I'm A People Person

Where are you on the roadmap to Innovation and Influence? In working with tens of thousands of Everyday Innovators in our global community, I've discovered that there are 5 stages on the road to "Innovation & Influence" and 3 insights that help people move forward. These 5 stages move you from unhealthy habits and behaviors that don't serve you to being a confident Everyday Innovator that ignites innovation, influences others, and makes an impact. In this episode I'm going to deep dive into the five stages so that you can move forward, faster in your work and life. I'm also going to share three critical insights that I've found help you minimize resistance and progress forward with more ease and speed. Tamara's Everyday Innovator style is Risk Taker Experiential. What's yours? Sticky Inspiration: Your roadmap to being an Everyday Innovator includes 5 stages Lesson & Action: To progress forward you must remember these three key insights: don't compare yourself to others, each stage is not created equally, and the end is never the end. Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn Join our global Everyday Innovators community on Facebook Raw Podcast Transcript: Hey everybody, Tamara here, your host, creator of the Innovation Quotient Edge Assessment Guide at the Everyday Innovators Online Toolbox, and according to my kids average cook. All right, today I wanna talk about your roadmap to innovation and influence. I've worked with tens of thousands of everyday innovators. They're in our global community through the clients that we've reached, and one of the things that I've discovered is that there are five stages to your roadmap, to innovation and influence, and. Three insights that help people move forward. And I wanna share the five stages and those three insights with you today. Cuz I think whether you're starting the journey in the middle of it towards the higher levels of it, it's gonna apply to your work and to your life no matter where you are. So let me back up for a second and just talk a little bit about what I even mean by the road to innovation and influence to me. This is really all about getting to that place where you live your life, make your decisions, guide your behavior, your mindset through the lens of being an everyday innovator. That's someone who sees opportunities. CR, a strong creative problem solver, strategic thinker, great at making decisions when they need to be made. An innovator is the one that leads in uncertain and challenging times. and influence is all about influencing others, making an impact that ripple effect out, not just getting buy-in for your ideas, but also that's very important of course, but also being that rising tide that lifts all boats. So innovation is about you being that everyday innovator, unlocking that incredible talent you have inside of you. And influence is about amplifying your voice and your. . And what we want in these five stages is to go through the journey that makes that innovation and that influence being an everyday innovator, something that happens naturally. You know, oftentimes people will say to me things like, oh, Tamara, um, I'm not the innovative one. It's um, Xander down the hall with his cool glasses and his purple hair. Like he's the innovative one, not. What I know what they're really saying is, and they may not realize it is, I've not. Engage that skill that I have inside of me. And so it's hard and it's dormant and it feels exhausting and it feels not for me. And I think unfortunately, we've developed this narrative in the world that says that being an innovators for the select few, you know, these elite geniuses with their, you know, people like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk and JK Rawling, and they're all, don't get me wrong, they're all incredible. I. , but they're also geniuses. And as someone said to me once, it was actually a neuroscientist I spoke to, he said, here's the thing, Tamara. He said, genius is rare, but creativity is common. And I love that because what our research and our work has discovered is that everybody ha is an everyday innovator. But as you know, how we do it is unique to each of us. And what our research uncovered is that there's nine triggers or styles, ways that we as humans innovate and what we all. Is the combination of two power triggers our wellspring of innovation and a dormant trigger, and that's our least powerful play. That's our unique everyday innovator style. And when we leverage that, we get on the road to innovation and influence. So no longer do we say that's Xander down the hall. We say, yep, that's me. I'm an everyday innovator. I solve problems. I move further faster. I think sideways. I seize opportunities. Change and uncertainty are. Fuel for the recipes that I build. All right, let's dig into what those five stages to innovation and influence look like. Um, and I recently posted about this actually yesterday as I'm recording this, and it got so much conversation. That's why I'm talking about this on the podcast today. And I think understanding the five phases really helps people move through them and then the insights will help you. , I think help you go further faster as well. All right, so let's talk about 'em. So the first phase is discover. Discover is all about reframing your mindset and discovering this powerful new innovation framework that serves you and that's your unique everyday innovator style and the method that goes along with it. Here's what happens in this phase, this is where we recognize that business as usual, no longer works for. So we're finally saying, you know what? How I'm doing things isn't working. The approach that I'm using, what got me to here is not gonna get me to there. I need to make a change. That in itself can be very hard for people, don't you think? So at this point, we go, okay, what I'm doing isn't working, and I know that innovation could be my greatest advantage. I know that innovators are the ones that lead during change and uncertainty. , but I don't necessarily have the right framework to make it happen, or Right. I would've done it already. So now we're gonna reframe the mindset around what it means to be an everyday innovator and accelerate that success. So discover is all about uncovering the habits, the routines of behaviors, the mindsets that aren't serving you, and starting to really shed those. Think about for a moment what it would be. , if you shed that mindset, that belief, and the actions and behaviors that are keeping you stuck, what would it be like to shed those? I think it would feel pretty great, and what I've dis what I've found in this discover phase is that reframe. Allows you to see the world through a different lens. So once we get through discover, and we're reaming those mindsets and we're discovering that powerful new innovation framework, what we have inside of us, we go to unlock. And that's where we start to actually shed old habits that keep us stuck. And add innovator habits that propel you forward. Think of it like this. If you've got a B, um, let's say you've got a bunch of bricks inside of you and these are holding you up. These are like your bone. and you wanna remove the bricks that aren't serving you. But you can't just leave blank space, you crumble. And in fact, when there's a void, oftentimes the old habits, the negativity, the things that aren't serving us are what try to sh rush back in. So in this case, right, we're going to take new bricks that serve us, those innovator bricks, and we're gonna put those in. So here you're ready to unlock your hidden or dormant innovation skills. By unlocking your unique everyday innovator style, you know, in this phase, and unlock number two, that diving deep into your natural innovation talent is the key to solving your sticky challenges, unearthing new opportunities, and feeling more joy and satisfaction. So in unlock, We're shedding the things that don't work for us, and we're starting to really explore and delve into those incredible natural talents and strengths that we have inside of us, particularly about being an innovator that do serve us. So we've gone through discover where we're reframing. We've gone through unlock, where we're shedding and adding new ones, new habits. Now we move into activate. Activate is where we start to experiment, actually put into motion. Your powerful innovator talents, sharpening and strengthening your skills daily. Here's the thing, your brain, while not technically a muscle in this way, acts like one. So the more we sharpen it, the more we strengthen it, the more fuel we give it, the stronger it gets. So here as we experiment and build and test and grow, we are actively strengthening our innovator muscles. We've gotta do it consistently and with, in. So here you start to get excited to put who you are at your best. That's what an everyday innovator is. It's you at your best into action daily, and you begin to explore and experiment with your newfound innovation skills. It'll start to feel like things are getting easier as you sharpen your natural innovation talents. So no longer does being an innovator feel exhausting, hard for someone else, frustrating. It starts to get a little easier and a little easier as you sharp. These natural talents inside of you. So the activate stage is all about practicing and bringing your style of innovation to life daily. It's very, that's why it's called active. It's very in motion. We are starting to take these things that we now understand about ourselves and put 'em into practice daily. Like I said, it's like going to the gym of Innovation every single day. And when we do that, you can't. , but get to the next phase. Number four, which is command. Command is where you achieve new levels of innovation mastery as you heighten your abilities and the success you're getting from it. Think of it like this. It's kind of like being a black belt in martial arts. So you now have this new level of mastery, and it shows other people can see it in you. You innovate daily with intention, applying your skills to your challenges and opportunities, big and small, and you continue to invest in yourself because you recognize that in order to maintain mastery, you must continue to learn and grow. In this phase command, I mentioned being like a black belt in martial arts. Well, if you've ever done martial arts or know anything about martial arts and you know that when you hit black belt, you don't stop. It's not game over. You haven't learned everything there is to know. What happens at the black belt level is you continue to train. You just do it differently, right? You have to maintain your level in your skill, just like any other skill in life. And we, we've done that and we are masters of being everyday innovators and we're continuing to grow and. We move up to the final stage, which is influence, and this is where you elevate your game as you become an innovation influencer, amplifying your voice and value. So in this phase, now that you own like truly own, from the inside out, from mindset to action, to environment, to all. Your everyday innovator style, you can focus on how to amplify your VO voice and value. Here you are moving from not just being a rockstar, everyday innovator, but also in learning the skills to lead and influence others. You elevate your game by igniting innovation, influencing others, and making a massive impact influence. This stage is about the ripple effect out that you can create. Remember I was saying about an everyday innovator that not just you get buy-in for your ideas? Yes, that's part of influence stage. Also, you become that rising tide that lifts all boats so that people around you are impacted in a positive way by you and they become stronger innovator. Because of you, your value is recognized. You have a strong voice in your work, in your community, wherever it is. So lemme go back real quick and just highlight these. For you, and I want you to be thinking about where you are in the phase. And then I wanna get to the three insights because I think this is a part that's really important to remember as you start to really map out your journey. So one is discover. So this is where you reframe your mindset and discover a powerful new innovation framework that serves you. Two is unlock, this is where we actively shed those old habits that keep you stuck and add in innovator habits to propel you. , then we move up to activate. This is where we start to experiment. Start to intentionally go to that gym of innovation and use your powerful innovator talents, sharpening and strengthening your skills daily. That moves you up to command, which is where you achieve whole new levels of innovation. Masteries, you heighten your abilities and success. This is that black belt of martial arts. Then up to the top is influence where you elevate your game as you become an innovation influencer. amplifying