, it's like, balancing out tough dad, which I need. I like you're going to get both. Like I have to give both because I can't give one without other. Otherwise that's what I'm learning is it's a "both and" like, it's like this, and I think maybe the older generation of parents didn't do a great job with the "both and," we just slid more towards the "rub some dirt on it. I don't care. Stop crying." And, you know, the love didn't get expressed. Now it's like this extreme love, extreme sensitivity. And it's like this dance. It's like, we're doing both. Like it's constantly a dance. Is that, am I, is that true?

Deanna Simonson: Absolutely. I agree with you. I agree with you a hundred percent. Like that's, I think that's where a lot of us came from is because we all have this childhood trauma, right? Like that, that we weren't able to express our feelings. Hey, I'm the first one to say that I have spent tens of thousands of dollars on healing what I didn't understand.

I couldn't express any emotion. You know, and so like I had a conversation the other day with my oldest. He's like, "mom, you're so like, like you're different. Like the way you have..." I said, "you know what? We all have to grow up," right? Like we all have to, like, I'm growing up as your girl, like I'm maturing, I'm learning.

I said, and so he's like, "Oh, I don't care." I was like, "Oh, get your butt over here. 'I don't care' isn't okay. Like it actually hurts." It sucks. It's not fun. You know, like let's, so we can release this emotion, right? But yeah, absolutely. We need to reel things back. And that's, I was going to tell you with your daughter, be like, you know what?

Like face the beast. How often do you say that? Okay. "I know you're pissed off about me with this Roblox thing. I love you to death. It's not coming back. Let's go shopping." You know what I mean? Like, kick it in the bud like it is, like, okay, it's kind of, it was, you know, like "it was kind of cute," whatever, or like, "I understand it pissed you off, there's things in life pissed me off, but we have to get over it and move on."

Right? So let's go shopping, go do something fun.

Zach Arend: That's what it's been. That's what this weekend has been like. It's like, and yeah. And I'm also becoming more and more aware of like, where I'm needing her to like like there's just kind of this, I don't know, like this inner child of me, that's like, "Oh, I want you to like me." And "Oh, you don't like me right now."

And I think that's us as human beings, we go in the workplace, we go out into life and we're so worried about what other people think, we change our behavior so that we are accepted and liked by others. And I think that's hurting us more than helping, especially as parents. That's my experience recently. Yeah.

Deanna Simonson: Kids are so manipulative and I don't even want to say that they're that way at a cognitive conscious level, but they will poke holes in your parenting faster than anyone, you know? And that's why we have to be so careful with the whole friends thing. Like. I mean, my kids want to hang out with me. I'm not their friends.

I'm their parent, right? The friendship when you need no longer need a parent then, when they're an adult, right? But yeah, I'll go hang out with my kids. I'll go, you know, we do stuff together. I'm their parent, right? Ultimately I'm the one that needs to set the boundaries, set the standards and not put up with their crap. But I also tell parents like nothing's wrong with your kid. It's their job to push against you. It's their job.

So if you can look at it from that perspective and when they're coming at you, like when you get over, you're like, Oh my, you know, you want to backlash okay, come on, bring on. Like I, got this, right? Like, I love you. You can try all the crap you want, but I'm not going to put up with it. And the more you stand with that stance, but love them to death, it's going to, it's going to go away. 

Zach Arend: Yeah. 

Deanna Simonson: You know. But it's a storm. But that storm comes back every time not nurturing the relationship, you're not spending time with them. And I would say that's for every relationship, right? That, that you want is like, if you're not, if you're not treating your spouse right, right?

There's like, even my hubby and I, we had, he was gone for a week, got a business trip the other week and he comes home and you know, all the kids, all the things, and all of a sudden I find myself getting a little snippy with him. And he's like, "what's going on?" I'm like, "hello. What about me? Right? Like I want time with you too."

You know, so but just to recognize that like, I'm not crazy. The kids aren't crazy like this. This is human nature how we are as humans That doesn't mean, that doesn't, we need, like, make emotions great again. That's what I'm all about because we need to express emotions. We need to feel emotions. And what we're doing to our society, medicating 

Zach Arend: Well, I heard something interesting about emotions. Like, how many, there's like a certain number of emotions. I don't know the exact number. Let's say six to nine core. Do you know the answer to this question? I think that,

Deanna Simonson: Well, they say people experience You know, like, usually on one hand, like, the

Zach Arend: yeah, there's like, I'm picturing this wheel and there's like, that there's like, let's just hypothetically, there's nine core emotions. And then underneath that, there's like little subtle nuances of that emotion. But what I heard that was really fascinating, it's of all the human emotions, only like two of them are actually quote unquote positive emotions. Everything else, most of us would label as negative emotions. And so in that, and what I'm learning is these emotions come up in us, and then we make them mean something. Which is complete, a made up thing. We make them mean something and then we go try to create, we go, we try to solve what we believe it means is wrong. And it's like complete insanity. Like we're, we are the one creating the problem that we're trying to solve. Like, it's like, or you could just be like, "Oh I'm noticing sadness coming up." And it doesn't have to like, what's wrong, where, why, like, maybe it's just like, "well, sadness, huh?

Cool. Okay." And then just, I think there's something to learn from your emotions, but it's like listening with a, just a level of curiosity and no judgment, like not judgment. It's not like, "oh, this doesn't mean it's good or bad. It's just, oh, sadness. What might this be trying to tell me?" Like what, if this is some good information here.

Yeah. Okay.

Deanna Simonson: Same thing your kids' emotions. Get curious about it. Get curious. And that's why I tell parents instead of getting pissed off or angry, get curious, and then get curious about why it's making you so upset. Were you not validated as a child? Were you not listened to as a child? And that's the first thing sometimes I ask parents when they're dealing with their child.

I'm like, I said, "when you stop and think about it, what does your heart say?" Cause that's another thing is so often we get stuck in our head, trying to analyze the situation. And we completely disregard or like we don't even go there. We don't even go to our heart because we're so stuck in our heads. Like what is it that this kid needs?

Like we were actually just up till 1am Saturday with two of our boys. We were trying to solve this problem and all of a sudden it hit me. I'm like, I told Mitchell, I'm like, "we're thinking with our adult brains. Like they're still so immature. We're trying to fix this. All they want is for us to see what they see wrong and agree with them and say, "yeah, we need to work on this" and move on." Like we were trying to make it into this big, complicated thing. And I'm like, no, at the end of the day, it's not what they were seeing in a situation that they were actually bringing to us that made them feel uncomfortable. We're like trying to figure it out.

And like, we're thinking about it and like discussing it. I'm like, no, it's actually really simple. We as adults, we complicate it. We make it into a bigger problem. Let's see as it is, not worse than it is.

Zach Arend: So let's bring this down to the ground. Like we're all aware, all of us listening, we're aware of the world we live in and we all are busy and we all are, you know, kids are in activities and there's school and there's jobs and some of us are entrepreneurs and like, it's just like, a pile of stuff that we feel like we're responsible for. If there was three things, like three fundamental things that we need to focus on or refocus on to kind of come back to being great parents to our kids in a way that gives them what they truly need. Like what, what are a few practical things that we need to kind of check in and on and see, like, make sure those stay in our life and our routine and our day to day, something that's tangible that we can leave with?

Deanna Simonson: Sure. So I guess the first thing that comes to mind, like I tell parents when they come to me again, it's like, I would say a great marriage makes great parents. If your marriage is struggling or your relationship is struggling with your partner or whoever, like, figure that out first. There's more behaviors caused by the tension between the parents, even if they're divorced.

Like if there's that tension and disrespect and whatever going on with the marriage or the partnership, or even between the mom and dad after the divorce, it creates so many problems. Number two, love your kids. Like parents get so stuck in their head, trying to discipline their kids. They forget to love them and realize that, you know what?

They're not any better. Like we somehow expect them to behave better than we do. Right. And I say, that's one of the biggest phenomenons of parenting is expecting our children to act better than we do. We can't do that. And number three, I guess it goes along with that one is own your own crap. Like when you mess up, you like have a temper that offends your child or you can visibly see, right.

Like, or you were wrong. You accuse them or you know, whatever happened like go there apologize and say "that was more about me than it was about you." And that's the biggest thing you can do to save your relationship with your child, or your spouse, or your parent, or your workmate, your employee, you know, whatever it is, let's own our own crap. Like so many times we as adults we think that "Oh, you know, whatever. It just is what it is." We try to blow it off for our own pride or whatever else it is. But that's what also takes our kids and every relationship out of that fight or flight. As soon as we can apologize, even if it wasn't our intention, and sometimes that's what I have to tell my kids, that wasn't my intention to hurt you or to say those things or to respond that way, but to apologize for it. And that's what gets them to forgive you. And then they have to look at themselves and their own behavior as to how they can be better and make things better themselves.

Zach Arend: Deanna, thanks so much for joining me in this conversation. Yeah, you're, you are our family. You and Mitch are like on speed dial. I don't know if you know that, but you're going to be, just your perspectives. As I've been kind of, know, being a dad and the things you've shared with me just was like, okay, it's just been affirming.

Like, we're on the right path. And coming out of this, it's, I'm seeing that you're everything you were saying, like, several months ago, when we were together in Youngstown, it's like, yep, that's, it's coming true. And that I'm learning that the love actually is acceptance, total acceptance. Like, I was trying so hard to love my daughter, but what I was really trying to do is keep her in good standing where she liked me and where she would say, "I love you." Now I'm realizing like, "oh, I'm the adult here. I'm going to know some things and see some things that she's not going to love me in the moment for but that's real love." And that's the tough work of being a parent and that's what love is. As I'm experiencing. So thank you for everything you've helped us and our families.

And yeah, thanks for coming on the show. Any final things like if people want to learn more, just where should we send them? Anything you would love to ask of the audience?

Deanna Simonson: Yeah. You can go to my website. Pivotal Step is actually my company. It's www.pivotal-step.com with a dash between pivotal and step. Yeah. There you have ways to contact me. I'm linked to my YouTube. The TEDx talk is there. But yeah, Zach, you're amazing. Thanks so much for letting me be here and you're being an awesome parent. It's been fun getting to know you.

