Thanks for Coming Back
Welcome to "Thanks for Coming Back," where every episode feels like a heart-to-heart in your favorite coffee spot. Hosted by Dr. Latasha Nelson, this podcast strips back the layers of leadership to reveal the real, relatable side of guiding and growing, whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out.
Settle in with your brew of choice as Latasha shares her world of insights and experiences, blending wisdom with warmth in conversations that matter. It’s not just her stories, though; guests from all walks of life join in to share their own tales of triumph and challenge, adding flavors of diversity and depth to the mix.
"Thanks for Coming Back" is more than just a podcast—it's a community where we all learn and grow together. It's about tackling our challenges, getting better at what we do, and embracing the leader within. So come join the conversation, and let’s make leadership a part of our daily lives.
Thanks for Coming Back
Embracing Growth and Getting Unstuck
Feeling stuck in your leadership path? Learn how to get unstuck and grow! Join us for a chat with Aaron Trahan, founder of Performance Mindset Coaching. Aaron shares his growth path as an executive at 30 and his realization that he needed to focus more on personal and team growth. He explains how he shifted from thinking about his own success to helping others succeed and why it's important to always keep improving. Aaron's story shows that knowing your limits is the first step to getting better and helping others do the same.
Wondering how to keep getting better without always changing your goals? Aaron explains why focusing on what you do every day is more important than just setting big goals. He talks about why small, regular steps are key and how to set clear, trackable priorities to avoid burnout. Find out how little actions can make a big difference in your personal and work life.
How do you stay flexible and strong as a leader today? Aaron shares tips on staying open to new ideas and celebrating new information. He explains how being willing to change helps you keep growing and handle unexpected challenges. Aaron's move from confidence to continuous learning offers advice for anyone looking to improve their leadership skills. Don’t miss his practical tips on closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be. Connect with Aaron on LinkedIn for more tips
All right, you guys. So thanks for coming back. I'm your host, dr LaTosha Nelson, and today we are honored to have Mr Aaron Trahan on the show with us. He is dedicated to helping leaders unleash their full potential. He is also the founder of Performance Mindset Coaching, which I can't wait to hear more about. Can you start us off by telling us a little bit more about your career journey and what inspired you to found this organization?
Speaker 2:career journey and what inspired you to found this organization? Yeah, absolutely. And for me the origin story of kind of what's put me in this seat that I'm in today really started with me being on the other side of the screen, or table, if you will. The past almost 20 years for me has been spent as a executive leader operator. I was fortunate enough to have worked my way into a leadership role very early in my career. Just a few short years into my corporate career I assumed some leadership responsibilities and took on my first leadership role and, yes, some of it was hard work. There was also some right place, right time. But over the next seven to eight years my career really skyrocketed. I climbed up the proverbial corporate ladder very, very quickly and eventually landed to becoming a senior executive leader of a billion dollar publicly traded organization by the age of 30. And if that sounds like a highlight reel, let me throw some cold water on that, because I can assure you I made every mistake there possibly could have been made on that journey. And I think where just about every leader kind of reaches this point after they've kind of found some success was some type of realization. As Marshall Goldsmith has always said what got you here won't get you there. So somewhere along the lines, I started listening to that internal voice coming from inside the comfort zone telling me look at what you've achieved, you've made it. You've achieved, you've made it, you've arrived, you've got it all figured out.
Speaker 2:And listening to that type of voice for too long, I realized that I was no longer growing at the same rate that I was. I was no longer being as coachable as I once was. I was no longer striving for continuous improvement I once was. I was no longer striving for continuous improvement and I knew that if I needed to get back on that growth journey, I needed to go back to the drawing board. I needed some help.
Speaker 2:And so that's what actually led me to coaching, was me needing it for myself as kind of a young let's just say inflated ego executive that had probably been avoiding blind spots in development areas for a bit too long. And, to make a long story short, that was a very pivot point moment in my career that really drove an entirely different mindset shift for me of helping me become a more effective leader. Stop focusing so much on me and start putting my focus on the we. What if I helped everybody else around me my team, my direct reports get better and reach the next level, and that's where I was kind of deriving all of my purpose. And so, about two years ago, the window of opportunity opened for me to really take the plunge in doing this full time, launching my own firm, and I guess, as they say, the rest is history.
Speaker 1:I think it's really empowering to hear someone share the real side of their journey.
Speaker 1:As you were describing your journey, what I thought immediately was that sounds so scary.
Speaker 1:And I say that as someone who can remember very clearly early career, just still trying to figure out who I was, what the rules were, how to apply those rules, especially in my particular position, because I was always finding myself to be one of the youngest people on my teams my teams, in fact.