your voice and your value. So think about where you are on this. Now, I've interacted with tens of thousands of everyday innovators across the globe, and I've learned some really important and very interesting things about being on this journey. And I wanna share three really important insights that have come out of this that I. Can also help you move yourself forward. So let me share with you what they are and then I'll dig into each. Number one is you can't compare yourself to others. Number two is each phase is not created equally. And number three is the end is not the end. So number one, you can't compare yourself to others. You might be in the unlocked phase while someone you admire is in the command phase. It's not better. It's just at a different phase of the journey you'll get there and in the way that works for you, and they got there in a way that works for them. I know in our social media, instant gratification, let's all put our best self online world that we live in. It's comparison is very easy and it's very hard not to do. But I really, I've learned that people who don't compare and just do their. are the ones that win. You know, I'll tell you on a side note, I was swimming today. Um, My partner and I were, we were swimming, we were training for an Ironman, and so we're in the pool. We're doing the same program, so we're, we're doing the exact same swimming, right, the same speed, same distances, all that. And he is faster than me. And I started getting really frustrated because I couldn't catch up to him, and I kept trying. I don't think he even knew I was competing by the way he was doing his thing. And at one point about halfway through the training, I had to realize, okay, ta. You're not even competing against him in the race. You're doing this race for yourself. Why are you competing against him in the pool? Why are you comparing yourself to him? Now, I'm all about friendly competition, but I was comparing like, why is he faster than me? Well, also, he's been doing this for five or six more years of me. I didn't even have my first swim lesson until I was 49 years old. That's right, you heard it, right? 49. So why am I comparing myself to someone who's been doing iron? For, I don't know, is it 10 years now? I'm not even sure. And has done, oh my gosh, almost 12 of 'em, and he's amazing. But why am I comparing myself? It's not worth it. Don't do it. We all go through the journey at different phases, different paces. We experience different success. We hit different roadblocks. What bonds us all together in this case, and the innovation influence journey, and what matters. is that we're all working towards unleashing 1 million everyday innovators across the globe so that we can innovate, influence, and make an impact on the personal, local, and global scale, meaning the things that we wanna do. So it's great to have that bond. It's great that he and I are training together towards this event that we're both doing, but comparison is the enemy and your journey is your journey. Okay? The second insight is each phase is not created equally. We often need more time to shed old beliefs and eliminate the behaviors and patterns that don't serve us before we can begin to build new mindsets and habits that transform us into everyday innovators. So sometimes that initial discovery phase or even the phase right after that, the unlocked phase, sometimes people need a little extra time and attention. . And when we do that, the other phases go faster. But you know, from being on other journeys in life progress and the speed of progress changes as you move through your journey. So don't get frustrated when one phase seems to be taking a long time and maybe the one before move quickly, but now this one you're struggling. That's how it works. Progress and speed of progress changes. So each phase is not created equal. and it's def definitely different for each person. All right. Third, insight is the end is not the end. So like I said, just like playing a, being a black belt in any martial arts, you don't stop training. When you hit that elite level, you just start training differently. So, in fact, not many people know this, but I have a black belt in TaeKwonDo, and I'll never forget my sensei coming to me when I got my black belt and after the ceremony, and he said, you know that this now. That you are gonna work harder and have more responsibility for others in this community. I took that very seriously. He's absolutely right. I needed to continue to train. I needed to continue to perfect my skills or create pro. I don't know that perfection ever happens that maybe as progressed my skills, but I heard his point, right? We just start training differently. Being an innovator becomes. , but we have to continue to train so that we don't lose it and that so that we get stronger as the masters that we are. So the end is not the end. And you know, I'm so proud of the thousands of everyday innovators in our community that have reached command and influence phases. But you know what? I'm even prouder of the fact that they continue to grow and evolve. They continue to put in the work to be everyday innovators because they know the benefit of it. They know how valuable it is. In their own lives when they do that. So don't compare yourself to others. Each phase is not created equally, and the end is definitely not the end. I hope. After listening to this podcast, you'll do two things. One is if you don't know your everyday innovator style already, take a second and go find out. I think you'll find it really worth your while. It is. At your best, how you perform at your peak, how you add value, all of it. And then I want you to go onto any of my social media accounts. The links are on the website page, and if you type in original tomorrow or Launch Street, you'll find us. And I want you to look at the infographic I put up with this journey, and I want you to think about where you are and what you need to. I bet you have the answer. And sometimes I think that internal voice is there and it's calling to us and it has the answers, but we never just sit down and give it a chance to speak. We never just think about it. So discover your everyday innovator style and then think about where you are in the journey and how to map it out for success. Tamara out.

My mentor once said, "You can step in the sh** traps, but don't get stuck in them!" In this episode I'm going to talk about the sh** traps we all face. Those traps include obstacles big and small, sabotagers, distractions, and bad mindsets. The thing to know about sh** traps is that they are inevitable. No matter your journey, if you are pushing forward, you are stepping in sh** traps. The key is to have a strategy to get out of them as fast as possible. I'll also share the simple 3-step strategy I've developed over my many years of getting sh** on my shoes. It includes #1) face it (don't fake it), 2) innovate, 3) act. Tamara's Everyday Innovator style is Risk Taker Experiential. What's yours? Sticky Inspiration: You can step in a shit trap, just don't get stuck in it Lesson & Action: When you step in it, 1) face it (don't fake it), 2) innovate, 3) act Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn Join our global Everyday Innovators community on Facebook Raw Podcast Transcript: Hello. Hello, Tamara here, your host, creator of the Everyday Innovator Method and zombie movie Aficionado. I love, love a good zombie movie and TV show. All right, today's topic. Today's sticky inspiration is all about what I call the shit. Now I'm gonna warn you right now that if you have kids in the room while you're listening or, uh, swearing is not your thing, I totally get it. But I'm gonna say the phrase shit trap a lot because it highlights exactly what I'm talking about today. So I actually drew this out for a friend of mine the other day when we were talking about getting stuck. Feeling like things weren't going as planned and kind of why and what that feels like and how frustrating that is. And I drew this, um, map for her that explained kind of what we think things are gonna be like when we decide to take action, to be innovative, to move forward versus what they really look like. And that's where this kind of shit trap comes from. So let me, let me. oftentimes, and I know that I have most definitely been guilty of this. When we decide to take action and we know it's the right thing to do, we know it's gonna get us where we, where we wanna go. Maybe it's innovative, maybe it's bold. Maybe it's just the right thing to do. We think it's gonna be a straight lineup. Right Point A is where we are now. Point Z is where we're trying to go, but clearly we're doing the right thing. So it's gonna go well. It's gonna be a straight line up. Maybe there's a few bumps in the road. Maybe there's a little bit of a squiggly line, but hey, we're on the right path. However, I think as we all know from our own personal experience, that is typically not , how it goes in real life. What I have found is that along the way, we hit a. Of shit traps. And as my mentor once said to me, you'll always step in the shit traps. But the key is to not get stuck in them. So if you see my stinky inspiration, my little doodle that goes with this that I drew for my friend, that's on social media everywhere. And on the podcast page, you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. Let me explain what a shit trap is. And I want you, as I'm talking about this, to visualize if you have a piece of. and on the bottom left you have point A, which is where you are now, right now in this very moment. And at the top right of that piece of paper, you drew a dot that was Z, and that's where you're trying to go. So here's where you are at the bottom left and on the top right is that goal you're trying to achieve, that decision you made of kind of what you're going for and members I said, . Typically, we think it's a straight line up, but I have found that you start at point A, that bottom left and you go up and then you kind of veer off into these little shit traps. Sometimes those shit traps get really big. Sometimes they get really long and they're filled with a lot of poop, and other times it's just a little bit, but we veer off, we hit these traps, and it's our job to try to get back on track. Move forward with what we've learned, what we've discovered the experience, right? Maybe we've had to pivot a little bit, but then we hit another one and then another one. And all along the way this path is filled like that until we get up to our goal. Now, what exactly is a shit trap? Well, I think can be one of many things. It could be. A big obstacle, often one that's not expected. Maybe it's a big brick wall that's kind of thrown up in front of you that's keeping you from moving forward. But like I said, oftentimes it's not expected or maybe it's a lot of little obstacles or problems that start to wear you down and make you exhausted, or maybe that shit trap is full of sabotage. You know those people, they love mediocrity. They don't love that you've decided to move forward. And sometimes those sabotages are verbal is how, how they talk to you and they try to pull you down. And sometimes it's physical. And what I mean by physical is they actually sabotage your efforts. They block your ideas, they shut down things. They make it impossible for you to move forward for one reason or another. They just, they sabotage what you're trying to do. So sometimes a shit trap can be full of sa sabotages. Sometimes it's mindset. Maybe things aren't happening fast enough. So you start to get frustrated. You start to doubt yourself, oh my gosh, so much doubt comes in, doesn't it? Or maybe you just start to get overwhelmed and exhausted, so you start to almost slow down. Let the shit take over you. Let that smell go everywhere and just stop putting in the effort you should be putting in because your mindset is not in a good. , or maybe the shit trap is full of distractions. You know, those distractions, all those other things that get in the way of your, of what you're really trying to accomplish. And that makes you feel disheartened. Like, I'm never gonna get th to this. This is never gonna happen. Maybe it's a bad idea. I'll get to it later after I focus on all these things. Now you and I both know that later never actually happens. So all these shit traps that you experience along the way can be like, I. Big obstacles that make it really difficult to move forward oftentimes are ones you didn't expect could be a lot of little obstacles that start to, or problems that start to wear you down. It could be those sabotages, either verbally, they're jabbing at you. . Well, tomorrow that'll never work. Why would you do that? Here's all the reasons why it won't work. Or maybe they're physical sabotages, meaning they're actually sabotaging your efforts. They won't sign off on your idea. They make it