In this episode of Being in the Arena, Zach Arenddelves into the concept of modern leadership and the necessity for a fresh approach, which he terms Saddle Your Own Horse. Reflecting on his recent TED talk, Zach explores the paradox of burnout amidst a thriving self-care industry, suggesting that our relentless pursuit of distraction may be masking a deeper sense of boredom and unfulfillment. He challenges the conventional wisdom of self-care as a cure-all, proposing instead a return to authentic values and purpose-driven action. Through compelling anecdotes and research insights, Zach encourages listeners to reexamine their approach to leadership and life, emphasizing the transformative power of genuine progress over mere busyness.
Learn more about Zach:

• Zach’s Website

Episode resources:

• Work with Zach
• Book Zach to Speak

If you enjoyed this episode then please either:

• Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
• Follow and rate on Spotify
• Connect with me on Instagram and Facebook!

TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Zach Arend: We need to be put into bigger and bigger arenas. We do. Otherwise, we get bored. And then we go off into la la land and get distracted.

 Welcome to Being in 

Zach Arend: the Arena, a podcast all 

about what it means to be in the arena of your own life and your own leadership. The goal of this podcast is to really support and coach you to reignite your authentic power, your vision, and rediscover the lost art of leadership. Today's episode I want to go deeper into the TED talk I recently gave at Youngstown, Ohio. 

It depends when you're listening to this, it means either the TED talks about to come out or it has just come out. The reason being is, I don't know exactly when it will come out. It's up to TED and when it gets published, but I've been told in the next two weeks or so, so it's coming. And I didn't want to wait though. 

I wanted to start digging deeper into a modern leadership solution I'm calling Saddle Your Own Horse. It's the very... it is exactly the message of the TED talk, Saddle Your Own Horse: Modern Leadership Solution. 

And over the next several episodes, we'll say four episodes over the next four episodes I want to really break down this idea of Saddle Your Own Horse. What does it mean to Saddle Your Own Horse? And if you're a leader, which most of you are, because this is tends to be more slanted towards a leadership podcast, how do you teach others to saddle their own horse? 

Because the world needs you and me and everyone around us to take this on to saddle our own horse. And as leaders I believe we have a responsibility for creating a culture and environment where every single one of us saddle our own horse. And so it's important that we look at this a little closer. Because in the talk that I gave, you know, I was doing, I did a lot of research. 

I... probably six months went into this project from the point, I really started thinking about it and studying and researching and writing and rewriting and deleting and throwing it in the trash and starting all over. In the process though, I came across a lot of really great 

information/research. 

One of the interesting stats that did make it into the talk was the fact that we are projected to spend $8.5 trillion globally on self-care over 

the next three years. So 

over the next three years, in three years, we will spend $8.5 trillion on self care. That's a lot of money. And yet, I saw another stat from Deloitte that shows that eight out of 10 of us say we 

feel burnt out at work. 

So we're spending all this money on self care. 

And yet we, 80% of us, eight out of 10 of us say we feel burnt out at work. And so I'm reading this, I'm looking at the information I'm like, "wow, that's interesting. The more money we spend, the 

more burnt out we are" 

like, there is a correlation. We've seen burnout rise. We're seeing self-care rise. So the self care thing just doesn't seem to be getting it done. And, I've always listened to my gut, my instincts first and foremost. I pay attention to my own life. 

And I ask myself, "what's true for me?" And then I go out and I look for data and information and other stories that might affirm or not affirm whether or not my guts telling me correctly. Well, my gut for a while has been telling me that 

we're not burnt out. We're 

bored. That's what I felt years past. 

And I see it in a lot of my clients, in the organizations I go in and talk to, their team. Like what we actually uncover is 

we're not burnt out, we're bored. 

And that's my gut. Now, Adam Grant wrote about this in one of his recent books, that psychology actually has a term for this, and it's called boreout. I'm not 

making this up, 

Google it boreout. It's a thing. 

And, you know, the symptoms are very similar, you know, it's easy to get them confused. 

We're not burnt out. 

We're 

bored out. And the more I think about this, we don't realize we're bored out. We don't realize we're bored because we never give ourselves a chance to actually experience the uncomfortable feeling of boredom, of not truly living up to who we know we can be. Why? Well, because distraction. We will live in one of the most distracted times in all of human history. Distraction galore. Right?

And I'm aware of this in my own life. There's times where I don't actually know how 

I'm feeling because I never slow down enough 

to really check in. I check in on my cell phone, like what's going on in Instagram, my email, more 

times than I would like 

to admit. Right? 

So I'm sure a lot of us do. And that distraction prevents us from actually coming into contact with what is true for us. You're actually not over obligated with a bunch of stuff. What's true is you're not doing what deep down you know you can do. That's what I found has been true time and time again. And the world right now is doing a really good job of telling us and everybody that 

we're burnt out, that there's 

this huge mental health crisis. 

And please don't hear me saying there's not, there is. But I'm kind of questioning where it's coming from. I'm not so sure it's coming from our workload. No, I think it's our relationship with all these distractions. And it's never become more apparent than me after I've written this TED talk and delivered it. I started exploring Cal Newport's work. If you haven't heard of Cal Newport, go read his books. I think as one of his early books was be So Good They Can't Ignore You. And then he wrote Deep Work. If you're a 

creative, an artists, 

entrepreneur, a leader, even, dig into that book. Digital Minimalism. A World Without Email, another book that just came out and it's the one that I've been reading recently is Slow Productivity. And in the book, he just makes such a strong case for, our issue is we live in a world of distractions and overstimulation. And we're bored, we're 

distracted, we're overstimulated. 

And if we were just to slow down and actually get in touch with that boredom it might have something to tell us. Wow. We're not really truly living our values. 

We're not truly being who we know ourselves to be deep down. We're not doing deep down what we know we can do. And I, it makes sense if we don't do that, it makes sense that it's going to lead to mental health issues and disease. 

And cause if we're not honoring ourselves, then yeah, a Whole world 

of problems is going to 

come as a result of that. So, 

we're not burnt out, we're bored 

out. And this is the first idea I explore in the talk. 

And I really do believe that, for sure, I'm sure there's some professions in the burnout category. 

You know, you will think about some of our health, healthcare practitioners and absolutely there's times where they gave it all they got. But I think a lot of us are bored and I think a lot of us in our late thirties, forties, 

are especially bored. I think 

we've succeeded in our lives. 

We've got promoted, we have the titles, the car, the house, the families. And now all we do is we go to meetings and reply to emails. And at the end of most days, we can't really say what we really got done. Like how did we actually move forward today? For me, I fundamentally, I need to feel a sense of progress in my life. 

Like I don't care 

about the destination. 

I'm learning 

this. I thought I cared about the destination. And, okay, I still care about the destination, but I'm learning that it's more about the progress toward a destination 

that I yearn for, 

because 

I'm pretty good when I'm feeling progress. I don't know 

about, check in with yourself. 

I mean, if you're feeling progress towards a big goal usually, I don't know, I'm able to lay my head down on the pillow at night and feel like pretty good. Like, you know what, making progress and it doesn't even have to be big progress. I'm finding it could just be little progress. Saying I want to be a writer, writing, and then throwing it in the trash, that's progress. As opposed to whining that I'm busy and just responding to emails all day. 

That's not progress. That leads to boredom. That leads to burnout. That leads to mental health issues. Disease, all that. We have to start listening for what our heart yearns for. Enough spending money on self care. Like I've seen enough. That's like, you know what? I'm 

not so sure us human beings 

need that much more self-care. We don't need massage balls and yoga mats and adult coloring books, and God knows what else. Right? This is the $8.5 trillion industry. And I think it's feeding right into our consumerism mentality, our world of distractions. And the data says, I can't see it's really making a dent. But here's what does make a dent and I found this in stories 

and throughout history. 

And one of the books that I uncovered, Daniel Coyle wrote a book on talent. I think he wrote a book called the Talent Code. And he studies athletes and performers, artists, musicians, those that are the best in the world at what they do. And what he found was they all went through a period of struggle. In fact, he there's a whole chapter he writes on struggle as a biological necessity. 

Struggle is a biological 

necessity. I think I that's true. Isn't it? And so we're out there trying to find comfort, trying to find self care when, biologically, struggle is actually then what 

we need to be put into bigger and bigger arenas. 

We do. Otherwise, we get bored. And then we go off into la la land and get distracted.

 

Zach Arend: And then we come up with things like burnout and all kinds of things. And then we need to go by an adult coloring book to, to cope. 

This is ours to take on. This is the very. This is where I'm coming from with this talk of saddling, your own horse. Like, we have to take responsibility for our own lives. And you know what? Even burnout, even legitimate burnout. 

You have to be responsible for that. Because we live in a world that is free. We are free to make our own choices, even though sometimes it feels like we can't. We can. And so if you're burnt out, if you're bored out, that's a choice. And that sounds like a very, I hear a lot of self-help, you know, authors, speakers, say that, and it's just kind of flippant. But I just want to slow down a little bit, like. Saddle and your own horse. 

Oh yeah. I, you know, and when you listened to my TED talk, you'll kind of get a sense of what I'm saying. And not just about what I'm saying, but a sense of yourself and what you're able to do. It will remind you who you are, I believe. 

And, so, 

Daniel Coyle says struggle is a biological 

necessity. And he doesn't just say it. It's based on a lot of research he's done working with the best in the world. So, okay. I listened to that and like, "oh, that checks in with my gut. It's been true for me." And then I'm reading another book. 

Sebastian Junger writes 

a book called Tribe. And it's all about community and connection and how we need to feel in connection with others. And one of the statements he makes in the books, he says that modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary. That hit me. 

I'm like, yup, mhm. " 

Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary." And I believe that the way we can feel necessary again is we've got to start asking more of ourselves and each other. We've got to put ourselves in the arena. And I've been thinking a lot about this distinction and, again, this is going to be, I'm going to break this down over four episodes. And we're going to really look at what does it mean to Saddle Your Own Horse? And this first thing I wanted to share with you today is how critical it is, and how you need to be demanded of. You do. We do. I do. You do. We need this. 