Speaker 1:I can remember someone saying to me I've got shoes older than you. So I got to a point where I just stopped sharing anything that was identifiable about me that someone could use to say, hey, you don't have enough experience here, or even your input, your insights, may not be as valuable because you lack this experience. So the fact that you went from there very quickly to an executive leader who was able to recognize and I'm eager to hear how quickly you got to this point you were able to recognize at some point that maybe you weren't as pliable, as coachable as you should have been. Talk to me a little bit about what that looked like like from the guy who maybe couldn't hear it, didn't hear it, didn't want to hear it, to how you finally got to the point where you recognize I've got opportunities here. I'm limiting myself by not acknowledging this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's such an important question and you know, it really comes back to really where everything starts with my new kind of methodology and approach and that's having a strong foundation of awareness.
Speaker 2:And I think when all of us, when we find ourselves in some point of cruise control or we're stuck in the comfort comfort zone or we know that we're not giving it our all, we're not leaving it all on the field I hate using a sports metaphor there, but it really is going to come down to are we going to really acknowledge that awareness or are we going to do what the, as you said, the 90% do and just overlook it, paper it over and just keep maintaining kind of the status quo? I bring all that up is because I think all of us, we all know to some degree whether we want to acknowledge and double click on it or whether we want to kind of turn the other way. That's a completely different topic and a choice, but I for me, it kind of came back to it was that thing that was eating away at me and I knew, month after month after month, that I'm not playing my highest level, I'm not playing my best game. I know I've got so much more to give. There's so much more potential. And it just kind of became that thing, that small itch that turned into a big one.
Speaker 2:And it was kind of became that thing, that small itch that turned into a big one, and it was kind of just eating away at me and to the point where, when you're 30, 31 years old, sitting there saying, is this going to be it, is this going to be the peak of my career?
Speaker 2:Because I'm now operating from a place of comfort and kind of prioritizing the status quo and I'm not getting as comfortable as I used to be, I'm not focused on my development areas and weaknesses that I used to be.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it was really really leveraging that awareness of knowing and we all know I'm a firm believer that when we're not operating at our highest level, playing our best game, we know it. But it comes down to are we going to do something about it or are we going to kind of ignore the quote, unquote, 800 pound gorilla. That's kind of in the room of our own head. And so, yeah, for me it was just kind of making that conscious decision that it became more painful to stay status quo than it was to take the actions to kind of get back to being in that growth mode because I just knew. I just knew that there was so much more to give and I didn't want to spend the rest of my career not playing up to my full potential, getting to that point where I'm, at my 80-year-old self, looking back and saying what if? Every single day?
Speaker 1:I'm curious was there anything in particular that made you say I've been feeling this itch for some time now I've got a scratch? Was there a specific event you can point back to, or was it some culmination of things that made you go okay, enough is enough?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it was a couple things. Two big things that I can point to is with a lot of leadership teams, you bring in outside experts, you do these 360-degree feedback surveys and it was pretty hard-hitting for me. They broke it down into and I still have it somewhere here in my office because I never wanted this to escape my visibility, because one side was all the great things, all the strengths, all the things that you were great at, what made you unique, but the other side was all the feedback that was coming out that may have not been given to you directly. So you really got to see what other people's perceptions were, that, whether you agreed or not, that is someone else's reality and for me that was pretty eyeopening.
Speaker 2:And for the business that I was in, we continue to grow, we continue to scale, and so you know where I started was very, very different from where I finished is the company went public it. You know, when I joined the company, it was probably a $300 million annual revenue run rate company. When I left, it was hovering somewhere between 1.5 billion and 2 billion of revenue, and so you find out a lot about yourself and if you're not scaling at the level or degree of the organization that you're responsible for, leading, cracks in the foundation are going to start to form, so a lot of those things that was requiring me to lead a bigger, more dynamic, more complex organization. The areas I was responsible for were scaling at a much, much faster rate than I was scaling myself as a leader, and so there was all kinds of different feedback and data points coming back, of saying what you used to do is now not going to work. What worked at 500 million doesn't work at 1.5 billion.
Speaker 2:You've got to adapt, you've got to evolve, you've got to scale, and the truth of the matter is there is no status quo.
Speaker 2:I mean, look around us, whether it's relationships, environment, society, businesses.
Speaker 2:I mean, look around us, whether it's relationships, environment, society, businesses nothing ever remains the same, doesn't always mean that it's growing or evolving fast, but it is in fact evolving and changing. So if you're maintaining or operating on the perception that you're just maintaining, you're actually falling behind. So if you're not growing, you are, in fact, in decline behind. So if you're not growing, you are in fact in decline. And so for me, that started to show up on a much more frequent basis than it ever had before, with a lot more visibility me being a senior executive versus a mid-level manager at like, a director level. So a lot more eyes on me, a lot more scenarios that simply required me to be better than I was before, and so it was the environment that served as the forcing mechanism to say it's now or never. You're either going to grow or you're probably going to get pushed out at some point in the next couple of years if you can't level up to the new area of responsibilities that I was in charge of leading.