impossible for you to move forward. They throw up so many roadblocks that you can't get that next step. Or maybe it's mindset, it's not happening fast enough. You start to doubt. You start to get exhausted or distractions, all that other stuff that gets in the way of what you really wanna be going. So you start to get disheartened and you start to slow it down. It could be one sum or all of the above. Your shit trap could have a little bit of distraction, a little bit of mindset, and a lot of sabotages. It could have a big obstacle and also distractions. I know that I've stepped into a lot of shit traps in my day, and they have had a lot of, all of the above, all of the. So the question then becomes, if we're gonna experience these shit traps, is how do we get out of 'em? Because I think the biggest challenge that a lot of us face, and myself included, is that once we get into a shit trap, it's hard to get out. And the more and more bogged down by the shit that we get, the harder and harder it gets to move forward. You start to almost accept. , what is that old phrase? I'm probably gonna get it wrong. You know, I always mess up my analogies and my phrase is, but it's something like, you know, when you've been surrounded by shit for so long, you stop smelling it. Isn't that it? Or something like that. You know what I'm talking about? You ever walked into a person's house that has like, and I love dogs by the way, but they have like 10 dogs. They can't smell the dog anymore, and you're like, whoa, this couch. Ripe, right? It's the same kind of thing. So sometimes when we're in it, the problem we have is either we get too exhausted and we start to accept it as our reality, or we simply stop smelling the shit. We don't even realize that we're in it until one day we wake up and we go, oh my gosh, why am I still here? How did I get here? I was moving this way, and now I'm stuck over on the left, over here on the right, in this shit trap that I can't get out of. , let me tell you the lesson or insight that I've had about how you get outta shit traps. And here's the thing about what I, I'm about to tell you. It's super simple, but it isn't always easy. It takes some effort, it takes some shifts in your thinking, but it's a hundred percent possible if you just follow these steps every time. And over the years, I have come to implement this every time I fall into a shit trap and. We all have 'em all the time. I will have more in my life. You will too. So we gotta have a strategy to be able to get out of it because man, it's no fun. It feels exhausting and overwhelming and it brings in a lot of self-doubt. And it's frustrating and it's, uh, for me it's anger. Like there's a rage. There's a lot of things to go into the shit trap. So we gotta have a strategy to get out of it. So I'm gonna share with you mine, the one that I've develop. over my many years, it has really helped make sure that not only can I get out of the shit traps, but I don't have the anxiety about getting into them anymore. So here it is. Number one is face it. Don't fake it. So what I used to do in all truth, is I would get super. be like, no, this challenge is an opportunity. Oh my gosh, I'm gonna see the good in all this. This is not as bad as I think it is. So I'm all about optimism, but BS positivity keeps you stuck because you're not facing. The reality that you're in and you're in it, you're in the shit trap. So just freaking own it. And I find that if we really, as someone once said to me, one of our everyday innovators, Mia actually in our, I was interviewing her for our, um, membership, for all our online events, our webinars, and where our community comes together. They're pretty cool. I love it because we get to bring all these people from across the globe. with the drive of being innovative come together. And I was interviewing her and she said, my motto is, face it till you make it. Not fake it till you make it. and actually interestingly, some people in the kind of mindset growth mindset research area have shown that fake it till you make it doesn't work because our brain has this little BS meter that's like, it's not all, okay, Tamara. That is a problem. Tamara, that is poop on your shoe. Tamara, I don't know what you're talking about. It's not chocolate. So fake it till you make it doesn't work. And that's the reason it's so frustrating and I, it drives me nuts when I hear the people out there talk about like, you just have to be positive. You'll just be positive. I'm positive I can get outta the shit trap with these strategies, but the situation isn't always rosy and we have to accept it. There's nothing wrong with that. So face it till you make it. We need to really dig into what's real about the situation. If we wanna get outta the shit. We just have to own what's really about it. And again, maybe it's tiny, maybe it's a little shit trap. It's one piece of poop. Maybe it's a whole pile of it. But either way, we just have to be honest about the situation. Optimism, in my opinion, comes from knowing you can deal with it, not thinking that everything's rosy all the time. I think that's a huge, uh, mistake and something that really keeps us stuck actually. And I don't know if you've ever experienced that. Tell me in the comments section on our webpage, if you, if you're listening through, . I find that that positivity feels good for a moment, but it doesn't really move us forward. We gotta face it. So that's number one. Face it till you make it. Not fake it, no bs. Number two is innovate. You don't wanna think or do what you've always done to get outta the shit trap, because whatever those things are probably dug you in a little bit deeper inside. To begin with, right? What is, what's that old phrase? What got you here won't get you there. So whatever problem got us into the shit trap and is keeping us stuck there is not gonna get, get us out. We need to think differently. Otherwise we just end up deeper. So we're gonna think differently to get out. We need new ideas, new approaches, new behaviors, new mindsets, new. You know, um, in another podcast I talk about getting out of a riptide in the ocean and how you have to go sideways, which is not your normal inclination. When you are stuck in a riptide in the ocean, your natural instinct is to double down, swim harder, right? Move your arms faster, kick your legs harder, but that actually pulls you under and further away from shore. and what we actually have to do to get outta that riptide is actually go sideways, get out of that lane. Right? If you kind of visualized it in the ocean. Well, this is the same way to get outta the shit trap. We gotta think differently. We gotta go a little bit sideways. So we've gotta use our everyday innovator mind, our talents to think differently about the situation so that we can actually get out of it for good. What I find is that if I do what I've always. I think I'm getting out of it. Like I got one step out, but the shit trap pulls me right back because I'm not actually moving the needle. I'm not actually changing anything enough to really walk away from it and get out of it. So number two is you've got to innovate. And then number three to no surprise is take action. If it all loves, it lives up in your head, you're just standing in place in the shit trap, then you're gonna end up like those people I was talking about before where either you're so far in deep, you accept it as your reality, or you stop smelling the shit and everybody else around you is like, hello, Tamara. Do you, do you smell that and you don't? Now here's the thing about the action. I find that the action can. Tiny, tiny, tiny. It can be small like little, or it can be big or a mix of all of the above. It can be a, you know, a lot of little steps. It can be one big leap, it can be a mixture of all of it, so don't get hung up on. It's gotta be this huge big leap to move myself forward. I've doctor found that's not the case for me. I found it's a mixture of a couple small steps, a couple big, brave, bold leaps. Couple small steps, and here's the. , the first step is the hardest because you're fighting inertia and you've got 10 pounds of shit at your feet weighing you down. But as you keep moving and keep moving, it gets easier and easier. And I've also found that those first steps don't always get you completely out right. It, it loosens up your foot a little bit. Get your leg in front of you a little bit, and then over time, hopefully quickly, you move and move until you. But like I said, sometimes it's a bunch of tiny, sometimes it's a big bold move. More often than not, it's a blend of all of 'em. So the way to get outta the shit traps that you are experiencing and going to continue to experience is to face it, to innovate and to act. That's what I've found for me anyway, and for a lot of people that I've talked to and shared this with. That's what gets us out of the shit trap. Now, here's the thing, I have to remind myself of all the. . The shit trap isn't a one time thing. In fact, it's a constant thing. So once you get out of one shit trap, you get on track, and then eventually you'll find yourself in another and then another, and then you'll get back on track, and then you'll find yourself in another. Then you'll get back on track. Life is full of obstacles, sabotages, distractions, struggling with your mindset. Those things never go. So now you're thinking, well, tomorrow, why are you giving me tools to get out if they're always there? Well, because you don't, as my mentor said, it's okay to step in it. You just don't wanna get stuck there. So here's what I'll say about that. I used to have a lot of anxiety about getting stuck in the shit trap. , I was afraid that I couldn't get out. I was like, it used to just put me not in a panic, but let's say high anxiety and pretty stressed out. When I found myself there, I used to have a very emotional reaction to it. Or if I got out of the shit trap, I'd be panicked about what was around the corner, the next shit trap that was coming, that could I handle it? Could I not handle it? And it's like I expected every time I got out that it would be smooth sailing from there, and it never ever was. And the anxiety was about not being sure I could get back on. and not feeling confident in my abilities to handle the situation. Now I know that whatever shit trap comes my way, I have the ability to get out quickly. And I think, let me go off on a tangent for a minute here. I think realizing and owning the fact that your journey is gonna be filled with a bunch of shit. makes the whole thing a lot easier because your expectations are right. You know it, you may not know what those are. You may not even know h exactly how you're gonna handle it, but you know they're coming. Don't you find oftentimes when people are really thrown off, it's because they weren't expecting it and something happened, right? An obstacle got thrown up, a distraction came along, whatever it was. Um, it's because we don't expect it. So now, Whatever comes my way, I'm like, I'm good. I know. I know it's coming, number one and number two, I know I can handle it. And it's not because I'm like, oh, the worst is always in front of me. It's not that. It's much more of a realism perspective of, all right, it's coming and when it comes, I'll handle it and. Please know that, um, shit traps bother me. It's not that. I'm like, okay, here we are again. Smells horrible. Love it here. It's just that I know they're coming and so they don't bother me the way they used to in any way. And of course, I have emotions when I'm in there. Sometimes I get angry, sometimes I get frustrated. , but it's a point in time. I feel that emotion and then I move quickly into face it and then into innovate and then into action. And I think those who know me will tell you that I don't get stuck in shit traps very long. No matter how big they are. I find a way out and that's the innovative mind by the way, if you really wanna get outta that shit trap fast, especially the big ones. It's innovation. I always get out and I think now with my str my simple strategy and just really years of experience under my belt, I have the confide. That I'm gonna be able to get out, and I don't always know how, because sometimes the ones that come up are ones that I would never kind of have imagined. But I know that I'm gonna face it. I know that I'm gonna innovate and I know that I'm gonna take action. And just having that in my back pocket keeps me from getting stuck in the shit trap for too long. And I hope that you. Use this very simple strategy and I hope you think about your work and your life and kind of, you know, that blank piece of paper of A in that small corner and Z up on top where you're trying to go and know that there's a bunch of little traps along the way, but also know that you have the tools, the mindset, the ability to get out of it. That I know for certain. Tamara out.