It's a biological necessity to struggle. We got to get to a bottom of a new mountain. We've got to have something that is demanding something of us. Because modern society, as 

Sebastian Junger says, 

has perfected the art of making you and me not feel necessary. So, the only way we get through this, you know, the best that we can, is we got to start asking more. 

We got to start playing a bigger game. And asking our team members, our family members, to play a bigger game. There's nothing wrong with us. We've got to get into the arena because far too many of us are sitting in the grand stands. You know, I, 

growing up, I rode rodeo. 

I was a rodeo rider and it got me thinking about like, "wow, you know, just a handful of people are actually in the arena. Everybody else is sitting in the grand stands." And it's a great distinction, you know, are you in the arena? Are you in the grand stands? Because when you're in the arena, you're demanded of. There's necessity placed on you. Like, you feel like you're making a contribution and you're having impact. And that isn't something. And we're going to explore that in 

the next upcoming episodes. That's not 

something that we need to look to others for. We have to cultivate it in ourselves. That's the very premise of saddling, your own horse. You gotta be willing to take it on. You gotta be willing to be in the arena. 

And so, this episode is really a call to entering the arena of your life, of your business, of your leadership, your team. It's a call to entering the arena. What I'm not saying is we need more grit and we need to pull ourselves up to our bootstraps. We need to work harder, faster, better. That is not what I'm talking about. 

I'm not, this is not 

a Gary Vaynerchuk thing, or 

a Grant Cardone. That's not, no. We need to put ourselves in the arena and that is very unique to you. It is. It's probably where you find yourself the most afraid. You know, like here's a kind of a different example, like, you know, shutting it down at five o'clock, six o'clock and just putting the phone in the closet. And being with your family. Like that one's been real for me. 

Throughout my years, it's like, "wow, what is this thing that I can't stop working?" And I've discovered that the work, being busy, it was kind of like a safety blanket. It made me feel like I mattered. But what an illusion that is. Because. Right. I mean, where can I realize I met her the most is at home with my girl, you know? This is what I mean by enter the arena. Like, this is about like listening to " who needs me at my best? Where do I need to play a bigger game?"

And it might be in your business. It might be, you might be been in a leadership position. You've been promoted, you're comfortable, but you know what? You find yourself going to meetings and responding to 

emails and you're bored. Well, 

if you weren't bored, if you weren't doing all that stuff, what would you be doing? And actually like, sit with that. 

Like one of the things I do when I'm 

working with an 

executive, we really start getting clear on their greatest contribution to the organization. And it's certainly not responding to emails and going to meetings. And when they actually see it, what they also see is, "oh shit. 

Oh, shoot.One en a family 

member over Easter said, "Zach, you cuss a lot. I didn't 

know you cuss." I'm like, "

well, I 

didn't know I did either." So 

now I'm trying to watch it, but. Shoot. They realize what they're being called towards is something they've never done before and deep down, they're actually scared. They're actually afraid of stepping out there 'cause they might fail. 

And then what would that mean? And so it makes sense that we kind of stay in these patterns of boredom. And just over obligating ourselves in busy-ness. When deep down, it's more convenient for us to just complain that we're busy than actually stepping out on faith and trusting ourselves. And raising our hand. And taking on a new project or taking on a new business unit or product or whatever, like, you know, listening to that creative urge to do something to make a greater contribution. And 

one of the number one things I love doing is calling people to, you got to act on that. We gotta move. 

We gotta do it. You want to be a leader? People follow courage and courage requires bold action now, not massive action. I'm not saying like you gotta be, again, but you have to take some bold steps outside of your comfort zone and start trusting yourself. And stop living just to stay comfortable because it's killing us. 

It is. So I'm pretty passionate about this. This is a call to getting your butt in the arena

 and I'm speaking right to myself as well. Like, "gosh, where am I not playing a big enough game?" Like, where am I maybe got one foot in the grand stands with the other leg up on the fence, thinking about, you know, I'm on the fence thinking about 

going in the arena, but I, and I'm, 

you know, I'm not really fully in the arena, both feet in the dirt, ready to rumble. 

Like I'm not. And I'm starting to realize like, "oh, yup, I'm being called to work with organizations more. I want to speak from bigger stages." Okay. Well, she's never done that before and that almost intimidates me. I'm like, "I don't know.' And it's like, well, darn that's it. 

That's my version of Being in the Arena. And not only that, but I got to do it in and do it in a way that I honor myself as a dad and a husband. Like I'm not doing this like I used to do stuff. I'm not doing 

this working 70 hours 

a week. Nope. This is quality I'm going to do this. I'm going to do it really well. But I'm not going to do it in a way that sacrifices the other areas of my life. Now I'm really creating a bigger arena. Like this 

is, I'm upping the stakes. 

Like this is, now I've got a big game to play. And this is what this episode is. It's a call to get into the arena. And then over the next several episodes, we're going to break this down. Next episode, we're going to talk about three powerful questions that if you can answer yes to these three questions, you are going to have a real sense of yourself. It's a confirmation that you are in the arena. These three questions and your relationship with these three questions, have the potential to change the game for you. 

And that's what we're going to be exploring next in the next episode. And then we're going to bring this thing all the way down to the ground. First and foremost, 

we got a saddle our own horse. We've 

got to take it on, but then it's kind of interesting when you start to take it on yourself, you start to see people differently. You start to treat them differently. 

And now it's all about leadership, how to teach others to saddle their own horse, how to create environments where everyone is 

saddling our own horse, that's 

where we're ultimately going together. So stay tuned for our next episode. And if you haven't checked out the TED talk yet. Do it. It may not be out yet. 

I still don't know when it's coming out again. It may have come out and you may have listened to it already. If not, just stay tuned, stay plugged in with me. You're going to be the first to know about it. We'll see in the next episode.

In this episode of Being in the Arena, Zach Arend shares invaluable insights gleaned from his experience delivering a TEDx talk. From the power of having a co-creator to the importance of embracing a "shitty first draft," Zach provides a roadmap for anyone embarking on a creative endeavor. He challenges the notion of time constraints, urging listeners to focus on intentionality over arbitrary deadlines. By getting the talk "on its feet" and refining it through experimentation and editing, Zach illustrates the transformative journey of honing one's message. Tune in for a compelling discussion on creativity, collaboration, and personal growth.
Learn more about Zach:

• Zach’s Website

Episode resources:

• Work with Zach
• Book Zach to Speak

If you enjoyed this episode then please either:

• Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
• Follow and rate on Spotify
  
  

Connect with me on Instagram and Facebook!

TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Zach Arend: Bring your full self to the game and nobody will question you. Be unapologetic. 

Nobody will question you. They will follow you. 

 Welcome to being in the arena. This is a podcast for executives, entrepreneurial leaders, artists, creators, mavericks, those that want to be the ultimate leader of their lives. Today I want to share with you 10 lessons that I learned from doing a TEDx. If you've been following along, you've probably heard that recently I was in Youngstown, Ohio to get my first TEDx ever. And I spoke on what I'm calling a modern leadership solution called "saddle your own horse." It was speaking directly to leaders and employees of organizations and how we all have a responsibility for creating an environment where everyone saddles their own horse. And I just got to say it was a three to four month journey of writing and creating this TEDx. It was one of the most coolest things I've ever done in my life. 

 It was also extremely challenging. And I just wanted to 

share 

10 lessons. 10 things that I took away from the experience that for sure 

apply to writing a TEDx 

or creating anything. 

And I think the principles that I have to share with you, the lessons I have to share with you, they have some universality to them. 

These principles, I think apply to a lot of areas of life and a lot of areas of leadership. And that's, why I'm excited to share these with you today. So let's just, let's just go through these. I don't know how long this will take. I've got 10 of them here. And I just want to share a little bit of my perspective, what I learned. And again, as always, when you listen to these, don't listen as if it's about me. 

Listen as if it's about you and, and how might these principles apply to your team, your business, how you show up as a leader, or maybe you are creating 

a talk or trying to deliver a message to your company. I don't care what it is. These 10 lessons apply to it. So number one. The first thing that I learned is the power of a co-creator. Having a co-creator. That one...

I can't imagine getting this TED talk to where it was without a co-creator. That was the first thing I did is I started working with a story coach who really helped me get clear on my ideas. And she helped me kinda sift through all the noise. And we found the gem within all the junk, if you will. And that was the first thing. 

Get a co-creator gets somebody that's able to sit with you and work with you and think with you and create with you. Because there's something magical that happens when you have somebody able to mirror back to you what they're experiencing. What lands for them? 

So that's the first one, get a co-creator. 

So if you're a leader, a business owner, if you have a team and you're, you're a manager and a business, do you have a co-creator? And I'm not talking about a mentor. That's what she did not do. She wasn't mentoring me. She wasn't even really consulting me. She was creating alongside of me. And it's hard to explain, but it was her and I coming and working through all of the ideas and material that I brought. And so in your organization, in your team, or any creative act, who do you have in your corner willing to be with you non-judgmentally in helping you just think through your ideas and helping you work through them? It's powerful. If you don't have that type of person, seek them out. Reach out to me. I will help you find the right person for you. You need a co-creator. Not a mentor, not a consultant, not even really an advisor, but a co-creator. Someone who's willing to roll up their sleeves with you and help you work through the tough stuff. That's a co-creator. Number two. 

This one was powerful because when you set out to write or create anything, whether it's a book, a TED talk, a keynote or a company, you don't always know exactly what you want. You don't always know. I didn't go into this TED talk knowing exactly what the message was. I had an idea. But I didn't really know. And so one of the first steps I've learned to do, and I did this when I created my keynote, the keynote that 

I deliver to companies 

and, you know, at 

conferences and events, 

and I did it with my TED talk. 

The first thing we did was kind of metaphorically speaking, fill a box with ideas, inspiration, stories, everything, and anything just goes in this box. For me, I didn't have a physical box, but in apple notes I had a folder and I just dumped every quote, every book, every idea I had, every personal story, and I just started collecting things. And it was interesting as I collected. 