Speaker 1:Wow, there's so much to impact there and I have to ask, just because I think human nature is to resist changes, especially when you're in a good season, right, like when everything is exactly as it should be, sometimes better, people don't have to question why there's a need to change. Can you talk to us a little bit about what you personally experienced navigating some of the feedback you were receiving during times where things were going exactly as expected it may be better and then during seasons where all scrutiny, all eyes were completely on you?
Speaker 2:I think what you just mentioned I surprisingly now that's what I get to do on a full-time basis, because I always tell people that success will always breed complacency. Don't think that you're going to be the exception. Don't think that you're going to be able to avoid it. This is a universal truth that occurs in life, business, sports. Think of complacency as, like that little monster that's kind of lurking in the shadows waiting for your guard to come down which it usually does during those good seasons that you mentioned, when everything's going well for it to show up and try to enter through the door and look, you hear championship teams cite this all the time. It's far more difficult to repeat as champions than it was to win the title the first time. Companies say the same thing. Far more challenging to maintain and sustain number one market share and industry dominance than it was to achieve it the first time, than it was to achieve it the first time. So as you become more successful, the area of opportunity for more complacency to settle in is that much more difficult. That's something that I learned with hindsight, that I did not fully learn and appreciate on my journey, that as you become more and more successful as a leader, professional fill in the blank. You have to be more diligent around continuous improvement, around always making sure that you're not getting sucked into that comfort zone and becoming content and satisfied with the status quo, because as you get more successful, you're going to get more comfortable. There's all the perks that come along with it, and so you have to be much more diligent when you're on the other side of success, because it's a hell of a lot easier to stay hungry and driven when you're chasing after that thing called success. And so, yes, one of the things that I wish I could go back and tell my 25-year-old self is that be even more aware and cautious of complacency trying to set in after you achieve whatever it is that you're pursuing to achieve, because it's going to try, and it's going to try much harder after success than complacency will ever be prior to success. You've got all the reasons in the world to stay hungry and stay driven because you're chasing after this thing you don't have. But now, as leaders and as successful people, we got to realize how are we going to operate after getting what we were striving for, whether it's a title, whether it's a status thing, whether it's a number in your bank account. Whatever it is that you're defining success as, how are you going to keep striving for continuous improvement on the other side of that achievement? And that's what I continue to see show up, most especially for myself, but for many, many others, they're not prepared to tackle that challenge.
Speaker 2:I continue to see show up, most especially for myself, but for many, many others they're not prepared to tackle that challenge. And when you're not, the foot comes off the accelerator, the comfort zone kind of takes over. That crack in the door for complacency to sneak in starts getting wider and wider. And then you wake up five years later saying you know, I really haven't met the expectations I had for myself. I never reached my full potential. My trajectory up into the right seems to have hit a plateau. And only then do people say, ok, I need to. I need to change from a reactive standpoint, not a proactive standpoint a proactive standpoint.
Speaker 1:You know that one's so tricky because there's the let me continue to seek out these opportunities right, so that I don't have these blind spots. And then there's the how do I do that without continuing to move the goalposts for what success looks like? Right, and then everything in between. But how would you balance those two things? Continuous improvement is essential. There's no such thing as being competitive, continuing to be your best possible self, without experiencing and exploring these things that I may not even realize. I have opportunities to do better with, but I want to do these things without saying well, success now means that I now need to do more in order to experience or do what I consider to be successful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that's the guidance that I like to give. There is really just a perspective shift on the scoreboard, right, and I would say de-emphasize the outcome and overemphasize the process, because if you're chasing after finite things or some dedicated finish line, you're always going to run the risk of, well, what happens after that? Right, and we see this all the time with New Year's resolutions. I want to lose 20 pounds, right, and so everything is geared towards the outcome. And for the small few that actually hit it, what do you see typically happen in the couple months after that? There is no continuous improvement plans. They've hit their goal. Now they slowly start resorting back to the behaviors that they had before the goal was in place. It all, that way, goes right back off. Right. I think that's a microcosm of their focus.
Speaker 2:The scoreboard they were looking at was some external outcome, and when you can shift that focus to the process and your definition of success, you're playing an infinite game, not a finite game of continuing to get better. We can all have nuanced definitions of what getting better looks like. My definition will likely be very different than yours, and so, instead of the scoreboard of it being some type of comparison game of. If you're the home team and this outcome is the away team or this some thing, this vision you're chasing, that you were inspired to chase after from Instagram or whatever it was. I like to shift the focus to what if the away team that you're scoring yourself against was just you from yesterday? What if you can just continuously look to get and become a better version of yourself on a day over day, week over week, month over month level, and the scoreboard becomes the process.