You've probably heard that exercising in the morning has many benefits, including upping your energy and metabolism all day. Well the mind works in a similar way. All it takes is 5-minutes of mental exercises in the morning to make the other 1,435 minutes of the day more innovative. Imagine if all you had to do is schedule 5-minutes in the morning to stretch and warm up your mind and for the rest of the day you'd be a stronger problem solver, better strategic thinker, and decision maker? That's exactly what we are going to talk about in this episode. I'm going to break down what it takes to be an Everyday Innovator all day. It's much simpler than you think it is. Tamara's Everyday Innovator style is Risk Taker Experiential. What's yours? Sticky Inspiration: 5-Minute Morning is all it takes to be more Innovative All Day! Lesson & Action: Schedule 5-minutes every morning to stretch, warm up and strengthen your innovative mind. Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn Join our global Everyday Innovators community on Facebook Raw Podcast Transcript: Hello, everybody. Hey, Tamara here, your host, creator of the Innovation Quotient Edge Assessment, author of the books. Innovation is Everybody's Business and Think Sideways. I just want to give a moment of gra gratitude. A little bit of a shout out to all you listeners out there. As you all may remember, if you listen to the last two episodes, um, this is our, what we're calling our season two. We took a little bit of a break to kind of take a breather, figure out what, what we wanted to focus on for the podcast moving forward. There's some other parts of the business that were, have been really taking off that needed our attention. and we're back. And what I'm most excited about is I was looking at the numbers yesterday and Wow, they were better than they were the first season, which was already incredible. So, Thank you. Thank you. I am, I'm honored that you're still here and that you're sharing it with friends and still getting value out of it. That is amazing. Now, for those of you who are just listening in and going, I don't know the difference between this and last time, Tamara, let me just tell you. The way the podcasts are structured for season two is twofold. One is a sticky inspiration, and the second one is the lesser action that you can take. Now, the sticky inspiration, the reason it's called that is because I. love my sticky notes and I use them for everything. For my to-do list, my to be list, my goals, my plans, my notes, love 'em. And I also tend to doodle ideas on them. And these ideas that I've been doodling and giving to people and sharing have become the. inspiration for the podcast. So when we release the podcast, we release the doodle that goes with it on the sticky note. Um, they're often stick figures. I'm not an artist, so, and you know, which to me is proof that you can be an everyday innovator and not be creative in a traditional sense of, you know, being an artist or a dancer or photographer, or anything like that. I am none of those things, but I love my stick figures and my sticky notes. That's how the podcast is structured. So what do you say? We dig in. Today we're gonna talk about how five minutes, just five minutes in the morning can make all the difference in the rest of your day. Now, this is not a fitness podcast, and if you know me, you know I do love me some exercise, but today I actually wanna connect fitness and the mind for you in a bit of a different way than people normally talk about. I wanna talk about how five minutes of mental exercise in the mornings ups, your innovation, metabolism all day. Kind of like working out in the morning ups, your physical energy and metabolism all day. So I think to do this, we need to first talk about why morning fitness is so beneficial and then we're gonna apply that to our mental fitness and being an everyday I. Actually, this is great timing because it's, what time is it? It's about 10:00 AM mountain time when I'm recording, and on this day I went to my 5:00 AM CrossFit class and I'm feeling all the things we're about to talk about. Here's the thing, we've heard it many times that exercising in the morning is super, super beneficial. So I dug into why that's the. because I found it to be true. I know a lot of people find it to be true, and frankly, the research backs it up. So here's the interesting thing about working out in the morning. So according to Hackney, who's a researcher, says in the early morning hours you have a hormonal profile that would predispose you to better metabolism of fat. So people naturally have elevated levels of cortisol and growth hormone in the morning, both of which are involved in metabolism. So you'll draw more energy from your fat. So what this tells me is if I exercise in the morning, I get more of the benefits from it, and that energy keeps going and going all day long. I love that, by the way, about working out in the morning. I know the difference in the days that I don't and the day I do, I can feel it. and when I don't work out in the mornings, I definitely feel more of a mental fog or a lull all day long. And when I do in the mornings, everything just feels like it's humming a little bit better. And I think that's because of what he is saying about what it taps into. Here's the other interesting thing, by the way, about working out in the morning. A study published in 2019 in the Journal of Physiology found that exercising at 7:00 AM Now I'm a five Amer, but I'll consider 7:00 AM still the morning. May actually shift your body clock earlier, meaning you'll feel more alert in the morning and get tired earlier in the evening, potentially priming you to get enough rest to wake up and do it the next day. So, , it suggests that it's easier to stick to healthy habits if you do it in the morning. So let's just think about that one for a second because I think this is really important what this, what this study has found. So if you know me, you know that because I get up at four o'clock in the morning on most days, by about eight o'clock I'm, my head is like ready to hit the pillow. , but, and I used to actually by the way, get really, I dunno if I wanna say embarrassed by this, but you know, I got people texting me at nine o'clock at night. I got, my kids are up and I'm like, oh my God, I gotta go to bed. But what this is telling me is that, that's good because it means, it is putting me into the right habit. And if I do, if I exercise in the morning, those healthy habits are easier to obtain, easier to sustain. So I thought that was interest. Here's some other interesting thing. This is where it gets really relevant to what we're talking about here. Actually, it's all really relevant. I'm gonna, I'm gonna connect the two in a minute. The mental and the physical, so a morning sweat may also lead to better mental health and productivity throughout the day. So because why? Because exercise is actually great for reducing stress. So we go into the day less stressed, more focused, and more productive when we exercise in the morning. And you're gonna find, as I talk about it, this is true for your mental exercise as well. Exercise improves circulation and unleashes endorphins that leave you feeling energized and ready to start your. So how great is that You exercise in the morning, you get your circulation going, you get your blood flowing, which by the way goes directly to your brain too. So your brain has, is more energized, you're clearer, you're thinking better, and it unleashes us feel good endorphins. So no wonder on the days we exercise in the morning, we feel better all day. So when, and because you're less stressed, you start your day less stressed, and the entire day you're just able to manage situations better. Research also shows that early morning exercise helps regulate your appetite for the remainder of your day while also improving your concentration. How great is that? So making good decisions gets easier. I definitely think this is true. By the way, on the days where I exercise in the morning, I make better food decisions and I make better business decisions. How great is that? Okay, now you're going tomorrow. Are you just trying to sell me on getting up early in the morning? Okay. Maybe a little bit. I love my morning exercise, but I wanna parlay this over into the mental exercises. Here's the thing. When we exercise our brain for just five minutes in the morning, we get all those benefits we are just talking about from fitness, but for our innovative mind, we up our innovation metabolism. All day long if we just spend five minutes at the gym of innovation in the morning. Research has shown that doing a creative exercise like journaling for just five minutes clears your mind. Builds your confidence and creates a path for greater creativity all day long. So while the brain is not technically a muscle in this way, it actually acts like one. So if we open it up, give it that circulation, give it that focus and attention in the morning, if we exercise it, that metabolism and all those benefits. Come to us directly in the moment and then all day, there's this great story I heard of this general in the military who kept winning these idea contests. So the military would have these contests where people could, um, submit ideas on how to solve things or how to do things. He would constantly win and someone on the committee came to him once and said, how are you so innovative? How do you have all these idea? and he said, don't. I'm no different than anyone else, but every morning I take a blank piece of paper and pen and before I get to work, before I answer phone calls, before I look at email, before I have meetings, I spend five minutes and I just get everything I can think about on paper. Sometimes that's filled with ideas. Sometimes that's just thoughts randomly in my head, but I spend every morning, five minutes. Five minutes. That's what he does at the Gym of Innovation, and he gets the benefit of that all day. So when people are coming to him with problems and challenges, he's trying to figure out his day, his workload, the problems he needs to solve, he's got it because he unlocked that in the morning. So when I was talking about exercise earlier, I was talking about how it minimizes stress, it increases concentration, you make better decisions. Um, you have feel good endorphins, so you feel better all day long. . All of that is true. All of that, by the way, helps your innovative mind as well. It helps it going for sure. But also when we mentally exercise, we get those benefits and on top of that, it is easier for us to step into being an everyday innovator. We can be more innovative. We get into that zone more. You know that that the zone that they talk about where you're kind of at peak performance and all engines are fir. We walk through the world as everyday innovators. All we have to do is go to the Gym of Innovation for five minutes every morning. So, you know, everybody talks about these morning routines and it's usually, you know, don't hit snooze, which I totally agree with by the way. So get up early, drink water, um, walk around the block, like get some movement going. Uh, right. That's kind of what they talk about, but they're missing this one thing I think, and I think this is. Critical for success during your day to be more productive, to be more innovative. That morning routine should always include five minutes of a mental exercise, something that's gonna spark your innovative mind. And all it takes, by the way, is one simple exercise, five minutes. And you'll be more productive. More innovative. You'll have more confidence, you'll make better decisions. You will see opportunities and solutions in front of you all day long. because you did this one little thing in the morning that helps you throughout the day. Now, if you know your everyday innovator style and you've received your custom report, there are actually exercises in the back of that report, four of 'em that speak directly to your power triggers to how your brain works. That is going to naturally unlock your innovative. . So for me, for example, I'm an experiential risk taker. So the experiential side is all about innovating in motion, innovating in action, seeing things kind of in 3D and innovating that way. And the risk taker side of me is all about innovating in the uncomfortable leaping and figuring it out is actually where I thrive and how I innovate best. So that combination means that my value to the world and the strength that I bring is tangible and bold in. could be very different for you. It should be. But what that means for me in the morning is my five minute activity usually includes building something, mapping out my day with sticky notes, putting something actually physically together, because I'm all about that physical and the tangible, you know? Now I'm thinking about it. I think this is why CrossFit, in particular for an exercise for me in the morning really works because if you do CrossFit or if you see it on tv, you know, Every exercise is a, is a little bit uncomfortable and you're pushing yourself, um, and you're kind of pushing limits and try to go to that next place. So it doesn't just make me feel physically uncomfortable, it makes me feel mentally uncomfortable too. But I think it taps because of that. And