And you you'd probably find if you double clicked into there today, there's hundreds of things in there. But what you would 

start to see is some themes 

arising. And that was the first 'aha' for me, it was just letting go of the outcome, even letting go of writing the darn thing and just letting several weeks go by where I'm just kind of grabbing for inspiration. Things that inspire me, personal stories, 

everything just went in the box. 

That was powerful. 

So again, if you are trying to achieve a big goal in your business, on your team, trying to create something, tap the brakes when it comes to like 

getting started and executing 

on it, just tap the brakes for a moment. Let yourself slow down to speed up and really sift through some ideas, collect different perspectives and ways of going about it before you take action. Not for a very long, I mean, I would suggest set a timeline because some of us can spend our whole lives getting ready to get ready to get ready. 

But what I'm, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm saying like, agree with yourself that I'm going to spend the next week 2, 3, 4 weeks doing nothing, but just observing, listening. Trying to pay attention to what wants to occur, what is a rising, based on the stuff that's catching your attention. Inspirations, ideas, letting it fill a box. So that's the first thing. Besides getting a co-creator. 

Number three is what Steven Pressfield calls the shitty first draft. You have to write the shitty first draft. 

I don't care what you're doing. I don't care if it's a business plan or some initiative you're trying to roll out with your team or a TED talk. You have to start with a shitty first draft. Whatever you start with is shitty. It sucks. It just does. And you've got to get it out. You got to get something on paper, because now you have the clay that you can start to mold and shape and cut and get rid of. But you don't have any of that until you just get that shitty first draft out of you. 

I'll be honest, that was the hardest part of this whole process, writing a shitty first draft and the whole time just judging myself and what I'm writing like "this is crap." Like "I should back out of this TED talk." Seriously. I had that thought numerous times. Like, "I don't think I... I don't really have anything to say. I don't know. I don't, this isn't good."

And it was a combination of that, the inspiration, the box and the co-creator, that gave us the materials for what eventually became the TED talk. And to be honest, a lot of it got cut out, shifted around. It changed, but nothing would have occurred unless I would have done that shitty first draft. And that's the same for you. If you're a business owner, if you're a leader, if you're a creative, you have to get started. 

You have to get something out of you on paper, on the white board that you can start playing with 

and molding and 

shaping. That's called what Steven Pressfield calls is the shitty first draft. You've got to do it. And embrace the 

ugly zone, embrace the discomfort, embrace the suck, because you're going to look at it and you're be like, "this sucks." And something we've been talking a lot about in our home with my daughters is, you know, whenever you begin anything for the first time, you suck. 

And so my daughters oftentimes come home from a first day of class like "I'm not any good at this. I can't do this." And it's like, yeah, of course you can't. This was day one. So, if you think you suck, great! That just makes you normal. But we're, we're a family that gets better. And it's interesting. Every time we keep showing up every time I kept showing up for this TED talk, it got a little bit better. 

So that's number three, get that shitty first draft out of you and on paper.

 Number four. 

Number four, the lesson was time is irrelevant. Enough time, having enough time? Look, I didn't have enough time to do this TED talk. I did it. The second 

I started writing, we decided 

to move our whole family to a new city. And I didn't have any time. In fact, I couldn't find my laptop some days. And then the new year kicked off and I had full day sessions with leadership teams and coaching sessions and events and I had no time. 

I had no time to do this. But it's interesting that it got done. And in a way, not having time, I think, really served me. And I'm kind of curious how this might serve you because by not having time, I didn't have enough time to really stress over it, to mull over it, to look at it 

and second-guess myself. 

All I had to do was just get to the next step and be ready for my next call with my co-creator. That was all I focused on. It's just getting to that next step. "Okay. Okay, Zach, edit it, clean it up. We got to get it down to, you know, thousand words or less. Okay." That's my thing for the next week. 

And look, I sometimes had to get up in the morning, evenings, but I got it 

done. And what I'm learning 

about almost everything I've created, time is irrelevant. All it is, is a story in my own head of either I have time or I don't have time. That's all it is. And I'm learning that every time that I go into, "I don't have enough time," all that creates is overwhelm, anxiety, nervousness, stress, and I have to get myself out of that state to actually create. And so I'm learning that the whole time story is bullshit. It's a waste of time to think about how much time you have. And I'm not going to say, "look, we all have the same amount of time in a day" because frankly, I don't believe that's true. 

I mean, some of us have kids, you know, some of us don't. 

Some of us are CEO's of companies, of multiple companies. We don't have the same amount of time. So I think that's a bunch of BS, but we have our intentions and in any given moment, we get to choose what we focus on. And if you're choosing on how overwhelmed you are and how much you have to do then typically when that's the case, you're not doing a whole lot of anything. You're not grounded and you're not present and you're not able to create anything. 

And so what I'm learning is I have to get myself out of that story because the story doesn't serve me. It's, a story that I'm making up. Nobody has time. if you really look at it, I mean, I talked a lot of people and nobody says, "gosh, Zach, I'm doing great. I have all the time in the world."

Nobody says that. So let's just make time irrelevant. Whatever you're trying to create, this is a matter of what's your priority and setting some intentions and just taking steps and consistently showing back up for it. That's number four. 

Number five is I had to get the talk on its feet. Get it on its feet. This is something my co-creator told me. She's like, "Zach, it's time you just get this thing on its feet and see what happens." Because at that moment, they were just words on a page. They seem to flow, but until I got it on its feet, meaning, stepped inside this little makeshift circle that I have in my basement and start rehearsing it and speaking it as if I was in front of an audience to actually see how it feels and see what comes out of me. In a way I'm lifting the words off the page, not reading the words, not reciting a script, but just kind of lifting them up. Playing with them, dancing with them and starting to find my own natural rhythm in what I'm trying to say. That, probably number five, getting it on its feet was the most powerful thing I did. And again, most people listening to this, probably aren't writing a TED talk, but you're probably creating something in your life. You're probably a striving towards some big goal that you've never done before. I've never done a TED talk before. Getting whatever it is on its feet is powerful. So, how can you start to talk about and play with your ideas with other 

people?

You know, bring it 

to life. Another way I got it on its feet is I shared a lot of the stories and a lot of the messages in front of my clients and they didn't even know it. I would just kind of mentioned little nuggets, things I was thinking about. I didn't tell them like, "Hey, this is what I'm thinking about. What did you think?" 

I just would share it. And everywhere I went was kind of like an open mic night. It's just like, I'm going to try this. Let's get their thoughts. "Does this resonate with them? Oh, it does. Ooh. It resonates with me too. Let's keep that." 

"Oh, you know what? That doesn't resonate with people. It resonates with me, but you know what? I think I need to get rid of it."

Getting it on his feet is, I like to think of it as like running some experiments and 

playing with it and seeing 

what works and what doesn't. That's something you gotta do. You've gotta be willing to do that. 

And if you're trying to be perfect, you'll never give it the space to just have it on its feet and play with it and start with the imperfect and let it turn into something as you're working with it as it's on its feet. So that's number five. You've got to get something in motion. You've got to get it out there. 

You've got to start speaking it, sharing it with people and. It's magic. Dots, start to connect and you're able to really 

see 

what's meaningful and maybe what's not meaningful. So that's number five. 

Number six. 

Edit and refine. This is when we really cut stuff out of the talk, you know, like really going through the thing with a fine tooth comb and like just stripping away everything that is not the core message. You know, 

I think of, was it Michelangelo 

that carved the David? And I think this priest walks up to him and be like, "how did you do this David? 

What a magnificent work of art. How did you do that?" 

And Michelangelo said "it was easy. I just chipped away at everything that wasn't the David." I love that because that's exactly what I did with this talk. It's exactly what I've done with the keynote that I've created. It's exactly everything in my life. You know, as I'm approaching 40 years old, if I look back, it's been a continual process of stripping everything away that's not the David, that's not my truth. And this was a powerful moment because we stripped away a lot of words and a lot of things that really weren't me. I was pulling from other people. I was regurgitating some smart people's research. And we cut it. We're just like, "get rid of it. We don't need it." And it was the most liberating thing because it started to unearth my message. 

I mean, my authentic message. And as a leader, we have to learn to do that. 

We've got to get out of our heads about what we think leadership should be and how we should communicate to people. We need to learn to trust our gut, trust our instincts, and remove the noise. Chip away everything that's not the David. And just show up fully who you are. That's what editing and refining was for me in this talk. And it's a universal principle that I'm going to encourage you to look at your life, look at how you're showing up. 

What can you cut away that's not truly who you are? 

Where you're trying extra hard to prove yourself and it's just not needed. You don't need it. You don't need that extra credibility. You're enough. 

Bring your full self to the game and nobody will 

question you. Be unapologetic. 

Nobody will question you. 

They will follow you. 

That's what I learned in the editing process of this TED talk. 

Number seven. 

Don't get distracted by what you think is important. And I did this the whole time I was writing the talk. We would get on the calls with my co-creator and we would literally, I would just be mulling over the sentences or even paragraphs in my talk. "God, I just, I don't know if it's this or if it's 

that. Ah, I don't know, you 

know, I'm thinking, what do you think of this?"

And we would spend about 15 minutes on the call talking about it. But what, what she didn't know is I spent hours thinking about this, like in the shower in the morning, before I go to bed. Like all the 

time. Like I would just stress 

over these 

sentences and these paragraphs 

trying to get them right. Every single time that was the case, you know what we did? We took it out. We literally highlighted it in word and we deleted it. It's gone. Every single time. Every single time that I was second guessing a statement or kind of like, "it's not quite right" we just removed it. 

Like, that's an interesting thing, isn't it? Like how much in our lives are we giving our attention to that isn't important, that can just be eliminated, that just can fall at your feet? It's not important at all to the main message of what you're trying to do, the main message of your life, of your leadership, of your business. How much of what you're focused on is meaningless? I'm learning that most of it is. Most of it is. And if we can learn to trust ourselves and just let go of the stuff that isn't working a little bit and stay true to what is. Because that leads me into number eight. Rehearse. Rehearse, rehearse. 

