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solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
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Good morning, Welcome to Next. I'm very excited to have
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the show, and thank you for tuning in. We have
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a good regular crowd that tunes into this to our shows.
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And the reason I started Next is because there's so
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many people doing it. Exciting things later in life or midlife,
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for even as young people, they're starting to think that
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they have a career in a certain direction and guess
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what they need to do something next. Today, I have
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a fabulous person with me, Michelle Johnson, doctor Michelle Johnson.
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She's a distinguished professor at Loyola University. She's won many awards,
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recently a Guru Leadership Guru Award, which is very prestigious
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and she just came out with her Next I guess
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it was in just recently the seismic shift in you.
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And with that, I'd love to introduce doctor Michelle Johnson. Michelle,
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thank you so much for being able to come on board.
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Don't you look cheery?
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I'm so happy to be with you.
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Linda.
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You're one of my favorite people, and you're really a
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trailblazer in the leadership community, and so I love when
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I get a chance to have a conversation with you.
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Well, and we're gonna are going to have a conversation
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this week weekend with our dear mentor who's turning seventy seven,
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Marshall Goldsmith, and we're going to be at his birthday.
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He doesn't look like see he's another perfect person as
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an example of next right, correct?
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I mean Marshall wrote this book with me. We were
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in London in twenty twenty three at the Thinkers fifty
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Award and all of the top thinkers and management leadership
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we're talking about how in the world are we going
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to compete in the leadership world with AI and every
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single speaker without collaboration, without knowing that each was talking
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about the same thing. They were saying, we have to
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lean in with more heart and humanity of what differentiates
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us as humans. And I looked over at Marshall. I said, Marshall,
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we've got to write a book about this. Will you
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be my co author? And he said yes? And that
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was a beautiful moment, because you're right, Linda, he didn't
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have to ease at the time. He was what seventy five.
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At seventy five, I would say yes.
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Yet not have to say yes.
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But he said next, Yeah, he said next. And here
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it was so interesting. And last year twenty five, I
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guess we were all in London at sixth Thinkers fifty
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and you were launching the book with marsh absouly right.
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So twenty twenty three in London at Thinkers fifty, I realized,
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holy smokes, this is another seismic shift. We've got to
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talk about it. No more command and control and just
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leading with directives and ego, like that's not working anymore.
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And so we agreed to write the book. I took
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a year from sabbat. I took a year sabbatical from
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Loyola to write book with Marshall. And then you and
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I met, We flew to London. We met in London.
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We read a fabulous airbnb we did.
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We had a blast.
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We had a blast, and we attended Thinkers fifty again
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and thankfully at that Thinker's fifty twenty twenty five, I
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had the opportunity to launch. That was my glow launch and.
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So it's great.
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It was fantastic we had I was pretty you were there.
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I was so proud to be there with you. It's
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just so exciting and everybody was so excited for you.
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And you know, think, here's fifty. Let's face it, it's
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a pretty great crowd. And here you think you're with
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everybody who's written books, myself included, and you think, oh,
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it's really going to be a stuffy thing. There's nothing
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stuffy about Thinkers. We had a ball.
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Because think about it, these are the people who are
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really comfortable with discomfort, because in order to grow, stay,
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in order to grow, you're going to be uncomfortable. I
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teach my MBA class on Monday nights and I took
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them on a connection walk last night because of daylights.
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Oh how cool, dude, tell us.
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Yes, So they're night classes. So our MBA program is
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for the working professionals. For our classes are from six
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twenty until nine oh five, And.
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Sounds like how I got my NBA.
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Yeah, exactly. So usually it's dark, right, but this Monday,
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it was no longer dark, and I said, we're going
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to take a connection walk. And we walked through the
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beautiful campus of Loyola and we're right across the street
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from a beautiful park, autubn Park. And I was sharing
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with them because I had just come back from this
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incredible weekend in Nashville with all these remarkable women. And
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it's called the Remarkable Women Award, and I was completely
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humbled and honored to have received the New Orleans Remarkable
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Woman Award. So they flew all of the one hundred
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and twenty five remarkable women in the market next. Our
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media puts it on every year, so I was representing
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ABC News, so they flew us all to Nashville. And
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the point in what I shared with my students last
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night and what I'll share with you all today is
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really so many times up until that point when I
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just get to celebrate with these remarkable women doing great
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things with growth, comes unbelievable discomfort. And you know, I
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was trying to talk with them last night, like you
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have beautiful gifts, all of you have beautiful gifts as humans,
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and figure out what those beautiful gifts are. And then
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when you feel that it's your time and you can
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really lean in and help others and have a platform
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and make an impact and make a difference, you will
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feel uncomfortable and yet push through it because it's worth it.
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And I feel like that's why Thinkers fifty is it's
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not stuffy at all, because these are all people so
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used to being uncomfortable because they're constantly growing and changing
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and leaning in and trying to make a difference and thinking.
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About their next and executing against it and figuring out
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how they can move into their next discomfort zone. Because
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that's really what it's all about, to tell you the truth.
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So so Michelle, tell me what give us the nutshell?