because being uncomfortable is where I thrive as a risk taker. It actually taps the risk taker side of me. But all I need to do to really, for my five minutes is give me some sced markers, some sticky notes, maybe even, I don't know, um, some other regular pens and. I'm on it, right? Just five minutes of building in the morning. For someone who is a collaborative instinctual, spending five minutes playing, kind of what do these things on my desk have in common or what's different about them will unleash incredible innovation all day. For someone who's an inquisitive, imaginative, Something like taking a random photo and creating a story around it will up their innovation metabolism tenfold because it taps their desire to dig, to question things, right? Figure things out. What's this picture about? And then the imagine imaginative side of creating novel ideas. If you don't know your every unique everyday innovator style, go to our website and take the five minute assessment. It really is five minutes online and the rewards of knowing how to perform at your peak and elevate your value will last a lifetime. So go take that. That is number one. Let me give you three examples from everyday innovators in our community. So first, let's talk about Max. So here's what Max does. This is what he told me. He takes a blank piece of paper and he fills it with just random thoughts every. For him. This unlocks his innovative mind and gets all that clutter out so that he can start to clear his head, see the connections, and get focused. So he's a fluid, imaginative to no surprise. So Jesse loves to doodle. She says every time she spends five minutes doodling, the ideas just flow flow for the rest of the day. . Interestingly about doodling by the way, is that, um, what studies have found is that it taps our brain in a different way. So, you know, usually we write or we speak, but doodling is actually a visual medium and physical cause. We're using our hands, we have to create it, and that taps our brain in a whole different way. Doodling has also been found to up concentration. So if you're in a meeting and you're struggling paying attention, turns out doodling can help you with that. So Jesse loves to doodle. . Bill loves to take sticky notes, Legos and what other funky fun building stuff he has on his desk and build something. He said that sometimes he has something specific he's trying to create, like a toy car. He said most of the time that's the case, but if he can't think of anything, he just starts building and it comes together. He says the days he does this, he just spends five minutes building. He is more productive and more innovative. I think that's worth spending 20 bucks at the store to get some materials to be able to build every day. He's an experiential futuristic. It makes sense. So here's the thing I really want you to consider now that we're talking about all this, all those benefits of upping your physical metabolism apply to your mental metabolism as well. But it can't be left a chance if it's left a chance it doesn't. So build these five minutes into your calendar. You schedule your workouts, your meetings, your evening out with friends. Why not schedule this? What I found is that when things get on my calendar, they get done. They don't get on my calendar, and I'm like, oh, it's just five minutes. I won't, I won't worry about it. I'll remember, I don't remember. This is five minutes. Just it. That's it. Five minutes. that makes the other 1,435 minutes in the day more productive and more innovative. You'll work smart. And oh, by the way, we're not even getting into the compounding benefits of doing it daily. We're gonna leave that to another podcast for now. I want you to go to your calendar, put in five minutes in the morning. If you can make it consistent across every morning, great. If not, go look at your calendar and see where you can fit it in and get the benefits of going to the gym of innovation up your innovation metabolism. See solutions, solve problems, make better decisions every single day. Tamara out.

It sucks being the only innovator surrounded by status quo minds. As I learned in my thirty plus years, it sounds good to be the solo disruptive innovator out there pushing the limits and seeing opportunities everyone else misses. But, in reality it's lonely, and not much gets done. In fact all you are left with is frustration and ideas that never get realized to their full potential. In this episode I share for ways to build a team of Everyday Innovators around you so that you can get the traction and support you need to accomplish anything. In these four of 1) knowing the difference between wrong and different, 2) allowing small wins, 3) focus on the why, not the idea and 4) speak their language, I'll delve into stories, inspiration and tactics for you to do the same. As I share, my efforts to push that boulder uphill alone usually led to failure. And, doing it with a team usually led to success. Tamara's Everyday Innovator style is Risk Taker Experiential. What's yours? Sticky Inspiration: You can't push your idea uphill and succeed alone Lesson & Action: Know the difference between wrong and different, 2) allowing for small wins, 3) focus on the why, not the idea and 4) speak their language Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn Join our global Everyday Innovators community on Facebook Raw Podcast Transcript: What's up everyday innovators. So today I wanna talk about something, maybe a little personal, but I think relevant to a lot of us who are out there pushing the limit, trying to get things done, trying to go a little further, a little faster, trying to kind of push the boundaries out. And that is feeling like you're on an island. you know, early on in my career I think I took a lot of pride in being the disruptive innovator. And I say that laughing a little bit now, by the way. Cause it sounds so silly cuz you just don't do it alone. But back then I, I took a lot of pride in being the one who thought differently than everybody else. And, you know, being the one who was out on the ledge and making it happen and other people just didn't. , I, maybe that's part of being in your twenties too. I don't know. I think, you know, you, there's a little bit of bragging rights and like, oh, I'm, I could do this so much better than everybody. And those people don't get it. And they're all jaded and they're all too experienced and, you know, stuck in status quo. And that might have been true for some of 'em. But the reality is when I look back is that I actually didn't get much done. I was pushing water uphill by myself. and you know, that whole narrative about the innovator being that lone inventor in the garage, you know, up until three o'clock in the morning doing crazy things is untrue. And in fact, if you look at the great innovators of our time, and by the way, we all, we're all everyday innovators, all of us, our innovators make a massive impact in our world. And there are. that are also on the genius level that we know about because they've done things like Steve Jobs and invented the iPhone. But even if you look at someone like Steve Jobs, some of the people that we revere, they didn't do it alone. Steve Jobs had wosniak, he had a whole team of people. Nobody does it alone. And I don't remember when that switch flipped, but I can tell you that at some point, , I realized that, you know, standing up on my righteous pedestal of being an innovator by myself wasn't getting me or my ideas anywhere. In fact, all I was really getting was resistance. Do you feel that way sometimes when you're out there on the ledge by yourself and you're trying to push an idea forward, make things happen, and all you're getting are nos and resistance and yes. But. and things getting stuck in the bureaucracy of things. Well, I think what my career has taught me is that part of, that's the system, part of that's some legacy thinkers, but you know what? A lot of that was me taking pride in perpetuating the problem because I wanted to be up on this pedestal as this disruptive innovator that was, you know, different than everybody. And when that switch flipped, I realized that I need other people to move things forward. I can't do it alone. I need other people to up their innovation game with me. I needed to be less of that, you know, solo innovator on an island and more of that rising tide that lifts all. and there's a little bit of selflessness and a little bit of selfishness in that, you know, the selfish part of it is my ideas get moved forward. I get traction, I get buy-in for my ideas. I get recognized for being an innovator. And that's is a little selfish. Yeah, maybe. But for a good reason. And the selfless side of it is I get to help other people be innovators too. To get them to. change their game and to get more satisfaction in their work and be more innovative and solve their biggest problems. So I think it takes a little bit of both sides of that coin, selfless and selfishness. And I would encourage you to think about when you are tackling a problem, whether this is personal or professional, if you're going in there kind of guns blazing, like you're the solo innovator and everybody else's lame, or if you're going in there really working, To elevate everybody's game and getting everybody on board the journey with you. It is no fun pushing a boulder uphill by yourself. I think that's the analogy I'm gonna stick with. As you can tell, I tend to muddle my analogies quite a bit and go back and forth, but if I really visualized what it felt like, I've got this boulder, and this boulder needs to be at the top of the hill. In fact, it's the right place for it is up at the top of the. but I'm the only one pushing it and it's too big and it's too hard. And maybe I move the needle a little bit, but then I get pushed back. I move it a little more up the hill, then I get pushed back and I kind of get stuck in place. Do you ever feel like that? Have you ever had an experience where you know, you've got your idea, this big boulder, that's awesome, it's gonna take some work, some effort, and you're pushing it uphill to where it should be. you're kind of either spinning your wheels or you're not getting anywhere. Or maybe it's even going backwards. It's not. It's not only is it not going forward, but you're getting further from your goals could be cuz you're pushing alone. I would really encourage you to start thinking about how can I be that rising tide that lifts all boats, the people around me? And you know what? It feels good. It feels really good to go into a meeting, into a conversation, into a relationship. into a presentation with that perspective in mind, and it's ama. It's been amazing to me as I've gone through my almost 30 year career now, the difference that I've seen in people's responses to me and to I, my ideas when I shifted from I am the disruptive innovator. Look at. to, Hey, we're all innovators. So let me figure out how to bring you on board for the journey. Let me figure out how to tap into you. So why don't we talk about, why don't we talk about doing that? I've got four ways that you can elevate the innovation and the vision and the energy of the people around you that are are proven. I know they work cause I've used them in my career. Throughout in many, many different ways. I've used them in my personal life throughout, in many different ways. And let me share these four with you and some stories behind them. Cause I think they're really gonna help you get more of what you are looking for out of work and life too. Get more traction for your ideas, get more yeses from the people on the other side of the table, from you. Okay? So let me tell you what the four are and then I will back up and explain them. So the first one is different. Isn't. . The second one is allow for small wins. The third one is focus on the why not the idea. And then the fourth and final one is speak their language. So let me dig into all these because I know from the people in our everyday innovator community that these have made a massive impact on their world too. Okay. The first one different isn't, There's this great TED Talk out there by a man named Derek Sivers, and if you haven't seen it, I'd encourage you to go find it. I think it's, I think the title is, is It Wrong or Different? And I think it's a Three Minute Ted Talk and he talks about how in the US if you ask for directions, people tell you the street, oh, it's on 23rd and Maple. But if you go to Japan, they say Block one house five. Right. Talking about is the things that people present to you, are they wrong? Are they just different? When I was leading this consulting firm in Denver, one of the mistakes I realized I was making is if it wasn't. an idea that fit into my mold of what an idea should look like. It was wrong and we shouldn't do it. I wasn't able to recognize other people's innovative ideas cuz they didn't fit my vision of how that solution should look. And consequently, because of that, I was shutting down the innovation in the room and then, What happened? I turned myself into that lone disruptive innovator narrative that I love so much, and I'm up on that pedestal by myself, and I'm pushing that rock uphill by myself and nothing was working. And I, I remember walking to the office one day and just having this epiphany of, you