Like this is where the script was written. It's done. The words are on paper and all that was left was to rehearse. 

And what I learned is, it was less about the words and it was more about how I embodied the message. 

And the more I worked with it, the simpler the message got, the more I was able to embody it, the more I stripped away all the complexity and all the noise. And that came through rehearsal. It started in my head, right? Just words on a paper and I'm trying to memorize them, but about 10 rehearsals in 10. 10. I started to feel it more in my body. And this is when the whole performance of the TED talk changed. 

It literally transformed. The words did not change. Seriously, the words did not change. But it was a completely different talk. It was a completely different talk. Why? Because I was starting to own my message. I was starting to be my message. And that is what authentic leadership is all about. When you are just being a leader, people follow you, you have influence, you have impact. But as long as you keep trying to be a leader, trying to prove yourself to others. It doesn't work. And this is the subtle art of leadership, of creativity, is letting it come from within fully. Really embody it. 

 Let it be something that comes more from your heart and less from your head. I didn't know what that meant, years ago, I had a CEO I worked for, and he said, "Zach, you need to learn to lead from the heart." So I tried like hell to lead from the 

heart and that didn't work. 

I'm finally starting to understand what it means to lead from the heart. And 

it's birthed through hours 

and hours of rehearsal, of just being on your feet, bumping your head, bumping your knee and just like taking the bumps and bruises and over time, the real you starts to emerge. And that's been true for me. 

And it was true in this 

little mini-cosm of this 

TED talk. The more I rehearsed, the more I got it on its feet, the more I just started to embody it. So that's number eight. 

Number nine is throw the script in the trash. No safety 

nets. Play full-out.. That's the 

only way you're going to trust yourself. So this came the day of the performance. Well, not the day like we arrived in Youngstown and Thursday was rehearsals where we were to do a dry run in the morning and then 

dressed rehearsal 

that afternoon. Lights were on. Cameras were rolling. It was going to be the backup footage for the 

main stage the 

next day. What I noticed so many people had their scripts in their hands. And I'm sitting in the audience. And like, there's no judgment here because I can see myself in these individuals. 

I was this person until I learned to let go of the safety nets. But there was this kind of, this theme of just gripping onto that script, trying like heck to get it perfect to nail it. And so what I observed was early on in the rehearsal, so many of the speakers were in their head. Like trying to like nail it. And you could tell it wasn't embodied fully. And 

I've 

just learned that, get, throw the script 

in the trash, like "the hay's in the barn." Like growing up, we had horses and I worked for this rancher, Jerry. And I remember I spent a whole day with him loading hay and putting it in the barn. We had a full barn of hay, and I remember sitting down on a, like one of those wooden rocking chairs late at night after we had dinner and we were just talking and he said that 

he's like, "that hay will feed 

my cattle and my horses for an entire year." Hay's in the barn. The Hay's in the barn. And so that saying has stuck with me and there comes a point where we have to just be like, "you know what? 

The Hay's in the barn. Everything is where it needs to be. I'm set and I'm going to let it rip." And so where could you let go of clinging on to perfection and trying to get it right? And just show up knowing the hay's in the barn, you're ready, you got this. You don't need the script. No more safety nets. 

It's time to play full-out, give it all you got. Bring all of you to the table, to your business, to what you're trying to create. And that made a difference for me. I'll be honest. I didn't even have my script in my bag. I didn't bring it with me. Because I knew if I had it, I would get in my head and I knew that I would take myself out. 

So I didn't even give myself that opportunity. And I'm very pleased at the performance and you'll get to see it here soon. I I'm excited to share it. But I just felt so embodied. And so in the moment in delivering the message, it was, it was one of the most amazing experiences. 

And I believe it's because first and foremost, I trust myself fully a hundred percent. And I'm just inviting you to give yourself that gift, give yourself that opportunity of just trusting yourself. You got this, the hay's in the barn. 

Number 10. This one came 

after the TED talk and 

you know those moments where you just accomplish a big goal? Like big time. Like it's something that a lot of work went into it. A lot of struggle. And then you, you come out the other end victorious, like just, 

you know, fists in the air. "

Hell yeah" moment. That's what it felt like the day of the performance. 

I remember like my coach was there and we just had this moment, like, "Yeah, like. You nailed it." I nailed it and it felt amazing. 

And then we went to dinner and we had a celebration, all of us, all the speakers. And it was a magical moment. And what I realized though, is coming home, you know, the next morning, it's just kind of like, "well, now what?" You know, all of that work, months go into this, and it's over. It's time to go home. And that's always the case. It's time to go home. 

And what I am learning though, is whenever you hit some moments of just like kind of peaks in your life where you're like, "Hey, that was cool," to give yourself some time to come back down, some time to just 

digest all that's happened. 

I normally don't do that. I normally am racing off to the next thing. But I literally gave myself a week, week and a half where I really didn't do a whole lot of anything. 

I, you know, I showed up for my clients. I, I did what I needed to do, but I'm going to be honest, there was a lot of laying around on the couch and it was awesome. Just to kind of just soak it in and let myself wander a little bit. And I think that's the last lesson I want to share with you is where are you not celebrating enough? 

And for me, celebrating can even feel like work. I mean, where are you just letting yourself be and just having some space to just kind of drink it in, to let yourself experience all that you have done over the last several months or years, to just take a moment of appreciation for your work. To rest and recover. Because most of us don't do that. 

I'm not very good at that, but I'm learning that it has a powerful effect on me. But I'm also learning, and maybe this is lesson number 11, a little bonus lesson, I just thought of this, is don't wait too long. Find that next project. 

Steven Pressfield, I think says I remember, I think it was him and it said like, he always has a second book started before he finishes the first book. I kinda like that, like, always know where you're going next, because we're no good to anybody if we don't have something we're throwing ourselves into an arena to be in. Like, this is the Being in the 

Arena podcast. Life is found 

in the arena, in the saddle. And so, yes, celebrate, rest, recover, but don't let too much time go by. And find that next big. challenge that you want to throw yourself into. Find that next project. Because I don't, I don't know. 

There's just something about like, that's what life for me is about. Growth. Running towards stuff. Like it really is the pursuit. I love it. I'm learning to love it. I used to like wish the destination would happen. But I'm learning that. It really is the journey. It really is the practice of creativity, of creation of art of the day to day growth that makes it all the more meaningful. And we only get that when we know what we're pursuing. When we have something in front of us, a big vision to run towards, I call it in my talks, in my workshops, eyes on the bronc. We've got to have that powerful bronc, like right in front of us, that has our attention. Because it just brings a lot of simplicity and a lot of focus to our life. So. I hope you enjoyed these. I hope you got something out of these, these 10 lessons on what I learned when I was writing my TED talk, created my TED talk, delivered my TED talk. But I hope you heard some things that apply to your life, in your leadership. So until next time. Thanks for listening. 

In this episode of Being in the Arena, Zach Arend delves into the intricacies of leadership, challenging conventional wisdom on three key aspects. He begins by dissecting the notion of responsibility, advocating for a shift from "taking" responsibility to "being" responsible, fostering a culture of collaboration and empowerment. Zach then dismantles the idea of leaders empowering others, emphasizing the inherent power within individuals and the role of self-empowerment. Through some anecdotes and introspection, he encourages leaders to embrace a mindset of personal accountability and to recognize the power dynamics at play in their interactions. Tune in for a transformative exploration of leadership dynamics and personal growth.
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TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

So, yeah, I might come at this intense with a lot of intense ideas. But then I'm also going to intensely listen on your ideas. And we're going to do our best work by not holding back. 

Zach Arend: Welcome to being in the arena, a podcast for leaders. For those who want to increase their impact and influence on those around them so that they can create more of the results they want to see in their lives and their businesses. And today, I want to talk about three things I think we get wrong about leadership all the time. 

And this is coming from lived experiences. One; I'm aware of how I've taken these on for myself and how, in many ways, they've hurt me more than helped me in past leadership scenarios. And now I see them in so many of the leadership teams I work with, in the rooms that I'm in, it's subtly under the surface because as a coach, I'm always listening 

differently than most of us probably listen. Because I'm not listening to what you're saying. I'm listening for who you're being as you say it. I'm listening for the place that you're coming from. Because that matters. Who you're being is everything. And let me try to put this into context. 

I was thinking about this morning. I listen for where you're coming from. And so when you think about where you're coming from, imagine if you just came from driving to work and you almost got into a head-on collision and you step into the office. You're coming from almost accident that happened on the freeway, versus you just arrived at work and you came from a one hour massage, right?

Coming from those places are going to determine a little bit of who you're being in that moment. So that's how I'm thinking about this, the place to come from. So who are you being as you're saying what you're saying? And then what is the impact it's having on those around you? Those are the questions I'm always asking. 

And there's three things we get wrong often when it comes to leadership. And I want to break those down and just give you something to think about. And again, I want to invite you to listen, not for agreement here, because there's always an instance where you can argue with it. "Well, what about this?" Frankly, that's just not useful. If you're going to listen that way you might miss something. 

I want you to listen for insight, not agreement. Because I'm not here to argue and tell you, "this is the one and only way to be a leader" because I really respect the art of leadership, the subtle ness of, the nuances of leadership. And yet these are three that, who were being as we ask these things and as we say these things in our organizations, I think are hurting us more than helping us. And it's not that I just think, I've seen it play out in a lot of teams that it's not serving us. So let's get into them. What are the three things we get wrong about leadership? 

Number one. We believe that leaders take responsibility. Who's heard that before? Like "you're the leader. You need to take responsibility. You need to take ownership. Take responsibility. You're the leader. You're the owner. You're the business owner. You got to take responsibility." 

And here's how I see this play out. Because it's not just the words, it's who we're being, when we quote unquote, "take responsibility." It's literally what we do is we take responsibility. But where was it? Where did we take it? Who did we take it away from? You see, far too often we take responsibility, but what we ended up doing is we take it away from our team. We take it away, from our children. We take it away from people. That's where we're taking the responsibility from. So taking responsibility often kind of comes across as, "okay. Give me that thing. I got this. I'm the leader. Let me take care of it." 