Speaker 2:The measurement of success is the process, not some artificial outcome. That that's a title, the status chasing some you know, shiny object. Because when you're chasing after things you don't really want, don't really need, you'll never have enough. And so when I think, when you can make sure you're measuring your definition of success to be the process, to be the journey towards continuing to find your next best version, I think that's the single best way to avoid that feeling of reaching something just to kind of give it all back or have that self-deflating kind of viewpoint of never being satisfied, because the goal is always moving. You're always chasing more.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I want to just make sure we level set our audience here. So I'm going to back us up a little bit and I'm going to ask you to share what does a performance mindset mean, and then I think we can build from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know. And then I think nine out of 10 people that you ask, hey, do you know the difference, or have you heard of fixed mindset versus growth mindset? I think nine out of 10 people will be somewhat familiar and aware of that. As I started really examining different teams, different groups, different rooms that I'm speaking to, I started noticing something pretty interesting. And you know, starting first with a 20%, let's just go ahead and carve that out. That's going to be our fixed mindset group. Right, that's going to be those handful of individuals on any team. They're not looking to learn and grow, develop. They're allergic to change. They prioritize stability, certainty and they want to stay comfortable. No problem with that. But that is what it is. No shock value there. But here's where it gets interesting room, every team.
Speaker 2:When you talk about what a growth mindset is, that foundational belief that with the right amount of time, energy and effort, you can build your abilities, enhance your skills, grow your intelligence. With the right amount of work and perseverance, nothing's fixed, anything can be grown. But if you were to double click on this group, the 70%, these are going to be all the people that raise their hands and say, yep, I'm all about growth mindset. I identify with a growth mindset, but they're not doing all that much different, I found, from that 20% group. They're believing all the right things, they're saying all the right things.
Speaker 2:You go to their LinkedIn profiles. They're probably posting all the right things too but they lacked a level of energy behind that growth belief where they knew, at the end of the day, they're not playing their best version or at their highest level. They were leading a lot of potential on the sidelines, and so that's where I kind of developed over the past couple of years the performance mindset. This is going to be that 10%, and the key differentiator between the performance mindset versus the growth mindset really comes down to action. These are going to be the individuals that put the action behind their growth beliefs. They are comfortable getting uncomfortable because they know all the growth, the greatest growth that's going to be found, is when we venture to the outer edges of our current capabilities, when we're challenged, when we're stretched, when we're being pressed the most. That's when our best is going to come out. So to simply summarize that what thinking and believing is to a growth mindset, taking action is to our performance mindset.
Speaker 1:Couldn't agree with you more, and I know we talked about this a little bit. But there's this difference between I have a title, or I believe strongly in X, y, z, and anything that you believe without any action means absolutely nothing. Right, but it's a little bit difficult. I think some folks, especially aspiring leaders, maybe people who are fairly new in their careers, or maybe even people who are pretty tinkered, but they haven't received the same guidance. They're, you know, culturally, they're accustomed to seeing environments where someone just has a title and that's enough. Someone can sound great, the message is awesome, we can all kumbaya around the message, but ultimately there's nothing moving the needle towards anything that we've just talked about. What kind of strategies do you recommend, anything that's actionable that you leverage in your coaching to help people move from? I've got a great mindset. Now how do I move the needle through action?
Speaker 2:I like to start by really getting and generating that foundation of awareness, and I have people think about this through what I refer to as the potential gap, and I encourage everyone to think about the gap between the level at which we are currently operating at and then think about the level that you know deep down at your core that you're fully capable of. What sits in between these two data points is the gap that represents our potential. So once we can kind of crystallize that, then we can think about how do we close that gap, how do we build that transformation bridge? What needs to be true? If you identify, this is what I know I'm fully capable of, this is where I'm at what needs to be true, what's one thing that we can do to make progress to close that gap? And then it comes down to are you willing to take those actions or are you not? Because acknowledging what separates that current version versus that ideal version is one thing. It's then taking the actions on that acknowledgement is something totally different. So the time at which you can really shorten between acknowledging and taking action, all the potential, all of the growth, growth, all the results that you're looking for, is always going to sit on the other side of that action.