know what, maybe their ideas aren't wrong. Maybe they're just d. and maybe if I allow them to pursue those different ideas, not only will they work, they might even work better than what I had in mind. And sure enough, that was true. One of the mistakes that we make as humans, and it it's natural, is that if it doesn't fit our mold of what assumption something should look like, we see it as wrong. We've gotta open our eyes and recognize that it's not wrong, it's just d. This happens at home to me all the time, by the way. Like I'll say to my kids, Hey, we need to clean the house. And my vision of how we need to get that done looks a very specific way if you know, you know, that's very specific. And my kids on the other hand, have their way of doing it. And for the longest time I fought it, I wanted 'em to do it my way. and one day I just said, Hey, I'm leaving. I'm coming. I'll be back in an hour. Clean the house. And they did it and it looked fantastic. And the way they did it is in no way the way I would would've done it. But it wasn't wrong. It was just different. And we both got, all of us got to the outcome that we were looking for. So be careful. You might be shutting down people. innovative ideas. You might be shutting down their drive to be innovative with you because you're seeing what they're saying as wrong, when really it's just different. That's all. It is just different, and I think there's a lot of benefit of that if we open our eyes because we start to see things from different perspectives, different approaches, different angles, and there's some benefit to help us grow our innovative minds in that as well. So, . Remember, it's not wrong. It's probably just different. Go check out that Ted Talk from Derek Sivers. It really nails it the way he talks about it. I find though, that when I start to allow for those differences and start to see them a as if not more valid than kind of how I would've approached it, people become more innovative with me, right? They help me move that boulder up that hill. The second one is allow for small wins. So often time we see innovation as this big blue sky disruptive, crazy thing that we're going after. And so people come to us, right, with these big, crazy, innovative, disruptive ideas, and we're supposed to yes or no them, and oftentimes there's a no that is attached to that. How many times have you had that? Well, Your team or the people in your life work in the same way. If every time they go to you with an innovative idea, you shut it down, you stop it, then they're gonna stop and they're gonna resist more of your ideas. So what I've found is the best way to overcome that and to give people the confidence that they need to continue to innovate alongside with you, is to give them small wins. I will absolutely say yes to my kids, to my partner, to my team, to my clients on something that they really wanna go after. When I know that it's low or no risk, when I know that going after it means more to them than it does to. , I will give 'em all the time. The small win. And you know what? You never know where it's gonna end up. Sometimes those small wins turn into really big opportunities, but to start, just give the people around you some small wins. It has helps so much with people's confidence, their sense of independence, their desire to wanna help and support you. They deserve that. We all deserve small wins. So if one of my team come to me and says, Hey, Tamara, I wanna try so, and here's a tiny little thing I can do to to experiment with it. You better believe I'm gonna say yes, even if I don't see the value in the idea yet. I'm going to give them the small win and see where it goes. But I know for a fact that not only could that idea be something, but more importantly for me in that moment, it's gonna help build confidence and trust and relationship, all the things that we both need to move those boulders up. Allow for small wins. It doesn't hurt you. I've never understood why, you know, people are so quick to shut stuff down that's insignificant or that, I don't wanna say insignificant, that's not the right word, because it all matters, but doesn't have a massive impact on outcomes in the moment. Or, you know, doesn't harm or hurt them in any way. Why not give them the small win and just say, . You know, one of the things, I think my doctor just did this to me recently, by the way, because, and I love it. I love him for it. He's one of the, he's the best doctor. So I had gone to him and said, Hey, I'm having some trouble losing those last pounds. I'm struggling. And I'm wondering if, you know, with my, I've been doing a lot of reading on glucose and kind of blood sugar and what it does to your weight, and I'm, you know, I'm headed into doing a lot of training for some upcoming events. I'd love to really optimize my performance. I'd like to get a continuous glucose monitor. You know, one of those ones you put in your arm and then it's connected to an app and it monitors your blood sugar. And he emailed me back and he said, well, you're definitely not diabetic or even pre-diabetic. He said, you know, your numbers don't show that in your blood work. He said, um, and here's a different monitor you could use that doesn't require a continuous, like you, I think you prick your finger or whatever. And I responded back with, yeah, but like, I don't wanna prick my finger or whatever. And so he responded. . If this gives you the information that you're looking for, or that's gonna help you customize your nutrition the way you want, then let's go for it. I've written you a prescription. It's waiting for you at the drugstore. Okay, let's break this down for a minute. The doctor didn't need to say Yes. This continuous glucose monitoring is for people with diabetes, of course, right? Who really need to monitor their blood sugar. . I wanted it for lifestyle purposes. I wanted it for data really. I really wanted to see, you know, what, how certain foods affect me and what I can do to optimize my physical performance. And he gave me the small win. He didn't have to say, yes, of course not. Now, remember what I was saying before? If it doesn't do any harm, why not? If it helps the person kind of feel, trust, and rapport and connected, and get them what they need to move forward, why? . Well, that's exactly what he did. Doesn't harm knowing that data. It doesn't harm at all. I just want it for a couple months. Right? And made me feel like, yes, this is a thing I wanted and I got it. Small wins. That's all it takes. Okay. Number three is focus on the why not the idea. I think ideas are like icebergs and all we see is the tip of 'em and. Yay or nay, the tip of 'em. And we focus on what we think is gonna work or not work. You know, based on that little bit of it we see. But the thing that we miss is underneath that water, as you know, with an iceberg, is a lot more. A lot more. And to me that's the why. And if we want people around us to minimize resistance, be innovators with us instead of focusing on the idea focus. on the why. Why do they love this idea? Why are they passionate about it? What are they really trying to solve? Why does this matter to them? Why are they going to bat for this idea? Often I found that that's where the gold is. It's underneath. It's not on that tip or thing that we can see the idea. It's the why behind it. And. . It's also been my experience that when we understand the why, we get to stronger, more collaborative ideas together, because we're digging into, well, what is this really trying to solve? What are we trying to accomplish? Why does this matter? Who does this really impact? Right to all those things, but really seeking to understand the why behind what people are saying behind their ideas. Also behind their resistance too. I'll do a whole nother podcast on minimizing resistance. One of the most powerful things that you can do to minimize someone's resistance around you is to understand why they're resisting. So don't fight the resistance, understand the why. So focus on the why not the idea, and they're more likely to focus on your why back as well. But somebody's gotta start that conversation. All right. Lastly, speak their language. So simple. . Here's the reality. We speak the language that we know, and that we understand the language that motivates us. That gets us energized and excited, and then we bring that language to other people and it doesn't motivate and excite them. How many times have you said, Hey, oh my God, I'm so excited. There's this new restaurant, we should go try it. Like, I've never had food like this before, and the, you know, your wife or husband or boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever, is that. The other side of the kitchen counter is like, eh, I don't know. Because that's what excites us, not them. How many times have you been in a meeting where you've put together a beautiful PowerPoint presentation, you've presented your thinking and you're like, yeah, this is gonna pave new ways and build new opportunities. And even though you know it's the right thing to do, you get the most lackluster res response from the people on the other side. Yeah, it's cuz you're speaking your language, not theirs, by the way, , did you, I just realized this. Did you notice in both of those, example, I gave you examples that would speak to me. I'm a risk taker, experiential, so I want bold and different and new. I wanna push boundaries, right? I wanna carve new paths all the time. That totally speaks to me. Those two examples were exactly it, which by the way, I have a collaborative tweaker on my team, and if I go to her with those, it's like, want, want? . But if I say to her, Hey, this is gonna help you build connections, you're gonna really have to kind of embrace a lot of different perspectives to get this idea done. Um, you're gonna, I would suggest taking what we've already done and springboarding off of that, optimizing it. She's all in. That's her language. So if you know the People's Everyday Innovator styles around you, this becomes very easy. In fact, one of our most downloaded documents in the online Everyday Innovators online toolbox is our personality, one page cheat sheet, because it has what motivates everybody, what drives everybody, the type of language they use. So you can recognize them, but you know, awareness. half half of it. So if you're just simply aware and listening to the type of language the people across from you use, what tends to light them up and what doesn't, you'll start to adjust your language to match what's gonna make them the most receptive. To me, this is one of the most important things we can do as a leader, as a partner, as a friend, is just listen to how people talk so that we can actually speak their language. and connect with 'em in a way that works for them and for us. All right, so let me back up for a second. Let me summarize these four. And again, just a reminder to us all. The point here is let's not push that boulder uphill alone. It's exhausting and it often never works. Often never works. Wow, that didn't sound right. It often doesn't work. , that was a little bit of an anchorman moment. What was that? 60% of the time it works every time. I think I just did that. All right, let, let me back up. I'm making myself laugh over here. Pushing that boulder uphill alone is ineffective. It's exhausting. , it usually leads to failure. And even if you get that boulder uphill by yourself, yay you, that's no fun. The reality is we need other people to be pushing with us. We need help. We need other people that can build tools that'll pull that boulder uphill faster. We need people to help sh bear the burden. We need people to help do the things that we don't know how to do. And the four ways to do that very simply are open up your eyes. And be aware of and recognize that things aren't wrong, they're different. Be open to those differences. The second one is allow small wins. Give people the confidence and the connection they need to move forward with you. And the third one is focus on the why not the idea. Here's the other thing with the why that I didn't mention before. It's been my experience that people don't need to be right, but they need to feel valued and they need to feel heard and digging into their why does both of those things. And like I said, underneath that water in that iceberg, there is so much goodness there to pull from. And then the fourth one is speak their language. Know their everyday innovator style and speak to that. Acknowledge, recognize, listen to the words that they use, listen to. They tend to say yes to what? They tend to say no to. Look at their body language, pay attention, and then make sure that you're speaking their language, not yours. All right. I gotta say I, uh, I feel very strongly is not coming across that we can't do it alone. And like said, my almost 30 years now, that is my 30 years have proven that. when I made that change of kind of, you know, doing it by myself to trying to kind of be that rising tide or get other people on board, man, I've gotta fix my analogies, . But when I flip that switch, not only did more things get done more effectively, and the outcomes were stronger and better, but also it's more satisfying. It's more rewarding to lift up other people in the process and to do it together. Tamara out.