And again, there's a time and place probably for that. But if that's the standard way we approach things and take responsibility, we take ownership, you're not only hurting yourself, you're hurting everyone around you when you do that. Because when you take responsibility away from people in your organization, what are you teaching them? What are you teaching them? 

For you to take something away from them like that, their own responsibility, their own ability to respond, you're putting them in a victim position. To put it bluntly, you're putting them in a victim position. And you're showing up as the rescuer. You are, that's what you're doing. And so instead of taking responsibility, I believe as leaders we must be responsible. 

There's a distinction here between taking responsibility and being responsible. Taking responsibility implies " if it's to be it's up to me" kind of thing. 

And "I'm the leader, I got this, I know what we should do." And I think that's diminishing everyone around you when you do that. Now, being responsible is quite different because this is who you're being. You're being somebody who's coming from the place who is responsible who is able to respond, response able.

 I heard it said that way and I'm like, "that's perfect." 

That's what I'm talking about. Being able to respond. I am always able to respond. And when you come from that place, it ain't bad. It just is. When, when we're taking responsibility, it's more like, "oh crap. This is bad, this is, this is an issue." And the problem is we all walk around and we're already always an issue waiting to happen. 

You know, like something happens and we're like, "oh God, we're already paranoid. So it's an issue." And so we have no other choice, but to take responsibility, to take control away from others. And so who we're being is, you know, an issue waiting to happen. And when we be responsible there's a little bit more of an emptying of the bad. 

It's just " you know what? Ain't bad just is." 

I can respond. "Okay. That's not what we're going for. So what's the opportunity here? How do I want to respond to this?" Because I always can respond. But when you be responsible and know that you're able to respond, leadership now becomes more of a dance with others, which is more, yeah, I mean, more in alignment with what leadership actually is. 

When we take responsibility there's no dance. It's " come over here. We're going over here." You know, "we're going to twirl." Yeah, it doesn't work. But when we be responsible, able to respond, we're able to dance with what's occurring in the business, within our team. 

And that, that is an absolute must as a leader because that's what allows you to keep people responsible. Because if you're going to be responsible, so must they. And then that means the only option we have is we must dance. We got to dance, we got to collaborate and work through this together. Ain't bad. 

Just is. And what do we want here? What, what needs to be different? What do we want to, how do we want to approach this? You know, it's a dance, it's a conversation. And when we take responsibility, we disrupt all of that. And we're hurting ourselves more than helping ourselves. So that's the first thing that we get wrong is we take responsibility. 

And instead, I want you to take this on. I want you to be responsible, be able to respond and be willing to dance with what is. That's number one, number two. I love this one because I said this one all the time. We got to empower our people. I'm empowering my people. Here's the thing. You don't empower people. 

You can't empower people. Again, this is a play off the first one a little bit like the word 'empower' means to give power. You can't give power to somebody who is already powerful. It doesn't work that way. So we can't empower people because people are powerful. I believe that. I'm not here to argue. I've taken that on and I believe it's true. It's useful because when I see everybody else around me as powerful, it takes a little bit of the load off my back and I get to focus more on what I'm here to do and what I'm here to contribute. I don't feel like I have to carry everybody else's stuff. Because the truth is everybody's powerful. 

So it's not my job to empower them. People can only empower themselves. You can only empower yourself. That's the only way, that's the only place empowerment comes from within. You are the only one that can give yourself power. And you're also the only one that really can take it away. I mean. You want to challenge that? 

Read man's search for meaning by Viktor Frankl. The guy, you know, is in a concentration camp. And still found a way to stand in his power. When everything in his environment, you know, most would say, was trying to take it away from him. So you are the only one that can empower yourself. And you're the only one that can take that power away. And so if that's true for you, it's true for everyone around you. 

And that changes how you lead, that changes how you interact with people. So the second thing we get wrong is leaders empower people. No, they don't. No, they don't. People can only empower themselves. Okay. So where does that leave us as leaders? 

Our jobs as leaders is to create an environment where people empower themselves. Our job as leaders is to teach people to empower themselves. 

And that's a subtle distinction. There's a nuance there I'm not empowering you, but I'm going to teach you to empower yourself. Here's one simple way to do that. 

Ask them what they think. Ask them what they think they're going to do about it. "What are you going to do about it? What, what ideas do you have?" Keep the responsibility and ownership and power with them.

 And how you do that is by asking questions that prompt them to go inward and think and find their own solutions. That's how you teach people to empower themselves. You're not empowering them. No. You're teaching them. You're teaching them to empower themselves. That's what the great leaders do. They never lose that distinction. 

I was leading a workshop with 30 executives of a large hospital and we started talking about this. It was the half court line we were talking about, like on a basketball court. And what we often allow happen is when we try to empower our people, we're trying to get them to do something. 

We're trying to control them a little bit. And we literally step across the half court line. And we get into their area of responsibility and we meddle and we get in the way and we get all entangled with them. And we have to learn to go right up against that half court line and know that that's where our responsibility is. The rest is on them. And that's the only way we're going to allow people to empower themselves is you have to put them in a position of choice. And in a position of thinking and solving their own challenges and keep them at the captaincy of their ship. That's the only way we teach people to empower themselves. 

The second we step across that half court line, you know, and try to dribble the ball for them and shoot the ball... it doesn't work that way. If we're going to lead we've got to teach people to empower themselves. And there's a line of responsibility there. And every time you cross it, you're actually taking power away. Again, not here to argue. But where might that be occurring for you? 

Like in your business with your team, where might you be gripping the wheel too tightly, trying to try and hard to empower your people and "God, how do I just, I just want, I need to empower my people and I need to get them to take ownership and..." Well, where are you doing that? Because you're creating an impossible intention. 

You can't empower people. You can't get them to do anything. And the moment you realize that and you stop trying to do that, all you can do is bring them up to the half court line and give them a choice and ask them to choose. And here's the thing, people tend to choose in the direction of their best interests. 

So if you can show them what's in it for them and give them opportunity, 9 times out of 10, they're going to take it on. Are they going to hit the ground and stumble? Yeah. But if you think about it, how did you learn? How did you develop and grow? Yeah, that's how we all grow. We fall down, we get back up, we skin our knee. And we've got to allow people to do that. 

No more rescuing people. Stop rescuing. Let's start leading, right? Let's teach them to empower themselves. And the only way we do that, we've got to be okay with them hitting the ground, to pick themselves off, because guess what happens every time you hit the ground and you pick yourself up on your own volition. You just get a little bit more confident, a little bit stronger. You get a little bit more of a sense of who you are. 

Somebody who just gets back up. But if you've always got mom or dad there helping you up, giving you a bandaid, holding your hand, you never get to experience who you truly are. So let's stop trying to empower people and let's let them be powerful. Let's get out of their way. And if anything, create the environment that allows them to be powerful, creates an environment that empowers them. And teach them how to empower themselves. 

Cause you know what, frankly, the world has not done a good job of teaching people how to empower themselves. We've forgotten who we are. And so if there's one job as a leader is let's teach people to remember who they truly are, and that's powerful. 

Number three, the third thing we get wrong about leadership all the time. 

I hear this all the time. How do I get buy-in? I just need to get buy-in. I know what we need to do, now I just got to get my team bought in." This idea of getting buy-in is, it's so over. Like, getting buy-in? Come on. Again, every one of these I'm sharing with you. What I'm seeing as I'm sharing this with you is it's how we see people. "People are somebody we need to take responsibility from. People, we need to empower them. People, well, we got to get them bought in." 

There's this constant focus on controlling people and controlling outcomes. And getting buy-in is, one of these subtle things, is we put it on ourselves as the leader that we need to know the answer. We need to know what we're going to do, especially if there's a crucible in the business. Well, we need to take responsibility and we need to figure out where we're going. 

What are we going to do? We need to have the answer. We put all that pressure on ourselves as leaders. And then if that's the case, all you have left to do is to get buy-in. Right. And it makes sense. Like we're so keyed into the fact that I'm the leader. I've got to have the answer. I got to know what we're going to do next, because everybody's looking at me. 

And so all you have to, you know, only option is you can only get buy-in, if you want people on board you got to get buy-in. But here's the truth. People support what they create. And so if you're constantly creating solutions in a bubble and then trying to get people to buy into your ideas, that's a lot of work. And I'm saying you don't have to work so hard. You're going to be way more effective as a leader if you co-create solutions with your people. And the only way you truly sincerely co-create and collaborate with people is you have to let go of what you think you should do. You have to detach from outcomes. You have to be willing to step into a room and tell people the situation and also be open and honest and say, "I don't know yet how we're going to respond to this. But what I do know is we're going to figure it out. And so let's shut this door and let's talk, let's figure out the best way we can move forward, to come out the other end successful." And we're having a conversation. There is no need to get buy-in ever. 

Now, what I'm not saying is diminishing your own ideas. Because you have a perspective. You do, like in many ways, you have a very broad aperture, a broad perspective of the entire business, where individuals might only see like a small portion of it. And your perspective and your vantage point is so needed. 

So you have a perspective, they have a perspective. And so don't diminish what your ideas are. And you know, another hokey thing I see leaders do, and I just think it's so hokey, like the CEO is "I'm going to sit back and first listen and hear what you all have to say. Because I don't want to influence..." and I get it because we do. We, as leaders, as the CEO, as the leader, we do tend to notice how people just kind of agree with us and that's a real thing. But I would rather just call that out than play that game because I want to be the type of leader, and I want you to be the type of leader, that plays full out. You don't hold back. But you're also creating a space and you're inviting other people to play full out equally. And 

so, yeah, I might come at this intense with a lot of intense ideas. But then I'm also going to intensely listen on your ideas. And we're going to do our best work by not holding back. 

And when we do that, we don't have to get buy-in anymore. 

We literally co-create together. And so where might this apply for you and your business? Where maybe you could trade in this idea of getting buy-in and get people on board with your vision and instead bring your vision to the table. Set it in the center of the table, like metaphorically, like you're setting it down and now we're all looking at it together. Like the spirit of that is so different than holding this vision close to your heart. 