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And oh and by the way, congratulations on that award.
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I saw that. And you've been on Kate Snow's show too,
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haven't you.
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Yeah about again? So after we got back from London,
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you and I flew back home. You flew to North Carolina.
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I flew to New Orleans and then I did my
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big launch party. I did I threw a big connection
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event in New Orleans with about two hundred and twenty leaders,
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which was so much fun. And then I flew to
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New York for my media launch and I got to
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be on NBC News with Kate Snow And as a
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matter of fact, Linda right after you and I are
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going to be in New York this weekend. She asked
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me to be on her show again, which just means
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it validates what I'm seeing in the world. And you
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had asked about what am I seeing in the world
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right The seismic shift in you is we have to shift,
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and Marshall and I believe there are seven necessary shifts
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that will.
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First, let me give you a round of applause for
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how well you're doing on all of this. And I've
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been following all your your your stuff, and I'm just
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this is really impressive. You're doing a great job because
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I remember in that Airbnb when the launch started, you
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were leaning in. You were leaning in. So let's talk
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about the book.
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Well, thank you, thank you. That means so much coming
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from you. You understand what it's like, particularly as a woman,
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and to put yourself out there and to feel really
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passionate about something that it's worth it, and I thank you,
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I appreciate it, and yes, it is all so exciting
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and yeah, so the seismic shift in you is I
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realized that if we're going to make changes, I honestly
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thought this next book was going to be about the culture,
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like how to shift a culture so that it's a
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culture of connection not a culture of fear. That was
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my original premise until you and I were in London
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and I realized, no, it's not about looking and fixing
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a culture. The seismic shift has to start within. We
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all have the agency to make significant change right now,
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leaning into connection. I believe in all of the research
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supports me that better connection equals better results. So if
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you are listening right now, and whether you're a leader
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of your house, of little League, of your church, of
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a nonprofit, of a small business, or a global fortune
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five hundred company, you want to create an environment where
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your people feel motivated, where they feel engaged, where they're productive,
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because that all drives your bottom line, right, And the
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only way you're going to get those things is it
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starts with you. The seismic shift has to start with
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you right right.
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And you know the big piece of that is leadership
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starts with you. You can go to a brazilion classes,
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but it starts right in here.
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Correct. And here's the biggest shift that Marshall and I
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realized is one of the things, particularly in America, that
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we do really well is we do achievement well right right.
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We go go, go, go, go, go, go right, and
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sometimes at a very high cost to our physical, mental,
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and emotional health. And so what Marshall and I started
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seeing is that those leaders who only went after task, task, task, achievement, achievement, achievement, next, next, next,
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type promotion, they get to the very top and they say,
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oh wow, where are my most important relationships? I went
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after all of the what rather than the who. So
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the number one size point, the number one seismicshift we
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feel right now in twenty twenty six in the middle
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of all of the changes that are happening, is we
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have to shift our perspective from what.
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To who to who.
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Great point that's going to create this connection lens that
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is actually going to get you what you want. So,
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if you're trying to drive performance and drive financial results,
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it's going to take your people to do that right.
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And if you then show up as somebody a leader
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who cares about your people because you care about yourself first,
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and you have figured out how to have a more
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balanced life, how to focus on relationship and ships, had
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a scheduled time for your well being. Then all of
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a sudden, you're modeling the way and you're saying, you
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know what, I can't have a zoom at six am
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or even seven am because I've got to exercise and
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I want to take my kids to school because that's
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important to me. Those relationships are important to me with
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myself and with my family. And then when I show
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up at work, then I'm going to prioritize you because
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you matter. So it's focusing on the who rather than
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the what.
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Yeah, that's such a great that's such a great point.
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And I think a lot of people get stuck. They
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really get stuck at work in the task is what
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you're really saying, and really trying to achieve, achieve, achieve,
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rather than really thinking through what's really right for me,
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What are the right relationships that I need to have?
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How do I build those relationships? And you know a
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lot of people don't have the courage to think about
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how they make those shifts and what's I'm using next,
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what's next for them that's going to really build them emotionally,
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psychologically and build the connections that they really need to
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be happy and healthy.
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So I love the way you just articulated that, because
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the next rather than looking at the next at job, next, promotion,
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the next to do, the next task is to look
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at it. Yeah, what relationships can I focus on that
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will elevate me and will elevate my team and will
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elevate the company for our next So it really is
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a gift in perspective. Yeah, yeah, it's a.
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Totally different perspective. I do have a woman that I
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worked with. She had a very high powered job at GE,
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very high powered job. She was in finance, which are
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the high power jobs at G when it was high
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powered place, and she just said, this is not for
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me anymore. And she went and her next was a
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bed and breakfast and it says happen happy, Happy, And
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it was was really really interesting. Not to get out
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on Matt Michelle. But you have seven shifts in your book.
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Can you give them to us in a yes?
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Yes? Yes, So that first major shift is a whole
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shift in your perspective from what to who. The second
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shift is the most important who is you? So it's
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the shift in prioritization, because what Marshall and I were