Speaker 2:But that's where I really like to start is by just developing that awareness, that understanding of this is the level that I'm currently at, and forget any external circumstances, forget environment. Just let's talk about that level that you know deep down you're fully capable of either in this role, different environment. Just let's talk about that level that you know deep down you're fully capable of, either in this role, different role. But you know you can operate at this level Once we have those two data points. It's almost kind of like opening Google Maps in your phone right To build a route to get anywhere. You're dependent on providing that tool to critical data points your current location and your destination, generating a route or a bridge or a pathway to get to where you want to go. Without knowing those two things, it will never be an optimized route. You'll never get a path to where you want to go, and so for me, that's where everything starts in acknowledging what this gap looks like, really crystallizing what is that representation of our potential.
Speaker 1:What I heard you say is hey, what's that one thing that can help me move the needle right now? I think right now, whether it's because we're so into watching other people do so much, it can seem like, oh well, they're doing like 30 different things. I should be doing 30 different things in order for me to make an impact, for me to influence things, and in reality, it might just be getting 1% better, 1% closer to where you need to be, but probably even just as important as being able to measure it right, being able to say I have preached to myself that I moved the needle in some way. How do I show myself this? So it's not just I'm doing something that's really intangible. It could, or it might or might not, help me get a little bit better than I was yesterday, and it's really about making sure you're doing a little bit better than you were yesterday're doing a little bit better than you were yesterday, not a little bit better than someone else was.
Speaker 2:And what you just said is so insightful because I think there's a great study out there that everyone needs to be aware of, and I think it was conducted by the High Performance Institute. It studied 19,000 cases of individuals around setting goals, and what they found was, for the cohort that didn't have robust tracking and measuring and monitoring systems of their progress, they perform no better than the cohort that didn't even have a goal to begin with. So, said differently, if you're not tracking, if you're not measuring, if you don't have a system in place, it's no different than you not even having a goal. It's no different than you not knowing where that destination is. And so I can't put an exclamation point on what you said, big enough to really call out how important and impactful really making sure that you can measure, track and monitor the progress and or the lack of that's being made, because then you'll know exactly what to double down on and exactly what obstacles you need to address right away.
Speaker 1:Which means reflection, right, carving out enough time, not just set the goal and then whatever it is that you felt you needed to do to achieve the goal, but that reflection piece. Are we taking enough time to step back and say, okay, this is what went well, this didn't go so well. Even if it didn't go so well, is it really as impactful as I thought it needed to be? Or, to your point, what do I need to double down on in order to really achieve what I'm trying to achieve? I find that a lot of leaders, again with or without titles, when you're invested, there's a level of ownership and accountability there, and that can often lead to I need to solve all the world's problems, and it's just that can lead to burnout.
Speaker 1:I watch a lot of people who try to boil the ocean. For you know, in the spirit of making an impact, what type of advice or guidance do you give to those who are aspiring to make more of an impact? Of advice or guidance do you give to those who are aspiring to make more of an impact, right where they are, regardless of title, who are listening to this great guidance on taking action, making sure it's measurable? Now let me step back and reflect. Where does overcoming or avoiding burnout factor in? What does that look like?
Speaker 2:Well, I feel like we can spend a whole hour on just that, but yeah, not to use some cheeky quote here, but I think it really does come down to leaders understanding and acknowledging that the most important thing is keeping the most important thing, the most important thing and I'm a firm believer in a management system that was actually created way back in the 70s, that's become popular, most especially in Silicon Valley, and I've kind of created a derivative version of this that I call objectives and key priorities, and it's kind of built on the framework of the OKR system, which I'm sure a lot of people in the audience may have at least heard of. But I heard an executive say this one time that, as a leader, the most important thing to you should be ensuring that your organization, your team, the people that are reporting to you, knows what the most important thing is. And so when I think about how to do that from a system-driven basis, I really work with the leaders, even on a one-on-one basis, applying this to their personal lives, because, you're right, it's not about the 30 different things, it's not about how much can I do across all these different areas. It's identifying if there is a list of 30, identifying what are the top two or three. Use the 80-20 principle what are going to be the most important things that you want to achieve over the next 90 days? Once we have those, then underneath it we can develop the key priorities right.
Speaker 2:So if the objective is what we want to achieve, the key priorities are what must be true for this objective to be achieved over the course of the next 90 days. It's got to be quantifiable, it's got to be easily trackable and that's where all of your attention goes. That's where you can then 10x your focus on those three, four or five key priorities. That's really the set of things that need to be done for that objective to happen. Not only will this allow you to be able to see the week-over-week progress, know why things are happening the way that they're happening, what to 2X or double down on what obstacles to avoid. But if it doesn't fit here, you have to be able to develop the muscle and this system allows you to do that of saying no or not yet to everything else. So this is a system that forces the focus to keeping the most important thing, the two or three that must be achieved over the next 90 days. You know, fill in the blank on the time period.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I think focus is a superpower and if you don't have a system in place that can harness your focus, you will always be at the whim of your external environment driving the priorities for you if you don't do it external environment, driving the priorities for you if you don't do it, which can inevitably leave the folks that you're stewarding over feeling like they have a lack of direction, and then they, by extension, feel like they're all over the place and potentially burned out, because all these awesome efforts that they may have contributed has been thrown out the window for this next thing, the new priority.