And then being like who's in, who wants to join me? That's putting a lot of pressure on you as the leader, when I want to see you be able to stand in your power, let go of that vision enough to where you can allow other people in. So that now we can have a true conversation around what we want to create together. So, how might that apply for you and your business or on your team? 

How, how might you create more of a collaborative co-creative spirit? Because people support what they create. And if you kind of come from that place, people support what they create. And that is antithetical to getting buy-in. And so, how do I, how do I create that environment where we're truly collaborating? 

So these are three things leadership gets wrong. And my hope is maybe I'm holding up a mirror and you're seeing yourself in this because I know, I know I do. Like this stuff is subtle and I do it. I do it with my kids. Oh, yeah. I take responsibility. I try to do everything I can to empower them. 

And far too often, I try to get buy-in with my kids. I don't know about you. How's that work? How's that work for you? When you try to get buy-in with kids? It doesn't, it doesn't work. But whenever we sit down and just talk about what I would like, "what would you like? Well, that doesn't work for me. 

How about this?" And we actually have a conversation. It's amazing how easy things can go. Not always, but I like my chances when I take that approach. It takes intention. It takes patience. But in the end, I think we get there so much faster and we're so much more effective as a unit. So, yeah, I'm using the context of family and parenting because that's real for me. 

I got three little daughters at home. One's turning 12 and is you know, it's like a little teenager and I'm having to learn where I've developed some bad habits at home. And naturally that extends out into the workplace in the business. So, what about you? Yeah, I would encourage you to, at the end of this episode, just take a moment, just shut everything off for a moment and if you're driving, just kind of think reflect on this conversation. And if there was one thing for you, what might it be? So thanks for listening. And we'll see in the next episode. 

In this episode of Being in the Arena, Zach Arend delves into the intricacies of servant leadership, urging entrepreneurial leaders to recognize the importance of self-service before serving others. Through a candid exploration of the seven levels of leadership, Zach challenges leaders to reevaluate their approach and find balance between serving others and serving oneself. Tune in for a thought-provoking discussion on leadership, compassion, and self-care.
Learn more about Zach:

• Zach’s Website

Episode resources:

• Work with Zach
• Book Zach to Speak

If you enjoyed this episode then please either:

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Connect with me on Instagram and Facebook!

TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

What I've helped leaders see is you have to first serve yourself so that you can serve others. In fact, you have to learn to be selfish. 

Zach Arend: Welcome to Being in the Arena, a podcast for entrepreneurial leaders wanting to put themselves in the arena of their own lives so they can create more of what they want in their businesses and on their teams and for themselves personally. More freedom, impact, and influence, and how they approach leadership. In today's episode I want to share a little bit of a common thread that has continued to show up in the dialogues during my events that I've been hosting throughout the year. 

And in these events, I introduce leaders to the seven levels of leadership. And these seven levels are a powerful self-awareness framework to help you really understand why things are occurring to you the way they are, because there's a reason for why things are the way they are. There's a reason for why one individual and one business over here feels alive and thriving and just constantly creating new opportunities and they love what they do, and then yet this other business over here, the leader feels stuck, drained, overwhelmed, exhausted. 

Why is that? What is the difference between that thriving leader and that thriving entrepreneur and the one that feels overwhelmed and stocked? What is the difference? These seven levels help you see exactly what the difference, what is different about this person versus this person? 

And what does that mean for you is now you can start to look closer at who you're being. That's the seven levels of leadership and level four is one that I love digging in with people. Level four is... we'll call it the Servant Leader. At level four, leaders tend to show up with a lot of compassion. They love giving and contributing and helping people, having an impact on people's lives. I don't know why, but. I think I know why. But I tend to attract this type of leader. Extremely giving extremely 

compassionate. Those that I tend to work with and tend to come to my events, they're not in a position of leadership or even entrepreneurship. They're not really in it just to make money. Or even for the lifestyle. For sure, that's a component of it. But in their heart, they want to make an impact. 

That's... they're so impact driven. Like it, it is almost an obsession to make a bigger impact in the lives of others. And so the servant leader always resonates with every one of my attendees. It resonates with me. And in each one of the seven levels as I show them to you, right, we walk through these and help you see how these levels are showing up for you and your day to day and how it's impacting the results or lack thereof in certain areas of your life. 

Well, the servant leader is interesting because it's very tricky. You know, servant leaders, compassionate givers, helpers, we want to be of service to others. That's where we find a lot of meaning and fulfillment. And there's advantages and disadvantages of each one of the levels. And the advantages of the servant leader are probably already quite clear. Compassion. 

It feels great to help people. It fills you up. It fills your cup. Yeah. Those were the advantages. The disadvantages though. It's far too often we get a little confused around servant leadership and we make it so much about giving and we add words in there, like 'sacrifice' and being 'selfless.' 'Humble.' And "it's not about me, it's about you." We kind of fall into these. Cultural stories. Like this is throughout the fabric of our world today, it's been around for a long time, this idea of "to be the servant leader, you must make sacrifices and be selfless." You know, we've written books out there. There's a book out there called Leaders Eat Last. It's throughout our culture. That leadership is one of sacrifice. 

The leader is the one that is to serve the greater good. And, I'm not disagreeing with any of that. 

But then also, I don't know if it's really about when the leader eats, whether they eat first I think we turn this into an intellectual exercise and we've lost the heart of servant leadership and the true heart. Cause I think there's a difference between servant leadership and being a heart-centered leader. And I think the pure intent when I'm teaching level four, it's really, I've been calling it the servant leader because it resonates, but it's really being the heart-centered leader. Because the disadvantages of being the servant leader and falling into the cultural traps of what we believe servant leadership is. It's not long and at some point you get to the point of " what about me?" "What about me? I've been giving, giving, giving" and now resentment starts to creep in and exhaustion and burnout. Because we can't not say no. We are always throwing ourselves in sacrificing ourselves to help others for the good of others we're doing what we're supposed to do. 

And all we end up with is feeling spent and have nothing left to give. That's the trap of servant leadership and frankly, it's because we've misunderstood what servant leadership truly is. It's heart-centered leadership. And you know, the disadvantage is we forget that it has much to do with serving ourselves is it has to do a serving others. Being a servant leader, a pure true heart-centered servant leader requires you to also make sure you're serving yourself. 

That you're, loving yourself. And that's why I do not like words like 'sacrificing' yourself. Don't sacrifice yourself. Like you don't have to do that. You don't have to do that. For sure. There's some scenarios that I'm kinda, I'm a guy and I'm thinking of some war stories. 

I'm thinking of 

"yeah, there might be some times on the battlefield where the honorable thing to do is to sacrifice yourself for the team." But I, I think bringing the war metaphors into day-to-day... I think that's totally... I don't know, I'm not an agreement with that because that war battle and what our soldiers get like that is a whole different level. 

Come on. Let's not mix metaphors here. But that's what we do 

we "well, I need to sacrifice myself for the tea and make sure..." but it's not sustainable because the business needs you at your best. Your team needs you at your best. And if you're constantly sacrificing yourself, and running around on empty, you're hurting yourself and you're hurting your team more than helping. And that's the truth. So, what is the servant leadership? 

How do we, like pure level four, 

what I've helped leaders see is you have to first serve yourself so that you can serve others. In fact, you have to learn to be selfish. 

And we don't know how to do that. We haven't been taught how to be selfish. And I am not parked talking about this ego-centered, narcissistic selfishness, self-absorbed. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about like capital S selfish. 

Coming from a place of self. Because frankly, if you don't do that, I don't know how this works. For you to be a heart-centered leader, you have to come from your heart yourself. That's my definition of self; your heart. Okay, if the 'selfish' kind of triggers, I want you to be a heart-filled leader. Full of heart. 

And that means you got to bring yourself a hundred percent to the game. And if you ultimately want to serve, you first have to serve yourself so that you can serve others because if your cup ain't full, you have nothing to give. And that makes sense. It's common sense, but it's not common practice, is it? 

That makes sense. Yet, we don't do it. We give and give and give at the expense of ourself to where at the end of the day, we're exhausted. And if that's resonating with you, you got to make a choice. I'm going to invite you to ask yourself this question. "How is this serving me really?"

And if you can't see how it's serving you, what would have to be different for it to truly serve you? Because I see so many, even like managers and lower level individuals in inside companies, they show up with a lot of servant leadership energy, like " how can I help you? What can I do to help?"

Right. But it's kind of a hat in hand, "I'm here to do whatever you need me to do." And I think that's selling yourself short. Because I would much rather you show up. And if I had a team, you know, for my team, I want them showing up, telling me what they would love to do. 

Tell me what you would love to do to help. I want you to come in a spirit of service, but I also want you to bring your whole heart. 

What would you love to do to help here? What would you love your contribution to be? Now you're kind of bringing yourself to the game. You're not just coming hat in hand and "oh, hi, Mr. How can I help you today?" No, I'm not interested in that, that apologetic helping mode. I want you to have an opinion. I think you do too. I want you to bring your whole self to the game. 

What would you love to do to help? What would you love to do to contribute to the outcome here? And that's the difference. And if you're doing that, you're serving yourself while in service to others. And that's how you prevent yourself from falling into the trap of resentment. You have to serve yourself. 

So, can you connect the dots to service and yourself and bring both to the game? Where in your business, where on your team, in your place of work, might you be sacrificing yourself actually at the expense of your ability to serve fully? And what would be different if you were to serve yourself first? What would have to change? And here's what happens when you start to do this, to bring yourself fully to the game, serving yourself so that you can serve others, massive impact. 

That's when we get into the levels five, six, and seven, which is ultimately where all the extraordinary results are created. If you look out there and all the leaders you most admire, the most successful entrepreneurs, they get this. And they're able to move beyond this level four and fully embrace who they are and bring everything to the game and have massive impact on those around them. And that's what we get into at levels five and six and seven. 