A mind is sort of like a balloon. At first it's stiff and impossible to blow up (parents with little kids know what I'm talking about) but with a little extra it stretches and grows, never to return back to its tiny, out-of-the-package, shape. A mind stretched by new ideas, new experiences and new perspectives will never go back to its original dimensions. In this episode I share my experiences about feeling stale and stuck, how stretching my mind with new experiences is the antidote to that, and several easy ways you can keep growing and evolving. Tamara's Everyday Innovator style is Risk Taker Experiential. What's yours? Sticky Inspiration: A streched mind is forever changed Lesson & Action: Small actions that stretch your mind can add up to big changes. Get lost, try a new restaurant, talk to a new person, travel, explore, and seek out differing opinions. Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn Join our global Everyday Innovators community on Facebook Raw Podcast Transcripts: Hey. Hey, Everyday Innovators across the globe. Tamara here, your host, creator of the Innovation Quotient Edge Assessment, author of the books. Innovation is Everybody's Business and Think Sideways. I'm a risk taker, experiential, everyday innovator, and a lover of nehi socks. Welcome to the show. Today we are gonna be talking about your brain. I know. Is there anything sexier than that? No, I don't think so. Actually, the thing specifically that I wanna talk about today is how when you stretch your mind, it never goes back to what it was. In fact, there's this great quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. That says exactly that. It says, A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimens. Isn't that cool? So think about that for a second in your work and life and about being an everyday innovator. If we wanna keep growing and evolving and having those innovative ideas and being able to communicate innovation in a way that moves us forward, we need to keep growing and stretching our mind. I think sometimes when we feel stale or stuck, , it's because we haven't stretched ourselves in a while. I know for me personally, that is very, very true. I tend to not do as well when I get stuck in routines and habits without any, anything new or any variables, any surprises coming in. Now, here's the thing with habits, routines, and repetition. I think they can be really good for you. They make us efficient. I think they give us a sense of security, of knowing. I think without that we have too much uncertainty in our world. So we need a little, a baseline of habits and routines and repetition so that we're not always thinking about how to do the things we know how to do or, or how to schedule our day in a way that's gonna work for us. We got that covered and that's good, but it can also be. Bad. I think it's what ends up leaving us lacking or is stuck in the mundane or maybe even feeling listless. So we wanna keep stretching and growing our brains like Oliver Wendell Holmes said, so that it doesn't go back to its old dimensions, so that we keep learning and growing and evolving and changing as life around us changes. I think of it a little bit like a rubber band. Our brains are a little bit like rubber bands. Here's how, so, you know, when you pull a rubber band out, um, to go first use it and it's really stiff and it's got like a certain size to it, but then you stretch it a little bit and you stretch it a little bit, and over time it becomes really loose and it never goes back to that original resistance, that original size or I guess strength. I don't know what the language is, but you know what I mean. Well, I think our brains are like that too, right? We stretch it and we stretch it like a rubber band, and over time, right, it, it gets stretched out and it never goes back to what it was. Here's another funny analogy that I just thought of. I don't know if this works go with me, but it's like blowing up a balloon. if you have kids, you know what I'm talking about and how annoying it is. And that first, like you go to blow it up and that first blow, you're like, huh. And it's so tight and the balloon is so small and you're like, this is never gonna work. And then with a little more effort and a little more effort, the, you know, balloon starts to stretch and grow. And it never goes back to that original, annoying, frustrating size than it was when you pulled it out of the bag. All right, I'm done with analogies now I think. I'm not sure how all those worked, but you get the point. , a mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimension. So we've gotta keep stretching and we've gotta keep growing. And what I have found, what I think is really exciting about that, is when we stretch our minds, when we make a an intentional effort to grow in one area, it impacts everything else as. So you may grow and evolve in one part of your life, but that's gonna impact everything else. So maybe you grow and evolve through travel, and that's awesome. But travel, as you know, anyone who's traveled, knows, travel, doesn't just stay with travel, travel goes with you. And in fact, there's another great, great quote that I love that I wanna pull up. I'm full of quotes today by F Scott Fitzgerald. This is one of my favorites. It says, . It's a funny thing coming home. Nothing changes. Everything looks the same, feels the same, even smells the same. You realize what's changed is you. I think that's so true. I love that quote. Our minds need to stretch and evolve and grow, or we get stuck. We get stale, we get trapped in mundane. If you're feeling that way, it could simply. that you've got a little too much repetition and a little too much routine in your life and it's time to break free a little bit and get some new experiences. So recently, um, my man and I decided that we were just going to, we were gonna go do like a little mini road trip for 24 hours. Nothing fancy, nothing big, but we found this super cool container like shipping container. They turned into an Airbnb in Taos, New Mexico, and that's not far from where we live. So we decided to go there for the night. , what a cool new experience. We're being stretched by going to this new contain experience in this place that I hadn't really explored before. I'd spent a lot of time in Taos before in this container, so that's a whole new way to be in. It's, I gotta tell you, if you go to my Instagram account, you'll see some photos from it. It was so cool. But the other thing that we did, which was so much fun, is we decided to sign up for an. Photography class, so great class, and if I can find the link to it, I'll put it in the show notes. I, I get nothing for it. I'm not a sponsor. I just, it had a lot of great video lessons. Some of it were technical, some of it weren't more about angles and lighting, and it was just, Super cool. So we decided we would take this class, this iPhone photography class. So we, we got to the air and b, Airbnb and we watched some videos. Then we went out and took some photos, we watched some more videos. We went out and took more photos, right? And the next day we kind of rinse and repeat. We did the same. And it was so much fun to learn a new thing. Now, are either of us gonna be iPhone photography experts or get paid to be photographers? No, that's not in our wheelhouse. It's not what we. , but that whole experience of traveling, of staying in this kind of funky little place, this contain shipping container that they turned into a little apartment of taking this iPhone class. It just stretched our minds. It just so much, you can probably hear it in my voice. I absolutely loved, loved the experience and, but that came back with. and it just, it gave me some new ideas. It gave me some new insights. It gave me a renewed sense of energy because I was growing and I was evolving, and it wasn't even something specific that I took away and thought, oh, I learned this in my iPhone class. Now I'm gonna apply this over here in my podcast. It wasn't even that specific. It was just the energy and the growth that I felt from doing that translated into everything. It's actually why I love TikTok, and I know, right? I shouldn't be on here talking about go spend hours on social media, wasting your time away. But you know what? Sometimes when I scroll through TikTok, I find things that I just would've never known about before, that I would've never considered before. And I love it. Now I gotta manage myself. What TikTok, cuz. I could go down a rabbit hole or two on TikTok, but sometimes I just find things that surprise me and delight me and then I take that knowledge and I apply it somewhere else. So I think there's a lot out there that we can explore and experience to help us continue to, to stretch our minds because a stretched mine is always growing a stretched mine is never. , it's never in the same place. It's never bored because it's always growing and stretching. And in fact, here's where kind of we, let's move into from the sticky inspiration. That's what all that was. You'll see the little sticky note going out with this podcast due with my drawing on it. But let's move that over to the lesson and the activity. So here's the interesting thing. Um, neuroscience shows that our. Have something called neuroplasticity. And what that means is our brains have the ability to grow and evolve. So while our brains aren't technically a muscle in this way, it actually acts like one. So the more we exercise it, the more we stretch it, right? The stronger it gets, the less the weaker it gets. . And I think we can correlate that back to what I was saying earlier about, you know, when you stretch your mind, you're not stale, you're not stuck, you're not mundane or listless. Both cuz your brain's growing and evolving and making new connections and learning new things. And you know, when I'm continually stretching, I am more inspired, I'm more innovative. Everything seems to flow more. when I'm stuck, when I'm not leveraging that neuroplasticity that my brain has, I feel it. Do you feel it? I definitely feel it. Now, here's the thing, we can't always travel the world, and maybe it's not in our budget or time. Maybe we have kids. Maybe we have a demanding job and we certainly don't wanna spend all our time. Watching other people travel the world on Instagram now, great. You get some great ideas from it, but that's not the only place you wanna do it. But there's a million ways that you can stretch and grow and evolve without having to leave your backyard or maybe traveling a few steps out. So let's talk about those so that we can continually be those stretched minds, be those everyday innovator. Okay, so number one is get lost. So have you ever noticed when you are in a new city, let's say you've rented a car, you're traveling somewhere, maybe it's for work and you don't know where you are, and your brain goes into create a problem solving mode, it's like, okay, there's that gas station over there, the sun is sitting over there. That means that's west and the highway numbers are going up, so that means I'm going in the right direction. Right? Our brains actually kick into kind of