Speaker 2:Right, and when you're so clear on what the objectives and what the underlying priorities are behind those objectives, that can create a common language that sets the priority for everyone. There is no showing up to a Monday morning meeting and wondering what the priorities are, wondering what progress is being made, wondering what's going to be the focus, leveraging a system that blocks out all of that noise and can 10x the focus in these few areas. Because if you can make 80 to 90% of the progress you're looking for in those areas, you know you're, you're ultimately going to be at or ahead of where you want to be in that 90 day period, six month period, whatever it may be. I think the whole thing of being able to do the 20 or 30 things all at one time is simply a myth. I think I mean I'm guilty.
Speaker 2:How many of us, over what the past 10, 15 years, we've kind of been trained.
Speaker 2:It's like, yeah, you know you want to call out the job interview or on your resume that you're a great multitasker and I think that's kind of been proven out now saying, yeah, that's kind of BS, right, because there is it's. Think of your focus and your attention and bandwidth. It's a finite resource. Think of your focus and your attention and bandwidth. It's a finite resource, so it's like walking into a casino and putting chips on every single square on the roulette table right. And so if your attention and your focus is that fragmented, you're not going to apply the right level and amounts and dosages of that focus to the most important things. Right level and amounts and dosages of that focus to the most important things. So yeah, I'm just a big proponent in case you haven't picked up on this already is leveraging a system that can serve as the forcing mechanism, in common language, for an organization to never be unsure around what the priorities are, how we're tracking and measuring to those priorities and what success is going to look like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I completely agree with you, but I recognize that that can be a little bit challenging, right, because it's interesting. I don't know if this is true or not, but I heard somewhere that the word priority used to be singular in nature and at some point we decided that we just needed to do so much more that we said, hey, priority, we're going to change it to a plural term and that was priorities. But if you have multiple priorities, can the main thing really stay the main thing? What are the most common challenges that you see in leadership that prevent folks from adopting that performance mindset and truly being able to focus on the main thing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it comes down to a lack of systems right In every organization that I've seen. That's trying to focus here or trying to align on as being easy, because it's absolutely not. It's a hell of a lot easier to say to be the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting. So I was watching Warren Buffett speak a little earlier this morning and he had a great quote, and one of the quotes that I've always loved by Warren Buffett was what separates the average people from really really successful people is really really successful people say no to almost everything, and don't confuse this system as just making everything easier. It's effective, but it is hard and it requires discipline. It requires commitment and you will only see the benefits of such system when you go all in and commit, because saying no or not yet to all the other opportunities that, at the end of the day, can just be maybe disguised as distractions. They may be things that you're interested in, they may be things that you want to do, they may be things that could actually help move the needle, but they're just not to the level of priority as those two or three things. So back to your questions the things that I see leaders not doing, that the successful leaders are doing is being able to understand those priorities and saying no to priority five, six and seven to ensure you're able to apply the focus on one, two and three. It's hard, there's no discounting that. It is very, very hard, but if you can execute that, you will see the progress of that 10x focus and impact on those items you're shining that spotlight on and it will ultimately free you up longer term to take on more.
Speaker 2:And I think the Navy SEALs have a great saying about this it's go slow to go smooth, go smooth to go fast, right. And so if you're saying yes to everything you've got 10, 15, 20 different priorities that are all equally weighted your organizations are going to feel like they're running too fast. There's mass chaos. It's hectic. They don't know. If we had to pick one or two, they wouldn't know which one or two out of the 15 to pick. That comes down to leadership and it's the leader's job. Their most important function is making sure that everybody else knows. It's the leader's job, their most important function is making sure that everybody else knows what's the most important thing. It's going to require to saying no to things you want to say yes to. That is the big differentiator between those that reach greatness and those that just keep bumping up against an artificially glass ceiling that they just can't break through. And it's because, back to that roulette table, their focus is just sprinkled on every single chip and square that's on the board.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's funny that you mentioned Mr Buffett. I think he's also shared that of the things that he has said yes to that overwhelmingly. His success is not due to the majority of those yeses that he did Right, that a lot of those yeses did not yield the outcomes that you would think, wow, he's such a successful man and it's probably a very small percentage of those yeses that have positioned him to be who we know him to be today. Which goes back to your reference to Carol Dweck and the growth mindset is what is he learning from those not just the no's right, but from the yeses that didn't yield the type of return that most people would think that it did, and then the risk, the what is? Opportunities he took advantage of that did yield the outcomes that positioned him to be who he is today. So that whole reflection piece, it all kind of comes full circle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that's why there's so much awareness, clarity and reflection that needs to go into that priority, setting stage right. It's because when you can get those right, I think that's going to make all the difference. Using a system like the one I was just explaining kind of allows you to be able to see that and you're never going to bat a thousand right, there's going to be things that, yeah, maybe the environment's changed, the business has changed, that what was once a priority kind of needs to change. So I think you need to stay flexible, you need to stay adaptable and you need to reflect right, and so you're not going to get it perfect, you're not going to get it right A hundred percent of the time. That shouldn't stop you from striving to doing the due diligence upfront to make sure.