And that's what we get into. And those that come to attend my events like Leading in the Arena or company workshops, we really explore this "who you're being" and how you can access these higher levels of leadership. And I'm giving you the first step. It starts with you learning to love yourself and stop setting yourself aside for the expense of others. When you start bringing your heart to this and making sure you're serving yourself, it opens new doors for you. 

And that's really where the work begins. And so I would love to hear from you. If you're listening to this podcast, come find me on Instagram at zach.arend or find me on LinkedIn. Drop me a DM. I'd love to know if you've been listening, what you're getting out of this. Even more specifically, how you might be. learning to serve yourself more so that you can serve others and what that is for you, because it's very unique. 

It's a very personalized journey. There's not one size fits all here. And so I'd love to hear from you. I appreciate you listening to the show. And we'll see in the next episode. Thank you.

In this episode of Being in the Arena, Zach Arend delves into the common leadership dilemma of trying to change team members' behaviors. Drawing from a real-life scenario, Zach highlights the misconception of attempting to control others' actions and emphasizes the importance of personal responsibility in leadership. He challenges leaders to shift their mindset from trying to "get" people to change to taking ownership of their role in the situation. With practical insights and a candid discussion, Zach explores the necessity of clear communication and accountability in transforming team dynamics. Tune in for a thought-provoking episode on leadership and team management.
Learn more about Zach:

• Zach’s Website

Episode resources:

• Work with Zach
• Book Zach to Speak

If you enjoyed this episode then please either:

• Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
• Follow and rate on Spotify
  
  

Connect with me on Instagram and Facebook!

TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

 We fall into this trap of trying to get people to do something. The bottom line is, the truth is you can't get people to do anything. 

Zach Arend: Welcome to being in the arena. This is a podcast for entrepreneurial leaders who really want to look at. Why things are the way they are for them in their businesses, on their teams in their lives so that they can take some responsibility of it and start to create more of what they want. And so today I wanted to share a little story because I was in the room

after one of my events, everybody had cleared out and I was starting to pack things up. Right. And this woman walks in and she's kinda, you know, carrying her notebook. She like, Hey, I have a question. And you know, of course I'm like, yeah, And she goes on to tell me how she has these two people on her team. 

She's got a team about 12 to 14 people. She's got these two individuals that they're just so negative, they just have these attitudes and they just bring the overall energy down. And she's just going on and on and telling me "I've tried, I've tried to talk to them about it. They just won't change. And I just feel stuck and I don't know what to do. 

How can I get them to, to get better? How can I get them to improve?" 

And so that question is a question actually throughout the day in this event I was doing, that's what I was hearing. Different versions of "how can I get them to... how can I," you know, "how can I, in some way, control their behavior or get their behavior to change?" And this is an interesting thing because this woman, as she was sharing, like she did feel stuck. And the situation as she was looking at it. It made sense that she felt stuck because she had tried to get them to change and yet they won't change. 

And throughout the workshop I was doing with this group, we really talked about responsibility. And then we came right back to the responsibility that she has, and these other two individuals have. And I made it very clear to her that right now, she's the one with the problem. They don't have a problem. 

They don't have a problem until she makes it their problem. Right now she's being responsible for their behavior. "How can I get them to change as a leader? How can I get them to do what I need them to do?" And that's the mistake we fall into. 

We fall into this trap of trying to get people to do something. The bottom line is, the truth is you can't get people to do anything. 

So stop trying to do that. But that's what we do as leaders. And this is what this woman was really trying to do. And she'd been trying, and she was at the end of the rope. She felt stuck. It wasn't working. And my whole point to her was like, "You can't be responsible in that way for other people. You have to be responsible." You have to look inwardly and say, "how might I be contributing to this situation?" And this is what I told her. 

I said, "look, you are allowing this behavior. You are the one allowing this behavior, this ain't on them. It's on you." Right. And that, that kind of made it real. So it's on you. She's like, "well, what do you mean?" she's like, "I've tried" and I'm like, "I know, but you continue to allow it."

" Well, I mean, what am I supposed to do?"

Zach Arend: Right. And this was part of what we were discussing throughout the day together. This idea of "you have to show up to those two individuals and really point out to them that this behavior is not working for me. 

And if it continues, you can't be on the team anymore." Like very clear. And I asked her like, if you were to say something like that, "Hey, this isn't working for me. This behavior isn't working for us and this team. And I needed to stop now. Or we're going to have to talk about you no longer being on this team. Because it isn't working. This can't continue." 

And, you know, I asked her "have you communicated?" "Well, no, I haven't said that exactly. I mean, I've kind of told them that... I've kind of said that," you know, and that's what I always hear is " well, I kind of said that." Like did you kind of say that, or did you say that? And what's usually getting said is, "Hey guys, you know, can you try to be a little more positive? 

You know, you kind of bring the energy..." you know? But nothing changes. And I asked this woman "imagine if you did say that." 

Imagine you literally said "this isn't working for me anymore. This isn't working for us anymore. And the behavior it has to change, or this ain't gonna work." And right away, she's like, "well then what?" I'm like, "what do you mean then what?" "Well, what if they don't change?" And I kind of looked at her and smiled, well, then you have to, you have to let them go. 

Like it's not working. You follow through." "Well, I can't do that because you don't understand, I can't find good people like it's impossible to find good people." 

You know, and, and I'm like, "oh, there it is." This is what this is really about. What makes it hard for you and me at times? I've been there. I've been in the seat where "oh, shoot. I kind of need this person. Somebody is better than nobody. And it's hard to find people, so somebody is better than nobody."

And so we don't fully lead them. We don't fully hold them accountable. We don't fully own that we are contributing to this. And so we kind of passively mention things hoping they change. But we're not open to the possibility that they just might not be a fit for this team and they might have to go. And this is where the conversation really started to shift. Because I was about ready to get enrolled in this woman's story about "can't find people." Cause then it's " like, well, shoot, if you can't find people. 

Yeah. God, now I'm stuck. I don't know what you do if you can't find people and I know you can't make people change, so, wow." But here's the thing. I stopped myself. I'm like, "can you absolutely know that that's true, that you can't find good people?" And she went on to argue " yes, you cannot find... there is just not, you don't understand Zach, you don't understand. There are not people out there that want this role." And I'm just like, "okay, well, I'm not in a position to argue and I'm not so sure this is going to serve either one of us." And so I just told her, I said, "look, I don't know if it's true or not. 

And I honestly, I'm not so sure you can know it's absolutely true that you can't find somebody else. But let's set that aside because I'm not as concerned with what's true. Because, honestly, I don't know if we really know what's true. I'm more interested in what's useful. What is useful? And what is the thought of "I can't find good people." What is the usefulness of believing that? 'Cause right now it is leading to you feeling stuck and powerless to change and have the culture and the team that you ultimately want. And she could see my point. Right. It's not useful. And I said, "what if you were just to believe that there is somebody out there that would be an amazing fit for you? What if you were just to believe that that's true?" "Well then. Then I would, you know, then it'd be kind of a no-brainer. 

 I would be more Frank with these two team members and I'd tell them that either they needed to change or they're not on the team." 

And I said, "that's extremely useful. Because what happens when you do that?" That's if they're actually going to change. If you actually want to change somebody's behavior, 

you have to be willing to go there because people will not change unless they are called to a choice. As soon as you put that responsibility on them that the behavior needs to stop and change or it ain't going to work, you no longer have the problem. 

They have the problem and they have to make a choice. And when people are in a position where they must make a choice they often choose what's in their best interest.

 And. 

That is oftentimes what's in your best interest. Like, if you really want the situation to change, you have to be willing to believe that there's other people out there that can fill the seat. And that's actually the doorway to have everything you want. " Can you see the usefulness in that?" I asked her. She's like, "well, kinda. But, you know, you don't understand. 

It's hard to find good people's accurate. There's just not out there." And then it's that fear. It's that fear that prevents us from having the tough conversations because they might leave. Or I might be the one having to do it all. And you don't understand I'm already overwhelmed. I can't do their job too. And it's understandable that that's where we go. But from my perspective, and I'm asking for some blind faith here. I've seen this enough times. 

I know where it leads. I have heard this from countless leaders that I'm coaching and working with. "I don't know if I can find somebody to replace them. I don't know if there's somebody out there. And so I'm reluctant to have the conversations. Or we put off firing somebody and letting them go because of the fear of not finding a replacement and already I'm busy. And I can't take on more." 

It's so predictable. When the leader actually goes through with it, that person exits, and the new person comes in, they always tell me, "Zach, I wish I would've done this sooner." It's like night and day difference. And sometimes they're saying that as soon as the person leaves and they haven't even replaced them. They're like, "you know what? They've left and I haven't even noticed it. In fact, things are even better. The team's working better together. You know, and I'm actually contemplating if I even really need to replace them. Cause we're humming along." The moral of the story is you can't know. You just have to trust your instinct that this isn't working. And you need to stand for, "I'm going to be a leader and I'm going to demand that this works for me and the team."

Like it has to, because if you don't, if you're not a stand for that. You're not only hurting yourself, you're hurting the entire team. And I would make the case you're even hurting that individual where you're allowing that behavior. Because the other side of the coin is nine times out of 10 I actually see that individual change their behavior. The moment, they feel the weight of responsibility to choose either you need to change your behavior or you don't have a job. 

It's interesting because that's when people tend to change. 

This trap of "I can't find good people." What is that costing you? And I don't care if it's true or not. Like we could argue about that. And for sure, I'm sure there might be some truth to that, but I'm not interested in what's true. I'm interested in what's useful. What changes about you when you start to believe that there's a multitude of great people out there? I think it gives you a lot of freedom. Freedom to lead. Freedom to hold the bar high and create a standard on your team. 

That creates an amazing and extraordinary culture where great work is being done together with people that enjoy working together. You have to look closer at, at these beliefs. And really, it's not a question of whether or not they're true. 

It's "are they useful?" How useful is the, "I can't find good people" story. Because if it's leaving you feeling stuck, then why have it? So that's, that's what I wanted to share with you. This is a short episode. I just wanted you to see. What are some stories you're telling yourself that really aren't that useful that are actually preventing you from leading in doing what you know to do? Thanks for listening, and we'll see you in the next episode.