a more creative problem solving gear, getting lost. is like a lot of little new experiences in your brain. So take a new path to work. Um, walk the dog in a different direction and see new things and notice new things in your neighborhood that you didn't notice before. Go in a different direction. Getting lost actually helps us stretch and grow. The other thing we can do is try a new restaurant or a new recipe. . I totally get stuck in ruts when it comes to restaurants because you know what? I find my favorites and then I just keep going to them. So a little tradition isn't bad, but venture out every now and again. Try a new restaurant, try a new dish at the restaurant you love. Try a new recipe. Anything that gets us, again, stretching our brains and experiencing new things. Do a little close in travel. , do an Airbnb for a night somewhere else. Go to a hotel down the street, go take a road trip, whatever it is. But there's a lot of places in where most of us live. I'd say I actually, I'd venture to say all of us have little mini road trips that we could do that would be really energizing and inspiring, even if it's just for one night. Learn a new skill, learning a new skill. It can be really powerful in stretching the brain and never going back. And here's the thing, you gotta learn the new skill for the experience of the learning, not because you're gonna become an expert at it. So my two right now are, as the one I mentioned, iPhone photography. I happen to love taking pictures, so there's a little bit pardon of me that wants to be good at that, but I'm loving the experience of trying it out, of going out and taking photos and seeing what worked and what didn't work. It's so much fun to put that skill into motion. And then the second one I've picked up is mixed media art. You know, where you use like paint, but also you cut out things from pictures and put 'em together. It's just like a lot of different materials. I'm not good . I'm not gonna pretend that I'm mildly good, but I love the experience of it and it makes my brain work in a totally different way. I mean, most of the time. I'm talking or I'm writing, I'm not creating in that way. So this stretches me in whole different ways I hadn't experienced before. So find a skill, find something that you can do. You can pull up stuff on YouTube, on Pinterest, on TikTok. I mean, there is, there is no shortage. of things for you to learn for how to, so just type in how to be a bird watcher, right? Um, how to make cheese, how to create a mixed media art, how to learn iPhone, photography, um, how to make coffee. I mean, everything is out there, but that learning, that new skill, if I could say, do one thing right now, it would be that because you don't need a lot of time, you don't even need money. Most of the time you don't even need new materials, but it'll stretch, stretch your brain in a whole different. The other thing you know that you could do too is, I was just thinking about this, is you could ask questions you've never asked. So you know, I'm a big believer in questions and is answers out. So how about instead ask different questions. If you ask different questions, you'll get different thinking, different conversations, different ideas, and you'll be stretched by that. One of my favorite things to do is to talk to people I know about their opinions or things that they. , let me back up and explain this one. I find often that we have people in our lives that we think we know well or that are continual parts of our lives, but we've never actually spent the time to ask them a lot of questions and dig under the surface of who they are. We just kind of wait for them to tell us, and oftentimes people don't, and I find my brain is so stretched by. instead of even responding to people, just asking questions of who they are, what they love, why they believe, what they believe, and I don't have to agree or disagree. It's not even about that. It's just listening to someone with a different opinion or perspective or experience. Share it from their view. Your mind is stretched. You can't help it. It's such a powerful thing to do. So this is something you could do with your spouse, with your kids. With colleagues that you work with all the time, with aunts and uncles, with, um, your clients. I mean, anyone in your life you can do this with. , but that'll stretch your brain talking to someone you know about something different. And if you wanna stretch, you really wanna stretch, talk to somebody different that you don't know, you can do that as well. So there's a lot of different ways that you can stretch and grow your brain and be that rubber band that just expands and expands. And I think it's really magical actually, because it is an instant relief to boredom, to the drudgery, to the mundane. It's just getting out there. Gathering new experiences because as Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr said, A mind that is stretched by new experience can never go back to its old dimensions. I think that's pretty powerful. It is so easy to be an Everyday Innovator and to see those opportunities and find the solutions that make your life easier and better to put those things out there that really work and get you moving forward. when you are constantly stretching and growing. So avoid getting stuck in the rut. Be that mind that is forever stretching and never going back with that. Tamara out.

I'm back! It's been a minute, but as I explain in this podcast, I took a step back so that I can come back on FIRE! I've got a new format, new content, new conversations and new value for you. I explain all this in the podcast and then I dive right in! I talk about the relationship between fear and resistance. As fear dials up, so does resistance. And conversley, I talk about how to minimize your resistance by recognizing and understanding where your fear is coming from. You can't be fearless. But, you can push through and even harness fear to move forward Tamara's Everyday Innovator style is Risk Taker Experiential. What's yours? Sticky Inspiration: Increase fear = increase resistance Lesson & Action: Don't be fearless! Instead, learn to recognize where your fear is coming from so that you can push through it. Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn Join our global Everyday Innovators community on Facebook

Let's face it, failure is a part of life. Failure can often feel devastating, and worse, it can feel final. In today's episode, I'm going to go open up, get a little vulnerable and share a recent failure I had and the lessons around mental toughness, not counting yourself out too early, and cheering on your supporters. Of course, I'll also talk about why this failure, while it hurt, isn't final and what I'm going to do to bounce back. I hope in sharing this you'll get some inspiration and determination to push through your next failure. I'm also going to share a technique I often use to solve my biggest problems, and how to leverage the little quirks of your brain to work for you, not against you. This format is a little different than my usual Friday wrap-ups. This is experimentation so let me know what you think. Tamara's Everyday Innovator style: Risk Taker Experiential Connect with Tamara on LinkedIn Check out Howdy Puppy Use code 'Tamara' at checkout for the discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book

Are you playing to win or playing not to lose? As our Everyday Innovator guest, Evans Mehew shares that mindset difference is also the difference between innovating and moving forward or falling behind. It changes how you think, act, the goals you set and so much more. As the founder of FastFulcrum, a content design and creation firm, Evans shares his passion for driving innovation and how the culture you set often determines your outcomes. He also digs deep into how to shift with relevancy in today's uncertain world, and why it's important to recognize that pivoting is now a part of life. He also gives some great advice on how to not give in to the power of inertia, aka staying still. And, he talks about the power of value stacking, understanding what you believe in, and how to let that guide you to a more fulfilling personal and professional life. Evans' Everyday Innovator style: Inquisitive Instinctual Connect with Evans on LinkedIn Check out Howdy Puppy Use code 'Tamara' at checkout for the discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book

Disruption can be a positive force for helping you find your value. In fact, keeping up with disruptors on the edges takes a real understanding of the value you bring to the table. Our Everyday Innovator guests, Mike Kenevan and Jessica Howard share how they see the human role in a technology-driven world, and how to define the value you bring. As leading branch managers at Spire Financial, they talk about how they've adapted to change in their industry and being nimble when necessary. They also dig into how to keep moving forward when the obstacles you face feel insurmountable and being the person that helps others ease their stress and make good decisions. They also talk about how "this is the way we've always done it" is the worst phrase you can think and say in the face of uncertainty if you want to be innovative and why you need to get comfortable being uncomfortable. They also open up about the negative consequences of sweeping things under the rug and avoiding the tough conversations and situations, and why you can't lead from a place of fear. Mike's Everyday Innovator style: Collaborative Inquisitive Jessica's Everyday Innovator style: Inquisitive Risk Taker Connect with Mike on LinkedIn. Connect with Jessica on Linkedin Check out Howdy Puppy Use code 'Tamara' at checkout for the discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book

Being the absolute best you can be doesn't mean being good at everything. In fact, it means recognizing where you aren't the best and letting go of those things. Today's Everyday Innovator guests, Matt DeLuzio and Turner Williams share how they've learned to work in their genius zones, not project what they love or hate to do on others, and why meeting people where they are is the key to tapping the human potential of themselves and those they lead. As the top producing loan officers at Spire Financial, they share how going back to the basics, focusing on what you can control, and adjusting your sails is the key to their success in changing times. They also share how the fear of loss can actually drive strong innovation. We dig into how the key to leading through change is about recognizing the signals before they become an undertow that sweeps you out to sea. Matt and Turner also open up about what they think it takes to continue to be top producers in changing times, including understanding your personal value propositions, and what motivates you to keep going. Matt's Everyday Innovator style: Collaborative Tweaker Tuner's Everyday Innovator style: Instinctual Risk Taker Connect with Matt on LinkedIn. Connect with Turner on LinkedIn Check out Howdy Puppy Use code 'Tamara' at checkout for the discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book