Speaker 2:Really, stress testing. If there's, if there's, 10 different priorities that you need to shrink down to three, think about and this is where kind of the long-term strategic planning what does success look like for the organization? What's our mission? Why are we here? Who are we here to serve? How do we do that and delight our customers more than anybody else? And are these three priorities going to get us further faster than any other set right.
Speaker 2:So I think it requires work and don't shy away from the work that goes in and really stress test making sure that you're setting the right priorities, because this is, if we think about our jobs as leaders, the thing that we are most responsible for, the thing that our teams will most depend on us for, is this type of high quality decision-making that ultimately makes a positive impact on the organizations we are responsible for. So, yeah, I think, as a leader, this is the rent that's due. This is what is at the very top of your job description. Is getting these priorities right, or at least right enough, that when you're able to then harness the focus, attention and bandwidth of the organization in these few areas, it drives the whole thing forward so much faster than if you were to focus on the 10 priorities. This is what really boils down on what separates the good leaders from the great ones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you just used one of my favorite characteristics adaptability and resilience. What role do you see adaptability playing into having a performance mindset, especially when things change so quickly and to your point, what today's priority may have been, or that decision that you said yes to, and however it may be playing out, it may require you to step back and say I've got to do something different. Talk to us about the role that adaptability and resilience play into having a performance mindset.
Speaker 2:I think it's one of those attributes that's only becoming more valuable. I mean, if you look at how fast things are changing right now, whether it's around the type of employees in the organization, ai, just the ultimate societal shifts that are kind of happening and so I think now is the time where you have to be better at being adaptable to be successful over the long term. And on the opposite end of that, not being adaptable can kill you way faster than it ever has before, and so I really like to encourage leaders that I work with. It's not about having strong opinions that are tightly held. Replace that, that's the old school way of thinking. Instead, have very thoughtful opinions that are loosely held.
Speaker 2:If you're presented with new information, new facts or even proven wrong, celebrate it, because you just got smarter and you now are holding more information that can help you going back to that top job responsibility, make even more higher quality decisions going forward. But if your heels are dug in, you develop that fixed mindset. You're not able to adapt, you're not able to be open-minded. When you look at the pace of change that's occurring in the business world today, that's a dangerous position to be in, because if you're not able to adapt and change. In a world that's adapting and changing at a faster pace than ever before, how are you going to continue to succeed? How are you going to continue to grow? So I would say adaptability is almost that. It's no longer a luxury anymore. I think it's got to be a requirement. Is how you think about it.
Speaker 1:And I love that you said celebrate it. Right, when you've got new information. I find that a lot of folks get stuck on what they don't know, versus this is what I have, enough information to make moves, to make decisions based on what I do know, and anything new that comes your way just allows you to adapt better, right To figure out okay, what adjustment am I going to make in the grand scheme of things, that's going to make this that more impactful. And so I love that you said celebrate it, and I hope that the audience also hears that change is not scary. I mean, it can feel a little like, okay, what am I supposed to do with this? But it's not a bad thing, it's just hey, it's something else to enhance what you're already doing, if you receive it in that way you know when you think about.
Speaker 2:You know, really coming from an old school mindset, and we used to see leaders that were in positions for a very, very long time, and being a leader of a team used to mean that you just knew everything that others didn't, and I think that's changed quite a bit. And being a leader is not about having all the answers. Being a great leader is much more about always knowing how to go out and find the right answers, and that's extraordinarily difficult to do if you're not curious, if you're not adaptable and you're not committed to continuous improvement. That's where having those strong opinions that are tightly held, not able to adapt, not able to rethink, not able to challenge your own deepest held beliefs, can actually be the thing that is going to hurt your performance over the longer term. And so, yeah, I think being adaptable is key.
Speaker 2:Being willing, you almost have to be anti-politician, right? It's like you as a leader versus a politician. Politicians get crucified for flip-flopping because of just this weird political culture that we're in. Leaders is kind of the exact opposite. If you get new information and you're presented new ways and find out better ideas, flip-flopping almost can serve as a sign of intelligence and a sign of growth and makes you more of an effective leader, because if there's a better way to do it or a better idea or a new solution and you're not taking advantage of that, you're not being adaptable, you're not leaning into that, just because, well, this is the way that it's always been done. I think that's the single biggest thing that you can do to then hurt the organization, not help the organization.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Could not agree more. So I have to ask you, as we wrap up here, what final thoughts or advice do you have for anyone in the audience and again that's aspiring leaders or just folks who have been around for a while and they're saying, hey, I'm ready to embrace and take ownership of the impact that I can make in the space that I'm in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'll go back to really thinking about that potential gap. Right, really, grab a pen and paper, get this out of your head and on paper what is that level that you are currently operating at? And define that level that you know, deep down, you're fully capable of. And then what sits in the middle represents our potential. But here's the one thing that I want everybody to take away If you listen to nothing else, please remember this there will never be a substitute for taking action. You can read all the books, you can listen to all the podcasts, you can attend all the books, you can listen to all the podcasts, you can attend all the conferences, but if there's no action taken, you're very likely to be in the exact same place a year from now than you are today. But to go a step further, I want to leave the audience with a tool, because I'm a big fan of bringing the abstract concepts down into something you can actually use, and I want to leverage something that you've been talking about quite a bit and that's around reflection and how important that is. So this is what I refer to as my one one, one weekly protocol. So every single leader that works with me, I kind of forced them into doing this, some reluctantly, some not so much.
Speaker 2:But carve out that time, usually at the end of each week it could be a Friday, a Saturday or Sunday and each week, document your answers to these three questions. Number one what went well for me this past week and why did it go well? Go below the surface, understand what you did. Was it effort, preparation, some other variable that made the highlight go well? The second question ask yourself what didn't go as well as I wanted and how can I improve on that in the very next week.
Speaker 2:But really define the how. What will you do differently? What action will you either start taking that you're not or stop doing? That will make things go better? And then, third, what did you learn about yourself and how can you apply those insights to becoming more successful the very next week? If you continuously answer those three questions in a weekly reflection protocol, you give yourself the greatest gift anybody could give, and that is you're building your own roadmap on how to get better, week after week after week. And if you stay committed to that, have a strong feeling, you're going to see that performance and that success that you're ultimately looking for, if you stay disciplined to that process.
Speaker 1:Love it, love it, and I really appreciate you giving the audience something actionable they can do, starting immediately to help move their needle and make that impact.
Speaker 2:Don't leave it abstract. Mark it in your calendar, even for 15 minutes. Mine's on my calendar every Sunday morning. That's where I use it. Be intentional about it. Carve out the space, give yourself that strategic thinking time, even if it's just 10 minutes. Go through these questions, write them down, and what you'll see? You're creating your own blueprint to getting better.
Speaker 1:Aaron, give them the information they need to stay plugged in with you and the Performance Mindset Coaching Organization so that they can continue to grow alongside you.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely so. The two places. You'll always be able to find me first on LinkedIn. I'm very active there. I'm always trying to make sure my community is getting a lot more value out of me than I am of it. So, yeah, let's connect, let's engage there, and I promise it's going to be a high ROI follow for you because I'm always providing tools. And there, and I promise it's going to be a high ROI follow for you because I'm always providing tools and concepts. And then, secondly, you can go directly to my website to learn more about my approach, the methodology that we use to help leaders get better, and that can be found at performancemindsetcoachingco. So those two places are where. Those are the two areas I hang out the most in. Feel free to connect and I'd love to pick up the dialogue.
Speaker 1:Awesome, absolutely amazing. Aaron, thank you so much for your insight, thank you so much for your time today. I mean just the fact that you were so open and honest and honestly like even just the beginning of our conversation today around the vulnerability, the mindset shift you had to experience yourself from going from hey, I got this, I'm the man to you know what. Maybe there's some things that I need to learn how to do differently, and then, more importantly, how you package that to pass that along to others is nothing short of remarkable, and so I really just want to say thank you so much for all of your contributions and I'm so looking forward to myself and the audience staying connected.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of Thanks for Coming Back with our amazing guest, erin Trahan. We hope this insights on growth, adaptability and the performance mindset have really inspired you to take action and reach your full potential. Be sure to connect with Erin on LinkedIn and check out performancemindsetcoachingco that's performancemindsetcoachingco for more great resources, and if you enjoyed our chat today, don't forget to subscribe to Thanks for Coming Back and leave us a review. Follow us on social media for all the latest updates and more inspiring content. Stay tuned for our next episode and, until then, keep pushing towards greatness.
